But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently—

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls—
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye

Not the gaily-jewelled dead.

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass

No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—

No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave-there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide

As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-

The hours are brcatling faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

THE SLEEPER.

AT midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapour, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley.

The rosemary nods upon the

The lily lolls upon the wave;

grave;

Wrapping the fog about its breast,

The ruin moulders into rest;

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take.

And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies !

Oh, lady bright! can it be right--
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully-so fearfully

Above the closed and fringèd lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?

Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness !

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie

For ever with unopened eye,

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

As it is lasting, so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep!

Far in the forest, dim and old,

For her may some tall vault unfold

Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,