III. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains driven, Gives Or music by the night wind sent, IV. Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds de part And come, for some uncertain moments lent, Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art Keep with thy glorious train firm state with his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes Thou- that to human thought art nouris ment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. V. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sp Thro' many a listening chamber, cave a ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pu suing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which o youth is fed; I was not heard - I saw them not- Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! VI. I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine- have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot ex press. VII. The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past-there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which thro' the summer is not heard or see As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the trut Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm to one who worships thee, Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind. Fragment: Home EAR home, thou scene of earlie hopes and joys, The least of which Memory ever makes wronge Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears. HE everlasting universe of things its rapid waves, Now dark - now glittering — now reflecting gloom. Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters, with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, |