"A Man within whose gloomy mind
Offence had deeply sunk,
Who out of fierce Revenge's cup
Hath madly, darkly drunk--
Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep
Within this very trunk!

"This massy trunk that lies along,
And many more must fall--
For the very knave
Who digs the grave,
The man who spreads the pall,
And he who tolls the funeral bell,
The Elm shall have them all!

"The tall abounding Elm that grows
In hedgerows up and down;
In field and forest, copse and park,
And in the peopled town,
With colonies of noisy rooks
That nestle on its crown.

"And well th' abounding Elm may grow
In field and hedge so rife,
In forest, copse, and wooded park,
And 'mid the city's strife,
For, every hour that passes by
Shall end a human life!"

The Phantom ends: the shade is gone;
The sky is clear and bright;
On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,
There glows a ruddy light;
And bounding through the golden fern
The Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush's mate beside her sits
And pipes a merry lay;
The Dove is in the evergreen;
And on the Larch's spray
The Fly-bird flutters up and down,
To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn
Are coming up the glade;
Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing
Is glad, and not afraid--
But on my sadden'd spirit still
The Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,
As though by certain mark
I knew the fore-appointed Tree,
Within whose rugged bark
This warm and living frame shall find
Its narrow house and dark.

That mystic Tree which breathed to me
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground;
Within that shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound.

LEAR.

A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown,
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind--
For pity, my own tears have made me blind
That I might never see my children's frown;
And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown
A folded fillet over my dark mind,
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind--
Albeit I know not.--I am childish grown--
And have not gold to purchase wit withal--
I that have once maintain'd most royal state--
A very bankrupt now that may not call
My child, my child--all beggar'd save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,
Foolish--and blind--and overcome with years!

SONNET.

My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed
On hope; Time goes w