The twilight of the trees and rocks Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF BENEATH the warrior's helm behold Minerva? No! 'tis some sly minx I thought the goddess cold, austere, Not made for love's despairs and blisses: The nightingale should be her bird, She's older far than Trajan's Column ! The magic hand that carved this face, And set this vine-work round it running, Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought Had lost its subtle skill and cunning. Who was he? Was he glad or sad, Who knew to carve in such a fashion? Perchance he 'graved the dainty head For some brown girl that scorn'd his passion. Perchance, in some still garden-place, Where neither fount nor tree to-day is, He flung the jewel at the feet Of Phryne, or perhaps 'twas Lais. But he is dust; we may not know His happy or unhappy story: Both man and jewel lay in earth The countless summers came and went Years blotted out the man, but left To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom! O nameless brother! see how Time Has come, at last, to be rewarded. Who would not suffer slights of men, DOLCINO TO MARGARET. THE world goes up and the world goe down, And the sunshine follows the rain; And yesterday's sneer, and yesterday's frown Can never come over again, No, never come over again. For woman is warm, though man be cold, and old Can rise in the morning gay, To its work in the morning gay. CHARLES KINGSLEY. SONNET. SWEET is the rose, but grows upon a brere ; Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough; A thousand times this Pipe did Tasso No pearl ever lay under Oman's green The Thing became a Trumpet, whence he But long upon Araby's green sunny high blew Soul-animating strains-alas, too few! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. SONNET. BECAUSE I oft in dark abstracted guise Seem most alone in greatest company, With dearth of words, or answers quite awry To them that would make speech of speech arise, lands Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb. And still, when the merry date-season is burning, And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old, The happiest there, from their pastime re- | They'll weep for the Chieftain who died on turning At sunset, will weep when thy story is told. The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses Her dark-flowing hair for some festival day, Will think of thy fate till, neglecting her tresses, She mournfully turns from the mirror away. Nor shall Iran, beloved of her hero! forget thee, Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start, Close, close by the side of that hero she'll set thee, Embalm'd in the innermost shrine of her heart. Farewell!-be it ours to embellish thy pillow With everything beauteous that grows in the deep; Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep. Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept; With many a shell, in whose hollowwreathed chamber We, Peris of Ocean, by moonlight have slept. We'll dive where the gardens of coral lie darkling, And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head; We'll seek where the sands of the Caspian are sparkling, And gather their gold to strew over thy bed. Farewell!-farewell!-until Pity's sweet fountain Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave, Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie; All is thus but starlight here. What is social company But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream? Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought, Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught, Only when our souls are fed By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led Which they never drew from earth, CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH THE MORNING Street. ALONE I walk the morning street, Filled with the silence vague and sweet: All seems as strange, as still, as dead, As if unnumbered years had fled, A city of the world's gray prime, Ay, soon the glowing morning flood Shall rush with wheels and swarm with feet; The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream JOHN JAMES PIATT. PRE-EXISTENCE. WHILE sauntering through the crowded street, Some half-remembered face I meet, Albeit upon no mortal shore That face, methinks, has smiled before Lost in a gay and festal throng, I must have heard in other stars. In sacred aisles I pause to share When the whole scene which greets mine eyes In some strange mode I recognize As one whose every mystic part I feel prefigured in my heart. At sunset, as I calmly stand, A stranger on an alien strand, Familiar as my childhood's home One sails toward me o'er the bay, And what he comes to do and say I can foretell. A prescient lore O swift, instinctive, startling gleams Pierce through the dark, oblivious brain, Thoughts which perchance must travel back Across the wild, bewildering track Of countless æons; memories far, High-reaching as yon pallid star, Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace Faints on the outmost rings of space! PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. |