"All night I lay in agony,

In anguish dark and deep, My fever'd eyes I dar'd not close, But star'd aghast at Sleep: For Sin had render'd unto her The keys of hell to keep.

"All night I lay in agony,

From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint,

That rack'd me all the time; A mighty yearning like the first Fierce impulse unto crime;

"One stern tyrannic thought, that made
All other thoughts its slave:
Stronger and stronger every pulse
Did that temptation crave,
Still urging me to go and see
The Dead Man in his grave!

"Heavily I rose up, as soon

As light was in the sky, And sought the black accursed pool With a wild misgiving eye: And I saw the Dead in the river bed, For the faithless stream was dry.

"Merrily rose the lark, and shook

The dew-drop from its wing;

But I never mark'd its morning flight,
I never heard it sing,

For I was stooping once again
Under the horrid thing.

"With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran;

There was no time to dig a grave

Before the day began:

In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the murder'd man.

"And all that day I read in school,

But my thought was other where ; As soon as the mid-day task was done, In secret I was there;

And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, And still the corse was bare!

"Then down I cast me on my face,

And first began to weep,

For I knew my secret then was one
That earth refus'd to keep:
Or land or sea, though he should be
Ten thousand fathoms deep.

I WILL not have the mad Clytie,
Whose head is turn'd by the sun;
The tulip is a courtly quean,
Whom, therefore I will shun;
The cowslip is a country wench,
The violet is a nun;

But I will woo the dainty rose,
The queen of every one.

The pea is but a wanton witch,
In too much haste to wed,
And clasps her rings on every hand;
The wolfsbane I should dread;
Nor will I dreary rosemarye,
That always mourns the dead;
But I will woo the dainty rose,
With her cheeks of tender red.

The lily is all in white, like a saint,
And so is no mate for me,

And the daisy's cheek is tipp'd with a blush,

She is of such low degree;

Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, And the broom's betroth'd to the bee; But I will plight with the dainty rose, For fairest of all is she.

FAIR INES

O SAW ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,

To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest:
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,

For fear the Moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivall'd bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,

And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write.

Would I had been, fair Ines,

That gallant cavalier

Who rode so gayly by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!

Were there no bonny dames at home,
Or no true lovers here,

That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,

Descend along the shore,

With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners wav'd before;

And gentle youth and maidens gay,

And snowy plumes they wore ;

It would have been a beauteous dream, –

If it had been no more!

Alas, alas, fair Ines,

She went away with song,

With Music waiting on her steps,
And shoutings of the throng;

But some were sad, and felt no mirth,
But only Music's wrong,

In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
To her you 've lov'd so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!
That vessel never bore

So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before :
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shore!

The smile that bless'd one lover's heart
Has broken many more!

THE DEATH-BED

WE watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly mov'd about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids clos'd she had
Another morn than ours.

BALLAD

IT was not in the winter
Our loving lot was cast;
It was the time of roses,
We pluck'd them as we pass'd.

That churlish season never frown'd
On early lovers yet:

Oh, no- -the world was newly crown'd

With flowers when first we met!

'T was twilight, and I bade you go, But still you held me fast;

It was the time of roses,

We pluck'd them as we pass'd.

What else could peer thy glowing cheek,
That tears began to stud?
And when I ask'd the like of Love,
You snatch'd a damask bud;

And op'd it to the dainty core,
Still glowing to the last.
It was the time of roses,
We pluck'd them as we pass'd.

LEAR

A POOR old king with sorrow for my crown, Thron'd upon straw, and mantled with the wind

For pity, my own tears have made me blind That I might never see my children's frown; And maybe madness like a friend has thrown

A folded fillet over my dark mind, So that unkindly speech may sound for kind,

Albeit I know not. - I am childish grown, And have not gold to purchase wit withal, I that have once maintain'd most royal state,

A very bankrupt now that may not call My child, my child-all-beggar'd save in tears,

Wherewith I daily weep an old man's

FROM "MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG"

HER DEATH

'Tis a stern and startling thing to think How often mortality stands on the brink

Of its grave without any misgiving:
And yet in this slippery world of strife,
In the stir of human bustle so rife,
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life
Is dying, and Death is living!

Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy,
Bright as they are with hope and joy,

How their souls would sadden instanter, To remember that one of those wedding bells,

Which ring so merrily through the dells,
Is the same that knells

Our last farewells,
Only broken into a canter!

But breath and blood set doom at nought:
How little the wretched Countess thought,
When at night she unloos'd her sandal,
That the Fates had woven her burial cloth,
And that Death, in the shape of a Death's
Head Moth,

Was fluttering round her candle!

And when she quench'd the taper's light, How little she thought, as the smoke took flight,

That her day was done and merged in a night

Of dreams and durations uncertain,
Or, along with her own,
That a Hand of Bone
Was closing mortality's curtain!

But life is sweet, and mortality blind,
And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind
In concealing the day of sorrow;
And enough is the present tense of toil,
For this world is to all a stiffish soil,
And the mind flies back with a glad recoil
From the debts not due till to-morrow.

And still the golden light of the sun Through her golden dream appear'd to run, Though the night that roar'd without was

one

To terrify seamen or gypsies,

While the moon, as if in malicious mirth,
Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth,
As though she enjoy'd the tempest's birth,
In revenge of her old eclipses.

But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell,
For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell
That time had lately embitter'd:
The Count, as once at her foot he knelt -
That foot which now he wanted to melt!
But-hush!-'t was a stir at her pillow
she felt,

And some object before her glitter'd.