A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand Before an Altar-with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then- As in that hour-a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced-and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reel'd around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been- But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, And the remember'd chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour, And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light : What business had they there at such a time?
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love ;-Oh! she was changed, As by the sickness of the soul; her mind Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes, They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth; she was become The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Were combinations of disjointed things; And forms impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls phrenzy: but the wise Have a far deeper madness, and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth? Which strips the distance of its fantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real!
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compass'd round With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of Night was open'd wide, And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd A marvel and a secret.-Be it so.
My dream is past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one
To end in madness-both in misery.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crownèd kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gather'd round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food: And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again ;-a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought-and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails-men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devour'd, Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answer'd not with a caress-he died. The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died- Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless- A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd! Darkness had no need Of aid from them-She was the Universe!
A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.
I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd Through the thick deaths of half a century? And thus he answer'd-" Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; He died before my day of Sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,-and do we rip The veil of Immortality? and crave
I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless? As I said, The Architect of all on which we tread, For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers ;-as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he,-"I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour, and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases, "-then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently :-Ye smile, I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,- The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
TITAN! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise ; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.
Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die; The wretched gift eternity
Was thine-and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precept less The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit :
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
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