They touch with fire, thought's graven page, the roll

Stamped with past years-and lo! it shrivels as a scroll!

LXXV.

And this was of such hours!-the sudden flow Of my soul's tide seemed whelming me; the glare

Of the red flames, yet rocking to and fro, Scorched up my heart with breathless thirst for air,

And solitude and freedom. It had been Well with me then, in some vast desert scene, To pour my voice out, for the winds to bear On with them, wildly questioning the sky, Fiercely th' untroubled stars, of man's dim destiny.

LXXVI.

I would have called, adjuring the dark cloud; To the most ancient Heavens I would have said -"Speak to me! show me truth!"(8)-through. night aloud

I would have cried to him, the newly dead, "Come back! and show me truth!"-My spirit seemed

Gasping for some free burst, its darkness teemed With such pent storms of thought!-again I fled

I fled, a refuge from man's face to gain, Scarce conscious when I paused, entering a lonely fane.

LXXVII.

A mighty minster, dim, and proud, and vast! Silence was round the sleepers, whom its floor Shut in the grave; a shadow of the past, A memory of the sainted steps that wore Erewhile its gorgeous pavement, seemed to brood Like mist upon the stately solitude, A halo of sad fame to mantle o'er Its white sepulchral forms of mail-clad men, And all was hushed as night in some deep Alpine glen.

LXXVIII.

More hushed, far more!-for there the wind sweeps by,

Or the woods tremble to the streams' loud play!
Here a strange echo made my very sigh
Seem for the place too much a sound of day!
Too much my footstep broke the moonlight,
fading,

Yet arch through arch in one soft flow pervad

ing;

And I stood still:-prayer, chant, had died away, Yet past me floated a funereal breath

LXXIX.

For thick ye girt me round, ye long-departed!(9) Dust-imaged form-with cross, and shield, and crest;

It seems as if your ashes would have started,
Had a wild voice burst forth above your rest!
Yet ne'er, perchance, did worshipper of yore
Bear to your thrilling presence what I bore
Of wrath-doubt-anguish-battling in the

breast!

I could have poured out words, on that pale air, To make your proud tombs ring:-no, no! I could not there!

LXXX.

Not 'midst those aisles, through which a thousand years

Mutely as clouds and reverently had swept;
Not by those shrines, which yet the trace of tears
And kneeling votaries on their marble kept!
Ye were too mighty in your pomp of gloom
And trophied age, O temple, altar, tomb!
And you, ye dead!--for in that faith ye slept,
Whose weight had grown a mountain's on my
heart,

Which could not there be loosed.-I turned me to depart.

LXXXI.

I turned-what glimmered faintly on my sight, Faintly, yet brightening, as a wreath of snow Seen through dissolving haze !—The moon, the night,

Had waned, and dawn poured in;-gray, shadowy, slow,

Yet day-spring still!—a solemn hue it caught, Piercing the storied windows, darkly fraught With stoles and draperies of imperial glow, And soft, and sad, that colouring gleam was thrown,

Where, pale, a pictured form above the altar shone.

LXXXII.

Thy form, thou Son of God!—a wrathful deep, With foam, and cloud, and tempest, round thee spread,

And such a weight of night!-a night, when sleep

From the fierce rocking of the billows fled. A bark showed dim beyond thee, with its mast Bowed, and its rent sail shivering to the blast; But, like a spirit in thy gliding tread, Thou, as o'er glass, didst walk that stormy sea Through rushing winds which left a silent path for thee!

LXXXIII.

So still thy white robes fell! no breath of air

So still the waves of parted, shadowy hair
From thy clear brow flowed droopingly away!
Dark were the heavens above thee, Saviour!—
dark

The gulfs, Deliverer! round the straining bark!
But thou!-o'er all thine aspect and array
Was poured one stream of pale, broad, silvery
light-

-Thou wert the single star of that all-shrouding night!

LXXXIV.

Aid for one sinking!-Thy lone brightness gleamed

On his wild face, just lifted o'er the wave,
With its worn, fearful, human look that seemed
To cry through surge and blast-"I perish-
save!"

Not to the winds-not vainly!-thou wert nigh,
Thy hand was stretched to fainting agony,
Even in the portals of th' unquiet grave!
O thou that art the life! and yet didst bear
Too much of mortal wo to turn from mortal prayer!

LXXXV.

But it was not a thing to rise on death,
With its remembered light, that face of thine,

Where then is mercy?-whither shall we flee, So unallied to hope, save by our hold on thee?

LXXXVIII.

"But didst thou not, the deep sea brightly treading,

Lift from despair that struggler with the wave? And wert thou not, sad tears, yet awful, shedding,

Beheld, a weeper at a mortal's grave?

And is this weight of anguish, which they bind On life, this searing to the quick of mind, That but to God its own free path would crave, This crushing out of hope, and love, and youth, Thy will indeed?-Give light! that I may know the truth!

LXXXIX.

"( For my
sick soul is darkened unto death,
With shadows from the suffering it hath seen;
The strong foundations of mine ancient faith
Sink from beneath me-whereon shall I lean?
-Oh! if from thy pure lips was wrung the sigh
Of the dust's anguish! if like man to die,
-And earth round him shuts heavily-hath

been

Even to thee bitter, aid me!-guide me!-turn

Yet mournfully, mysteriously divine?

-Oh! that calm, sorrowful, prophetic eye, With its dark depths of grief, love, majesty! And the pale glory of the brow!-a shrine Where power sat veiled yet shedding softly round

What told that thou couldst be but for a time uncrowned!

LXXXVI.

And more than all, the Heaven of that sad smile!
The lip of mercy, our immortal trust!
Did not that look, that very look, erewhile,
Pour its o'ershadowed beauty on the dust?
Wert thou not such when earth's dark cloud
hung o'er thee?

starless bourne!"

XC.

And calm'd I rose-but how the while had risen

Morn's orient sun, dissolving mist and shade! -Could there indeed be wrong, or chain, or

prison,

In the bright world such radiance might pervade?

It fill'd the fane, it mantled the pale form Which rose before me through the pictured

storm,

Even the gray tombs it kindled, and array'd With life!-how hard to see thy race begun,

Yes! kindling, spreading, brightening, hue by hue,

Like stars from midnight, through the gloom it grew,

That haunt of youth, hope, manhood!—till the bound

Of my shut cavern seemed dissolved, and I
Girt by the solemn hills and burning pomp of sky.
XI.

I looked-and lo! the clear broad river flowing,
Past the old Moorish ruin on the steep,
The lone tower dark against a heaven all glow-
ing,

Like seas of glass and fire!—I saw the sweep
Of glorious woods far down the mountain side,
And their still shadows in the gleaming tide,
And the red evening on its waves asleep;
And 'midst the scene--oh! more than all-there
smiled

My child's fair face, and hers, the mother of my child!

XII.

With their soft eyes of love and gladness raised
Up to the flushing sky, as when we stood
Last by that river, and in silence gazed
On the rich world of sunset:-but a flood
Of sudden tenderness my soul oppressed,
And I rushed forward with a yearning breast,
To clasp-alas! a vision!-Wave and wood,
And gentle faces, lifted in the light

Of day's last hectic blush, all melted from my sight.

XIII.

Then darkness! oh! th' unutterable gloom That seemed as narrowing round me, making less

And less my dungeon, when, with all its bloom,
That bright dream vanished from my loneliness!
It floated off, the beautiful!-yet left
Such deep thirst in my soul, that thus bereft,
I lay down, sick with passion's vain excess,
And prayed to die.-How oft would sorrow

weep

Her weariness to death, if he might come like sleep'

XIV.

But I was roused-and how?-It is no tale
Even 'midst thy shades, thou wilderness, to tell!
I would not have my boy's young cheek made
pale,

Nor haunt his sunny rest with what befell
In that drear prison-house.-His eye must grow
More dark with thought, more earnest his fair
brow,

More high his heart in youthful strength must swell;