Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 29 1831.pdf/7



Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please ? Resolve me of all ambiguities? Perform what desperate enterprises I will? I'll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the New-found World For pleasant fruits and princely delicates. 's Faustus.

old man on his deathbed lay, an old yet stately man; His lip seem'd moulded for command, tho' quivering now, and wan; By fits a wild and wandering fire shot from his troubled eye, But his pale brow still austerely wore its native mastery.

There were gorgeous things from lands afar, strewn round the mystic room; From where the orient palm-trees wave, bright gem and dazzling plume; And vases with rich odour fill'd, that o'er the couch of death Shed forth, like groves from Indian isles, a spicy summer's breath.

And sculptured forms of olden time, in their strange beauty white, Stood round the chamber solemnly, robed as in ghostly light; All passionless and still they stood, and shining through the gloom, Like watchers of another world, stern angels of the tomb.