Hence, when you went, she came and vainly spoke,
To change her purpose-grew incensed, and broke
With execrations from her kneeling child.
Start not! your angel from her knee rose mild,
Feared that she should not long the scene outlive,
Yet bade e'en you the unnatural one forgive.
Till then her ailment had been slight or none;
But fast she drooped, and fatal pains came on:
Foreseeing their event, she dictated
And signed these words for you.' The letter said
"Theodric, this is destiny above
Our power to baffle; bear it then, my love!
Rave not to learn the usage I have borne,
For one true sister left me not forlorn ;
And though you're absent in another land,
Sent from me by my own well-meant command,
Your soul, I know, as firm is knit to mine
As these clasped hands in blessing you now join :
Shape not imagined horrors in my fate-
E'en now my sufferings are not very great ;
And when your grief's first transports shall subside,
I call upon your strength of soul and pride
To pay my memory, if 'tis worth the debt,
Love's glorying tribute-not forlorn regret:
I charge my name with power to conjure up
Reflection's balmy, not its bitter cup.
My pardoning angel, at the gates of Heaven,
Shall look not more regard than you have given
To me; and our life's union has been clad
In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e'er had.
Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast? Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past?
No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast,
There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest ;
And let contentment on your spirit shine,
As if its peace were still a part of mine:
For if you war not proudly with your pain,
For you I shall have worse than lived in vain.
But I conjure your manliness to bear
My loss with noble spirit-not despair:
I ask you by our love to promise this,
And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss-
The latest from my living lips for yours.'
"Words that will solace him while life endures :
For though his spirit from affliction's surge
Could ne'er to life, as life had been, emerge,
Yet still that mind whose harmony elate
Rang sweetness, e'en beneath the crush of fate-
That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that softened them, or lights that graced,
That soul's example could not but dispense
A portion of its own blessed influence;
Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway
Which Fortune cannot give, nor take away:
And though he mourned her long, 'twas with such woc As if her spirit watched him still below."
ELL may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions As make life itself a dream. Half our daylight faith's a fable; Sleep disports with shadows too, Seeming in their turn as stable
As the world we wake to view.
Ne'er by day did Reason's mint
Give my thoughts a clearer print
Of assured reality,
Than was left by Phantasy,
Stamped and coloured on my sprite,
In a dream of yesternight.
In a bark, methought, lone steering,
I was cast on Ocean's strife;
This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,
Meant the sea of life.
Sad regrets from past existence
Came, like gales of chilling breath;
Shadowed in the forward distance
Lay the land of Death.
Now seeming more, now less remote,
On that dim-seen shore, methought,
I beheld two hands a space
Slow unshroud a spectre's face;
And my flesh's hair upstood-
'Twas mine own similitude.
But my soul revived at seeing
Ocean, like an emerald spark,
Kindle, while an air-dropt being
Smiling steered my bark.
Heaven-like-yet he looked as human
As supernal beauty can,
More compassionate than woman,
Lordly more than man.
And as some sweet clarion's breath
Stirs the soldier's scorn of death-
So his accents bade me brook
The spectre's eyes of icy look,
Till it shut them-turned its head,
Like a beaten foe, and fled.
"Types not this,” I said, “fair spirit!
That my death-hour is not come ?
Say, what days shall I inherit ?—
Tell my soul their sum."
"No," he said, yon phantom's aspect,
Trust me, would appal thee worse,
Held in clearly measured prospect―
Ask not for a curse!
Make not, for I overhear
Thine unspoken thoughts as clear
As thy mortal ear could catch
The close-brought tickings of a watch
Make not the untold request
That's now revolving in thy breast.
""Tis to live again, remeasuring
Youth's years, like a scene rehearsed,
In thy second lifetime treasuring
Knowledge from the first.
Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver !
Life's career so void of pain,
As to wish its fitful fever
New begun again?
Could experience, ten times thine,
Pain from Being disentwine-
Threads by Fate together spun ?
Could thy flight Heaven's lightning shun?
No, nor could thy foresight's glance
'Scape the myriad shafts of Chance.
"Would'st thou bear again Love's trouble-
Friendship's death-dissevered ties ;
Toil to grasp or miss the bubble
Of Ambition's prize?
Say thy life's new guided action
Flowed from Virtue's fairest springs-
Still would Envy and Detraction
Double not their stings?
Worth itself is but a charter
To be mankind's distinguished martyr."
I caught the moral, and cried, "Hail!
Spirit! let us onward sail,
Envying, fearing, hating none—
Guardian Spirit, steer me on!"
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