Ah! 'T is a hideous battle-ground, Where pots and weapons bang and scud, Where every dead man through some wound Doth vomit victuals up for blood. And Bjorn observes them, sad of eye, And haggard, while athwart the panes The dawn comes creeping stealthily, With blue, thin lights, and darkness wanes. The prostrate mass of rusty brown Pales like a torch in daylight's room, Until the drunkest pours him down At last the stirrup-cup of doom. The cock crows loud. And with the day Once more with haughty mien and bold, Their revel-weary heads they lay Upon their marble pillows cold. THE WATCH Now twice my watch have I taken, And twice as I've gazing sat, The hand has pointed unshaken To one--and it's long past that! The clock's light cadences linger. The sun-dial laughs from the lawn, And points with a long, gaunt finger The path that its shade has drawn. A steeple ironically Calls the true time to me. The belfry bell makes tally And taunts me with accents free. Ah, dead is the wretch! I sought not, Last night, to my reverie sold, Its ruby circle! I thought not Of glimmering key of gold! No longer I see with pleasure The spring of the balance-wheel Flit hither and there at measure, Like a butterfly form of steel. When Hippogriff bears me, yearning, Through skies of another sphere, My soul-reft body goes turning Wherever the steed may veer. Eternity still is giving Its gaze to the lifeless face. Time seeketh the heart once living, His ear at the old watch-case,-- That heart whose regular motion Was followed within my breast By wave-beats of life's full ocean! Ah well! the watch is at rest. But its brother is beating ever, Steadfast and sturdy kept By One Who forgetteth never,-- Who wound it the while I slept. THE MERMAIDS There's a sketch you may discover By an artist of degree Rime and metre quarrel over-- Theophile Kniatowski. On the snowy foam that fringes All the mantle of the brine, Radiant with the sunlight's tinges, Three mermaidens softly shine. Like the drowned lilies dancing Turn they, as the spiral wave Buoys their bodies hiding, glancing, As they sink and rise and lave. In their golden hair for dowers They have twined with beauteous hands Shells for diadems, and flowers From the deep wild under sands. Oysters pour a pearly hoarding Their enrapturing throats to gem, And the wave, its wealth according, Tosses other pearls to them. Borne above the crest of ocean By a Triton hand and strong, Twine they, beautiful of motion, Under gleaming tresses long. And the crystal water under, Down the blue the glories pale Of each lovely form of wonder, Tapered to a shimmering tail. Ah! But who the scaly swimmers Would behold in modern day-- When a bust of ivory glimmers, Cool from kisses of the spray? Look! Oh, mingled truth and fable! O'er the horizon steady plied, Comes a vessel proud and stable, Toward the mermaids terrified!