The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the universe.

D

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,

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 answered—" 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 pockets 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.

THE DREAM.

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,

A boundary between the things misnamed

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,

And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their developement have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,

They take a weight from off our waking toils,

They do divide our being; they become

A portion of ourselves as of our time,

And look like heralds of eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak

Like sybils of the future; they have power—

The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;