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Still baffled, and yet burning still!
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know,
Whether I suffered, or I did:
For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights pass'd: the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me Distemper's worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child;

And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,—
For aye entempesting anew

The unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do!
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?
To be beloved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed.

T

LIMBO.

IS a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place,
Yet name it so ;-where Time and weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing,
Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;-
Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,
Not mark'd by flit of Shades,-unmeaning they
As moonlight on the dial of the day!

But that is lovely-looks like human Time,—
An old man with a steady look sublime,
That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;
But he is blind—a statue hath such eyes;—
Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance,
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with foretop bold and high,
He gazes still,-his eyeless face all eye;—
As 'twere an organ full of silent sight,
His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light!—
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb-
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!
No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,
Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure,
By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;

Hell knows a fear far worse,

A fear-a future state;-'tis positive Negation!

NE PLUS ULTRA.

SOLE

OLE Positive of Night!
Antipathist of Light!

Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod-
The one permitted opposite of God!-
Condensed blackness and abysmal storm
Compacted to one sceptre

Arms the Grasp enorm-
The Intercepter-

The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!
The Dragon foul and fell—

The unrevealable,

And hidden one, whose breath

Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!-
Ah! sole despair

Of both th' eternities in Heaven!
Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,
The all-compassionate!

Save to the Lampads Seven Reveal'd to none of all th' Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven,

That watch the throne of Heaven!

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FACILE credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles
in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis
nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et
singulorum munera? Quid agunt? quæ loca habitant?
Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum,
nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque
in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi
imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ
minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas
cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, mo-
dusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distin-
guamus. T.
BURNET. ARCHEOL. PHIL. p. 68.

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"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,

"There was a ship," quoth he.

An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth

one.

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

The wedding. He holds him with his glittering eye-
guest is spell-
bound by the The wedding-guest stood still,
eye of the old

sea-faring man, and

constrained to hear his tale.

The Mariner

tells how the

ship sailed southward

with a good

And listens like a three year's child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light house top.

The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

wind and fair Went down into the sea.

weather till

it reached the

line.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The wedding. The bride hath paced into the hall, guest heareth Red as a rose is she;

the bridal

music; but

the mariner continueth

his tale.

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;

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