Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

III.

Farewell to others, but never we part,

Heir to my Royalty-Son of my heart!1
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

Seaham, 1815.

"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 splendour.

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.

i. Heir to my monarchy

-[MS.]

Note to Heir-Jonathan.-[Copy.]

ii. My father was the shepherd's son,

Ah were my lot as lovely

My earthly course had softly run. – [MS.]

WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY.

There rose no day, there rolled no hour

1

Of pleasure unembittered; 1

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.

395

Seaham, 1815.

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?i.

i. Ah! what hath been but what shall be,
The same dull scene renewing?

And all our fathers were are we
In erring and undoing.—[MS.]

ii. When this corroding clay is gone.-[MS. erased.] iii. The stars in their eternal way.-[MS. L. erased.] 1. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxxxii. lines 8, 9"Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings."

Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 73, and note 16, p. 93.1

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 farthest 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,
It lives all passionless and pure:
An 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.

Seaham, 1815.

i. A conscious light that can pervade.—[MS. erased.]

1. [Compare the lines entitled "Belshazzar" (vide post, p. 421),

and Don Juan, Canto III. stanza lxv.]

And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

IV.

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,

They saw-but knew no more.

V.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,1
He heard the King's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-

The morrow proved it true.

VI.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,"
His kingdom passed away,
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state,

His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne !"

i. Oh king thy grave- --[Copy erased.]

1. [It was not in his youth, but in extreme old age, that Daniel interpreted the "writing on the wall."]