THE DREAM OF ARBACES. FROM THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. HE sleep of the Egyptian had been unusually profound during the night, but as the dawn approached it was disturbed by strange and unquiet dreams which impressed him the more as they were colored by the peculiar philosophy he embraced. He thought that he was transported to the bowels of the earth, and that he stood alone in a mighty cavern supported by enormous columns of rough and primeval rock, lost, as they ascended, in the vastness of a shadow athwart whose eternal darkness no beam of day had ever glanced. And in the space between these columns were huge wheels that whirled round and round unceasingly and with a rushing and roaring noise. Only to the right and left extremities of the cavern the space between the pillars was left bare, and the apertures stretched away into galleries not wholly dark, but dimly lighted by wandering and erratic fires, that, meteor-like, now crept (as the snake creeps) along the rugged and dank soil, and now leaped fiercely to and fro, darting across the vast gloom in wild gambols, suddenly disappearing, and as suddenly bursting into tenfold brilliancy and power. And while he gazed wonderingly upon the gallery to the left, thin mistlike, aërial shapes passed slowly up; and when they had gained the hall, they seemed to rise aloft and to vanish, as the smoke vanishes, in the measureless ascent. He turned in fear toward the opposite extremity, and, behold! there came swiftly from the gloom above similar shadows, which swept hurriedly along the gallery to the right, as if borne involuntarily adown the tides of some invisible stream, and the faces of these spectres were more distinct than those that emerged from the opposite passage, and on some was joy, and on others sorrow; some were vivid with expectation and hope, some unutterably dejected by awe and horror. And so they passed swift and constantly on, till the eyes of the gazer grew dizzy and blinded with the whirl of an ever-varying succession of things impelled by a power apparently not their own. Arbaces turned away, and in the recess of the hall he saw the mighty form of a giantess seated upon a pile of skulls, and her hands were busy upon a pale and shadowy woof; and he saw that the woof communicated with the numberless wheels, as if it guided the machinery of their movements. He thought his feet, by some secret agency, were impelled toward the female, and that he was borne onward till he stood before her, face to face. The countenance of the giantess was solemn and hushed and beautifully serene. It was as the face of some colossal sculpture of his own ancestral sphinx. No passion, no human emotion, disturbed its brooding and unwrinkled brow; there was Ere he could answer Arbaces felt a rushing wind sweep down the cavern, as the wings of a giant god. Borne aloft from the ground and whirled on high as a leaf in the storms of autumn, he beheld himself in the midst of the spectres of the dead and hurrying with them along the length of gloom. As in vain and impotent despair he struggled against the impelling power, he thought the wind grew into something like a shape-a spectral outline of the wings and talons of an eagle, with limbs floating far and indistinctly along the air, and eyes that, alone clearly and vividly seen, glared stonily and remorselessly on his own. "What art thou?" again said the voice of the Egyptian. "To what dost thou bear me?" my "That," answered the giant-mother, "which thou beholdest to the left is the gallery of the unborn. The shadows that flit onward and upward into the world are the souls that pass from the long eternity of being to their destined pilgrimage on earth. That which thou "I am that which thou hast acknowledged" beholdest to thy right, wherein the shadows de--and the spectre laughed aloud—" and scending from above sweep on, equally un- name is Necessity." known and dim, is the gallery of the dead." "And wherefore," said the voice of Arbaces, "yon wandering lights, that so wildly break the darkness, but only break, not reveal?" Dark fool of the human sciences ! dreamer of the stars and would-be decipherer of the heart and origin of things! those lights are but the glimmerings of such knowledge as is vouchsafed to Nature to work her way, to trace enough of the past and future to give providence to her designs. Judge, then, puppet as thou art, what lights are reserved for thee." "To happiness or to woe?" "As thou hast sown, so shalt thou 66 reap." Dread thing, not so! If thou art the ruler of life, thine are my misdeeds, not mine.' "I am but the breath of God," answered the mighty wind. "Then is my wisdom vain!" groaned the dreamer. "The husbandman accuses not fate when, having sown thistles, he reaps not corn. Thou hast sown crime: accuse not fate if thou reapest not the harvest of virtue." IF THE SUICIDE. death were nothing and naught after death, If when men died at once they ceased to be, debauchee the drunkard Reel over his full bowl, and when 'tis drained The scene suddenly changed. Arbaces was in a place of human bones; and, lo! in the midst of them was a skull, and the skull, still retaining its fleshless hollows, assumed slowly and in the mysterious confusion of a dream the face of Apæcides, and Untrembling mouth the heavens; then might forth from the grinning jaws there crept a small worm, and it crawled to the feet of Arbaces. He attempted to stamp on it and crush it, but it became longer and larger with that attempt. It swelled and bloated till it grew into a vast serpent; it coiled itself round the limbs of Arbaces; it crunched his bones; it raised its glaring eyes and poisonous jaws to his face. He writhed in vain; he withered; he gasped beneath the influence of the blighting breath; he felt himself blasted into death. And then a voice came from the reptile, which still bore the face of Apæcides, and rang in his reeling ear: "Thy victim is thy judge! The worm thou wouldst crush becomes the serpent that devours thee." With a shriek of wrath and woe and despairing resistance, Arbaces awoke, his hair on end, his brow bathed in dew, his eyes glazed and staring, his mighty frame quivering as an infant's beneath the agony of that dream. He awoke; he collected himself; he blessed the gods whom he disbelieved that he was in a dream. EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. HEALTH. That's weary of the world and tired of life Death's thousand doors stand open. Who The ill-pleased guest to sit out his full time tate, Self-preservation, fall by her own act? THE ingredients of health and long life Just reeking from self-slaughter, in a rage To rush into the presence of our Judge, Our time is fixed, and all our days are numbered How long, how short, we know not; this we know: Duty requires we calmly wait the summons, Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission, Like a voice from those who love us, When the waves are round me breaking Like sentries that must keep their destined What would not I give to wander Those only are the brave who keep their And keep it to the last. To run away Is but a coward's trick; to run away By boldly venturing on a world unknown ROBERT BLAIR. ISLE OF BEAUTY, FARE THEE WELL! S1 HADES of ev'ning, close not o'er us; Morn, alas! will not restore us Yonder dim and distant isle. Still my fancy can discover Sunny spots where friends may dwell; Darker shadows round us hover: Isle of Beauty, fare thee well! "Tis the hour when happy faces Smile around the taper's light; Who will fill our vacant places, Who will sing our songs, to-night? Through the mist that floats above us Faintly sounds the vesper-bell THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY. THE POET'S EPITAPH, ESCAPED the gloom of mortal life, a soul Here leaves its mouldering tenement of clay Safe where no cares their whelming billows roll, No doubts bewilder and no hopes betray. Like thee I once have stemmed the sea of life, Like thee have languished after empty joys, Like thee have labored in the stormy strife, Been grieved for trifles and amused with toys. Yet for a while 'gainst Passion's threatful blast Let steady Reason urge the struggling oar; Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last Gives to thy longing eye the blissful shore. Forgive my lapses, for thyself mayst fall; JAMES BEATTIE. Oh, who shall lightly say that fame THE GRAVE OF COLUMBUS. ILENCE, solemn, awful, deep, SILE Doth in that hall of Death her empire Whilst in that sound there is a charm keep. The nerves to brace, the heart to warm, Save when at times the hollow pavement, As, thinking of the mighty dead, smote By solitary wanderer's foot, amain The young from slothful couch will start, Oh, who shall lightly say that fame A circling loud response receives again. near: "Ha! tread my feet so near that sacred Sunk in Oblivion's murky bed, A desert bare, a shipless sea? ground?" He stops and bows his head. "Columbus They are the distant objects seen, The lofty marks of what hath been. resteth here!" Some ardent youth, perhaps, ere from his home Oh, who shall lightly say that fame He launch his venturous bark, will hither Is nothing but an empty name, come, Read fondly o'er and o'er his graven name Till, wrapped in Fancy's wild delusive dream, Seems through the hero's shroud to whistle When memory of the mighty dead, To earth-worn pilgrims' wistful eye, That point to immortality? A twinkling speck, but fixed and bright, Each hero shines, and lures the soul To gain the distant happy goal. For is there one who, musing o'er the grave The clock's deep pendulum, swinging through Where lies interred the good, the wise, the still; the blast, Sounds like the rocking of the lofty mast; While fitful gusts rave like his clamorous band, Mixed with the accents of his high command. Slowly the stripling quits the pensive scene, And burns and sighs and weeps to be what he has been. brave, Can poorly think beneath the mouldering That noble being shall for ever sleep? swells; "Though his cered corpse lies here, with God his spirit dwells." JOANNA BAILLIE, |