Happier than brief-dated man,
Living twenty times his span ;
Far less happy, for we have
Help nor hope beyond the grave!
Man awakes to joy or sorrow;

Ours the sleep that knows no morrow.

This is all that I can show

This is all that thou may'st know.

Ay! and I taught thee the word and the spell To waken me here by the Fairies' Well.

But thou hast loved the heron and hawk,

More than to seek my haunted walk;

And thou hast loved the lance and the sword,
More than good text and holy word;

And thou hast loved the deer to track,

More than the lines and the letters black;
And thou art a ranger of moss and wood,
And scornest the nurture of gentle blood.

Thy craven fear my truth accused,
Thine idlehood my trust abused;
He that draws to harbour late,
Must sleep without, or burst the gate,
There is a star for thee which burn'd,
Its influence wanes, its course is turn'd;
Valour and constancy alone

Can bring thee back the chance that's flown.

Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
Happiest they of human race,
To whom God has granted grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

Many a fathom dark and deep
I have laid the book to sleep;
Ethereal fires around it glowing—
Ethereal music ever flowing-

The sacred pledge of Heav'n

All things revere,

Each in his sphere,

Save man for whom 'twas giv❜n: Lend thy hand, and thou shalt spy Things ne'er seen by mortal eye.

Thou may'st drive the dull steer,
And chase the king's deer,

But never more come near

This haunted well.

Here lies the volume thou hast boldly sought; Touch it, and take it, 'twill dearly be bought.

Rash thy deed,

Mortal weed

To immortal flames applying;

Rasher trust

Has thing of dust,

On his own weak worth relying:

Strip thee of such fences vain,
Strip, and prove thy luck again.

Mortal warp and mortal woof
Cannot brook this charmed roof;
All that mortal art hath wrought
In our cell returns to nought.
The molten gold returns to clay,
The polish'd diamond melts away;
All is alter'd, all is flown,

Nought stands fast but truth alone.

Not for that thy quest give o'er:
Courage! prove thy chance once more.

Alas! alas!

Not ours the grace

These holy characters to trace:
Idle forms of painted air,

Not to us is given to share

The boon bestow'd on Adam's race.

With patience bide,

Heaven will provide

The fitting time, the fitting guide.

Chap. xii.

(7.) TO THE SAME.

"She spoke, and her speech was still song, or rather measured chant; but, as if now more familiar, it flowed occasionally in modulated blank verse, and, as other times, in the lyrical measure which she had used at their former meeting."

This is the day when the fairy kind
Sit weeping alone for their hopeless lot,
And the wood-maiden sighs to the sighing wind,
And the mermaiden weeps in her crystal grot;
For this is a day that the deed was wrought,

In which we have neither part nor share,

For the children of clay was salvation bought,

But not for the forms of sea or air!

And ever the mortal is most forlorn,

Who meeteth our race on the Friday morn.

Daring youth! for thee it is well,
Here calling me in haunted dell,
That thy heart has not quail'd,

Nor thy courage fail'd,

And that thou couldst brook

The angry look

Of Her of Avenel.

Did one limb shiver,

Or an eyelid quiver,

Thou wert lost for ever.

Though I am form'd from the ether blue,
And my blood is of the unfallen dew,
And thou art framed of mud and dust,
'Tis thine to speak, reply I must.

A mightier wizard far than I
Wields o'er the universe his power;
Him owns the eagle in the sky,
The turtle in the bower.

Changeful in shape, yet mightiest still,

.