Death waits at the door.

See our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call'd—we must go.
Laid low, very low,

In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,

Nor the wind on the hill.

Oh! misery!

Hark! death is calling

While I speak to ye,

The jaw is falling,

The red cheek paling,

The strong limbs failing;

Ice with the warm blood mixing;

The eyeballs fixing.

Nine times goes the passing beli :

Ye merry souls, farewell.

The old earth

Had a birth,

As all men know,

Long ago.

And the old earth must die.

So let the warm winds range,

And the blue wave beat the shore ;

For even and morn

Ye will never see

Thro' eternity.

All things were born.

Ye will come never more, For all things must die.

THE KRAKEN.

BELOW the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

SONG.

THE winds, as at their hour of birth,
Leaning upon the ridged sea,

Breathed low around the rolling earth

With mellow preludes, "We are free.” The streams through many a lilied row Down-carolling to the crisped sea, Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow

Atween the blossoms, "We are free."

LILIAN.

AIRY, fairy Lilian,

Flitting, fairy Lilian,

When I ask her if she love me,

Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;

She'll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.

II.

When my passion seeks

Pleasance in love-sighs,

She, looking thro' and thro' me
Thoroughly to undo me,

Smiling, never speaks:

So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gather'd wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple