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"For the fiends are without, and I hear them now,
"And I feel their breath on my dampening brow.
"If a single drop from the brimmed spell
"Run o'er, ye are doomed to the wrath of hell.
"And a death by the gripe of the demon's fangs,
"Will but herald the soul to Tapana's pangs!"

Now the fire is calmly burning,

And the orgy hath begun,
And along the red girth going,
From an iron vessel throwing
In the flame the appointed things
Of that black and fearful learning;
Thus the Magian with each one
Slowly sings.

"Seizers of the wretch who wars
"With the Sovereign of the Stars,

*

* Tapana is one of the many Boudhese hells to which, among other criminals, the dabblers in unlawful arts are condemned. The reader will note, that in the ensuing incantation, the sorcerer forsakes the Boudhist superstition, and alludes only to the Hindoo. The Hindoo magicians, to whose order he appears to belong, are of greater renown than the Boudhist.

"Ye, whom my victory taught to fear me,
"Still and bright Grahana* hear me !

"And ye who sweep thro' the air and the deep,
"And rise on the Fire God's wings,
"Or couched in the gloom of the mountain's womb,
"Hold court with the Metal kings;

"Ye mocking ELEMENTS-who laugh

"At a mortal's doom with a frantic mirth"And scatter our dust, when we die, like chaff "O'er the heart of the griefless earth: "Ye, whom my victory taught to fear me, "Bhuta,† dread servants of Siva,‡ hear me ! "Four and sixty bones are here,

"Blent and seethed in the bowl of Fear;

"Four and sixty roots are mingled

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By the moon, at her moment of glory, singled. "By these, by the ashes, the draught, and the dust-"Come hither-come hither, ye must-ye must!

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Steep my tongue in the Fount of the Future Things, "And shadow my soul with your rushing wings."

The planets: their name (Grahana) signifies the act of seizing, and they are chiefly invoked by the Hindoo magicians in ceremonies denouncing evil upon enemies.

† Bhuta, the Elements, are considered by the Hindoos as demons— the Atharvana Veda-(one of their sacred books)-is said to enjoin their worship.

Siva, the God of Destruction.

As he spoke, on his lip there gathered the foam,

And his voice, from a breath, to its height had clombe,

And the blood swelled forth in each corded vein,

And the drops of his agony fell like rain.

But still as a calm on a lowering sea,
When the quiet is cradled appallingly,
The Twins knelt down in the midmost space,
And clung to each other in close embrace.
And the eyes of the one on the ground were bent,
And his breath but in gaspings came and went;
But the high-wrought nerve of the sterner raised
His brow; on the Magian he fix'dly gazed,
And the strength of desire sustained his dread,
-But the swarthy blood from his cheek had fled.
While he knelt and gazed;- with a slimy crawl,
And a hissing breath round the fiery wall,
Came the loathly things of the serpent race,
With a glassy eye on his haunted face.

And wherever he turned they came-they came-
With their crests erect o'er the barrier-flame!

Some of the dwarfed and deadliest tribe,

Whence the poison the shafts of a chief imbibe;
And others that wreathed in their volumed length,
Lapped the fate of their prey in their crushing strength.
But beyond, where the fire had failed to break
The shadows-he heard the vulture shriek;

And at length on its lead wing heavily
It flapped to a grey stone mouldering nigh,
And gloamed on the boy with its charnel eye.
But he would not stir, and he held his breath,
For he thought on the Magian's menaced death;
And the full of the fit, or the fiend's, controul,
Seemed now to have rush'd on the Sorcerer's soul:
His mien was all changed from its human wont,
And the phrenzy was stamped on his knotted front.

"Ye have come with your golden wings,
"Ye have come with your starry eyes,
"And I feel the Cloud of the dawning Things,
"Like the mists from an ocean rise!
"Mortals! who from the Magian's skill,
"Demand what Fate may yet fulfil.
"List-heed—and mark-for wrapt in gloom,

"The dim unbodied Shapes that wait
"In the vast Future's mighty Womb,
"The appointed hour of Fate.

"The Stream and the Bark shall glide "With a happy Sun, and a quiet Tide; "But the Stream at length shall chafe at the Sail, "And its wave shall rise to an angered gale, "And the Stream on the guiltless Bark shall war,

"And the Bark shall know dread on the fitful wave;

"And the Stream shall look up to a single Star, "And the Star shall endanger the Bark, but-save. "And the Bark in a quiet Port shall rest,

"But the Stream shall roll on with a lonely breast. "Lo! lo! where it enters the earth, and its way

"Is snatched like a dream from the face of the day. "Not a glimpse from its course-not a voice from its

waves

"Lo! it sinks from my sight-in the depths of the

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As he ceaseth, the fiery bound
Duller and dimmer fades,

And the Serpent shapes that hiss around,
Grow huge in the deepening shades.
And failing and faint-those limbs but now
Scarce mortal in their power,

Like the bodies the laws of the Apé* allow

But life for a stated hour.

As a corpse when the spirit is fled,

As a spear from a hand when the life is o'er,

The Sorcerer drooped his head,

And dropped on the darkening floor.

Then, by the last blue ray

Of the flame, while the Serpents creep

*The Condemned.

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