By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

LV.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ;

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE

DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

WHAT! alive and so bold, oh earth?

Art thou not overbold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old

In the light of thy morning mirth,
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled

What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth,
"Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art overbold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "to my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled,
And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,

"I grow bolder and still more bold.

The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth,
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,
Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm.

I feed on whom I fed.

"Aye, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, "Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould

The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead

Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

I.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.

See, it smiles as it is sleeping,

Mocking your untimely weeping.

II.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days

- be calm and mild,

Rocks the year : —

Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

IV.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave.
And April weeps — but, O, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

TO NIGHT.

I.

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, —
Swift be thy flight!

II.

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,

Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;

Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,

Touching all with thine opiate wand—
Come, long sought!