Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth and howled: the wild birds shrieked,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless - they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;· -a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom; no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh

The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished 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 answered not with a caress - he died.
The crowd was famished 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 heaped 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 shrieked, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
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 stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped 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 withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them - She was the universe.

22

FARE THEE WELL.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou would'st at last discover
"T was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee -
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe-

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away;

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth

Is that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widowed bed.

And when thou would'st solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"
Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is prest,

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee
Think of him thy love had blessed!

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow,

Bows to thee by thee forsaken,

Even my soul forsakes me now.

But 'tis done - all words are idle-
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will. -

Fare thee well! - thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,

Seared in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone
Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!

And when by thee that name is read, Perchance in some succeeding year, Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried here.