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LIBERTY.

THE fiery mountains answer each other;

Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round winter's zone
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.

From a single cloud the lightning flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground.

But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanos: the sun's bright lamp
To thine is a fen-fire damp.

From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,—
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.

TO

MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm-thus did not thou;
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy looks-I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine
With soothing pity upon mine.

To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself alone;
To curse the life which is the cage

Of fettered grief that dares not groan,

Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony.

Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,

The [

] thou alone should be,

To spend years thus, and be rewarded,

As thou, sweet love, requited me

When none were near-Oh! I did wake /

From torture for that moment's sake.

Upon my heart thy accents sweet

Of peace and pity, fell like dew

On flowers half dead ;--thy lips did meet

Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes threw Their soft persuasion on my brain, Charming away its dream of pain.

We are not happy, sweet; our state
Is strange and full of doubt and fear;
More need of words that ills abate ;-

Reserve or censure come not near
Our sacred friendship, lest there be
No solace left for thee and me.

Gentle and good and mild thou art,
Nor I can live if thou appear

Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart

1

Away from me, or stoop to wear

The mask of scorn, although it be
To hide the love you feel for me.

SONG OF A SPIRIT.

WITHIN the silent centre of the earth

My mansion is; where I have lived insphered
From the beginning, and around my sleep
Have woven all the wondrous imagery

Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world;
Infinite depths of unknown elements
Massed into one impenetrable mask;
Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins
Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron.
And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven
I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves,
And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns
In the dark space of interstellar air.

and clouds,

THE ISLE.

THERE was a little lawny islet
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven:

And its roof was flowers and leaves

Which the summer's breath enweaves,

Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,

Each a gem engraven.

Girt by many an azure wave

With which the clouds and mountains pave
A lake's blue chasm.

SONNET I.

YE hasten to the dead! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
Oh thou quick Heart which pantest to possess
All that anticipation feigneth fair!

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou may'st go,
And that which never yet was known wouldst know
Oh, whither hasten ye that thus ye press

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path,
Seeking alike from happiness and woe

A refuge in the cavern of grey death?

Oh heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?

SONNET II.

POLITICAL GREATNESS.

NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor faine,

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Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
History is but the shadow of their shame,
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit
By force or custom? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

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