He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu;

For they did part with mutual smiles: he passed
From out the massy gate of that old hall,
And, mounting on his steed, he went his way,
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more!

IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
Aud his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been: on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer!
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me; but he was
A part of all, and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them: by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around;
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

.V.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,-her native home,
She dwelt begirt with growing infancy,
Daughters and sons of beauty,-but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?-she had all she loved;
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?-she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved ;
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was returned. I saw him stand

Before an altar with a gentle bride:

Her face was fair,-but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood! As he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique oratory shook

His bosom in its solitude; and then,
As in that hour, a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came;
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows,-but heard not his own words;
And all things reeled around him! he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have
been;

But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,—
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love,-oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul: her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,-
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth: she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms-impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight-familiar were to hers:
And this the world calls frenzy! but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift:

What is it but the telescope of truth!
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The wanderer was alone, as heretofore;
The beings that surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation,-compassed round
With hatred and contention: pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,--
But were a kind of nutriment: he lived

Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains: with the stars
And the quick spirit of the universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret:-Be it so.

IX.

My dream was past; it had no farther change. It was of a strange order that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one

To end in madness-both in misery.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal, And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure-critics all are ready-made.
Take hackneyed jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skilled to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning,-call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go; be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet.
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caressed,

With that water as this wine,

The libation I would pour Would be peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore.

SONNET ON CHILLON.

Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art;
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned-
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard!-May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING
CLAY.

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?

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.

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.

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 thoughts shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing Forgetting what it was to die

FROM "THE PROPHECY OF DANTE."

CANTO IV.

Many are poets who have never penned
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed
The god within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties linked to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets, but without the name;
For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,

Aud be the new Prometheus of new men, Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late, Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,

And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who, having lavished his high gift in vain, Lies chained to his lone rock by the sea-shore! So be it; we can bear.-But thus all they Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power, Which still recoils from its encumbering clay, Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er

The forms which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,

Or deify the canvas till it shine
With beauty so surpassing all below,

That they who kneel to idols so divine

Richard Harris Barham.

Barham (1788-1845) was a native of London. He studied for the ministry, and became a minor canon of St. Paul's, and rector of St. Augustine and St. Faith's, London. He wrote, for Bentley's Miscellany, the " Ingoldsby Legends," which came out in numbers, and were subsequently collected in three serial volumes. It was the great literary success of his life. Since the days of Butler's "Hudibras," the drollery that can be invested in rhymes has rarely been so amply or felicitously exemplified. A Life of Barham, by his son, appeared in 1870.

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS.

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair,
Bishop and abbot and prior were there;

Many a monk and many a friar,
Many a knight and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,—
In sooth, a goodly company;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee. Never, I ween,

Was a prouder seen,

Read of in books or dreamed of in dreams,

Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!

In and out,

Through the motley rout,

The little Jackdaw kept hopping about;
Here and there,

Like a dog in a fair,
Over comfits and cates,

And dishes and plates,

Cowl and cope and rochet and pall,
Mitre and crosier, he hopped upon all.
With a saucy air

He perched on the chair

Where in state the great Lord Cardinal sat, In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat; And he peered in the face

Of his Lordship's grace,

With a satisfied look, as if to say,

"We two are the greatest folks here to-day!"

And the priests with awe,

As such freaks they saw,

Transfused, transfigurated: and the line

Of poesy which peoples but the air

With thought and beings of our thought reflected, Can do no more: then let the artist share The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected Faints o'er the labor unapproved-Alas! Despair and genius are too oft connected.

The feast was over, the board was cleared,
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little singing-boys,-dear little souls!-
In nice clean faces and nice white stoles,

Came, in order due,

Two by two,

Marching that grand refectory through!
A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water as pure

As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Poured lavender-water and eau-de-cologne ;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope!
One little boy more

A napkin bore

Of the bed-white diaper fringed with pink,
And a cardinal's hat marked in permanent ink.

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white;
From his finger he draws
His costly turquoise;

And not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,
Deposits it straight

By the side of his plate,

While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait; Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing, That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!

There's a cry and a shout,

And a deuce of a rout,

And nobody seems to know what he's about, But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out;

The friars are kneeling,

And hunting and feeling

The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling. The Cardinal drew

Off each plum-colored shoe,

And left his red stockings exposed to the view; He peeps, and he feels

In the toes and the heels.

They turn up the dishes,-they turn up the plates,-
They take up the poker, and poke out the grates;

They turn up the rugs,
They examine the mugs;
But no!--no such thing-

They can't find THE RING!

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;
He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright.
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking;
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him living, he cursed him dying!-
Never was heard such a terrible curse!

But what gave rise

To no little surprise,

Nobody seemed one penny the worse!

The day was gone,

The night came on,

The monks and the friars they searched till dawn; When the sacristan saw,

On crumpled claw,

Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw! No longer gay,

As on yesterday;

His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way:
His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand,
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
His eye so dim,

So wasted each limb,

That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM!

That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing,

That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's RING!"

The poor little Jackdaw,

When the monks he saw,

Feebly gave veut to the ghost of a caw;
And turned his bald head as much as to say,
"Pray be so good as to walk this way!"
Slower and slower

He limped on before,

Till they came to the back of the belfry door, Where the first thing they saw,

'Mid the sticks and the straw,

Was the ring in the nest of that little Jackdaw!