SAUL.

I.

THOU whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
"Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!"

Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;

His hand was withered, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glittered there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like caverned winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

II.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?
-Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O King? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine to-morrow, when with me:
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day,
Then we mix our mouldering clay.

Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide;
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!"*

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER."

*

I.

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possessed me;
My goblets blushed from every vine,
And lovely forms caressed me;
I sunned my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendor.

["Since we have spoken of witches," said Byron at Cephalonia, in 1823," what think you of the witch of Endor? I have always thought this the finest and most finished witch-scene that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opinion, if you consider all the circumstances and the actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and dignity of the language. It beats all the ghost scenes I ever read. The finest conception on a similar subject is that of Goethe's Devil, Mephistopheles; and though, of course, you will give the priority to the former, as being inspired, yet the latter, if you know it, will appear to you- at least it does to me-one of the finest and most sublime specimens of human conception."]

II.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there rolled no hour
Of pleasure unembittered;

And not a trapping decked my power

That galled not while it glittered.

III.

The serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Nor music's voice can lure it;

But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.

WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING

CLAY.

I.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay,
Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darkened dust behind.

Then unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space,

A thing of eyes, that all survey?

II.

Eternal, boundless, undecayed,
A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies displayed,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

III.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes,

Its glance dilate o'er all to be,

While sun is quenched or system breaks,

Fixed in its own eternity.

IV.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,

An

It lives all passionless and pure : age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure.

Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.