Page:The poetical works of Thomas Campbell.djvu/128

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Of assured reality,Than was left by PhantasyStamped and coloured on my sprite,In a dream of yesternight.
In a bark, methought, lone steering,I was cast on Ocean's strife;This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,Meant the sea of life.Sad regrets from past existenceCame, like gales of chilling breath;Shadowed in the forward distanceLay the land of Death.Now seeming more, now less remote,On that dim-seen shore, methought,I beheld two hands a spaceSlow unshroud a spectre's face;And my flesh's hair upstood,—'Twas mine own similitude.—
But my soul revived at seeingOcean, like an emerald spark,Kindle, while an air-dropt beingSmiling steered my bark.Heaven-like—yet he looked as humanAs supernal beauty can,More compassionate than woman,Lordly more than man.And as some sweet clarion's breathStirs the soldier's scorn of death—So his accents bade me brookThe spectre's eyes of icy look,Till it shut them—turned its head,Like a beaten foe, and fled.
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