THE

TRIUMPH OF DEATH.

PART THE SECOND.

THAT fearful night that closed on Laura's doom
(Quenched, like the day-star in Cimmerian gloom;
But fated, too, like him, with rising ray,

To mix her splendour with empyreal day :)
Was come, and found me with benighted eyes
Mourning her passage to her native skies.
And now her sacred dews Aurora shed,

That chace the dreams by earthy vapours bred;
And genuine visions from the hallow'd seat
Of heavenly truth, in airy pageant, fleet

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Through the rapt mind; when, like another day,
Doubling the splendours of the matin ray,
A form seraphic, with a crown of light
Too radiant for the strength of mortal sight,
Her station left, where many a living star
Dispens❜d a soft celestial charm afar.

That hand, which oft I long'd to touch in vain.
That hand, so oft refus'd with cold disdain,

She seem'd without reluctance to bestow,
Enkindling rapture's soft Elysian glow.
"And is your Laura yet unknown?" she cried:
"Will you not recognise your gentle guide

That led you from Oblivion's dusky vale,
The sunny hill of high renown to scale?"

She spoke, and led me to a flowery seat,
Where shading beech and laurel seem'd to meet;
While, mingling tears of grief and glad surprise,

Sighing I said "What demon sealed mine eyes?

Say, do you live? or share the common doom

In the dark chambers of the silent tomb?".

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"Oh! mine is life indeed!" with matchless grace
She said; "but you are bound in Death's embrace,
And still in that cold jail art doom'd to pine
Till the strong barrier yields to power divine.
But time is short-repress your fond desire
Too much or too minutely to inquire-

The day is near."-I then returned in haste,
"O tell me when the dream of life is past,
What terrors are in death!". The vision fair

Thus seem'd to answer with benignant air:

"While in the common track your fancy flows,
And Ignorance her baleful umbrage throws
O'er your sick mind, your sin-degraded soul
Can never taste the joys above the pole.

Death, to the mind from mortal passions free,
Opes the fair palace of eternity:

But to the mole-eyed, self-embruted train,

*

That glorious scene were only change of pain. 48

* See the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero.

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Oh! could my spirit, lodg'd within your breast,
Infuse the faintest rapture of the blest,

That parting shock which now your soul annoys
Would raise your faculties to boundless joys."

SHE spoke, and seemed to fix her ardent eyes
In sacred silence on the glowing skies.
The time was opportune my doubts to clear,
And thus I scann'd the cause of general fear:-
"Nero and Caius, with Etruria's lord *,
Marius, Sylla's far-destroying sword;

The pains that grind the joints, the fever's flame,
And each disease that wastes the human frame;
With dire ingredients fill the bitter draught,

And make our exit horrible to thought."

ور

"Alas!" she cried, "the family of Pain

That lead the car of Death (a dreadful train) 4

* Mezentius---see Virg. l. 10.

Appall each sense; and fear of worse behind
Like heaven's own thunder smites the trembling mind.
But when the prowess of victorious Faith
Wafts the weak spirit o'er the gulf of Death,
What then is Death but one expiring sigh,
That bears a new-fledg'd angel to the sky!"-
When now more near the fatal moment drew,
Methought within an holy instinct grew;

Though my sick frame, at Fate's imperious call,
Seem'd like a fabric tottering to its fall;

When, in sad accents, tremulous and slow,

This mournful chant beside me seem'd to flow:

Unhappy he, whose hours in tardy train Seem each a day of long-protracted pain! One vision haunts him through the tedious By land and sea, to lasting woes a prey: One lovely vision fills the gloomy void

way

On that his thoughts and words are all employed,"
I turn'd me at the sound, and spied the dame

Whose caution temper'd oft our mutual flame;

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