SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.

I.

THY Soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stoneNot one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy:

II.

Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness · for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee, are again

In death around thee and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.

III.

The night tho' clear shall frown
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee for ever.

IV.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish
Now are visions ne'er to vanish

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more

The breeze

like dew-drops from the grass.

V.

the breath of God is still

And the mist upon the hill

Shadowy - shadowy — yet unbroken,

Is a symbol and a token

How it hangs upon the trees,

A mystery of mysteries!

EVENING STAR.

"T WAS noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile

On her cold smile ;
Too cold too cold for me
There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,

And I turn'd away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be ;
For joy to my heart

Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

And more I admire

Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light.

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

TAKE this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within

my hand

Grains of the golden sand

How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

STANZAS.

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods her wilds - her mountains
Reply of HERS to our intelligence !

[BYRON: The Island.]

I

IN youth have I known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held as he with it,

In daylight, and in beauty from his birth :

Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit

From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light—such for his spirit was fit — And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour

Of its own fervour, what had o'er it power.

2

Perhaps it
may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told; or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more,
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass ?

VOL. VII. - 2