8.

    Again (in that thought what a healing is found!)
      To meet in the Eden to which thou art fled!—­
    Hark, the coffin sinks down with a dull, sullen sound,
      And the ropes rattle over the sleep of the dead. 
    And we cling to each other!—­O Grave, he is thine! 
      The eye tells the woe that is mute to the ears—­
    And we dare to resent what we grudge to resign,
      Till the heart’s sinful murmur is choked in its tears.

      Pale at its ghastly noon,
    Pauses above the death-still wood—­the moon! 
    The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
      The clouds descend in rain;
      Mourning, the wan stars wane,
    Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres. 
    The dull clods swell into the sullen mound;
      Earth, one look yet upon the prey we gave! 
    The Grave locks up the treasure it has found;
    Higher and higher swells the sullen mound—­
      Never gives back the Grave!

* * * * *

A GROUP IN TARTARUS.

    Hark, as hoarse murmurs of a gathering sea—­
      As brooks that howling through black gorges go,
    Groans sullen, hollow, and eternally,
      One wailing Woe! 
    Sharp Anguish shrinks the shadows there;
    And blasphemous Despair
    Yells its wild curse from jaws that never close;
      And ghastly eyes for ever
      Stare on the bridge of the relentless River,
    Or watch the mournful wave as year on year it flows,
      And ask each other, with parch’d lips that writhe
    Into a whisper, “When the end shall be!”
      The end?—­Lo, broken in Time’s hand the scythe,
    And round and round revolves Eternity!

* * * * *

ELYSIUM.

    Past the despairing wail—­
    And the bright banquets of the Elysian Vale
      Melt every care away! 
    Delight, that breathes and moves for ever,
    Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river! 
      Elysian life survey! 
    There, fresh with youth, o’er jocund meads,
    His youngest west-winds blithely leads
      The ever-blooming May. 
    Thorough gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the Hours,
    In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers,
    And Truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day,
    And joy to-day and joy to-morrow,
      But wafts the airy soul aloft;
    The very name is lost to Sorrow,
      And Pain is Rapture tuned more exquisitely soft. 
    Here the Pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb,
    And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim,
      The load he shall bear never more;
    Here the Mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams,
    Lull’d with harp-strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams,