flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out
no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan
And a quick desolate cry licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress – he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy
things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold ske-
leton-hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless,herbless,treeless, manless,lifeless, A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd

They slept on the abyss without a surgeThe waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

| Of aid from them--She was the universe.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise ;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given

Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;

And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,

Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresce,
But wouldst not to appease him tell:

And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy,

In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable Spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not con

vulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit:

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself— an equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry

Its own concentred recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

blazed

The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd TheGardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd

Through the thick deaths of half a century; And thus he answered “Well, I do not know

Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrimsso;
He died before my day of Sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip
The veil of Immortality? and crave

I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's
thought

Of which we are but dreamers; as he caught

As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun, Thus spoke he: "I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way

To pay him honour,- and myself whate'er Your honour pleases," then most pleased I shook

From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere

Perforce I gave this man, though I could

spare

So much but inconveniently;—Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would
tell.

You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,

On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.

Time

Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime; Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,

The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,

Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below, Felt without bitterness but full and clear, A sweet dejection-a transparent tear Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain, Shed without shame-and secret without pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils When Summer's day declines along the hills, So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes When all of Genius which can perish dies.

A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour

Of light no likeness is bequeath'd-no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit-the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song- the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left
behind

The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous
whole,

These sparkling segments of that circling
soul,
Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive
board,

Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised the proud-who made his
praise their pride.
When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,
His was the thunder--- his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God!
Which shook the nations through his lips-
and blazed

Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.

And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm

The gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;
The glowing portraits, fresh from life that
bring

Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought

To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat,
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.

But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Woe.

Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.

The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe the fool the jealous and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the Pyramid of Calumny!
These are his portion - but if join'd to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep
Disease,

If the high Spirit must forget to soar,
And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,
To soothe Indignity- and face to face
Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Dis-
grace,

To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness,-
If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling
given

Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from
Ileaven,

Black with the rude collision, inly torn,
By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds
borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that

nurst

Thoughts which have turn'd to thunderscorch and burst. But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be—if such have ever been;

Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanish'd beam- and add our mite

Of praise in payment of a long delight.

Ye Orators! whom yet our council yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master - emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence! He was your Brother-bear his ashes hence! While Powers of Mind almost of boundless range, Complete in kind-as various in their change,

While Eloquence_Wit-Poesy__and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls—while lives our

sense

Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

I.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The eye the same, except in tears—---
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth, and find all fears
Lost in thy light—Eternity!

It must be so: 'tis not for self

That we so tremble on the brink; And striving to o'erleap the gulph, Yet cling to Being's severing link. Oh! in that future let us think

To hold each heart the heart that shares, With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!

IV.

THE wild Gazelle on Judah's hills
Exulting yet may bound,
And drink from all the living rills
That gush on holy ground;
Its airy step and glorious eye
May glance in tameless transport by :—

A step as fleet, an eye more bright,
Hath Judah witness'd there;
And o'er her scenes of lost delight
Inhabitants more fair.

The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah's statelier maids are gone!

More blest each palm that shades those plains

Than Israel's scatter'd race;
For, taking root, it there remains

In solitary grace:

It cannot quit its place of birth,
It will not live in other earth.

But we must wander witheringly,
In other lands to die;
And where our fathers' ashes be,

Our own may never lie:
Our temple hath not left a stone,
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne.

V.

On! weep for those that wept by Babel's

stream,

Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream:

Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;

Mourn where their God hath dwelt the Godless dwell!