Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet ex-

press,

How pure, how dear their dwellingplace.

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by

power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

ceit!

Whose honest heart is still his master's own,

Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth;

While man, vein insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive

heaven.

O man! thou feeble tenant of an

hour,

HE who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled, The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers),

And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there,
The fixed yet tender traits that
streak

The languor of the placid check,
And--but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not
now,

And but for that chill changeless
brow,

Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous
hour,

He still might doubt the tyrant's power;

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,

The first last look by death revealed!

[From The Dream.]

SLEEP.

OUR life is twofold! Sleep hath its own world,

A boundary between the things misnamed

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,

And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,

They take a weight from off our waking toils,

They do divide our being; they be