We submit these further illustrations of the moral maxims of “The
   Skull.”  In the original they are touched in phraseology scarcely
   unworthy of the poet’s Saxon models.

As lockfasted in slumber’s arms
I lay and dream’d (so dreams our race
When every spectral object charms,
To melt, like shadow, in the chase),

A vision came; mine ear confess’d
Its solemn sounds.  “Thou man distraught! 
Say, owns the wind thy hand’s arrest,
Or fills the world thy crave of thought?

* * * * *

“Since fell transgression ravaged here
And reft Man’s garden-joys away,
He weeps his unavailing tear,
And straggles, like a lamb astray.

“With shrilling bleat for comfort hie
To every pinfold, humankind;
Ah, there the fostering teat is dry,
The stranger mother proves unkind.

    “No rest for toil, no drink for drought,
      For bosom-peace the shadow’s wing—­
    So feeds expectancy on nought,
      And suckles every lying thing.

    “Some woe for ever wreathes its chain,
      And hope foretells the clasp undone;
    Relief at handbreadth seems, in vain
      Thy fetter’d arms embrace—­’tis gone!

    “Not all that trial’s lore unlearns
      Of all the lies that life betrays,
    Avails, for still desire returns—­
      The last day’s folly is to-day’s.

    “Thy wish has prosper’d—­has its taste
      Survived the hour its lust was drown’d;
    Or yields thine expectation’s zest
      To full fruition, golden-crown’d?

    “The rosebud is life’s symbol bloom,
      ’Tis loved, ’tis coveted, ’tis riven—­
    Its grace, its fragrance, find a tomb,
      When to the grasping hand ’tis given.

    “Go, search the world, wherever woe
      Of high or low the bosom wrings,
    There, gasp for gasp, and throe for throe,
      Is answer’d from the breast of kings.

    “From every hearth-turf reeks its cloud,
      From every heart its sigh is roll’d;
    The rose’s stalk is fang’d—­one shroud
      Is both the sting’s and honey’s fold.

    “Is wealth thy lust—­does envy pine
      Where high its tempting heaps are piled? 
    Look down, behold the fountain shine,
      And, deeper still, with dregs defiled!

    “Quickens thy breath with rash inhale,
      And falls an insect[107] in its toil? 
    The creature turns thy life-blood pale,
      And blends thine ivory teeth with soil.

    “When high thy fellow-mortal soars,
      His state is like the topmost nest—­
    It swings with every blast that roars,
      And every motion shakes its crest.

    “And if the world for once is kind,
      Yet ever has the lot its bend;
    Where fortune has the crook inclined,
      Not all thy strength or art shall mend.