Through granite as breaketh
A tree to the ray,

As a dreamer forsaketh
The grief of the day,

My soul in its fever
Escapes unto thee;
O dream to the griever,
O light to the tree!

A twofold existence

I am where thou art;
Hark, hear in the distance
The beat of my heart!

THE LAST CRUSADER.

LEFT to the Saviour's conquering foes,
The land that girds the Saviour's grave;
Where Godfrey's crosier-standard rose,
He saw the crescent-banner wave.

There, o'er the gently broken vale,
The halo-light on Zion glowed;
There Kedron, with a voice of wail,

By tombs of saints and heroes flowed;

The valley, Jehoshaphat, through which rolls the torrent of the Kedron, is studded with tombs.

There still the olives silver o'er

The dimness of the distant hill;

There still the flowers that Sharon bore,
Calm air with many an odor fill.

Slowly THE LAST CRUSADER eyed

The towers, the mount, the stream, the plain, And thought of those whose blood had dyed The earth with crimson streams in vain!

He thought of that sublime array,

The Hosts that over land and deep
The Hermit marshalled on their way,
To see those towers, and halt to weep!*

Resigned the loved familiar lands,

O'er burning wastes the cross to bear, And rescue from the Paynim's hands The empire of a sepulchre!

And vain the hope, and vain the loss,
And vain the famine and the strife:
In vain the faith that bore the Cross,
The valor prodigal of life!

And vain was Richard's lion-soul,

And guileless Godfrey's patient mind — Like waves on shore, they reached the goal, To die, and leave no trace behind!

* See Tasso, Ger. Lib. cant. iii. st. vi.

"O God!" the last Crusader cried,

"And art thou careless of thine own? For us thy Son in Salem died,

And Salem is the scoffer's throne!

"And shall we leave, from age to age, To godless hands the Holy Tomb? Against thy saints the heathen rage

Launch forth thy lightnings, and consume!"

Swift, as he spoke, before his sight

A form flashed, white-robed, from above;
All Heaven was in those looks of light,
But Heaven, whose native air is love.

"Alas!" the solemn vision said,

Thy God is of the shield and spearTo bless the Quick and raise the Dead, The Saviour-God descended here!

"Ask not the Father to reward

The hearts that seek, through blood, the Son;

O Warrior! never by the sword

The Saviour's Holy Land is won!"

THE SOULS OF BOOKS.

I.

SIT here and muse! — it is an antique room
High-roofed, with casements, through whose purple

pane

Unwilling Daylight steals amidst the gloom,

Shy as a fearful stranger.

There THEY reign,

(In loftier pomp than waking life had known,)

The Kings of Thought!- not crowned until the

grave.

When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb,

The beggar Homer mounts the Monarch's throne! Ye ever-living and imperial Souls,

Who rule us from the page in which

ye breathe All that divide us from the clod ye gave!

Of Beauty Music and the Minstrel's wreath!

What were our wanderings if without your goals?
As air and light, the glory ye dispense,

Becomes our being — who of us can tell
What he had been, had Cadmus never taught
The art that fixes into form the thought-

Had Plato never spoken from his cell,

Or his high harp blind Homer never strung?
Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakespeare

sung!

II.

Hark! while we muse, without the walls is heard
The various murmur of the laboring crowd.
How still, within those archive-cells interred,

The Calm Ones reign!— and yet they rouse the loud
Passions and tumults of the circling world!
Froin them, how many a youthful Tully caught
The zest and ardor of the eager Bar;

From them, how many a young Ambition sought
Gay meteors glancing o'er the sands afar
By them each restless wing has been unfurled,
And their ghosts urge each rival's rushing car!
They made yon Preacher zealous for the truth;
They made yon Poet wistful for the star;
Gave Age its pastime-fired the cheek of Youth
The unseen sires of all our beings are, -

III.

And now so still! This, Cicero, is thy heart:
I hear it beating through each purple line.
This is thyself, Anacreon — yet, thou art
Wreathed, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine.
I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold,

Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground!
Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old,

"It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound”;
These are yourselves

your life of life!

.*

The Wise,

(Minstrel or Sage,) out of their books are clay; But in their books, as from their graves, they rise,

*"Comus."