Both shall live, but every morrow

Wake us from a widowed bed.
And when thou would'st solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say « Father! »
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is prest,

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,.
Think of him thy love had bless'd!
Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All
my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,

Wither-yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thec-by thee forsaken,

Even my
soul forsakes me now :
But 'tis done all words are idle-

Words from me are vainer still;

But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.-
Fare thee well!—thus disunited,

Torn from every nearer tie,

Seared in heart, and lone, and blighted-
More than this I scarce can die.

DARKNESS.

I

HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth.
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

eye

And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons ; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch :
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

i

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food :
And War, which for a moment was no more',
Did glut himself again;-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men

;

Died, and their bones were tombless as their 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 boside
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 skeleton 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
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek’d, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
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 surge-

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the universe.

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed Ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the fulled winds seem dreaming,
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:

So the Spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's Ocean.

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.