in a shroud.

A solitary eye of cold stern light
Stared threateningly beyond the Western height,
Wrapped in the closing shadows of the night;
And all the peaceful earth had slept
But that eye stern vigil kept.

I wandered wearily I knew not where;
Up windy downs far-stretching, bleak and bare;
Through swamps that soddened under stagnant air;
In blackest woods and brambled mesh,
Thorny bushes tore my flesh:

Amid the ripening corn I heard it sigh,
Hollow and sad, as night crawled sluggishly:
Hollow and sadly sighed the corn while I
Moved darkly in the midst, a blight
Darkening more the hateful night.

My soul its hoarded secrets emptied on
The vaulted gloom of night: old fancies shone,
And consecrated ancient hopes long gone;
Old hopes that long had ceased to burn,
Gone, and never to return.

No starlight pierced the dense vault over head,
And all I loved was passing or had fled:
So on I wandered where the pathway led;
And wandered till my own abode
Spectral pale rose from the road.

What time I gained my home I saw the morn
Made dimly on the sullen East. Wayworn
I went into the echoing house forlorn,
Heartsick and weary sought my room,
Better had it been my tomb.

I lay, and ever as my lids would close
In dull forgetfulness to slumberous doze,
Lone sounds of phantom tolling scared repose;
Till wearied nature, sore oppressed,
Slowly sank and dropped to rest.

X. WILL-O'-THE-WISP.

"Gone the sickness, fled the pain,
Health comes bounding back again,
And all my pulses tingle for delight.
Together what a pleasant thing
To ramble while the blackbirds sing,
And pasture lands are sparkling dewy bright!

"Soon will come the clear spring weather,
Hand in hand we'll roam together,
And hand in hand will talk of springs to come;
As on the morning when you played
The necromancer with my shade,
In senseless shadow gazing darkly dumb.

"Cast away that cloudy care,
Or, I vow, in my parterre
You shall not enter when the lilies blow,
And I go there to stand and sing
Songs to the heaven-white wondrous ring;
Sir Would-be-Wizard of the crumpled brow!"

XI. GIVEN OVER.

The men of learning say she must
Soon pass and be as if she had not been.
To gratify the barren lust
Of Death, the roses in her cheeks are seen
To blush so brightly, blooming deeper damascene.

All hope and doubt, all fears are vain:
The dre