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SPIRIT.

THROW me from this tall cliff-my wings are strong,

The hurricane is raging fierce and high,
My spirit pants, and all in heat I long
To struggle upward to a purer sky,
And tread the clouds above me rolling by:
Lo, thus into the buoyant air I leap
Confident, and exulting, at a bound,
Swifter than whirlwinds, happily to sweep
On fiery wing the reeling world around:
Off with my fetters!-who shall hold me back?
My path lies there-the lightning's sudden track,
O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,-
Thus can I spurn matter, and space, and time,
Soaring above the universe sublime.

MATTER.

IN the deep clay of yonder sluggish flood
The huge behemoth makes his ancient lair,
And with slow caution heavily wallows there,
Moving above the stream, a mound of mud!

And near him, stretching to the river's edge,
In dense dark grandeur, stands the silent wood,
Whose unpierced jungles, choked with rotting sedge,
Prison the damp air from the freshening breeze:
Lo! the rhinoceros comes down this way,
Thundering furiously on-and snorting sees
The harmless monster at his awkward play,
And rushes on him from the crashing trees-

A dreadful shock, as when the Titans hurl'd Against high Jove the Himalayan world.

LIFE.

O LIFE, O glorious! sister-twin of light,
Essence of Godhead, energizing love,
Hail, gentle conqueror of dead cold night,

Hail, on the waters kindly-brooding dove!
I feel thee near me, in me: thy strange might
Flies thro' my bones like fire-my heart beats high
With thy glad presence: pain and fear and care
Hide from the lightning laughter of mine eye,
No dark unseasonable terrors dare

Disturb me, revelling in the luxury,

The new-found luxury of life and health,
This blithesome elasticity of limb,

This pleasure, in which all my senses swim,
This deep outpouring of a creature's wealth!

DEATH.

GHASTLY and weak, O dreadful monarch, Death,
With failing feet I near thy silent realm,
Upon my brain strikes chill thine icy breath,
My fluttering heart thy terrors overwhelm.
Thou sullen pilot of life's crazy bark,

How treacherously thou puttest down the helm
Just where smooth eddies hide the sunken rock;
While close behind follows the hungry shark
Snuffing his meal from far, swift with black fin
The foam dividing-ha! that sudden shock
Splits my frail skiff; upon the billows dark
A drowning wretch awhile struggling I float,
Till, just as I had hoped the wreck to win,
I feel thy bony fingers clutch my throat.

36

ELLEN GRAY.

THE EXCUSE OF AN UNFCRTUNATE.

A STARLESS night, and bitter cold;
The low dun clouds all wildly roll'd
Scudding before the blast,
And cheerlessly the frozen sleet
Adown the melancholy street

Swept onward thick and fast;

When crouched at an unfriendly door
Faint, sick, and miserably poor,

A silent woman sate,

She might be young, and had been fair
But from her eye look'd out despair,
All dim and desolate.

Was I to pass her coldly by,
Leaving her there to pine and die,

The live-long freezing night?
The secret answer of my heart
Told me I had not done my part

In flinging her a mite;

She look'd her thanks, then droop'd her nead; "Have you no friend, no home?” I said:

"Get up, poor creature, come,

You seem unhappy, faint, and weak,
How can I serve or save you-speak,
Or whither help you home?"

"Alas, kind sir, poor Ellen Gray

Has had no friend this many a day,

And, but that you seem kind—

She has not found the face of late
That look'd on her in aught but hate,

And still despairs to find:

"And for a home-would I had none! The home I have, a wicked one,

They will not let me in,

Till I can fee my jailor's hands
With the vile tribute she demands,
The wages of my sin:

"I see your goodness on me frown;
Yet hear the veriest wretch on town,
While yet in life she may
Tell the sad story of her grief-
Though Heaven alone can bring relief
To guilty Ellen Gray.

"My mother died when I was born:
And I was flung a babe forlorn
Upon the work-house floor;

My father-would I knew him not!
A squalid thief, a reckless sot,
-I dare not tell you more.

"And I was bound an infant-slave,
With no one near to love, or save
From cruel, sordid men;

A friendless, famish'd factory child,
Morn, noon, and night I toil'd and toil'd--
Yet was I happy then;

"My heart was pure, my cheek was fair, Ah, would to God a cancer there

Had eaten out its way!

For soon my tasker, dreaded man,

With treacherous wiles and arts began

To mark me for his prey.

"And month by month he vainly strove
To light the flame of lawless love
In my most loathing breast;
Oh, how I fear'd and hated him,
So basely kind, so smoothly grim,
My terror, and my pest!

"Till one day, at that prison-mill—

*

"Thenceforward droop'd my stricken head; I lived-I died, a life of dread,

Lest they should guess my shame; But weeks and months would pass away. And all too soon the bitter day

Of wrath and ruin came;

"I could not hide my alter'd form:
Then on my head the fearful storm
Of jibe and insult burst;

Men only mocked me for my fate,
But women's scorn and women's hate
Me, their poor sister, curst.

"O woman had thy kindless face,
But gentler look'd on my disgrace,
And heal'd the wounds it gave !---
I was a drowning, sinking wretch,
Whom no one loved enough to stretch
A finger out to save.

"They tore my baby from my heart,
And lock'd it in some hole apart,

Where I could hear its cry,

Such was the horrid poor-house law;

Its little throes I never saw,

Although I heard it die!

"Still the stone hearts that ruled the place

Let me not kiss my darling's face,

My little darling dead;

O, I was mad with rage and hate,
And yet all sullenly I sate,

And not a word I said.

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