Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies; they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

VOL. IV.

Y

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge-

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the universe.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

I STOOD beside the

grave of him who blazed

The comet of a season, and I saw

The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe

On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd
Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And thus he answer'd-" Well, I do not know
"Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
"He died before my day of Sextonship,
"And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip
The veil of Immortality? and crave

I know not what of honour and of light

Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,

For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay

To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought
Were it not that all life must end in one,

Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught
As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he,-" I believe the man of whom
"You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,

"Was a most famous writer in his day,

“And therefore travellers step from out their way

"To pay him honour, and myself whate'er

"Your honour pleases,”-then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook

Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere

Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently;-Ye smile,

I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell

With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, On that Old Sexton's natural homily,

In which there was Obscurity and Fame,

The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.