to take
To the Judge of thy actions the way,
And to hear from His lips, amid nature's eclipse,
Thy sentence of termless dismay.

* * * * *

The hardness of iron thy bones shall environ,
To brass-links the veins of thy frame
Shall stiffen, and the glow of thy manhood shall grow
Like the anvil that melts not in flame!
But wert thou the mould of a champion bold
For God and his truth and his law?
Oh, then, though the fence of each limb and each sense
Is broken--each gem with a flaw--
Be comforted thou! For rising in air
Thy flight shall the clarion obey;
And the shell of thy dust thou shalt leave to be crush'd,
If they will, by the creatures of prey.

[106] Maiden or virgin--_orig._

AM BRUADAR.

THE DREAM.

We submit these further illustrations of the moral maxims of "The
Skull." In the original they are touched in phraseology scarcely
unworthy of the poet's Saxon models.

As lockfasted in slumber's arms
I lay and dream'd (so dreams our race
When every spectral object charms,
To melt, like shadow, in the chase),

A vision came; mine ear confess'd
Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught!
Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest,
Or fills the world thy crave of thought?

* * * * *

"Since fell transgression ravaged here
And reft Man's garden-joys away,
He weeps his unavailing tear,
And straggles, like a lamb astray.

"With shrilling bleat for comfort hie
To every pinfold, humankind;
Ah, there the fostering teat is dry,
The stranger mother proves unkind.

"No rest for toil, no drink for drought,
For bosom-peace the shadow's wing--
So feeds expectancy on nought,
And suckles every lying thing.

"Some woe for ever wreathes its chain,
And hope foretells the clasp undone;
Relief at handbreadth seems, in vain
Thy fetter'd arms embrace--'tis gone!

"Not all that trial's lore unlearns
Of all the lies that life betrays,
Avails, for still desire returns--
The last day's folly is to-day's.

"Thy wish has prosper'd--has its taste
Survived the hour its lust was drown'd;
Or yields thine expectation's zest
To full fruition, golden-crown'd?

"The rosebud is life's symbol bloom,
'Ti