But phantoms round the Lord of human dust

In pallid indistinctness rise and move,
For mental slaughter fearfully predoom'd!-
PASSIONS that feed upon envenom'd fire :

DESPAIR, with hollow, dim, sepulchral eyes;
And Love, the martyr of his own fix'd stake:
AMBITION, with a canker-eaten soul;

And GENIUS, proud and pale, the self-consumed,

Whose gaze infinity with spirit-light

Hath kindled, while the pining form decays

Like colour from a fibrous cloud of eve!

Such are thy delegates, disastrous Power!

That make the martyr'd world thy prey, and seize Their victims when and where they please. Alike

To thee the palace or the hut, the hall

Of Pleasure, or the house of Woe.—A king

Mounts his high throne, with starry robes begirt;

Each look commands; and bright that royal brow, Beneath the burden of his jewell'd crown;

Before him princely courtiers bow their heads,

And on their fawning cheeks his smiles reflect,
And hover round him like a human god!

Thy bow is bent-thy dooming arrow shot,

And like a cloud-shade by the sun destroy'd,
Melts the great monarch from his pride and power!
The pale companion of the speechless earth,

A vault his palace,-like his brother clay

Corrupted-bid his court adore him now!

To die! this gorgeous world of life and love Forsake, and fleet beyond the bounds of thought; To feel the death-dews creeping o'er each limb,

Our life-stream curdle, and the heart grow

cold;

To be the flesh-worm's feast,-to mould away,

And blend our being with embracing dust,

All this, together with imagin'd wails

Of friends, whose tearful eyes attend our bier,

Calls a chill horror round the name of death,

That daunts the good, and makes the bad despair.

All that we love and feel on nature's face,

Bear dim relations to our common doom.

The clouds that blush, and die an airy death,.
Or rain in weeping ruin; pensive streams

Whose tones are dying music; leaves new-born,
That fade unpitied in the frosty arms

Of Winter, there to mingle with dead flowers,—

Are all prophetic of our own decay.

And who, when hung enchanted o'er some page

Where genius flashes from each living line!

Hath never wander'd to the tomb, to see

The hand that penn'd it, and the head that

thought?

Yet, feelings, colour'd by the cloud of death,
With grand oppression oft o'erflow the mind,
As when some warm adorer of the dead
Who LIVE, along the dim and banner'd aisle
Of arch'd cathedral, frames a dream sublime,
And learns how eloquent a tomb can be!—
Or roams at twilight, where the deep resounds,
To watch the ever-rolling waves career

From where faint ocean weds the sky, and think,-
Thus roll along the restless hours of time!

In banquet-halls, where queenly pleasures throng,

And bright-faced Joy, and young-eyed Beauty meetTo them the shadows of the grave extend!

How oft, as unregarded on a throng

Of lovely creatures, in whose liquid eyes

The heart-warm feelings bathe, I've fondly look'd

With all a Poet's passion, and have wish'd

That years might never mar those perfect smiles,— How often Death, as with a viewless wand,

Has touch'd the scene, and witch'd it to a tomb,

Where beauty dwindled to a ghastly wreck! While 'plaining spirits of the Future cried— Thus will it be when Time has work'd revenge!

Our yesterday is dead, our morrow dies;

This hour is pining, and the breath we draw
So carelessly, may waft our souls-to where !
Our ages are but periodic tombs

Of those that went before: for childhood seems

The death of infancy, and childhood dies
When youth commences, which itself departs

In daring manhood; then old age begins,
Whose wrinkle deepens into manhood's grave.
Thus death is imaged by our very life!

And hope and pleasure, feeling, action, fame,