The Sun dies in his sphere, a kneaded clod,
The empyreal canopy doth bow,

Dissolved in darkness o'er the dying God!

-All Hell reverberates with the stricken blow;
Her caves cry to each other, peal for peal,
Yea, all her echoes are rejoicing now;

-(What boots it hence their mysteries to conceal ?)-- And, like the voices of the waters, crowd

Together in their rivalry and zeal.

He from the Heaven of heavens of old forthrode,
In the paternal chariot did pursue,

And hurled Rebellion from that high abode--

I heard his last prayer, the last sigh he drew,
And I beheld him bow his holy head,
Whose locks were humid with ambrosial dew.

Chief Warrior, and chief Victor, bravely sped---
I conquer conquerors---all revenges wreak---
Thou, my last Foe, transfixed, suspended, dead!"
---Within that shadowy vault a short shrill shriek,
Like eastern gust in crannies of old tower,
There multiplies itself,... of what to speak?

---Writhed as a woman in her travail hour
Spectral, and yet in pain majestical,
How ghastly in her beauty's fatal dower,

The Phantasm of pale Earth! Amidst the Hall
She weeps,.. anon, into a fading wreath,
Dissolved; like mountain-mist that borrows all

Shapes vague and void, and melts upon the heath. Cold lightning gleams, an ice-bolt rives; they sweep That region like a storm---And where is Death?

Even as the pageant of a haunted sleep

Of dreams whence the flesh quakes, that CentaurWraith,

With those huge Shapes, and that Sepulchral Deep, Have vanished from the eye of Fancy and of Faith.

VI.

THE DARKNESS.*

I. 1. O Spirit of the Universe! whereby
Things have intelligible entity,

And are arrayed in glory to man's eye,

And Nature is, because perceived to be;
O thou, unto sad Earth as soul to sense,
Life-giving Light! her graves even yearn for thee...

Strange echoes in the dreamy gloom commence,
Ancestral ages are unsepulchred,

Old oracles awaken from suspense.

The Life—the Light of men is darkened—

Dark is the lustre of the Seraphim—

The Word is silent,-lo, the heavens are dead.

*This Ode is regular, consisting of two Strophes, Antistrophes, and Epodes.

In mere nihility inane and dim,

This wreck of elements anon subsides;

Man hath slain God,-Creation dies with Him;
Time travels not-and Space no more abides.
Inquire of Night and Chaos. Can ye be,
If God be not? Adore him,--Deicides!

-May man survive his Maker? or, Light! thee?
If thou wert quenched, earth would be formless, void,
And darkness o'er the deep brood silently.

I. 2. Thou art not quenched, where Thought is still enjoyed

Created Light of uncreated Light!

But even thou wert not, were Mind destroyed;

Thy heavenly radiance thou dost reunite

Unto its origin, in the obscure

Of the Eternal Being hidden quite.

---Let the Almighty only sleep, no more

Motion and Time revolve. Their sweet concents
Both Heaven and Earth suspend; all tasks are o'er :

The Watchers languish in their guardian tents;
Nature's heart pauseth, in whose pulse we live;
And Man doth slumber with the Elements.

Should he wax weary or old; the land would rive,
In arid clefts, and yawning gulphs disclose
Tartarean mysteries for the sky to shrive,

But that th' unconscious stars, in blind repose,
Like some fair scroll's illumined characters,
Wrinkled with eld, were darkling ere they rose.

And lo, the once Almighty Voice deters
Ocean no more, far spooming, huge and wild;
But his dull weeds stagnate our Sepulchres.

---And might He die; .. would He die like a child
Of Earth, and perish from his Universe?

Nay, it from him would perish first; exiled.--

I. 3. With the great Sun and Moon and rolling Spheres, Swifter than a god's thought, precipitate,

Loosed from his Providence, it would disperse

Into the abyss of Chaos, ruinate :

And Chaos'-self be not. Not on the wreck
Of the demolished Earths, the expiring state

Of the Heaven of heavens, as from a courser's neck
Elanced, sheer o'er destruction's brink, shall He,
With his sublime despair, haste on, and deck

The End of All. Time, Space, Eternity,
Shall pass away, Darkness and Death be gone ;
They perish from his presence utterly,

They leave him in his solitude alone;
'Till unimaginable doom obscure,
Delete, annihilate, the Essential One.

Thou art, oh man; they are ;---He is, be sure.
Great God! for ever and for aye, dost Thou,
Sole Dweller of Eternity, endure.

Thou only dost the Earth and Heavens endow—
From thee her seasons hath the appointed Moon,
And the bright Stars thy handy work avow!

II.1. Her radiant Brother gains his highest noon, And, at Thy bidding, hasteneth to his gaol,--And, like a martyr, hails his fiery boon,

(Wherewith the mountain burneth like a coal,)
And sets in flame; soon to renew his race,
And, like a hero who hath run the whole,

To die again in light, and pride of place,
And glory, as he lived. Darkness God makes;
Yea, this unnatural Night that shades Noon's face,

It is His work---whereat the firm Earth quakes
In dread of dissolution---as light's car

It is to him---'tis He the earth who shakes,

Who watereth from his chambers high and far
The hills; and into the deep vale that sinks
"Twixt them, irriguous and irregular,

Who sendeth springs, whereat the field-beast drinks,
His thirst the wild ass quenches, and whereby,
Among the branches foliaging their brinks,

The fowls of heaven do blend their harmony;
Who makes to soar the vapours, and in might
Brings forth the winds out of his armoury.

II. 2. Hushed are the forest-beasts, in hunger's spite,
Yea, the young lions roar not for their prey;
They seek not food from God, this worse than night,

But couch close in their dens with strange dismay.
In whirlwind, and in earthquake, and in fire,
And in the darkness and the silence, they

K