Venus on the Sun's Face. By R. A. PROCTOR, B.A. (Cambridge),

Honorary Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, Author of

"Saturn," "The Sun," " Other Worlds than Ours," &c.

Verderer of Dean Forest, The. By CHARLES PEBODY

681

439

Waterloo Cup, The. By "SIRIUS"

202

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

JANUARY, 1873.

ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.

BY JOAQUIN MILLER.

PART V.

Well, we have threaded through and through

The gloaming forests. Fairy Isles,
Begirt in God's eternal smiles,
As fallen stars in fields of blue;

Some futile wars with subtile love
That mortal never vanquished yet,
Some symphonies by angels set

In wave below, in bough above,
Were yours and mine; but here adieu.
And if it come to pass some days

That you grow weary, sad, and you
Lift up deep eyes from dusty ways

Of mart and moneys, to the blue
And pure cool waters, isle and vine,

And bathe you there, and then arise
Refreshed by one fresh thought of mine,
I rest content; I kiss your eyes,

I kiss your hair in my delight:
I kiss my hand to say “ Good night.”

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May love be thine by sun or moon,

May peace be thine by stormy way
Through all the darling days of May,
Through all the genial days of June,
To golden days that die in smiles
Of sunset on the blessed Isles.

HAT way is familiar when journeyed in first?

The new roads are rugged, the pilgrimage hard; No storied names lure you, nor deeds as they erst Allured you in songs of the gray Scian bard. VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

B

But when spires shall shine on the Amazon's shore,
From temples of God, and time shall have rolled
Like a scroll from the border the limitless wold;
When the tiger is tamed, and the mono no more

Swings over the waters to chatter and call

To the crocodile sleeping in rushes and fern; When cities shall gleam, and their battlements burn In the sunsets of gold, where the cocoa-nuts fall:

And the mountains flash back from their mantles of snow
The reflection of splendours from tower and dome
Of temples where art has established a home

More royal than aught that the moderns may show :

"Twill be something to lean from the stars and to know That the engine, red-mouthing with turbulent tongue, The white ships that come, and the cargoes that go,

We invoked them of old when the nations were young :

"Twill be something to know that we named them of old—
That we said to the nations, Lo! here is the fleece
That allures to the rest, and the perfectest peace,
With its foldings of sunlight shed mellow like gold:

That we were the Carsons in kingdoms untrod,

We followed the trail through the rustle of leaves,
We stood by the waves where solitude weaves

Her garments of mosses, and lonely as God:

That we have made venture when singers were young,
Inviting from Grecia, from long-trodden lands
That are easy of journeys, and holy from hands
Laid upon by the Masters when giants had tongue :

Yea, rugged the hills, and most hard of defeat

Are the difficult journeys to bountiful song, Through places not hallowed by fame, and the feet Of the classical singers, made sacred to song.

But prophets should lead, to discover the grand
And the beautiful hidden in quarries of stone;
Be leaders to point to the fair and unknown,
And the far, and allure to the sweets of a land.

Behold my Sierras ! new mountains of song!

The Andes shall break through wings of the night

As the fierce condor breaks through the clouds in his flight; And we here plant the cross. How long? and how long?

Aye, idle indeed! And yet to have dared

On an unsailed sea may deserve some grace.
But the harvest will come, and behold, my place
Shall be filled with prophets, to my fullest reward.

I reckon that love is the bitterest sweet
That ever laid hold on the heart of a man,
A chain to the soul, and to slumber a ban,
And a bane to the brain, and a snare to the feet.

Who would ascend on the hollow white wings

Of love but to fall; to fall and to learn,

Like a moth and a man, that the lights lure to burn, That the roses have thorns, that the honey bee stings?

I say to you surely that grief shall befall;

I lift you my finger, I caution you true,

And yet you go forward, laugh gaily, and you

Must learn for yourself, and then mourn for us all.

You had better be drown'd than to love and to dream ;

It were better to sit on a moss-grown stone,
And away from the sun, and forever alone,
Slow pitching white pebbles at trout in the stream,

Than to dream for a day, then awake for an age,

And to walk through the world like a ghost, and to start,

Then suddenly stop, with the hand to the heart Pressed hard, and the teeth set savage with rage.

The clouds are above us, and snowy and cold,
And what is beyond but the steel-gray sky,
And the still far stars that twinkle and lie
Like the eyes of a love or delusions of gold!

Ah! who would ascend? The clouds are above.
Aye! all things perish; to rise is to fall.
And alack for loving, and alas for love,

And alas that there ever are lovers at all.

And alas for a heart that is left forlorn!

If you live you must love; if you love, regretIt were better, perhaps, we had never been born, Or better, at least, we could well forget.

And yet, after all, it is harder to die

Of a broken up heart than one would suppose. The clouds blow on, and we see that the rose Of heaven is born of a turbulent sky.

The singer stood forth in the fragrance of wood,
But not as alone, and he chid in his heart,
And subdued his soul, and assumed his part

With a passionate will, in the palms where he stood;

Then he reached his hand, like to one made strong
In a strange resolve to a questionable good,
And he shook his hair, made free from his mood,
Forgot his silence and resumed his song: