THE MORNING-LAND. KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell. Modern Poets. 14 Lord Byron. 204 THE OLD MAN DREAMS. -The angel took a sapphire pen "And is there nothing yet unsaid Why, yes; for memory would recall I could not bear to leave them all; The smiling angel dropped his pen,— The man would be a boy again, And be a father too!" And so I laughed:-my laughter woke And wrote my dream, when morning broke, To please the gray-haired boys. Oliver Wendell Holmes. SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOURGLASS. A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, How many weary centuries has it been How many strange vicissitudes has seen, Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare, Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms And singing slow their old Armenian psalms 206 SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOURGLASS. Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, These have passed over it, or may have passed! And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand; - Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, And onward, and across the setting sun, The column and its broader shadow run, The vision vanishes! These walls again Shut out the hot immeasurable plain; The half-hour's sand is run! H. W. Longfellow. THE KNIGHT'S TOMB. WHERE is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? The oak that in summer was sweet to hear, And his good sword rust;— His soul is with the saints, I trust. S. T. Coleridge. THE ISLE. THERE was a little lawny islet, Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze Each a gem engraven: Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm. P. B. Shelley. |