NIGHT-MARE.

Sleeping in night-mare's thunderstorm-wove lap,

On sunless mountain high above the pole;

With ice for sheets, and lightning for a cap,

And tons of loadstones weighing on his soul;

And eye out-stretched upon some vasty map

Of uncouth worlds, which ever onward roll

To infinite—like Revelation's scroll.

Now falling headlong from his mountain bed

Down sulph'rous space, o'er dismal lakes;

Now held by hand of air—on wings of lead

He tries to rise—gasping—the hands' hold breaks,

And downward he reels through shadows of the dead,

Who cannot die though stalking in hell's flakes,

Falling, he catches his heart-string on some hook, and—wakes.

E.H. ^[5]