Το every distant zone and fulgent star

Mine eyes could reach,

And the wide waste was one chaotic war;

O'er all and each,

Above-beneath-around me-everywhere,

Was anarchy-convulsion-death-despair.

'Twas noon, and yet a deep unnatural night

Enshrouded Heaven,

Save where some orb unsphered, or satellite

Franticly driven,

Glared as it darted through the darkness dread,

Blind-rudderless-uncheck'd-unpiloted.

A thousand simultaneous thunders crash'd,

As here and there

Some rushing planet 'gainst another dash'd,

Shooting thro' air

Volleys of shatter'd wreck, when, both destroy'd,

Founder'd and sank in the engulphing void.

Others, self-kindled, as they whirl'd and turn'd

Without a guide,

Burst into flames, and rushing as they burn'd

With range more wide,

Like fire-ships that some stately fleet surprise,

Spread havoc thro' the constellated skies.

While stars kept falling from their spheres-as tho'

The heavens wept fire,

Earth was a raging hell of war and woe

Most deep and dire,

Virtue was vice-vice virtue-all was strife,

Brute force was law-justice th' assassin's knife.

From that fell scene my space-commanding eye

Glad to withdraw,

I pierced th' empyrean palace of the sky

And shudd'ring saw

A vacant throne-a sun's extinguish'd sphere,

All else a void―dark, desolate, and drear.

66

"What mean," I cried, these sights unparallel❜d,

These scenes of fear?"

When lo! a voice replied, and Nature held

Her breath to hear,

"Mortal, the scroll before thine eyes unfurl'd, Displays a soul eclipse-an atheist world."

I woke my dream was o'er! What ecstacy

It was to know

That God was guide and guardian of the sky,

That man below

Deserved the love I felt I could not speak

The thrilling joy, whose tears were on my cheek!

LACHRYMOSE WRITERS.

YE human screech-owls, who delight

To herald woe-whose day is night, Whose mental food is misery and moans, If ye must needs uphold the pall,

And walk at Pleasure's funeral,

Be Mutes-and publish not your cries and groans.

Near a menagerie to dwell,

Annoy'd by ceaseless groan and yell,

Is sad, altho' we cannot blame the brutes;

A far worse neighbour is the man

Whose study is a Caravan,

Whence the caged monster ever howls and hoots.

Ye say that Earth's a charnel-life

Incessant wretchedness and strife

That all is doom below, and wrath above,

The sun and moon sepulchral lamps,

The sky a vault, whose baleful damps

Soon blight and moulder all that live and love.

Man, as your diatribes aver,

Only makes reason minister

To deeds irrational and schemes perverse;

Human in name, he proves in all

His acts a hateful animal,

And woman (monstrous calumny) is worse.

This earth, whose walls are stony gloom,

Whose roof rains tears, whose floor 's a tomb

With its chain-rattling beach and lashing waves,

Is, ye maintain, a fitting jail

Where felon man the woes may wail,

From which no prudence guards, no mercy saves.