With many a light

From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;

But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl’d—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran,—
Over the brink of it,

Picture it, think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently, kindly,—

Smoothe, and compose them;

Ana her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity,

As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest.

Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,
Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

THE LADY'S DREAM.

THE lady lay in her bed,

Her couch so warm and soft,

But her sleep was restless and broken still;
For turning often and oft

From side to side, she muttered and moan'd
And toss'd her arms aloft.

At last she started up,

And gazed on the vacant air,

With a look of awe, as if she saw

Some dreadful phantom there

And then in the pillow she buried her face
From visions ill to bear.

The very curtain shook,

Her terror was so extreme,

And the light that fell on the broidered quilt

Kept a tremulous gleam;

And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried,

"Oh me! that awful dream!

That weary, weary walk,

In the churchyard's dismal ground!

And those horrible things, with shady wings,

That came and flitted round,—

Death, death, and nothing but death,

In every sight and sound!

"And oh! those maidens young,

Who wrought in that dreary room,
With figures drooping and spectres thin,
And cheeks without a bloom ;—
And the voice that cried, 'For the pomp
We haste to an early tomb!'

"For the pomp and pleasures of pride;
We toil like the African slaves,
And only to earn a home at last,
Where yonder cypress waves ;-
And then it pointed—I never saw
A ground so full of graves!

"And still the coffins came,

With their sorrowful trains and slow;

Coffin after coffin still,

A sad and sickening show;
From grief exempt, I never had dreamt
Of such a world of Wo!

"Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life,
That grieve this earthly ball-
Disease, and Hunger, Pain, and Want,
But now I dream of them all!

of pride

"For the blind and the cripple were there,
And the babe that pined for bread,
And the houseless man, and the widow poor
Who begged-to bury the dead!

The naked, alas, that I might have clad,
The famished I might have fed!

"The sorrow I might have soothed,
And the unregarded tears;

For many a thronging shape was there,
From long forgotten years,