aning fainter on mine ear,
And thine allurements powerless and vain.
There springeth up within me a new want,
A perfect yearning for the spiritual,
That shaketh from its pinions all the cares
And interests of earth, like cleaving dust
That clogs its upward winging to the skies.
Wend onward, as thou wilt in weal or woe,
Swell the rude triumph of thy battle march,
Spread thy gay banners broadly to the wind,
And let thy clarions ring among the spheres;
Laurel thy heroes and thy favourites,
And pluck the crowns again from off their brows;
Worship thy follies, and thine empty gains,
And barter life for mammon--gold for dross.
Here let me lie upon the rear of Time,
Unheeded, unremembered, and alone,
Like a quick seed dropt by a flying dove,
That groweth unto blossom and to fruit!

SCENE. _Night._

MAN.

How still are all things now in earth and heaven!
From the green-tided woods no rippling stir
Breaks on the shore of silence; the sweet birds
That sing, like naiads from the crystal deeps,
Amid the murmurous coverts, now are mute
As dreams of faded happiness, and life
Seems calmly slumb'ring in the arms of death.
The far waves alone are rocking in unrest,
With moonlight flashing o'er them, but their sound
Dies in their own wild bosom, like a song
Murmuring in the spirit of a man.
Thus is a poet's soul!--around it hangs
The darkness of this world's reality,
Its cares and struggles and necessities;
But in its firmament for ever shines
The starlight of divine imaginings,
Shedding upon the waves of restless feeling,
And aspirations for the undefined,
The glory of a cloudless hemisphere.

O Stars! that gaze upon me from on high,
Like angels from the gates of Paradise,
That weave your myriads in a golden chain
To bind creation with the Beautiful,
As locks are interrun with precious gems
To deck a queen out for her royalty:
Hear me, ye bright ones, for a poet's love,
And let light fall upon my swelling soul,
To crest each rising thought with purity!
There was a time--in youth, ere yet the sands
Of life clogged 'neath satiety, but ran
Lighter than blithe rills down a mountain's side;
There was a time, when in my soul a voice
Rang faintly like a huntsman's horn afar,
Sounding along a forest; and I arose,
And listed, as the bounding Antelope
Starts at the echo of a falling bough.
Louder it grew, and