4. From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet, thy dawning is cast,-
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.

THE TOWER OF FAMINE.

AMID the desolation of a city

Which was the cradle and is now the grave Of an extinguished people, so that Pity

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of oblivion's wave, There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built

Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave For bread and gold and blood: Pain linked to Guilt, Agitates the light flame of their hours,

Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes, each marble-ribbèd roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
The tempest-proof

Of solitary wealth.

Pavilions of the dark Italian air

Are by its presence dimmed-they stand aloof,

And are withdrawn-so that the world is bare :-
As if a spectre, wrapped in shapeless terror,
Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
Of all their beauty,—and their hair and hue,
The life of their sweet eyes with all its error,
Should be absorbed till they to marble grew.

GOOD-NIGHT.

"GOOD-NIGHT?" No, love! the night is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,-

Then it will be good night.

How were the night without thee good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood,-
Then it will be good night.

The hearts that on each other beat
From evening close to morning light
Have nights as good as they are sweet,
But never say "good-night."

TIME LONG PAST.

LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was time long past.

There were sweet dreams in the night
Of time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last-
That time long past.

There is regret, almost remorse,
For time long past.

'Tis like a child's beloved corse

A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance cast
From time long past.

'SONNET.

YE hasten to the dead: what seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess

All that anticipation feigneth fair

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come and whither thou mayst go, And that which never yet was known wouldst knowOh! whither hasten ye, that thus ye press

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, Seeking alike from happiness and woe

A refuge in the cavern of grey death?

O heart and mind and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

I. "ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead!
Come and sigh, come and weep!"-
"Merry Hours, smile instead,
For the Year is but asleep :
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.".

2.

3.

4.

"As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So white Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day;
Solemn Hours! wail aloud

For your Mother in her shroud."

"As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,

So the breath of these rude Days

Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild,
Trembling Hours; she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

'January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier;

March with grief doth howl and rave;
And April weeps:-but O ye Hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers."

1 January 1821.

TO NIGHT.

1. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave

Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,
Swift be thy flight!

2. Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought,

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out.
Then wander o'er city and sea and land
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long-sought!

3. When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to her rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

4. Thy brother Death came, and cried,
"Wouldst thou me?"

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
"Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me ?"—And I replied,
"No, not thee.”

5. Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

FROM THE ARABIC.

AN IMITATION.

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight,
Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.

TO EMILIA VIVIANI.

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet-basil and mignonette,

Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be?
Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower.
My sadness ever new,

The very doubt endears

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. March 1821.

TIME.

UNFATHOMABLE Sea, whose waves are years!
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!

Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,

And, sick of prey yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore!
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?

LINES.

FAR, far away, O ye
Halcyons of Memory!