I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire but hour by hour
They fell and faded and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash- and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-

A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge-

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the Universe.

Diodati, July, 1816.

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 answer'd-"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,

shriek'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought- and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress

he died.

Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers; - as he caught
As 't were 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 pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 't were
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.

Diodati, 1816

What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;

The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

II.

Titan! to thee the strife was given

Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift eternity Was thine

and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

III.

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,

In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable Spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit:

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To Mortals of their fate and force;

Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;

His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence :
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself-and equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

44

Diodati, July, 1816.

A FRAGMENT.
COULD I REMOUNT," &c.

Could remount the river of my years
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,

What is this Death? a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For life is but a vision what I see
Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.
The absent are the dead for they are cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless,
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both-but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.

or if yet

The under-earth inhabitants are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay? The ashes of a thousand ages spread Wherever man has trodden or shall tread? Or do they in their silent cities dwell

Each in his incommunicative cell?

Or have they their own language? and a sense

Of breathless being? darken'd and intense

As midnight in her solitude? Oh Earth!

Where are the past?-and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors - and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our clements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.

SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN. Rousseau-Voltaire our Gibbon- and De StaelLeman! 1 these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more, Their memory thy remembrance would recall: To them thy banks were lovely as to all,

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!

Diodati, July, 1816.

1 Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne.

Perdieran hijos padres,
Y casados las casadas:

Las cosas que mas amara
Perdio l' un y el otro fama.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
XX.

Perdi una hija donzella
Que era la flor d' esta tierra,
Cien doblas dava por ella,
No me las estimo en nada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
XXI.

Diziendo assi al hacen Alfaqui,
Le cortaron le cabeca,

Y la elevan al Alhambra,
Assi come el Rey lo manda.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
XXII.

Hombres, ninos y mugeres,
Lloran tan grande perdida.

XI.

"And for this, oh King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement:
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.

Woe is me, Alhama!
XII.

"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law;
And Granada must be won,
And thyself with her undone."

Woe is me, Alhama!
XIII.

Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's eyes,
The Monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answer'd, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.
Woe is me, Albama!

XIV.

"There is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings:"-
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish King, and doom'd him dead.
Woe is me, Alhama!

XV.

Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui!
Though thy beard so hoary be,

The King hath sent to have thee seized,
For Alhama's loss displeased.

Woe is me, Alhama! XVI.

And to fix thy head upon

High Alhambra's loftiest stone;
That this for thee should be the law,
And others tremble when they saw.
Woe is me, Alhama!

XVII.

"Cavalier, and man of worth!
Let these words of mine go forth;
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe.

Woe is me, Alhama!
XVIII.

"But on my soul Alhama weighs,
And on my inmost spirit preys;
And if the King his land hath lost,
Yet others may have lost the most.
Woe is me, Alhama!
XIX.

"Sires have lost their children, wives Their lords, and valiant men their lives! One what best his love might claim

Hath lost, another wealth, or fame.
Woe is me, Alhama!
XX.

"I lost a damsel in that hour,

Of all the land the loveliest flower;
Doubloons a hundred I would pay,
And think her ransom cheap that day."
Woe is me, Alhama!
XXI.

And as these things the old Moor said,
They sever'd from the trunk his head;
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed
'T was carried, as the King decreed.
Woe is me, Alhama!

XXII.

And men and infants therein weep Their loss, so heavy and so deep;

Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cui era morta poco innanzi una figlia appena maritata: e diretto al genitore della sacra sposa.

Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte
Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo,
Il ciel, che degne di piu nobil sorte
L'una e l'altra veggendo, ambo chiedeo.
La mia fu tolta da veloce morte

A le fumanti tede d' imeneo:

La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte
Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo.
Ma tu almeno potrai de la gelosa

Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde,
La sua tenera udír voce pietosa.
Io verso un fiume d' amarissim' onde,
Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa,
Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde.

Granada's ladies, all she rears
Within her walls, burst into tears.
Woe is me, Alhama!

XXIII.

And from the windows o'er the walls
The sable web of mourning falls;
The King weeps as a woman o'er
His loss, for it is much and sore.
Woe is me, Alhama!

TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI.

ON A NUN.

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter
had recently died shortly after her marriage; and ad-
dressed to the father of her who had lately taken the veil.
Of two fair virgins, modest, though admired,
Heaven made us happy; and now, wretched sires,
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,
And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired
Becomes extinguish'd, soon-too soon-expires:
But thine, within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.

But thou at least from out the jealous door,
Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes,
May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:

I to the marble, where my daughter lies,

Rush, the swoln flood of bitterness I pour,

And knock, and knock, and knock - but none replies.