THE DREAM.
We submit these further illustrations of the moral maxims of "The Skull." In the original they are touched in phraseology scarcely unworthy of the poet's Saxon models.
As lockfasted in slumber's arms
I lay and dream'd (so dreams our race
When every spectral object charms,
To melt, like shadow, in the chase),
A vision came; mine ear confess'd
Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught!
Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest,
Or fills the world thy crave of thought?
* * * * *
"Since fell transgression ravaged here
And reft Man's garden-joys away,
He weeps his unavailing tear,
And straggles, like a lamb astray.
"With shrilling bleat for comfort hie
To every pinfold, humankind;
Ah, there the fostering teat is dry,
The stranger mother proves unkind.
"No rest for toil, no drink for drought,
For bosom-peace the shadow's wing—
So feeds expectancy on nought,
And suckles every lying thing.
"Some woe for ever wreathes its chain,
And hope foretells the clasp undone;
Relief at handbreadth seems, in vain
Thy fetter'd arms embrace—'tis gone!
"Not all that trial's lore unlearns
Of all the lies that life betrays,
Avails, for still desire returns—
The last day's folly is to-day's.