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‘Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing

‘Were lost in the white day; others like elves 490
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;

‘And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar hands,…
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes 495

‘Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures; others played
Under the crown which girt with empire

‘A baby’s or an idiot’s brow, and made
Their nests in it. The old anatomies 500
Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade

‘Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
To reassume the delegated power,
Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,

‘Who made this earth their charnel. Others more 505
Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar;

Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;– 510

‘And others, like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

‘Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained 515
In drops of sorrow. I became aware

‘Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
The track in which we moved. After brief space,
From every form the beauty slowly waned;

‘From every firmest limb and fairest face 520
The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
The action and the shape without the grace

‘Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,
Desire, like a lioness bereft 525

‘Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one
Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

‘In autumn evening from a poplar tree. 530
Each like himself and like each other were
At first; but some distorted seemed to be

‘Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;
And of this stuff the car’s creative ray
Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,

‘As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way 535
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
And form of all; and long before the day

‘Was old, the joy which waked like heaven’s glance
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance, 540

‘And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside;–
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,
And least of strength and beauty did abide.

‘Then, what is life? I cried.’–

CANCELLED OPENING OF THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

[Published by Miss M. Blind, “Westminster Review”, July, 1870.]

Out of the eastern shadow of the Earth,
Amid the clouds upon its margin gray
Scattered by Night to swathe in its bright birth