Can you, ye flowerets, spread your perfumed balm Can the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie? II. Hark! I hear music on the Zephyr's wing! Now, now, it loftier swells! again stern woe Again fierce torments, such as demons know, III. Arise, ye sightless spirits of the storm, Ye unseen minstrels of the aërial song! Pour the fierce tide around this lonely form, And roll the tempest's wildest swell along! Dart the red lightning, wing the forkèd flash, Pour from thy cloud-formed 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! IV. Yes, every tie that links me here is dead. Then o'er this ruined soul let spirits of hell, In triumph laughing wildly, mock its pain; And, though with direst pangs mine heartstrings swell, I'll echo back their deadly yells again, Cursing the Power that ne'er made aught in vain! FRAGMENT. I. YES, all is past! swift time has fled away, And yet that may not ever, ever be,— II. I sought the cold brink of the midnight surge; Wild flew the meteors o'er the maddened main,— III. I met a maniac,-like he was to me. I said: "Poor victim, wherefore dost thou roam? And canst thou not contend with agony, 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 maddened storm, Will sleep at midnight o'er the wildered wave: Wilt thou our lowly beds with tears of pity lave?" IV. "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." THE SPECTRAL HORSEMAN. WHAT was the shriek that struck fancy's ear Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore. But 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, Who has rushed uncalled to the throne of his God, 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 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, The phantom courser scours the waste, 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; With wonder beholds the blue flash through his form : More distinct than the thunder's wildest roar. Then does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight, And twine his vast wreaths round the forms of the demons; Then in agony roll his death-swimming eyeballs,— Though wildered 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. They float on the swell of the eddying tempest, MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES. ART thou indeed for ever gone For ever, ever, lost to me? 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. And Heaven does know I love thee still- When reason's judgment vainly strove Oh! I appeal to that blessed day When every sorrow sunk away! Two years of speechless bliss are gone :— The black view closes with the tomb: And thine must ever, ever be." [End of Margaret Nicholson.] THE TEAR. I. OH! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair, |