List'ning he pauses on the embattled My rapt soul dwelt upon the ties that plain, Then speeding swiftly o'er the en sanguin'd heath, bind The mazy volume of commingling things, Has left the frightful work to hell and When fell and wild misrule to man stern death. sorrow brings. See! gory Ruin yokes his blood-stain'd I heard a yell—it was not the knell, When the blasts on the wild lake car, remove, And thought to breathe no more. But a heavenly sleep That did suddenly steep In balm my bosom's pain, And free from control, Did mine intellect range again. Methought enthron'd upon a silvery cloud, Which floated 'mid a strange and brilliant light; Which tears from earth peace, innocence, My form upborne by viewless ether and love. FRAGMENT SUPPOSED TO BE AN EPITHALAMIUM OF FRANCIS RAVAILLAC AND rode, What beauteous spirits met my dazzled eye! 'TIS midnight now-athwart the murky Hark! louder swells the music of the From its base shrine a despot's haughty soul, More clear the forms of speechless bliss float by, And heavenly gestures suit ethereal To laugh at sorrow in secure despair, To mock, with smiles, life's lingering control, melody. But fairer than the spirits of the air, symmetry, Than the enthusiast's fancied love more fair, Were the bright forms that swept the azure sky. Enthron'd in roseate light, a heavenly band Strew'd flowers of bliss that never fade away; They welcome virtue to its native land, And songs of triumph greet the joyous day When endless bliss the woes of fleeting life repay. Congenial minds will seek their kindred soul, E'en though the tide of time has roll'd between ; They mock weak matter's impotent Hark! to those notes, how sweet, how control, And seek of endless life the eternal scene. At death's vain summons this will never die, In nature's chaos this will not decay-These are the bands which closely, warmly, tie Thy soul, O Charlotte, 'yond this chain of clay, To him who thine must be till time shall fade away. Yes, Francis! thine was the dear knife that tore A tyrant's heart-strings from his guilty Thine was the daring at a tyrant's gore, rest ; Stay ye days of contentment and joy, And if any soft passion be near, And thine, lov'd glory of thy sex! to Let love shed on the bosom a tear, tear And dissolve the chill ice-drop of woe. SYMPHONY. Francis. "SOFT, my dearest angel stay, Charlotte. "Oh! yes I will kiss thine eyes so fair, And I will clasp thy form; Serene is the breath of the balmy air, But I think, love, thou feelest me warm. And I will recline on thy marble neck Till I mingle into thee. And I will kiss the rose on thy cheek, And thou shalt give kisses to me. For here is no morn to flout our delight, Oh! dost thou not joy at this? Spirits! when raptures move, When bursts the unconscious sigh; Yes! than love's sweetest blisses 'tis more dear To drink the floatings of a despot's knell. I wake-'tis done-'tis o'er. DESPAIR AND can'st thou mock mine agony, thus calm In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver Destroy this life or let earth's fabric be And then our ghosts, whilst raves the madden'd storm, Will sweep at midnight o'er the wilder'd wave; YES! all is past-swift time has fled Wilt thou our lowly beds with tears of pity lave?" Ah! no, for heaven cannot smile on WHAT was the shriek that struck fancy's Fate, envious fate, has seal'd my way. As it sate on the ruins of time that is It was not a fiend from the regions of Still secure 'mid the wildest war of the hell sky, That poured its low moan on the still- The phantom courser scours the waste, And his rider howls in the thunder's ness of night : Nor a yelling vampire reeking with O'er him the fierce bolts of avenging heaven gore; But aye at the close of seven years' Pause, as in fear, to strike his head. The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure, end, That voice is mixed with the swell of the storm And aye at the close of seven years' end, A shapeless shadow that sleeps on the hill Awakens and floats on the mist of the heath. Yet the wildered peasant that oft passes by, With wonder beholds the blue flash thro' his form : And his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead, The startled passenger shudders to hear, It is not the shade of a murdered More distinct than the thunder's wildest Who has rushed uncalled to the throne Then does the dragon, who chain'd in the caverns of his God, And howls in the pause of the eddying To eternity, curses the champion of Erin, storm. This voice is low, cold, hollow, and Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of chill, midnight, 'Tis not heard by the ear, but is felt in And twine his vast wreaths round the the soul. forms of the demons; 'Tis more frightful far than the death- Then in agony roll his death-swimming Or the laughter of fiends when they Though wilder'd by death, yet never to howl o'er the corpse die ! Of a man who has sold his soul to Then he shakes from his skeleton folds More pale his cheek than the snows of They float on the swell of the eddying Nithona, When winter rides on the northern blast, wood. tempest, And scared seek the caves of gigantic. . . Where their thin forms pour unearthly sounds Yet when the fierce swell of the tempest On the blast that sweeps the breast of the lake, And the whirlwinds howl in the caves And mingles its swell with the moon is raving, |
