L.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

Oн it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!

Or listening to the tide with closed sight, Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed of inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odysee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

LI.

PHANTASMION'S QUEST OF IARINE.

YON changeful cloud will soon thy aspect wear, So bright it grows:-and now, by light winds shaken,

O ever seen yet ne'er to be o'ertaken !—

Those waving branches seem thy billowy hair.

The cypress glades recall thy pensive air;
Slow rills that wind like snakes amid the grass,
Thine eye's mild sparkle fling me as they pass,
Yet murmuring cry, This fruitless Quest forbear!

Nay e'en amid the cataract's loud storm,

Where foamy torrents from the crags are leaping,

Methinks I catch swift glimpses of thy form,

Thy robe's light folds in airy tumult sweeping ; Then silent are the falls: 'mid colours warm

Gleams the bright maze beneath their splendour sweeping.

LII.

GUNS OF PEACE.

Sunday Night, March 30th 1856.

GHOSTS of dead soldiers in the battle slain,
Ghosts of dead heroes dying nobler far
In the long patience of inglorious war,
Of famine, cold, heat, pestilence and pain,-
All ye whose loss makes up our vigorous gain-
This quiet night, as sounds the cannon's tongue,
Do ye look down the trembling stars among,
Viewing our peace and war with like disdain?
Or, wiser grown since reaching those new spheres,
Smile ye on those poor bones ye sow'd as seed
For this our harvest, nor regret the deed?
Yet lift one cry with us to Heavenly ears-
"Strike with Thy bolt the next red flag unfurl'd,
And make all wars to cease throughout the world."

LIII.

THE TRUE BASIS OF POWER.

POWER's footstool is Opinion, and his throne
The Human Heart: thus only kings maintain
Prerogatives God-sanctioned. The coarse chain
Tyrants would bind around us may be blown
Aside, like foam, that with a breath is gone:
For there's a tide within the popular vein
That despots in their pride may not restrain;
Swoln with a vigour that is all its own.

Ye who would steer along these doubtful seas,

Lifting your proud sails to high heaven, beware! Rocks throng the waves, and tempests load the breeze:

Go, search the shores of History-mark there The Oppressor's lot, the Tyrant's destinies : Behold the Wrecks of Ages; and despair!

LIV.

THE ROCK OF CASHEL.

ROYAL and saintly Cashel ! I would gaze
Upon the wreck of thy departed powers
Not in the dewy light of matin hours,
Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze,
But at the close of dim autumnal days,

When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers,

Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and

towers

Such awful gleams as brighten o'er Decay's

Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks, There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles

A melancholy moral, such as sinks

On the lone traveller's heart, amid the piles
Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,
Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand.