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Their broad foundations were hid deeply down ;
Their awful portals filled with clay; all gone,
Save a few pillars that did nought uphold,
That seemed but left to show how well Decay
Had vanquished there:-but other fanes had risen,
Wherein was wrought a mockery. Murder's imps
Sate on the judgement-seats. There all the base
Were armed with evil might, and all the noble
Pined with sad memory they dared not own,
Masked with most lying smiles. Hatred and wrong
And bloodshed revelled there, from day to day,
While men looked cheerily, and cursed each other.

Death's truant would behold no more. Again
He fleeted to the couch of the cold dark,

And, shrinking from the day, slept the deep sleep.

Thus, in a waking vision, I've essayed,

Faintly, to shadow forth thy fearful semblance,
O, hoary victor! but could some call up
Long-buried hopes from the heart's sepulchre,
Long-baffled zeal, long-faded memories,
The sunken treasures of the deep of time,
They should behold a ruin such as none
Can e'er record. There is no secret deep,

No dumb disastrous mystery of fate,

So hidden from us as our former selves.
We lose a part of being, day by day,
And every breath is less the breath of life
Than its forerunner, still estranging us
From out our first creation. Far o'er life

The broad and blinding shadow of the tomb

Sinks through our souls, still gathering deeper night, And thus, by strong forgetfulness, we live.

What, then, are those fair hopes that, in their birth,
Look like immortals, heaven-ascending things?

They are as flowers of Ind, that cannot bide
The keen air of our ruthless clime, but die
With ne'er-unfolded beauty,—having their home
And heritage so near the sun's high throne,
Being nurst by the soft kisses of each breeze

That wantons through the East. We will endure.

WIZARD-SONG ;

FROM AN UNFINISHED DRAMATIC POEM.

By the shore of the sea, the wild shore of the sea, 'Tis there, 'tis there, I love to be,

When the storm hath past, with a harrowing blast,

O'er the billowy wilderness dark and vast;

When the sea-sepulchres disgorge

Their new dead to the foaming surge,

That flings its prey unto the land,

And smooths their biers on the trackless sand;

When the dismal wreck floats to the shore

Whereon its crew shall tread no more,

And the mighty ocean heaves, as though

"Twere tired with the long long work of woe;

When the low winds breathe the knell of the drowned, With a most bewailing sound,

There let my gloomy pastime be,

As one that fears not storm or sea.

When new-made widows,-maids bereft
Of Youth's fond dream,-and orphans left
Homeless on earth, and childless Eld,
Have, on the dreary beach, beheld

The ghastly change that death has wrought
On each pale corse they tottering sought;
Or searched, through many an hour, in vain,
For the vanished that none shall see again,—
Shuddering at the sun that seems

To mock them, with returning beams,
And at the seas, now waveless grown,

When all the grievous scathe is done,—
Then let me roam beside the deep,
With watchful eyes that will not weep;
Then let me human grief behold;
But not as one of mortal mould.

SONNET I.

ON SUNRISE.

HAIL to thy dazzling presence! How the wide
High heaven seems too strait for thee, O Sun!
Thy unveiled beauty every eye must shun!
Armed, as with blinding levin, in thy pride,
Thou art alone; 'tis thine, alone, to hide

All radiance with thy blaze, far-beaming one!
Such as thou art to-day, so hast thou shone
Through all the past, and changeless dost abide.

And shall the might of thy great shining fail?

Art thou not everlasting? Can it be

That thou wast born with Time, and shalt wax pale,

And perish with him? Is it thy brief doom,

Ere the great dawning of eternity,

To sink as ashes through the boundless gloom?

R

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