Who has rushed uncalled to the throne of his God,

20

And howls in the pause of the eddying storm. This voice is low, cold, hollow, and chill, 'Tis not heard by the ear, but is felt in the soul.

'Tis more frightful far than the death-dæmon's

scream,

Or the laughter of fiends when they howl o'er the corpse

Of a man who has sold his soul to hell.

It tells the approach of a mystic form,
A white courser bears the shadowy sprite;
More thin they are than the mists of the
mountain,

When the clear moonlight sleeps on the waveless lake.

30

More pale his cheek than the snows of Nithona
When winter rides on the northern blast,
And howls in the midst of the leafless wood.
Yet when the fierce swell of the tempest is

raving,

And the whirlwinds howl in the caves of

Inisfallen,

Still secure 'mid the wildest war of the sky,
The phantom courser scours the waste,
And his rider howls in the thunder's roar.
O'er him the fierce bolts of avenging heaven
Pause, as in fear, to strike his head.
The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure,
Yet the wildered peasant that oft passes by
With wonder beholds the blue flash through
his form:

40

And his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead,

The startled passenger shudders to hear,

More distinct than the thunder's'y wildest roar.

Then does the dragon who, chained in the

caverns

To eternity, curses the champion of Erin, Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight,

And twine his vast wreathes round the forms of the dæmons;

50

Then in agony roll his death-swimming eyeballs,

Though wildered by death, yet never to die! Then he shakes from his skeleton folds the nightmares,

Who, shrieking in agony, seek the couch

Of some fevered wretch who courts sleep in vain;

Then the tombless ghosts of the guilty dead
In horror pause on the fitful gale.
They float on the swell of the eddying tempest,
And scared seek the caves of gigantic * *
Where their thin forms pour unearthly sounds
On the blast that sweeps the breast of the lake,
And mingles its swell with the moonlight air.

59

MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER
TIMES.

ART thou indeed for ever gone,
For ever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of hell?

Yet I do not reproach thee dear!

Ah! no, the agonies that swell

This panting breast, this frenzied brain 10
Might wake my 's slumb'ring tear.
Oh! heaven is witness I did love,
And heaven does know I love thee still,
Does know the fruitless sick'ning thrill,
When reason's judgment vainly strove
To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion's wildest ecstasy
Was coldness to the joys I knew,
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,

I do not blame thee love; ah no!
The breast that feels this anguished woe
Throbs for thy happiness alone.

Two years of speechless bliss are gone,—
I thank thee dearest for the dream.
'Tis night-what faint and distant scream
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by.
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale,
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile,
I seem to hang upon thy tone.

Again you say, "confide in me,
"For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be."
But oh! awak'ning still anew,

66

20

30

40

Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!

[End of Posthumous Fragments of
Margaret Nicholson.]

STANZA: "TREMBLE, KINGS!"

ADAPTED FROM THE MARSEILLAISE.

TREMBLE Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country
Tremble! Your parricidal plan

At length shall meet its destiny.
We all are soldiers fit to fight;
But, if we sink in glory's night;
Our mother EARTH will give ye new

The brilliant pathway to pursue

Which leads to DEATH or VICTORY...

ON AN ICICLE THAT CLUNG TO THE GRASS OF A GRAVE.

I.

OH! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes

Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair,

In which the warm current of love never

freezes,

As it rises unmingled with selfishness there, Which, untainted by pride, unpolluted by

care,

Might dissolve the dim ice-drop, might bid it

Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the

skies.

II.

Or where the stern warrior, his country defending,

Dares fearless the dark-rolling battle to

pour,

Or o'er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending,

Where patriotism red with his guilt-reeking

gore

Plants liberty's flag on the slave-peopled shore,

With victory's cry, with the shout of the free, Let it fly, taintless spirit, to mingle with thee.

III.

For I found the pure gem, when the day-beam returning,

Ineffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain, When to others the wished-for arrival of morning

Brings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain;

But regret is an insult-to grieve is in vain : And why should we grieve that a spirit

fair

Seeks Heaven to mix with its own kindred there?

IV.

But still 'twas some spirit of kindness descending

To share in the load of mortality's woe, Who, over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending, Bade sympathy's tenderest tear-drop to flow.