EVER from lips of cunning fell Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The hand that rounded Peter s dome, Responses. And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Himself from God he could not free; Girds with one flame the countless host, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Ralph Waldo Emerson. (The Problem.) A Morning. S we proceed, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watchstars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, artayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state. Man's Immortality. WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, WHE Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die,-it cannot stay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? A thought unseen, but seeing all,— Shall it survey, shall it recall: In one broad glance the soul beholds, Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; Its glance dilate o'er all to be, Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, An age shall fleet like earthly year; O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly; Nothing is Lost. JOTHING is lost: the drop of dew Is but exhaled to fall anew In summer's thunder shower; Perchance to shine within the bow That fronts the sun at fall of day, Perchance to sparkle in the flow Of fountain far away. flower, So with our words-or harsh, or kind- As they are spoken, so they fall Penitent. The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold; Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told Like pious incense from a censer old, Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death, His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man; A long the chapel aisle by slow degrees; The sculpured dead on each side seemed to freeze, Imprisoned in black, purgatorial rails; To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails. Northward he turneth through a little door, And scarce three steps, ere music's golden tongue Flattered to tears this aged man and poor; But no, already has his death-bell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung: His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went, and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinner's sake to grieve. -John Keats (Eve of St. Agnes). Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea, But none, alas! shall mourn for me! -Richard Henry Wilde. |