And then our ghosts, whilst raves the maddened
Will sweep at midnight o'er the wildered wave; Wilt thou our lowly beds with tears of pity lave?"
"Ah! no, I cannot shed the pitying tear,
This breast is cold, this heart can feel no more ; But I can rest me on thy chilling bier,
Can shriek in horror to the tempest's roar."
WHAT was the shriek that struck fancy's ear
As it sate on the ruins of time that is past?
Hark! it floats on the fitful blast of the wind,
And breathes to the pale moon a funeral sigh.
It is the Benshie's moan on the storm,
Or a shivering fiend that, thirsting for sin,
Seeks murder and guilt when virtue sleeps,
Winged with the power of some ruthless king,
And sweeps o'er the breast of the prostrate plain.
It was not a fiend from the regions of hell
That poured its low moan on the stillness of night;
It was not a ghost of the guilty dead,
Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore;
aye at the close of seven years' end
That voice is mixed with the swell of the storm,
And aye at the close of seven years' end,
A shapeless shadow that sleeps on the hill
Awakens and floats on the mist of the heath.
It is not the shade of a murdered man,
Who has rushed uncalled to the throne of his God,
And howls in the pause of the eddying storm.
This voice is low, cold, hollow, and chill;
'Tis not heard by the ear, but is felt in the soul.
'Tis more frightful far than the death-demon's
Or the laughter of fiends when they howl o'er the
Of a man who has sold his soul to hell.
It tells the approach of a mystic form,
A white courser bears the shadowy sprite;
More thin they are than the mists of the mountain,
When the clear moonlight sleeps on the waveless
More pale his cheek than the snows of Nithona
When winter rides on the northern blast,
And howls in the midst of the leafless wood.
Yet when the fierce swell of the tempest is raving,
And the whirlwinds howl in the caves of Inisfallen,
Still secure 'mid the wildest war of the sky,
The phantom courser scours the waste,
And his rider howls in the thunder's roar.
O'er him the fierce bolts of avenging heaven
Pause, as in fear, to strike his head.
The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure ;
Yet the wildered peasant, that oft passes by,
With wonder beholds the blue flash through his
And his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead,
The startled passenger shudders to hear,
More distinct than the thunder's wildest roar.
Then does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns
To eternity, curses the champion of Erin,
Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight,
And twine his vast wreaths round the forms of the
Then in agony roll his death-swimming eyeballs,
Though wildered by death, yet never to die!
Then he shakes from his skeleton folds the night-
mares,
Who, shrieking in agony, seek the couch
Of some fevered wretch who courts sleep in vain ;
Then the tombless ghosts of the guilty dead
In horror pause on the fitful gale.
They float on the swell of the eddying tempest,
And scared seek the caves of gigantic
Where their thin forms pour unearthly sounds
On the blast that sweeps the breast of the lake,
And mingles its swell with the moonlight air.
MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES
ART thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah, why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear !
Ah! no, the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain,
Might wake my 's slumbering tear.
Oh! heaven is witness I did love,
And heaven does know I love thee still,-
Does know the fruitless sickening thrill,
When reason's judgment vainly strove
To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion's wildest ecstacy
Was coldness to the joys I knew,
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,
I do not blame thee, love; ah no!
The breast that feels this anguished woe
Throbs for thy happiness alone.
Two years of speechless bliss are gone,-
I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.
'Tis night—what faint and distant scream
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by,
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale,
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile,
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, "confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be."
But oh! awakening still anew,
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!
FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN
TREMBLE Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country
Tremble! Your parricidal plan
At length shall meet its destiny. . .
We all are soldiers fit to fight
But if we sink in glory's night
Our mother Earth will give ye new
The brilliant pathway to pursue
Which leads to Death or Victory
DARES the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind, The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair? When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.
Stanza from a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn || Stanza: "Tremble Kings!" Forman, Kings, Rossetti. Published by Forman, 1876, and dated, 1810.
Bigotry's Victim, Rossetti || published without title by Hogg, Life of Shelley, 1858, dated, 1809-10.
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