WHAT is this Death ?-a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?

For life is but a vision-what I see
Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so-the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrances our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead-for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold; And they are changed, and cheerless, or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget, Since thus divided-equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea; It may be both-but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust.

F

The under-earth inhabitants—are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?

Or have they their own language? and a sense
Of breathless being?-darken'd and intense
As midnight in her solitude?-Oh Earth!

Where are the past?-and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors—and we

But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.

(A voice is heard in the Incantation which follows.)

WHEN the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,

And the meteor on the grave,

And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer'd owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,

With a power and with a sign.

Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish;

By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather'd in a cloud;
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.

Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turn'd around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.

And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air

Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;

And the day shall have a sun,

Which shall make thee wish it done.

From thy false tears I did distil

An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake,
For there it coil'd as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm ;
In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.

By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy ;
By the perfection of thine art

Which pass'd for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others' pain,

And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!

And on thy head I pour the vial