The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know. A man becomes aware of his life's flow, And hears its winding murmur; and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze. And there arrives a lull in the hot race That flying and elusive shadow, rest. THE FUTURE. [Empedocles etc. 1852.] A WANDERER is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time; He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he wakes Where the snowy mountainous pass, Echoing the screams of the eagles, Of the new-born clear-flowing stream; Where the river in gleaming rings Sluggishly winds through the plain; Whether in sound of the swallowing sea As is the world on the banks, So is the mind of the man. Vainly does each, as he glides, Of the lands which the river of Time Had left ere he woke on its breast, Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed. Only the tract where he sails He wots of; only the thoughts, Raised by the objects he passes, are his. Who can see the green earth any more The tribes who then roam'd on her breast, What girl Now reads in her bosom as clear As Rebekah read, when she sate What bard, At the height of his vision, can deem Of God, of the world, of the soul, As flashing as Moses felt, When he lay in the night by his flock Can rise and obey The beck of the Spirit like him? This tract which the river of Time With a thousand cries is its stream. And we on its breast, our minds Are confused as the cries which we hear, Changing and shot as the sights which we see. And we say that repose has fled For ever the course of the river of Time. In a blacker, incessanter line; That the din will be more on its banks, Denser the trade on its stream, Flatter the plain where it flows, That never will those on its breast Drink of the feeling of quiet again. But what was before us we know not, Haply, the river of Time As it grows, as the towns on its marge On a wider, statelier stream- And the width of the waters, the hush Peace to the soul of the man on its breast- As the stars come out, and the night-wind Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. SAINT BRANDAN. [Fraser's Magazine 1860.] SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main; He heard, across the howling seas, But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd- At last-(it was the Christmas night; That furtive mien, that scowling eye, Palsied with terror, Brandan sate; The moon was bright, the iceberg near. He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait! "One moment wait, thou holy man! Ah, tell them of my respite too! "Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night "I felt, as I in torment lay 'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, An angel touch mine arm, and say: Go hence and cool thyself an hour! "Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said. The Leper recollect, said he, Who ask'd the passers-by for aid, "Then I remember'd how I went, "And in the street a leper sate, "He gazed upon me as I pass'd, |