Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,

With dauntless words and high,

That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by,

Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun, Thy face is cold, thy race is run,

'Tis Mercy bids thee go.

For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.

What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill;

And arts that made fire, flood and earth,

The vassals of his will;

Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim discrowned king of day:
For all these trophied arts

And triumphs that beneath thee sprang,
Healed not a passion or a pang

Entailed on human hearts.

Go, let oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,

Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again.

Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

Even I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.

My lips that speak thy dirge of death-
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath
To see thou shalt not boast.

The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall, -
The majesty of Darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

This spirit shall return to Him
Who gave its heavenly spark ;
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By Him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of Victory,-
And took the sting from Death!

Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste

To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste —
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On Earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his Immortality,

Or shake his trust in God!

A DREAM.

WELL may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions

In a bark, methought, lone steering,
I was cast on Ocean's strife;
This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,
Meant the sea of life.

Sad regrets from past existence

Came, like gales of chilling breath; Shadowed in the forward distance Lay the land of Death.

Now seeming more, now less remote,
On that dim-seen shore, methought,
I beheld two hands a space
Slow unshroud a spectre's face;
And my flesh's hair upstood, -

'Twas mine own similitude.

-

But my soul revived at seeing

Ocean, like an emerald spark,

Kindle, while an air-dropped being
Smiling steered my bark.
Heaven-like-yet he looked as human
As supernal beauty can,
More compassionate than woman,
Lordly more than man.

And as some sweet clarion's breath

Stirs the soldier's scorn of death

So his accents bade me brook
The spectre's eyes of icy look,

Till it shut them - turned its head,
Like a beaten foe, and fled.

"Types not this," I said, "fair spirit!

That my death-hour is not come?

Say, what days shall I inherit ?

Tell my soul their sum."

"No," he said, "yon phantom's aspect,
Trust me, would appall thee worse,
Held in clearly measured prospect:
Ask not for a curse!

Make not, for I overhear

Thine unspoken thoughts as clear
As thy mortal ear could catch

The close brought tickings of a watch

Make not the untold request

That's now revolving in thy breast.

"Tis to live again, remeasuring

Youth's years, like a scene rehearsed, In thy second lifetime treasuring Knowledge from the first.

Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver !

Life's career so void of pain,

As to wish its fitful fever

New begun again?

Could experience, ten times thine,
Pain from Being disentwine-
Threads by Fate together spun ?

Could thy flight Heaven's lightning shun?
No, nor could thy foresight's glance
'Scape the myriad shafts of Chance.

Wouldst thou bear again Love's trouble-
Friendship's death-dissevered ties;

Toil to grasp or miss the bubble

Of Ambition's prize?

Say thy life's new guided action

Flowed from Virtue's fairest springs
Still would Envy and Detraction

Double not their stings?

Worth itself is but a charter

To be mankind's distinguished martyr"
-I caught the moral, and cried, "Hail!
Spirit! let us onward sail,

Envying, fearing, hating none

Guardian Spirit, steer me on!"

VALEDICTORY STANZAS,

TO J. P. KEMBLE, ESQ.

COMPOSED FOR A PUBLIC MEETING HELD JUNE, 1817.

PRIDE of the British stage,

A long and last adieu!

Whose image brought th' heroic age

Revived to Fancy's view.