And when we have said, and seen, and done, and had, Enjoyed and suffered, all we have wished and feared-- From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing-- There can come but one more change--try it--death. _Oh! it is great to feel we care for nothing_-- That hope, nor love, nor fear, nor aught of earth Can check the royal lavishment of life; But like a streamer strown upon the wind, We fling our souls to fate and to the future. And to die young is youth's divinest gift-- To pass from one world fresh into another Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret, And feel the immortal impulse from within Which makes the coming life cry alway--On! There is a fire-fly in the southern clime Which shineth only when upon the wing; So is it with the mind: when once we rest We darken." We have not yet given any favourable specimen of those more hardy and adventurous flights of imagination--those shadowy grandeurs--which may be said to be peculiarly characteristic of _Festus_. Selection is not easy. As, in illustrating the exaggerations and deformities of the work, it is difficult to quote many lines together without encountering something really fine, and which would be _felt_ as such, if it could be removed from its unfortunate neighbourhood; so also it is equally difficult to cite any moderately long passage, for the purpose of justifying admiration, without being suddenly arrested by something very grotesque and absurd. We shall, however, make two selections from these bolder portions of the drama: the first shall be his description of Hell; the second, one of those dreams or visions in which our poet so much delights:-- "_Lucifer._ Behold my world! Man's science counts it not Upon the brightest sky. He never knows How near it comes to him: but, swathed in clouds As though in plumed and palled state, it steals Hearse-like and thief-like round the universe, For ever rolling and returning not-- Robbing all worlds of many an angel soul-- With its light hidden in its breast, which burns With all concentrate and superfluent woe. Nor sun nor moon illume it, and to those Which dwell in it, not live, the starry skies Have told no time since first they entered there. Be sure That this is Hell. The blood which hath imbrued Earth's breast, since first men met in war, may hope Yet to be formed again and reascend, Each drop its individual vein; the foam bubble, Sun-drawn out of the sea into the clouds, To scale the cataract down which it fell; But for the lost to rise to or regain Heaven,--or to hope it,--is impossible." The _Dream_ is one which Elissa relates--relates to her lover, Lucifer. It must be acknowledged to be very like a dream in a certain vague horror which pervades it. The image of Decay is a grand conception:--