And, starting to each accent, sprang
As from a sudden trumpet's clang:
Meantime my cords were wet with gore,
Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er;
And in my tongue the thirst became

A something fierier far than flame.

Up rose the sun; the mists were curled
Back from the solitary world

Which lay around-behind-before;
What booted it to traverse o'er
Plain, forest, river? Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
No sign of travel-none of toil;
The very air was mute;

And not an insect's shrill small horn,
Nor matin bird's new voice was borne
From herb nor thicket. Many a werst,'
Panting as if his heart would burst,
The weary brute still staggered on;
And still we were-or seemed-alone:
At length, while reeling on our way,
Methought I heard a courser neigh,
From out yon tuft of blackening firs.
Is it the wind those branches stirs ?
No, no! from out the forest prance
A trampling troop; I see them come!
In one vast squadron they advance!

I strove to cry-my lips were dumb.
The steeds rush on in plunging pride:
But where are they the reins to guide?
A thousand horse-and none to ride!
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
Wide nostrils-never stretched by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on,

I A measure of distance.

As if our faint approach to meet;
The sight renerved my courser's feet,
A moment staggering, feebly fleet,
A moment, with a faint low neigh,
He answered, and then fell ;
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
And reeking limbs immoveable,

His first and last career is done!
On came the troop-they saw him stoop,
They saw me strangely bound along
His back with many a bloody thong:
They stop-they start-they snuff the air,
Gallop a moment here and there,
Approach, retire, wheel round and round,
Then plunging back with sudden bound,
Headed by one black mighty steed,
Who seemed the patriarch of his breed,
Without a single speck or hair

Of white upon his shaggy hide;

They snort-they foam-neigh-swerve aside, And backward to the forest fly,

By instinct, from a human eye.—

They left me there, to my despair,

Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch,
Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch,
Relieved from that unwonted weight,
From whence I could not extricate
Nor him nor me-and there we lay
The dying on the dead!

The sun was sinking-still I lay

Chained to the chill and stiffening steed;

I thought to mingle there our clay;
And my dim eyes of death had need,
No hope arose of being freed:

I cast my last looks up the sky,

And there between me and the sun

I saw the expecting raven fly,

Who scarce would wait till both should die, Ere his repast begun;

He flew, and perched, then flew once more, And each time nearer than before;

I saw his wing through twilight flit,
And once so near me he alit

I could have smote, but lacked the strength; But the slight motion of my hand,

And feeble scratching of the sand,
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise,
Which scarcely could be called a voice,
Together scared him off at length.
I know no more-my latest dream
Is something of a lovely star
Which fixed my dull eyes from afar,
And went and came with wandering beam,
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense
Sensation of recurring sense,

And then subsiding back to death,
And then again a little breath,
A little thrill, a short suspense,
An icy sickness curdling o'er

My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain-
A gasp, a throb, a start of pain,

A sigh, and nothing more.

I woke Where was I?-Do I see
A human face look down on me?
And doth a roof above me close?
Do these limbs on a couch repose?
Is this a chamber where I lie?
And is it mortal yon bright eye,
That watches me with gentle glance?
I closed my own again once more,
As doubtful that the former trance
Could not as yet be o'er.

A slender girl, long-haired, and tall,
Sate watching by the cottage wall;
The sparkle of her eye I caught,
E'en with my first return of thought;
For ever and anon she threw

A prying, pitying glance on me
With her black eyes so wild and free :
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew
No vision it could be,-

But that I lived, and was released
From adding to the vulture's feast.

LORD BYRON.

72.

Summer Storm.

UNTREMULOUS in the river clear,

Towards the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge;
So still the air that I can hear

The slender clarion of the unseen midge;

Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep,
Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases,
Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases,
The huddling trample of a drove of sheep
Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases
In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep,
A confused noise between two silences,

Finding at last in dust precarious peace.

On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses
Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming tide,
Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes
Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide

Wavers the long green sedge's shades from side to side; But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge,

Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray ;

Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge,
And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway.

Suddenly all the sky is hid

As with the shutting of a lid,
One by one great drops are falling
Doubtful and slow,

Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,
And the wind breathes low;

Slowly the circles widen on the river,
Widen and mingle, one and all;

Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,
Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter,
The wind is gathering in the west;
The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,
Then droop to a fitful rest;

Up from the stream with sluggish flap
Struggles the gull and floats away;
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,—
We shall not see the sun go down to-day :

Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,
And tramples the grass with terrified feet,
The startled river turns leaden and harsh.

You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.

Look! look! that vivid flash!

And instantly follows the rattling thunder,
As if some cloud crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,

On the earth, which crouches in silence under;
And now a solid gray wall of rain

Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile;

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof,

Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof;
Against the windows the storm comes dashing,
Through battered foliage the hail tears crashing,
The blue lightning flashes,
The rapid hail clashes,

The white waves are tumbling,
And, in one baffled roar,
Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock-bristled shore.
The thunder is rumbling

And crashing and crumbling,

Will silence return never more?

Hush! Still as death,

The tempest holds his breath
As from a sudden will;

The rain stops short, but from the eaves
You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,
All is so bodingly still;
Again, now, now, again
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts,
The crinkled lightning
Seems ever brightening,
And loud and long

Again the thunder shouts

His battle song,-
One quivering flash
One wildering crash,

H