His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death,
Hiss horrible pursuit - his red eyes glare

The waters into blood his eager breath
Grows hot upon their plumes:

now, minstrel fair! She drops her ring into the waves, and there It widens all around, a fairy ring

Wrought of the silver light the fearful pair
Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling
The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing.

Bending their course over the pale gray lake,
Against the pallid East, wherein light played
In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake
Circled them round continually, and bayed
Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade
The sanctuary ring- his sable mail

Rolled darkly through the flood, and writhed and made

A shining track over the waters pale,

Lashed into boiling foam by his enormous tail.

And so they sailed into the distance dim,
Into the very distance - small and white,
Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim
Over the brooklets - followed by the spite
Of that huge Serpent, that with wild affright
Worried them on their course, and sore annoy,
Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light,
And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy,
Locked in embrace of sweet unutterable joy!

Then came the Morn, and with her pearly showers

Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes

Tears are no grief; and from his

The Oriental sun began to rise,

rosy bowers

Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies;
Wherewith that sable Serpent far away

Fled, like a part of night delicious sighs
From waking bosoms purified the day,

And little birds were singing sweetly from each spray.

THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM

"T WAS in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran, and some

Like troutlets in a pooi.

that leapt,

Away they sped with gamesome minds,
And souls untouched by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran,-

Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can;

But the Usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze;

For a burning thought was in his brow,
And his bosom ill at ease:

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read
The book between his knees!

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide :
Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome,
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusky covers close,
And fixed the brazen hasp:
"O, God! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,
Some moody turns he took,-
Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,—

And, lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book!

"My gentle lad, what is 't you read —

Romance or fairy fable?

Or is it some historic page,

Of kings and crowns unstable?

The young boy gave an upward glance,— "It is The Death of Abel.'"

The Usher took six hasty strides,

As smit with sudden pain,Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again;

And down he sat beside the lad,

And talked with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men,
Whose deeds tradition saves;

Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves;
Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn,
And murders done in caves;

And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod,-
Ay, how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;
And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!

He told how murderers walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,-
With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain ·
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!

"And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme,

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder, in a dream!

"One that had never done me wrong

A feeble man and old;

I led him to a lonely field,

The moon shone clear and cold:

Now here, said I, this man shall die.

And I will have his gold!