But "walking in pride," he is to be still further "abased." The "Watcher and the Holy One" that visited Nebuchadnezzar come to Sir Eustace in vision and pronounce his fate: "Full be his cup, with evil fraught-- Demons his guides, and death his doom." Two fiends of darkness are told off to tempt him.

One, presumably the Spirit of Gambling, robs him of his wealth, while the Spirit of Mania takes from him his reason, and drags him through a hell of horriblest imaginings.

And it is at this point that what has been called the "dream-scenery" of the opium-eater is reproduced in a series of very remarkable stanzas: Upon that boundless plain, below, The setting sun's last rays were shed, And gave a mild and sober glow, Where all were still, asleep, or dead; Vast ruins in the midst were spread, Pillars and pediments sublime, Where the grey moss had form'd a bed, And clothed the crumbling spoils of time.
"There was I fix'd, I know not how, Condemn'd for untold years to stay: Yet years were not;--one dreadful _Now_ Endured no change of night or day; The same mild evening's sleepy ray Shone softly-solemn and serene, And all that time I gazed away, The setting sun's sad rays were seen.
"At length a moment's sleep stole on,-- Again came my commission'd foes; Again through sea and land we're gone, No peace, no respite, no repose: Above the dark broad sea we rose, We ran through bleak and frozen land; I had no strength their strength t' oppose, An infant in a giant's hand.
"They placed me where those streamers play, Those nimble beams of brilliant light; It would the stoutest heart dismay, To see, to feel, that dreadful sight: So swift, so pure, so cold, so bright, They pierced my frame with icy wound; And all that half-year's polar night, Those dancing streamers wrapp'd me round "Slowly that darkness pass'd away, When down, upon the earth I fell,-- Some hurried sleep was mine by day; But, soon as toll'd the evening bell, They forced me on, where ever dwell Far-distant men in cities fair, Cities of whom no travellers tell, Nor feet but mine were wanderers there "Their watchmen stare, and stand aghast, As on we hurry through the dark; The watch-light blinks as we go past, The watch-dog shrinks and fears to bark; The watch-tower's bell sounds shrill; and, hark! The free wind blows--we've left the town-- A wide sepulchral ground I mark, And on a tombstone place me down.
"What monuments of mighty dead! What tombs of various kind are found! And stones erect their shadows shed On humble graves, with wickers bound; Some risen fresh, above the ground, Some level with the native clay: What sleeping millions wait the sound, 'Arise, ye dead, and come away!' Alas! they stay not for that call; Spare me this woe! ye demons, spare!-- They come! the shrouded shadows all,-- 'Tis more than mortal brain can bear; Rustling they rise, they sternly glare At man upheld by vital breath; Who, led by wicked fiends, should dare To join the shadowy troops of death!" For about fifteen stanzas this power of wild imaginings is sustained, and, it must be admitted, at a high level as regards diction.

The reader will note first how the impetuous flow of those visionary recollections generates a style in the main so lofty and so strong.

The poetic diction of the eighteenth century, against which Wordsworth made his famous protest, is entirely absent.