And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star,

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips—“ The foe! They come!

they come !" And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, –alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass, Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal sound of strile,
The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day
Battle's magnificently-stern array !
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!

5. SOUL AFTER DEATH.
When coldness wraps this suffering clay,

Ah, whither strays the immortal mind !
It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way ?
Or fill at once the realms of space,

A thing of eyes, that all survey ?
Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,

Shall it survey, shall it recall :
Each fainter trace that memory holds

So darkly of departed years,

In one broad glance the soul beholds,

And all, that was, at once appears.
Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the furthest heaven had birth,

The spirit trace its rising track :
And where the future mars or makes,

Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While sun is quench'd or system breaks,

Fix'd in its own eternity.
Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,

It lives all passionless and pure :
An age shall fleet like earthly year ;

Its years as moments shall endure.
Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly.
A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

6. THE OCEAN.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain :
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore :-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And sent'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

:

7. MANFRED AND THE ABBOT. Abbot.

Peace be with Count Manfred ! Manfred. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls; Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those Who dwell within them. Ab. Would it were so, Count! But I would fain confer with thee alone. Man. Herman, retire. What would my reverend guest ?

Ab. Thus, without prelude :-Age and zeal, my office, And good intent, must plead my privilege ; Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, May also be my herald. Rumours strange, And of unholy nature, are abroad, And busy with thy name; a noble name For centuries : may he who bears it now Transmit it unimpair'd Man. Proceed: I listen.

Ab. 'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man ; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the shade of death, Thou communest. I know that with mankind, Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy.

Man. And what are they who do avouch these things ?

Ab. My pious brethren—the sacred peasantry-
E'en thy own vassals—who do look on thee
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in peril.

Man. Take it. Ab. I come to save, and not destroy I would not pry into thy secret soul ;

But if these things be sooth, there still is time
For penitence and pity: reconcile thee
With the true church, and through the church to heaven.

Man. I hear thee. This is my reply ; whate'er
I
may

have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself.- I shall not choose a mortal To be

my

mediator. Have I sinn'd
Against your ordinances ? prove and punish!

Ab. My son! I did not speak of punishment,
But penitence and pardon ;-with thyself
The choice of such remains—and for the last,
Our institutions and our strong belief
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin
To higher hope and better thoughts; the first
I leave to heaven-—“Vengeance is mine alone!"
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness
His servant echoes back the awful word.

Man. Old man! there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer-nor purifying forin
Of penitence--nor outward look-nor fast
Nor agony-nor, greater than all these
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But, all in all sufficient, to itself
Would make a hell of heaven-can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemnd
He deals on his own soul. Ab. All this is well ;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place,
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned :
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity. Say on-
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught!
And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon'd.

Man. When Rome's sixth emperor was near his last, The victim of a self-inflicted wound,

To shun the torments of a public death
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have stanch'd
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back, and said,
Some empire still in his expiring glance,
“ It is too late—is this fidelity ?”

[RomanAb. And what of this ? Man. I answer with the “ It is too late!” Ab. It never can be so, To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope ? 'Tis strange—e'en those who do despair above, Yet shape themselves some phantasy on earth, To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.

Man. Ay--father! I have had those earthly visions And noble aspirations in my youth, To make my own the mind of other men, The enlightener of nations; and to rise I knew not whither-it might be to fall; But fall, e'en as the mountain-cataract, Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, E’en in the foaming strength of its abyss, (Which casts up misty columns that become Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies,) Lies low, but mighty still. But this is past,

, My thoughts mistook themselves. Ab. And wherefore

Man. I could not tame my nature down; for he Must serve who fain would sway—and soothe-and And watch all time—and pry into all place— [sueAnd be a living lie--who would become A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such The mass are: I disdain'd to mingle with A herd, though to be leader-and of wolves. The lion is alone, and so am I.

Ab. And why not live and act with other men ?

Man. Because my nature was averse from life;
And yet not cruel; for I would not make,
But find a desolation :-like the wind,
The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom,
Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast,

[so ?