Looked with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke
The drowsy calm that steals on worn-out anguish.
She shuddered: but, each vainer pang subdued,
Quick disentangling from the foremost horse
The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil

The stiff cramped team forced homeward. There arrived,
Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,

And weeps and prays-but the numb power of Death
Spreads o'er his limbs; and ere the noon-tide hour,
The hovering spirits of his Wife and Babes
Hail him immortal! Yet amid his pangs,
With interruptions long from ghastly throes,
His voice had faltered out this simple tale.

The Village, where he dwelt an Husbandman,
By sudden inroad had been seized and fired
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife
And little ones he hurried his escape.

They saw the neighbouring Hamlets flame, they heard
Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on
Through unfrequented roads, a weary way!
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quenched
Their evening hearth-fire: for the alarm had spread.
The air clipt keen, the night was fanged with frost,
And they provisionless! The weeping wife

Ill hushed her children's moans; and still they moaned,

Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life. They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas Death. He only, lashing his o'er-wearied team,

Gained a sad respite, till beside the base

Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead.
Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food,
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced,
Till wakened by the maiden.-Such his tale.

Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffered,
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid
Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark!
And now her flushed tumultuous features shot
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye

Of misery Fancy-crazed! and now once more
Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within
The unquiet silence of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,
Aside the beacon, up whose smouldered stones
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,
Unconscious of the driving element,

Yea, swallowed up in the ominous dream, she sate,
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish

Breathed from her look! and still with pant and sob,
Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued,
Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy,
An horror of great darkness wrapt her round,
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones,

Calming her soul,-" O Thou of the Most High
"Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven.
"Behold expectant-

[The following fragments were intended to form part of the Poem when finished.]

"Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire,

"Fierce to regain the losses of that hour

"When LOVE rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings "Over the abyss fluttered with such glad noise, "As what time after long and pestful calms,

"With slimy shapes and miscreated life

66

Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze "Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night "An heavy unimaginable moan

"Sent forth, when she the PROTOPLAST beheld "Stand beauteous on Confusion's charmed wave.

"That leads with downward windings to the Cave "Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death "Sunk deep beneath GEHENNA'S massy roots. "There many a dateless age the Beldame lurked "And trembled; till engendered by fierce HATE, "Fierce HATE and gloomy HOPE, a DREAM arose, Shaped like a black cloud marked with streaks of fire. "It roused the Hell-Hag: she the dew-damp wiped "From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze "Retraced her steps; but ere she reached the mouth "Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused, "Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulph.

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66

As through the dark vaults of some mouldered Tower "(Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind "Circles at distance in his homeward way)

"The winds breathe hollow, deemed the plaining

groan

"Of prisoned spirits; with such fearful voice

"NIGHT murmured, and the sound through Chaos

went.

Leaped at her call her hideous-fronted brood!

"A dark behest they heard, and rushed on earth;

"Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored, "Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind!"

From his obscure haunt

Shrieked FEAR, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam,
Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow,
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds,
Ague, the biform Hag! when early Spring
Beams on the marsh-bred vapours.

"Even so" (the exulting Maiden said)

"The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell,
"And thus they witnessed God! But now the clouds
Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar
"Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing
"Loud songs of Triumph! O ye spirits of God,
"Hover around my mortal agonies!"

She spake, and instantly faint melody
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,
Such measures, as at calmest midnight heard
By aged Hermit in his holy dream,

Foretell and solace death; and now they rise
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice
The white-robed multitude of slaughtered saints

* Revel. vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain