Lacking every creed yet having faith so large in all they see, That to know is still to gladden, and 'tis rapture but to be. What trim fancies bring them flowers; what rare spirits walk their wood, What a wondrous world the moonlight harbours of the gay and good! Unto them the very tempest walks in glories grateful still,
And the lightning gleams, a seraph, to persuade them to the hill: 'Tis a sweet and loving spirit, that throughout the midnight rains, Broods beside the shutter'd windows, and with gentle love complains; And how wooing, how exalting, with the richness of her dyes, Spans the painter of the rainbow, her bright arch along the skies, With a dream like Jacob's ladder, showing to the fancy's sight, How 'twere easy for the sad one to escape to worlds of light! Ah! the wisdom of such fancies, and the truth in every dream, That to faith confiding offers, cheering every gloom, a gleam! Happy hearts, still cherish fondly each delusion of your youth, Joy is born of well believing, and the fiction wraps the truth.
THE shadows lay along Broadway"Twas near the twilight-tide
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride. Alone walked she; but, viewlessly, Walked spirits at her side.
Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, And Honour charmed the air; And all astir looked kind on her, And called her good as fair— For all God ever gave to her She kept with chary care.
She kept with care her beauties rare From lovers warm and true-
For her heart was cold to all but gold, And the rich came not to woo-
But honoured well are charms to sell
If priests the selling do.
Now walking there was one more fair
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail
"Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,
And nothing could avail.
No mercy now can clear her brow For this world's peace to pray; For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way!—
But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven By man is curst alway!
I WAS in Greece. It was the hour of noon, And the Egean wind had dropped asleep Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles
Of Salamis and Egina lay hung
Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sca. I had climbed up th' Acropolis at morn, And hours had fled as time will in a dream
Amid its deathless ruins-for the air
Is full of spirits in these mighty fanes,
And they walk with you! As it sultrier grew,
I laid me down within a shadow deep
Of a tall column of the Parthenon, And in an absent idleness of thought
I scrawled upon the smooth and marble base. Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there? The name of a sweet child I knew at Rome!
I was in Asia. 'Twas a peerless night Upon the plains of Sardis, and the moon, Touching my eyelids through the wind-stirred tent, Had witched me from my slumber. I arose, And silently stole forth, and by the brink
Of golden "Pactolus," where bathe his waters
The bases of Cybele's columns fair,
I mused upon the storied past awhile,
Watching the moon, that with the same mild eye Had looked upon the mighty Lybian kings Sleeping around me-Croesus, who had heaped Within the mouldering portico his gold, And Gyges, buried with his viewless ring Beneath yon swelling tumulus-and then I loitered up the valley to a small And humbler ruin, where the undefiled* Of the Apocalypse their garments kept Spotless; and crossing with a conscious awe The broken threshold, to my spirit's eye It seemed as if, amid the moonlight, stood "The angel of the church of Sardis" still! And I again passed onward, and as dawn Paled the bright morning star, I lay me down, Weary and sad, beside the river's brink, And 'twixt the moonlight and the rosy morn, Wrote with my fingers in the golden "sands.” Tell me, O memory! what wrote I there? The name of the sweet child I knew at Rome !
The dust is old upon my "sandal-shoon," And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved From wild America to spicy Ind, And worshipped at innumerable shrines Of beauty, and the painter's art, to me, And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue, And of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul,
Sitting amid their ruins. I have stored
* "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy."-REV.
My memory with thoughts that can allay Fever and sadness; and when life gets dim, And I am overladen in my years,
Minister to me. But when wearily
The mind gives over toiling, and, with eyes Open but seeing not, and senses all Lying awake within their chambers fine,
Thought settles like a fountain, clear and calm--- Far in its sleeping depths, as 'twere a gem, Tell me, O memory! what shines so fair? The face of the sweet child I knew at Rome!
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