n rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres.
The dull clods swell into the sullen mound;
Earth, one look yet upon the prey we gave!
The Grave locks up the treasure it has found;
Higher and higher swells the sullen mound--
Never gives back the Grave!

* * * * *

A GROUP IN TARTARUS.

Hark, as hoarse murmurs of a gathering sea--
As brooks that howling through black gorges go,
Groans sullen, hollow, and eternally,
One wailing Woe!
Sharp Anguish shrinks the shadows there;
And blasphemous Despair
Yells its wild curse from jaws that never close;
And ghastly eyes for ever
Stare on the bridge of the relentless River,
Or watch the mournful wave as year on year it flows,
And ask each other, with parch'd lips that writhe
Into a whisper, "When the end shall be!"
The _end_?--Lo, broken in Time's hand the scythe,
And round and round revolves Eternity!

* * * * *

ELYSIUM.

Past the despairing wail--
And the bright banquets of the Elysian Vale
Melt every care away!
Delight, that breathes and moves for ever,
Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river!
Elysian life survey!
There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads,
His youngest west-winds blithely leads
The ever-blooming May.
Thorough gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the Hours,
In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers,
And Truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day,
And joy to-day and joy to-morrow,
But wafts the airy soul aloft;
The very name is lost to Sorrow,
And Pain is Rapture tuned more exquisitely soft.
Here the Pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb,
And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim,
The load he shall bear never more;
Here the Mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams,
Lull'd with harp-strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams,
The fields, when the harvest is o'er.
Here, He, whose ears drank in the battle-roar,
Whose banners stream'd upon the startled wind
A thunder-storm,--before whose thunder tread
The mountains trembled,--in soft sleep reclined,
By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bed
In silver plays, and murmurs to the shore,
Hears the stern clangour of wild spears no more