ance, it is true, held
out; yet even he nearly lost heart, for he saw the queen and her subjects
united and prosperous, whilst his own ships were sunk, his soldiers
slaughtered, and thousands of his subjects rebelling. The very Turk was
becoming as gentle as a lamb; but just at that moment my heavenly
associate quitted me, darting up towards the firmament, to myriads of
other shining powers, and my dream was at an end. Yes, just as the Pope
and the other terrestrial powers, were beginning to sneak away, and to
faint, and the potentates of hell to fall by tens of thousands, each
making, to my imagination's ear, as much noise as if a huge mountain had
been precipitated into the depths of the sea, my companion quitted me,
and there was an end of my dream; for what with the noise made by the
fiends, and the agitation which I felt at losing my companion, I awoke
from my sleep, and returned with the utmost reluctance to my sluggish
clod, thinking how noble and delightful it was to be a _free_ spirit, to
wander about in angelic company, quite secure, though seemingly in the
midst of peril. I had now nothing to console me, save the Muse, and she
being half angry, would do nothing more than bleat to me the following
strains.

The Perishing World.

O man, upon this building gaze,
The mansion of the human race,
The world terrestrial see!
Its architect's the King on high,
Who ne'er was born and ne'er will die--
The blest Divinity.
The world, its wall, its starlights all,
Its stores, where'er they lie,
Its wondrous brute variety,
Its reptiles, fish, and birds that fly,

And cannot number'd be,
The God above, to show his love,
Did give, O man, to thee.
For man, for man, whom he did plan,
God caus'd arise
This edifice,
Equal to heaven in all but size,
Beneath the sun so fair;
Then it he view'd, and that 'twas good
For man, he was aware.

Man only sought to know at first
Evil, and of the thing accursed
Obtain a sample small.
The sample grew a giantess,
'Tis easy from her size to guess
The whole her prey will fall.
Cellar and turret high,
Through hell's dark treachery,
Now reeling, rocking terribly,
In swooning pangs appear;
The orchards round, are only found
Vile sedge and weeds to bear;
The roof gives way, more, more each day,
The walls too, spite
Of all their might,
Have frightful cracks, down all their height,
Which coming ruin show;
The dragons tell, that danger fell,
Now lurks the house below.