A Dream.

I HEARD the dogs bark in the moonlight night,
And I went to the window to see the sight;
All the dead that ever I knew

Going one by one, and two by two.

On they pass'd, and on they pass'd;
Town's-fellows all from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
And quench'd in the heavy shadow again.

School-mates marching as when we play'd
At soldiers once-but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sights to me
Who were drown'd, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak too;
And some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to;
Some just buried a day or two,

And some of whose death I never knew.

A long, long crowd-where each seem'd lonely;
And yet of them all there was one, one only~
That raised a head or look'd my way,

And she seem'd to linger, but might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah, mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made

Across the moon-stream from shade to shade:
Young and old, and women and men ;
Many long-forgot, but remember'd then.

And first there came a bitter laughter;
And a sound of tears the moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.

ALLINGHAM.

An Inbocation.

HEAR, Sweet spirit, hear the spell,
Lest a blacker charm compel !
So shall the midnight breezes swell
With thy deep, long-lingering knell,
And at evening evermore,

In a chapel on the shore,

Shall the chanters, sad and saintly,
Yellow tapers burning faintly,
Doleful masses chant for thee,
Miserere, Domine !

Hark! the cadence dies away

On the yellow moonlight sea:

The boatmen rest their oars and say,
Miserere, Domine !

COLERIDGE.

Dirge sung by a Spirit-Maiden ober the Poet Shelley.

FEED him with jonquils and anemones,

With jasmines, myrtles, roses where he lies;
Let all your kisses melt upon his mouth,

Balm-winds, fresh breathing from the tropic South;
Myrrh, cassia, nutmeg-trees of Ceylon lave
Him in your odours, fan him as ye wave,
O golden palms! and thou, wild tamarind-tree,
Droop thy long sprays, caress him balmily;
Ye crimson cactus-flowers, that nimble bees
Vainly explore, oppress not his mild eyes;
O sleep-diffusing poppies, rain not down
Your heavy juice; nor, sable cypress, frown
On him reposing; silver lime-flowers, pour
Faint, starlike incense-drops from your full store;
Sweet pansies pillow him; thy pipe, O Pan,
Blow with a mellow strain, thy syrinx blow;
Our darling is deliver'd from his woe,

Freed from the hate of love-regardless man.
Our darling is not dead, he lieth here,

Where the blind, groping earth-worm finds him not.
As water-lilies mourn the fading year,

Fond hearts deplore him on the earth. No spot
Defiles the crystal pureness of his fame.

The efflorescence of his being blooms

On earth, blooms splendidly. Like May he came,
Sowing rich beauty over dens and tombs,
And rocky peaks and solitudes. He sped
Like a clear streamlet o'er its jagged bed,
That by no torture can be hush'd asleep,
But pours in music hastening to the deep.
Peace, peace, bewail him not with garlands sere,
Ye Autumn Months, his is no funeral bier.
No pale dissolving Eidolon is he

Of that which was, but never more shall be ;-
Shelley, the Spirit, lives eternally!

Sappho.

HARRIS.

SHE lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea,
Upon the bright horizon Athos' peak

Welter'd in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below
The lazy sea-weed glisten'd in the sun;
The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge,
And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;
And Mother Earth watch'd by him as he slept,
And hush'd her myriad children for awhile.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;

And sigh'd for sleep, for sleep that would not hear,
But left her tossing still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearn'd within her heart,
Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long thin hands, and ivory-channell'd feet,
Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.
Then peevishly she flung her on her face,
And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare,
And finger'd at the grass, and tried to cool
Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
Gleam'd out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.

Beside her lay her lyre. She snatch'd the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then toss'd it sadly by.-" Ah, hush!" she cries,
"Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with thine harmonies ?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only to echo back in every tone

The moods of nobler natures than thine own."

WHAT saith the river to the rushes grey,
Rushes sadly bending,
River slowly wending?

Who can tell the whisper'd things they say?
Youth and time and manhood's prime
For ever ever fled away!

Cast your wither'd garlands in the stream,
Low autumnal branches,

Round the skiff that launches

Wavering downward through the lands of dream. Ever, ever fled away!

This the burden, this the theme. What saith the river to the rushes grey, Rushes sadly bending,

River slowly wending?

It is near the closing of the day.

Near the night. Life and light
For ever ever fled away!

Draw him tideward down; but not in haste.
Mouldering daylight lingers;

Night with her cold fingers

Sprinkles moonbeams on the dim sea-waste.
Ever, ever fled away!

Vainly cherish'd! vainly chased!

What saith the river to the rushes grey,

Rushes sadly bending,

River slowly wending?

Where in darkest glooms his bed we lay,

Up the cave moans the wave,

For ever ever fled away!

ALLINGHAM.

Fable is Lobe's World.

Он, never rudely will I blame this faith

In the might of stars and angels! 'Tis not merely
The human being's pride that peoples space
With life and mystical predominance;

Since likewise for the stricken heart of love
This visible nature, and this common world,
Is all too narrow; yea, a deeper import
Lurks in the legend told my infant years
Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.
For fable is love's world, his home, his birthplace:
Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays, and talismans,
And spirits; and delightedly believes
Divinities, being himself divine.

The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,

The power, the beauty, and the majesty,

That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanish'd.
They live no longer in the faith of reason!
But still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names,
And to yon starry world they now are gone,
Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend; and to the lover,
Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky
Shoot influence down and even at this day
'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
And Venus who brings every thing that's fair!
Translated from Schiller.
COLERIDGE.

Fairy Lore.

O LIST the mystic lore sublime
Of fairy tales of ancient time!
I learn'd them in the lonely glen,
The last abodes of living men;
There never stranger came our way
By summer night, or winter day;
Where neighbouring hind or cat was none,
Our converse was with heaven alone-