clearer--"Search for it!"
What?--It melted from me, but the voice still came.
Then up I gat, and to the pressing world
Sped on the wings of passion, striving on
Thro' pleasure and thro' pain, alike unchecked.
Then, what were lets to me? Amongst the strong
I wrestled for ambition's upper seats--
Clung to the slippery shrouds of policy--
And in my fury prayed for eagle's wings
To poize me in the shadow of the sun.
At wealth I grasped as a poor crippled wretch
Grasps at the crutch that steadies him along;
Yet not for it but for the power it brought,
For, Timon-like, within my heart of hearts
I cursed the yellow dust I trampled on.
But by the wayside I sat down and wept
As a child weeps above some shattered toy.
Oh Misery! to climb the steep of life
Led by a phantom without form or truth--
To find reality still rising up
To crush hope's fabrics with relentless force.
All was a fiction, but the voice said "Search!"
And glory flashed before me like a wisp,
Dazzling me on to bloodshed, and to strife.

Upon the field I stood with Victory,
And Death in all its ghastliness--Around
The dim watchfires stood like a burning wall
Betwixt the dead and living. On that night
Ye saw me, ye pure ministers of heaven,--
Shone on my anguish and my bitter tears.
Then, when the mangled forms of fellow-men,
With hideous passion stiff upon their lips,
Blanch'd 'neath the twilight of your glimmering!
Oh! there lay one beside me--a mere youth--
Whose dying hands had pressed unto his lips
A long fair tress, through which his dying sigh
Crept, as in happier days perchance did love's.
Witness, ye stars, of my abasement then,
Judged and condemned by that poor lover's pledge,
Lying there like a messenger of heaven,
Breathing of peace and love, mid deadly hate.
Glory! thou mirage on this desert life,
Charming the weary on to water springs
That shrivel up to barrenness ere reach'd!
Thou shadow of a shadow that departs
As the eye scans its bodiless outlines!
Thou golden-imaged Ruin and Despair!
When this earth cracks, like a poor blasted rock,
Before the burning of Almighty wrath,
Thy pallid spectre shall rise up to judge
The wretched victims that did trust in thee!

"O Heaven!" I said, "lead me to love and peace;
Love, that makes all things calm and beautiful,
And like the sun, e'en in its setting, flings
A glory o'er the cloudy