And the tremulous lips dare not speak
What is told by the soul-felt eye.

But what is sweeter to revenge's ear
Than the fell tyrant's last expiring yell?
Yes! than love's sweetest blisses 'tis more dear
To drink the floatings of a despot's knell.

I wake 'tis done-'tis o'er.

*

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DESPAIR.

AND can'st thou mock mine agony, thus calm
In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?
Can you, ye flow'rets, spread your perfumed balm
'Mid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?
And you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still
Whilst throbs the tempest of my breast so high?
Can the fierce night-fiends rest on yonder hill,

And, in the eternal mansions of the sky,

Can the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie?

Hark! I hear music on the zephyr's wing,

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Louder it floats along the unruffled sky;

Some fairy sure has touch'd the viewless string-
Now faint in distant air the murmurs die,

Awhile it stills the tide of agony.

Now-now it loftier swells-again stern woe

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Arises with the awakening melody.

Again fierce torments, such as demons know, In bitterer, feller tide, on this torn bosom flow.

Arise ye sightless spirits of the storm,

Ye unseen minstrels of the aërial song,

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Pour the fierce tide around this lonely form,
And roll the tempests wildest swell along.
Dart the red lightning, wing the forked flash,

Pour from thy cloud-form'd hills the thunder's roar; Arouse the whirlwind-and let ocean dash

In fiercest tumult on the rocking shore,

Destroy this life or let earth's fabric be no more.

Yes! every tie that links me here is dead;
Mysterious fate thy mandate I obey,

Since hope and peace, and joy, for aye are fled,
I come, terrific power, I come away.

Then o'er this ruin'd soul let spirits of hell,

In triumph, laughing wildly, mock its pain;

And though with direst pangs mine heart-strings swell, I'll echo back their deadly yells again,

Cursing the power that ne'er made aught in vain.

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FRAGMENT.

YES! all is past-swift time has fled away,
Yet its swell pauses on my sickening mind;
How long will horror nerve this frame of clay?
I'm dead, and lingers yet my soul behind.
Oh! powerful fate, revoke thy deadly spell,
And yet that may not ever, ever be,
Heaven will not smile upon the work of hell;
Ah! no, for heaven cannot smile on me;
Fate, envious fate, has seal'd my wayward destiny.

I sought the cold brink of the midnight surge,
I sigh'd beneath its wave to hide my woes,

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The rising tempest sung a funeral dirge,
And on the blast a frightful yell arose.
Wild flew the meteors o'er the madden'd main,
Wilder did grief athwart my bosom glare;
Still'd was the unearthly howling, and a strain,
Swell'd 'mid the tumult of the battling air,
'Twas like a spirit's song, but yet more soft and fair.

I met a maniac, like he was to me,

I said "Poor victim wherefore dost thou roam ? "And canst thou not contend with agony,

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"That thus at midnight thou dost quit thine home?" Ah there she sleeps: cold is her bloodless form, "And I will go to slumber in her grave; "And then our ghosts, whilst raves the madden'd storm, "Will sweep at midnight o'er the wilder'd 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."

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*

*

*

THE SPECTRAL HORSEMAN.

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,

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Seeks murder and guilt when virtue sleeps,
Wing'd 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;

But aye at the close of seven years' end,

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That voice is mixed with the swell of the storm

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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.

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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 scream,

Or the laughter of fiends when they howl o'er the corpse

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 lake. More pale his cheek than the snows of Nithona

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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,

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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.

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The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure,
Yet the wildered peasant that oft passes by,

With wonder beholds the blue flash thro' his form :
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 chain'd in the caverns

To eternity, curses the champion of Erin,

Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight,

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And twine his vast wreathes round the forms of the demons; Then in agony roll his death-swimming eye-balls, Though wilder'd by death, yet never to die!

Then he shakes from his skeleton folds the nightmares,
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.

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MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES.

ART thou indeed for ever gone,

For ever, 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!