From out annihilation's vacancy, (The elements, as of a second birth, Kindling within, at first a fitful spark, And then a light which, glowing to a blaze, Fill'd me with genial life,) I seemed to wake Upon a bed of bloom. The breath of spring Scented the air; mingling their odours sweet, The bright jonquil, the lily of the vale, The primrose, and the daffodil, o'erspread The fresh green turf; and, as it were in love, Around the boughs of budding lilac wreathed The honeysuckle, rich in earlier leaves, Gold-tinctured now, for sunrise fill'd the clouds With purple glory, and with aureate beams The dew-refreshen'd earth. Up, up, the larks Mounted to heaven, as did the angel wings Of old in Jacob's vision; and the fly, Awakening from its wintry sleep, once more Spread, humming, to the light its gauzy wings. XI. A happy being in a happy place, As 'twere a captive from his chains released, His dungeon and its darkness, there I lay Nestling, amid the sun-illumined flowers, Revolving silently the varied scenes, Grotesque and grim, 'mid which my erring feet Had stumbled; and a brightness darting in On my mysterious night-mare, something told The what and wherefore of the effigies grim-- The wolfish, never-resting, tombless man, Voicelessly haunting that ancestral home-- Yea of his destiny for evermore To suffer fearful life-in-death, until A victim suffer'd from the sons of men, To soothe the cravings of insatiate hell; An agony for age undergone-- An agony for ages to be borne, Hope, still elusive, baffled by despair. XII. Thus as an eagle, from the altitude Of the mid-sky, its pride of place attain'd, Glances around the illimitable void, And sees no goal, and finds no resting-place In the blue, boundless depths--then, silently, Pauses on wing, and with gyrations down And down descends thorough the blinding clouds, In billowy masses, many-hued, around Floating, until their confines past, green earth Once more appears, and on its loftiest crag The nest, wherein 'tis bliss to rest his plumes Flight-wearied--so, from farthest dreamland's shores, Where clouds and chaos form the continents, And reason reigns not, Fancy back return'd To sights and sounds familiar--to the birds Singing above--and the bright vale beneath, With cottages and trees--and the blue sky-- And the glad waters murmuring to the sun. FRENCH SOCIALISTS.[28]