He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps For they did part with mutual smiles: he passed IV. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. .V. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. VI. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was returned. I saw him stand Before an altar with a gentle bride: Her face was fair,-but was not that which made His bosom in its solitude; and then, But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, VII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. What is it but the telescope of truth! VIII. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. Through that which had been death to many men, He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the book of night was opened wide, IX. My dream was past; it had no farther change. It was of a strange order that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one To end in madness-both in misery. THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal, And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! A man must serve his time to every trade With that water as this wine, The libation I would pour Would be peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore. SONNET ON CHILLON. Eternal spirit of the chainless mind! WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING When coldness wraps this suffering clay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. By steps each planet's heavenly way? Eternal, boundless, undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth, or skies displayed, Shall it survey, shall it recall : Each fainter trace that memory holds, So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all, that was, at once appears. Before creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the farthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track, And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quenched or system breaks, Fixed in its own eternity. Above, or love, hope, hate, or fear, It lives all passionless and pure; An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing Forgetting what it was to die FROM "THE PROPHECY OF DANTE." CANTO IV. Many are poets who have never penned Of passion, and their frailties linked to fame, Aud be the new Prometheus of new men, Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late, Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain, And vultures to the heart of the bestower, Who, having lavished his high gift in vain, Lies chained to his lone rock by the sea-shore! So be it; we can bear.-But thus all they Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power, Which still recoils from its encumbering clay, Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er The forms which their creations may essay, Are bards; the kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, Or deify the canvas till it shine That they who kneel to idols so divine Richard Harris Barham. Barham (1788-1845) was a native of London. He studied for the ministry, and became a minor canon of St. Paul's, and rector of St. Augustine and St. Faith's, London. He wrote, for Bentley's Miscellany, the " Ingoldsby Legends," which came out in numbers, and were subsequently collected in three serial volumes. It was the great literary success of his life. Since the days of Butler's "Hudibras," the drollery that can be invested in rhymes has rarely been so amply or felicitously exemplified. A Life of Barham, by his son, appeared in 1870. THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS. The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair, Many a monk and many a friar, And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee. Never, I ween, Was a prouder seen, Read of in books or dreamed of in dreams, Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims! In and out, Through the motley rout, The little Jackdaw kept hopping about; Like a dog in a fair, And dishes and plates, Cowl and cope and rochet and pall, He perched on the chair Where in state the great Lord Cardinal sat, In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat; And he peered in the face Of his Lordship's grace, With a satisfied look, as if to say, "We two are the greatest folks here to-day!" And the priests with awe, As such freaks they saw, Break no commandment, for high heaven is there Said, "The devil must be in that little Jackdaw." Transfused, transfigurated: and the line Of poesy which peoples but the air With thought and beings of our thought reflected, Can do no more: then let the artist share The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected Faints o'er the labor unapproved-Alas! Despair and genius are too oft connected. The feast was over, the board was cleared, Came, in order due, Two by two, Marching that grand refectory through! As any that flows between Rheims and Namur, A napkin bore Of the bed-white diaper fringed with pink, The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight And not thinking at all about little Jackdaws, By the side of his plate, While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait; Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing, That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring! There's a cry and a shout, And a deuce of a rout, And nobody seems to know what he's about, But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out; The friars are kneeling, And hunting and feeling The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling. The Cardinal drew Off each plum-colored shoe, And left his red stockings exposed to the view; He peeps, and he feels In the toes and the heels. They turn up the dishes,-they turn up the plates,- They turn up the rugs, They can't find THE RING! He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed; But what gave rise To no little surprise, Nobody seemed one penny the worse! The day was gone, The night came on, The monks and the friars they searched till dawn; When the sacristan saw, On crumpled claw, Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw! No longer gay, As on yesterday; His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way: So wasted each limb, That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM! That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing, That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's RING!" The poor little Jackdaw, When the monks he saw, Feebly gave veut to the ghost of a caw; He limped on before, Till they came to the back of the belfry door, Where the first thing they saw, 'Mid the sticks and the straw, Was the ring in the nest of that little Jackdaw! And the Abbot declared that "when nobody twig- Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book, |