Thus dressed, the joyful Gabriel posts away, And carries with him his own glorious day Through the thick woods; the gloomy shades a while Put on fresh, looks, and wonder why they smile; The trembling serpents close and silent lie; The birds obscene far from his passage fly; A sudden spring waits on him as he goes, Sudden as that which by creation rose. Thus he appears to David; at first sight All earth-bred fears and sorrows take their flight: In rushes joy divine, and hope, and rest; A sacred calm shines through his peaceful breast. 'Hail, man belov'd! from highest heaven,' said he. 'My mighty Master sends thee health by me. The things thou saw'st are full of truth and light, Shaped in the glass of the divine foresight. Even now old Time is harnessing the Years To go in order thus: hence, empty fears! Thy fate's all white; from thy bless'd seed shall spring The promised Shilo, the great mystic King. Round the whole earth his dreaded Name shall sound. And reach to worlds that must not yet be found: The Southern clime him her sole Lord shall style, Him all the North, even Albion's stubborn isle. My fellow-servant, credit what I tell.' Straight into shapeless air unseen he fell. LIFE. 'NASCENTES MORIMUR.'--_Manil_. 1 We're ill by these grammarians used: We are abused by words, grossly abused; From the maternal tomb To the grave's fruitful womb We call here Life; but Life's a name That nothing here can truly claim: This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait, We call our dwelling-place; We call one step a race: But angels in their full-enlightened state, Angels who live, and know what 'tis to be, Who all the nonsense of our language see, Who speak things, and our words their ill-drawn picture scorn. When we by a foolish figure say, Behold an old man dead! then they Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born! 2 My eyes are opened, and I see Through the transparent fallacy: Because we seem wisely to talk Like men of business, and for business walk From place to place, And mighty voyages we take, And mighty journeys seem to make O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space; Because we fight, and battles gain, Some captives call, and say the rest are slain; Because we heap up yellow earth, and so Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous seem to grow; Because we draw a long nobility From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry, And impudently talk of a posterity; And, like Egyptian chroniclers, Who write of twenty thousand years, With maravedies make the account, That single time might to a sum amount; We grow at last by custom to believe That really we live; Whilst all these shadows that for things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make.