The stiff cramped team forced homeward. There arrived,

Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,

And weeps and prays-but the numb power of
Death

Spread o'er his limbs; and ere the noontide hour,
The hovering spirits of his wife and babes
Hail him immortal! Yet amid his pangs,
With interruptions long from ghastly throes,
His voice had faltered out this simple tale.

The village, where he dwelt a husbandman, By sudden inroad had been seized and fired Late on the yester evening. With his wife And little ones he hurried his escape.

They saw the neighboring hamlets flame, they heard Uproar and shrieks! and terror-struck drove on Through unfrequented roads, a weary way!

But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quenched Their evening hearth-fire; for the alarm had spread. The air clipped keen, the night was fanged with frost,

And they provisionless! The weeping wife

Ill hush'd her children's moans; and still they

moaned,

Till fright and cold and hunger drank their life. They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas

death.

He only, lashing his o'erwearied team,

Gained a sad respite, till beside the base

Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead.
Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food,
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced,
Till wakened by the maiden.-Such his tale.

Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffered,
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid
Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark!
And now her flushed tumultuous features shot
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye

Of misery fancy-crazed! and now once more
Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within
The unquiet silence of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,
Aside the beacon, up whose smouldered stones
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,
Unconscious of the driving element,

Yea, swallow'd up in the ominous dream, she sate
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber! a dim anguish
Breathed from her look! and still with pant and sob,
Inly she toiled to flee, and still subdued,
Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy,
A horror of great darkness wrapt her round,
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones,
Calming her soul,-" O Thou of the Most High
Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven
Behold expectant-

[The following fragments were intended to form part of the Poem when finished.]

"Maid beloved of Heaven,

(To her the tutelary Power exclaimed)
Of Chaos the adventurous progeny
Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire,
Fierce to regain the losses of that hour

When Love rose glittering, and his
gorgeous wings
Over the abyss fluttered with such glad noise,
As what time after long and pestful calms,
With slimy shapes and miscreated life
Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze
Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night
A heavy unimaginable moan

Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld
Stand beauteous on confusion's charmed wave.
Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound
That leads with downward windings to the cave
Of darkness palpable, desert of Death,
Sank deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots,
There many a dateless age the beldam lurked
And trembled; till, engendered by fierce Hate,
Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose,
Shaped like a black cloud marked with streaks of
fire.

It roused the Hell-Hag; she the dew damp wiped
From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze
Retraced her steps; but ere she reached the_mouth
Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused,
Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulf.

As through the dark vaults of some mouldered

tower

(Which, fearful to approach, the evening hind Circles at distance in his homeward way)

The winds breathe hollow, deemed the plaining groan

Of prisoned spirits; with such fearful voice
Night murmured, and the sound through Chaos

went.

Leaped at her call her hideous-fronted brood!
A dark behest they heard, and rushed on earth ;

Since that sad hour, in camps and courts adored, Rebels from God, and tyrants o'er Mankind!"

From his obscure haunt

Shrieked Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly dam,
Feverous yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow,
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds,
Ague, the biform hag! when early Spring
Beams on the marsh-bred vapors.

"Even so" (the exulting Maid said)

"The sainted herald of good tidings fell,
And thus they witnessed God! But now the
clouds

Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar
Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing
Loud songs of triumph! O ye spirits of God,
Hover around my mortal agonies!"

She spake, and instantly faint melody
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,
Such Measures as at calmest midnight heard
By aged hermit in his holy dream,

Foretell and solace death; and now they rise
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice
The white-robed* multitude of slaughtered saints

* Revelations, vi. 9. 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

At Heaven's wide-opened portals gratulant
Receive some martyred patriot. The harmony
Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense
Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy.

At length awakening slow, she gazed around: And through a mist, the relique of that trance. Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appeared, Its high, o'erhanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs, Glassed on the subject ocean. A vast plain Stretched opposite, where ever and anon The ploughman following sad his meagre team. Turned up fresh skulls unstartled, and the bones Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there All mingled lay beneath the common earth, Death's gloomy reconcilement! O'er the fields Stept a fair Form, repairing all she might, Her temples olive-wreathed; and where she trod, Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb. But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure, And anxious pleasure beamed in her faint eye, As she had newly left a couch of pain, Pale convalescent! (yet some time to rule With power exclusive o'er the willing world, That blest prophetic mandate then fulfilled— Peace be on Earth!) A happy while, but brief, She seemed to wander with assiduous feet, And healed the recent harm of chill and blight, And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew.

But soon a deep precursive sound moaned hollow: Black rose the clouds, and now (as in a dream) Their reddening shapes, transformed to warriorhosts,

Coursed o'er the sky, and battled in mid-air,