BIRDS OF PASSAGE. come i gru van cantando lor lai Facendo in aer di sè lunga riga. DANTE. PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. OF Prometheus, how undaunted Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition Of the theft and the transmission Of the fire of the Immortals! First the deed of noble daring. Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture,-the despairing Cry of pain on crags Caucasian. All is but a symbol painted Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, In their passionate pulsations, Shall it, then, be unavailing, All this toil for human culture? O'er life's barren crags the vulture? Such a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened; That around their memories cluster, All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chaunted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Voices soft, and deep, and serious, Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, Ah, Prometheus; heaven-scaling! Round the cloudy crags Caucasian! Though to all there is not given Strength for such sublime endeavour, All the hearts of men for ever; Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, A ladder,75 if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things each day's events, Are rounds by which we may ascend. The low desine, the buse design And all occasions of excess; The longing for inmoble thing: The surde for trampt more than truth The hardening of the beart, abat brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ; all evil deeds. That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes The action of the nobler will;— All these must first be trampled down We have not wings, we cannot soar; The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, The distant mountains, that uprear The heights by great men reached and kept Standing on what too long we bore, Nor deem the irrevocable Past, THE PHANTOM SHIP.76 IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, A ship sailed from New Haven, Were heavy with good men's prayers. And the ships that came from England, Nor of Master Lamberton. This put the people to praying That the Lord would let them hear, What in His greater wisdom He had done with friends so dear. And at last their prayers were answered :It was in the month of June, An hour before the sunset Of a windy afternoon, When steadily steering landward, And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, On she came, with a cloud of canvass, The faces of the crew. Then fell her straining topmasts, And the masts with all their rigging, And the hulk dilated and vanished, And the people who saw this marvel Each said unto his friend, That this was the mould of their vessel, And thus her tragic end. And the pastor of the village Gave thanks to God in prayer, That, to quiet their troubled spirits, He had sent this Ship of Air. THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. A MIST was driving down the British Channel, The day was just begun, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, And from the frowning rampart, the black cannon Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe, and Dover, To see the French war-steamers speeding over, Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance, And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations Each answering each, with morning salutations, And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No morning gun from the black forts embrasure, No more, surveying with an eye impartial The long line of the coast, Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, He did not pause to parley or dissemble, Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble |