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A DIALOGUE

DEATH

FOR my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,

I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,

Where Innocence sleeps 'neath the peace-giving sod,

And the good cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod ;

I offer a calm habitation to thee, Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

My mansion is damp, cold silence is there,

But it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair,

Not a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath,

Dares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death.

I offer a calm habitation to thee, Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

MORTAL

Mine eyelids are heavy; my soul seeks

repose,

It longs in thy cells to embosom its

woes,

It longs in thy cells to deposit its load, Where no longer the scorpions of Perfidy goad;

Where the phantoms of Prejudice vanish away,

And Bigotry's bloodhounds lose scent of their prey;

Yet tell me, dark Death, when thine empire is o'er,

What awaits on Futurity's mist-covered shore?

DEATH

Cease, cease, wayward Mortal! I dare not unveil

The shadows that float o'er Eternity's

vale;

Nought waits for the good but a spirit

of Love,

For thine orb is bright, And the clouds are light,

That will hail their blest advent to That at intervals shadow the star-studded

regions above.

For Love, Mortal, gleams thro' the gloom of my sway,

And the shades which surround me fly fast at its ray.

Hast thou loved? Then depart from these regions of hate,

And in slumber with me blunt the arrows of fate.

I offer a calm habitation to thee,
Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber

with me?

MORTAL

Oh, sweet is thy slumber! oh! sweet is the ray

Which after thy night introduces the day;

How concealed, how persuasive, selfinterest's breath,

Tho' it floats to mine ear from the bosom of Death.

I hoped that I quite was forgotten by all,

Yet a lingering friend might be grieved at my fall,

And duty forbids, tho' I languish to die,

When departure might heave Virtue's breast with a sigh.

O Death! O my friend! snatch this

form to thy shrine,

night.

II

Now all is deathy still on earth,
Nature's tired frame reposes,
And ere the golden morning's birth
Its radiant hues discloses,

Flies forth its balmy breath.
But mine is the midnight of
Death,

And Nature's morn,

To my bosom forlorn,

Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn.

III

Wretch Suppress the glare of mad

ness

Struggling in thine haggard eye, For the keenest throb of sadness, Pale Despair's most sickening sigh, Is but to mimic me; And this must ever be, When the twilight of care, And the night of despair,

Seem in my breast but joys to the pangs that rankle there.

THE SOLITARY

I

And I fear, dear destroyer, I shall not DAR'ST thou amid the varied multitude

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He pants to reach what yet he seems to To sleep within the palace of the dead!

fly,

Dull life's extremest goal.

TO DEATH

DEATH! where is thy victory?
To triumph whilst I die,
To triumph whilst thine ebon wing
Infolds my shuddering soul.
O Death! where is thy sting?

Not when the tides of murder roll, When nations groan, that kings may bask in bliss.

Death! canst thou boast a victory such as this?

When in his hour of pomp and power
His blow the mightiest murderer

gave,

'Mid nature's cries the sacrifice

Of millions to glut the grave; When sunk the tyrant desolation's slave;

Or Freedom's life-blood streamed upon thy shrine;

Stern tyrant, couldst thou boast a victory such as mine?

To know in dissolution's void,

That mortals' baubles sunk decay, That everything, but Love, destroyed Must perish with its kindred clay. Perish Ambition's crown,

Oh! not the King, around whose dazz

ling throne

His countless courtiers mock the words they say,

Triumphs amid the bud of glory blown, As I in this cold bed, and faint expiring groan!

Tremble, ye proud, whose grandeur mocks the woe,

Which props the column of unnatural state,

You the plainings faint and low, From misery's tortured soul that flow,

Shall usher to your fate. Tremble, ye conquerors, at whose fell command

The war-fiend riots o'er a peaceful land.
You desolation's gory throng
Shall bear from Victory along
To that mysterious strand.

LOVE'S ROSE

I

HOPES, that swell in youthful breasts, Live not thro' the waste of time? Love's rose a host of thorns invests; Cold, ungenial is the clime,

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'Twas dead of the night, when I sat in GHOSTS of the dead! have I not heard

my dwelling;

your yelling

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