Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-

This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"

The shade replied

"If you seek for Eldorado!"

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

AKE this kiss upon the brow!

TAKE

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream ;

G

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

THE CITY IN THE SEA.

LO! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good, and the bad, and the worst,

and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines, and palaces, and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not !)
Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls-
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers.
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves ;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass-
No swelling tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-

No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave-there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones
Shall do it reverence.