"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I

upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! Let no bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed

mirth, Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the

damned Earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost

is riven From Hell unto a high estate far up

within the Heaven From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the

King of Heaven.”

HYMN.
T morn
at noon

- at twilight dim-
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn !
In joy and woe

- in good and ill
Mother of God, be with me still !
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee ;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my

Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

A VALENTINE.

OR her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

Brightly expressive as the twins of Læda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly the lines ! — they hold a treasure Divine - a talisman

an amulet That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure

The words - the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets, by poets as the name is a poet's, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto — Mendez Ferdinando Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease trying!

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best

THE COLISEUM.

YPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary

Of lofty contemplation left to Time

By buried centuries of pomp and power !
At length - at length - after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation ! and dim Night!
I feel ye now — I feel ye

in

your strength O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane ! O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee Ever drew down from out the quiet stars ! Here, where a hero fell, a column falls ! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle ! Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the wan light of the hornéd moon, The swift and silent lizard of the stones !

But stay! these walls — these ivy-clad arcades — These mouldering plinths — these sad and blackened

shafts These vague entablatures — this crumbling frieze These shattered cornices this wreck — this ruin These stones alas! these gray stones are they all All of the famed, and the colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

“Not all” the Echoes answer me

“ not all !
Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
From

and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent — we pallid stones.
Not all our power is gone - not all our fame
Not all the magic of our high renown
Not all the wonder that encircles us —
Not all the mysteries that in us lie-
Not all the memories that hang upon
And cling around about us as a garment,
Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."

TO HELEN.
SAW thee once once only — years ago :
I must not say how many — but not many.

It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe –
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd alas, in sorrow!
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight -
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven ! - oh, God!