’Oh, what brilliancy and glory
Had illumed my life’s dull story,
Could those thoughts have found expression as within my soul they shone! 
But though there like jewels gleaming,
And with golden splendor streaming,
Cold and dim their lustre faded, tarnished, like the sparkling stone
That, from out the blue waves taken, looks a pebble dull alone. 
’For within my heart forever
Was a never-dying river,
Was a spring of deathless music welling from my deepest soul! 
And all Nature’s deep intonings,
Merry songs, and plaintive meanings,
Floated softly through my spirit, swelling where those bright waves stole,
Till the prisoning walls seemed powerless ’gainst that billowy rush and roll.

’Oh, the surging thoughts and fancies;
Oh, the wondrous, wild romances
That from morn till dewy twilight murmured through my haunted brain! 
Thoughts as sweet as summer roses,
And with music’s dreamiest closes,
Dying faintly into silence, from the full and ringing strain
That through all my spirit sounded with a rapture half of pain.

’How I longed those words to utter
That within my heart would flutter,
Beating wild against their prison, as its walls they’d burst in twain: 
But it broke not, throbbing only,
Aching in a silence lonely,
Till my very life was flooded with a wild, delicious pain;
Kindled with a blaze illuming all the chambers of my brain!

’And to me death had been glorious,
If those burning words, victorious,
Had at last surged o’er their prison, bearing my departing soul! 
Gladly were my heart’s blood given,
If those bonds I might have riven;
If, with every crimson lifedrop that from out my full heart stole,
I might hear that swelling chorus upward in its glory roll.

’Sad and low my heart is beating! 
Each pulsation still repeating
’All in vain those eager longings, all in vain that burning prayer. 
See the breezes, ’mid the bowers,
Sigh above the fragrant flowers,
And from out those drooping roses, their heart-folded sweetness bear—­
But no heaven-sent wind shall whisper thy soul-breathings to the air.’

’But upon my darkened vision
Comes a gleam of light Elysian;
And a seraph voice breathes softly—­’Answered yet shall be that prayer! 
For the spirit crushed and broken
By those burning words unspoken,
Soon shall hear them swelling, floating far upon the heavenly air,
And its deepest inmost visions shall have perfect utterance there!’’

WILLIAM LILLY, ASTROLOGER.

A cunning man, hight Sidrophel,
That deals in destiny’s dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells,
To whom all people, far and near,
On deep importances repair.

* * * * *

  Do not our great reformers use
  This Sidrophel to forebode news? 
  To write of victories next year,
  And castles taken yet i’ the air? 
  Of battles fought at sea, and ships
  Sunk two years hence—­the great eclipse? 
  A total overthrow given the king
  In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring?’