ever heterogeneous elements life may have accumulated from without, will not permit the grandeur of human unity greatly to be violated, or its ultimate repose to be troubled, in the retrospect from dying moments, or from other great convulsions. Yes, reader, countless are the mysterious handwritings of grief or joy which have inscribed themselves successively upon the palimpsest of your brain; and, like the annual leaves of aboriginal forests, or the undissolving snows on the Himalaya, or light falling upon light, the endless strata have covered up each other in forgetfulness. But by the hour of death, but by fever, but by the searchings of opium, all these can revive in strength. They are not dead, but sleeping. In the illustration imagined by myself, from the case of some individual palimpsest, the Grecian tragedy had seemed to be displaced, but was not displaced, by the monkish legend; and the monkish legend had seemed to be displaced, but was not displaced by the knightly romance. In some potent convulsion of the system, all wheels back into its earliest elementary stage. The bewildering romance, light tarnished with darkness, the semi-fabulous legend, truth celestial mixed with human falsehoods, these fade even of themselves, as life advances. The romance has perished that the young man adored; the legend has gone that deluded the boy; but the deep, deep tragedies of infancy, as when the child's hands were unlinked forever from his mother's neck, or his lips for ever from his sister's kisses, these remain lurking below all, and these lurk to the last. Alchemy there is none of passion or disease that can scorch away these immortal impresses. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. BY JOHN KEATS. This poem was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it. Never was the voice of death sweeter.-Leigh Hunt. Y heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards; Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling* I listen; and, for many a time, I have been half in love with easeful Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! A use occurs in the Paradise Lost, * Darkling, in the dark. beautiful illustration of its iii. 39: This is a purely poetical word. "As the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, The voice I hear this passing night was heard Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Was it a vision, or a waking dream? TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. RIEL to Miranda :-Take This slave of music, for the sake |