'And I love you to madness my Agnes A mantle encircled his shadowy form, I love, As light as a gossamer borne on the

This night will I go to the sepulchre's Like the midnight pestiferous meteor's jaw,

OR, THE AVENGING DEMON!!! The idea of the following tale was taken from a few unconnected German Stanzas.-The principal Character is evidently the Wandering Jew, and although not mentioned by name, the burning Cross on his forehead undoubtedly alludes to that superstition, so prevalent in the part of Germany called the Black Forest, where this scene is supposed to lie.

HARK! the owlet flaps her wing,

In the pathless dell beneath, Hark! night ravens loudly sing, Tidings of despair and death.Horror covers all the sky,

Clouds of darkness blot the moon,

Prepare! for mortal thou must die,
Prepare to yield thy soul up soon-
Fierce the tempest raves around,
Fierce the volleyed lightnings fly,
Crashing thunder shakes the ground,
Fire and tumult fill the sky.-
Hark! the tolling village bell,

Tells the hour of midnight come,
Now can blast the powers of Hell,
Fiend-like goblins now can roam—
See! his crest all stained with rain,

5

10

15

A warrior hastening speeds his way, He starts, looks round him, starts again, And sighs for the approach of day. 20 See! his frantic steed he reins,

See! he lifts his hands on high, Implores a respite to his pains, From the powers of the sky.

I feel impelled my tale to tell-
Horrors stranger shalt thou hear,
Horrors drear as those of Hell.
O'er my Castle silence reigned,
Late the night and drear the hour,
When on the terrace I observed,
55
A fleeting shadowy mist to lower.-
Light the cloud as summer fog,
Which transient shuns the morning
beam;

Fleeting as the cloud on bog,

That hangs or on the mountain stream.

Horror seized my shuddering brain,
Horror dimmed my starting eye,

He seeks an Inn, for faint from toil, 25 In vain I tried to speak,-In vain

Fatigue had bent his lofty form,
To rest his wearied limbs awhile,
Fatigued with wandering and the

storm.

My limbs essayed the spot to fly—

60

At last the thin and shadowy form, 65
With noiseless, trackless footsteps

came,-
--

Its light robe floated on the storm,

Its head was bound with lambent flame.

In chilling voice drear as the breeze Which sweeps along th' autumnal ground,

70

Which wanders through the leafless When demons ride the clouds that

trees,

Or the mandrake's groan which floats

around.

"Thou art mine and I am thine,

"Till the sinking of the world, I am thine and thou art mine,

'Till in ruin death is hurled

75

'Strong the power and dire the fate, Which drags me from the depths of

Hell,

Breaks the tomb's eternal gate,

lower,

-The phantom sat upon my bed.

In hollow voice, low as the sound
Which in some charnel makes its
moan,
114

What floats along the burying ground,
The phantom claimed me as her own.

Her chilling finger on my head,
With coldest touch congealed my
soul-

Where fiendish shapes and dead men Cold as the finger of the dead,

yell,

80

'For thou art mine, and I am thine,
'Till the dreaded judgement day,

I am thine, and thou art mine-
Night is past-I must away.'

Still I gazed, and still the form
Pressed upon my aching sight,
Still I braved the howling storm,
When the ghost dissolved in night.
Restless, sleepless fled the night,
Sleepless as a sick man's bed,
When he sighs for morning light,
When he turns his aching head,—
Slow and painful passed the day,
Melancholy seized my brain,
Lingering fled the hours away,
Lingering to a wretch in pain.-

Or damps which round a tombstone roll

I 20

95

131

Follow, follow, follow me.

Yet the tempest's duskiest wing,
Its mantle stretches o'er the sky,
Yet the midnight ravens sing,
'Mortal! Mortal! thou must die.'

ΙΟΙ

135

That crossed the heathy path they trod,

The Stranger's look was wild and drear,
The firm Earth shook beneath his
nod-

He raised a wand above his head,
He traced a circle on the plain,
In a wild verse he called the dead,

140

The dead with silent footsteps came. 115 What] query Which?

The warrior upwards turned his eyes,
Gazed upon the cross of fire,
There sat horror and surprise,
There sat God's eternal ire.—

A shivering through the Warrior flew,
Colder than the nightly blast,
195

155 Colder than the evening dew,

'Twas then that I started, the wild storm was howling,

Nought was seen, save the lightning that danced on the sky,

Above me the crash of the thunder was rolling,

And low, chilling murmurs the blast wafted by.

180 My heart sank within me, unheeded the jar

This heart hard as iron was stranger to Her right hand a blood reeking dagger

fear,

But conscience in low noiseless

whispering spoke.

was bearing,

She swiftly advanced to my lone-
some abode.-

"Twas then that her form on the whirl- I wildly then called on the tempest to wind uprearing,

15

The dark ghost of the murdered

Victoria strode,

bear me!

POEMS FROM ST. IRVYNE, OR, THE ROSICRUCIAN [St. Irvyne; or The Rosicrucian, appeared early in 1811 (see Bibliographical List). Rossetti (1870) relying on a passage in Medwin's Life of Shelley (i. p. 74), assigns i, iv, v, and vi to 1808, and ii and iv to 1809. The titles of i, iii, iv, and v are Rossetti's; those of ii and vi are Dowden's.]

'Twas then that I started!-the wild
storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning,
which danced in the sky;

Above me, the crash of the thunder was
rolling,

IV

'Twas then that her form on the whirl

wind upholding,

15

The ghost of the murdered Victoria

strode;

In her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding,

She swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode.

And low, chilling murmurs, the blast When o'er the dark aether the tempest

II. On the Dark, &c.: without title, 1811; The Father's Spectre, Rossetti, 1870.