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To us thou art as exquisitely fair As the ideal visions of the seer,

Or gentlest fancy that e'er floated down
Imagination's bright, unruffled stream,
Wedding the thought that was too deep for words
To the low breathings of inspired song.

When the stars sang together o'er the birth Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn, Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star, Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay, Jealous as Herod of the birth divine?

Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary Pierced the Redeemer's brow, didst thou disdain To weep, when all the planetary worlds Were blinded by the fulness of their tears? E'en to the flaming sun, that hid his face At the loud cry, "Lama Sabachthani !"

No rest! No rest! the very damned have that In the dark councils of remotest Hell, Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed Thy disobedience and accruing doom. Like Adam's sons, hast thou, too, forfeited The blest repose that never pillowed Sin?

No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering
Sphinx!

Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp
Through the vexed mazes of the human brain,
Still fails to read the secret of its soul
As the superb enigma flashes by,
A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain.

CHARLES SANGSTER.

SONG OF THE LIGHTNING.

"PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes." Midsummer's Night Dream.

AWAY! away! through the sightless air

Stretch forth your iron thread!

For I would not dim my sandals fair
With the dust ye tamely tread!

Ay, rear it up on its million piers,

Let it circle the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years I'll clear at a single bound!

Though I cannot toil, like the groaning slave
Ye have fettered with iron skill

To ferry you over the boundless wave,
Or grind in the noisy mill,

Let him sing his giant strength and speed!
Why, a single shaft of mine

Would give that monster a flight indeed, To the depths of the ocean's brine !

No! no! I'm the spirit of light and love!
To my unseen hand 't is given
To pencil the ambient clouds above
And polish the stars of heaven!
I scatter the golden rays of fire
On the horizon far below,
And deck the sky where storms expire
With my red and dazzling glow.

With a glance I cleave the sky in twain ; I light it with a glare,

When fall the boding drops of rain

Through the darkly curtained air ! The rock-built towers, the turrets gray, The piles of a thousand years, Have not the strength of potter's clay Beneath my glittering spears.

From the Alps' or the Andes' highest crag,
From the peaks of eternal snow,
The blazing folds of my fiery flag

Illume the world below.

The earthquake heralds my coming power,
The avalanche bounds away,
And howling storms at midnight's hour
Proclaim my kingly sway.

Ye tremble when my legions come,

When my quivering sword leaps out
O'er the hills that echo my thunder down,
And rend with my joyous shout.
Ye quail on the land, or upon the sea
Ye stand in your fear aghast,

To see me burn the stalworth trees,
Or shiver the stately mast.

The hieroglyphs on the Persian wall,
The letters of high command, -
Where the prophet read the tyrant's fall,
Were traced by my burning hand.
And oft in fire have I wrote since then
What angry Heaven decreed;
But the sealed eyes of sinful men
Were all too blind to read.

At length the hour of light is here,
And kings no more shall bind,
Nor bigots crush with craven fear
The forward march of mind.
The words of Truth and Freedom's rays
Are from my pinions hurled ;
And soon the light of better days

Shall rise upon the world.

GEORGE W. CUTTER.

ORIGIN OF THE OPAL.

A DEW-DROP came, with a spark of flame He had caught from the sun's last ray, To a violet's breast, where he lay at rest

Till the hours brought back the day.

The rose looked down, with a blush and frown;
But she smiled all at once, to view
Her own bright form, with its coloring warm,
Reflected back by the dew.

Then the stranger took a stolen look

At the sky, so soft and blue;

And a leaflet green, with its silver sheen, Was seen by the idler too.

A cold north-wind, as he thus reclined,
Of a sudden raged around;

And a maiden fair, who was walking there,
Next morning, an opal found.

ECHO AND SILENCE.*

IN eddying course when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the store to strew,
As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo,
Through glens untrod, and woods that frowned
on high,

Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute 1 spy !
And, lo, she's gone! In robe of dark-green hue,
'T was Echo from her sister Silence flew,
For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky'
In shade affrighted Silence melts away.
Not so her sister. Hark! for onward still,
With far-heard step, she takes her listening way,
Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill.
Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play
With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest
fill!

SIR SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES.

ANONYMOUS.

THE ORIGIN OF THE HARP.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Tis believed that this harp, which I wake now Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,

for thee,

Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea ; And who often, at eve, through the bright billow roved,

To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved.

And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river?

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river,
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,

But she loved him in vain, for he left her to And the dragon-fly had fled away,

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Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,

While turbidly flowed the river,
And hacked and hewed as a great god can
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,

(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
Then notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sate by the river!)

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To make sweet music, they could succeed."
The only way since gods began
Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

* Declared by Wordsworth to be the best Sonnet in the English language.

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Than when the thief says, 'Guard your purse!' His angel now, and now his rod.

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FROM "CORN."

LOOK, out of line one tall corn-captain

stands

Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,

And waves his blades upon the very edge And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,

Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme

Soul-calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow

By double increment, above, below;

Soul-homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,

Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; Soul-filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,

By every godlike sense

Transmuted from the four wild elements.

Drawn to high plans,

Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal

man's,

Yet ever piercest downward in the mould

And keepest hold

Upon the reverend and steadfast earth
That gave thee birth;

Yea, standest smiling in thy very grave,
Serene and brave,

With unremitting breath

Inhaling life from death,

Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent

Thy living self thy monument.

SIDNEY LANIER

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POET who sleepest by this wandering wave!

When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then? To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave,

The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?

Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine;

Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless human view; Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine;

Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew.

What hadst thou that could make so large amends
For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed,
Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends?—
Thou hadst for weary feet the gift of rest.

From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze,
From Byron's tempest-anger, tempest-mirth,
Men turned to thee and found-not blast and blaze,
Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on earth.

Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower,
There in white languors to decline and cease;
But peace whose names are also rapture, power,
Clear sight, and love: for these are parts of peace.

WILLIAM WATSON.

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