With beams as beautiful he'll rise to gladden earth again, And wake the world with life and light-but shine for me in vain.
Yes-of the azure sky above, and the green earth below,
I yet would take a last farewell to cheer me as I go;
And I will deem the light that glows along the verge of
And plays upon my faded cheek, the smile of opening heaven.
And let my fainting heart inhale sweet Nature's fragrant
That wafts a message from the bowers to soothe the bed of death;
That bears a whisper from the woods, a farewell from the
A tale of open leaf and bud--while I am withering.
And let me hear the small birds sing among the garden bowers
Their evening hymn, that wont to bless my solitary hours;
That coral anthem, warbled wild upon the leafy spray,
Will glad this ear, that to the strain must soon be deaf for
And blame me not, that call'd away unto a land of bliss
I fondly linger on the shore of such a world as this
And a better love than aught I know of bright immortal spheres
This earth, so lovely in her woe, so beautiful in tears.
Another strange wild phantasy of EDGAR ALLEN POE. It glows with genius, and like all his poetry, is thoroughly original; a rare merit in these modern days.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reach'd these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of Space-out of Time.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters-lone and dead-
Their still waters-still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily:
By the mountains-near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever:
By the grey woods-by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp:
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls:
By each spot the most unholy,
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth-and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
"Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis-oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not-dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed.
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darken'd glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wander❜d home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
THE SLEEPING FIGURE OF MODENA.
By BARRY CORNWALL.
UPON a couch of silk and gold
A pale enchanted lady lies,
And o'er her many a frowning fold
Of crimson shades her closed eyes;
And shadowy creatures round her rise;
And ghosts of women mask'd in woe;
And many a phantom-pleasure flies;
And lovers slain-ah, long ago!
The lady, pale as now she sleeps,
An
age upon that couch hath lain,
Yet in one spot a spirit keeps
His mansion like a red-rose stain;
And, when lovers' ghost complain,
Blushes like a new-born flower,
Or as some bright dream of pain
Dawneth through the darkest hour.
Once-but many a thought hath fled
Since the time whereof I speak-
Once the sleeping lady bred
Beauty in her burning cheek,
And the lovely morn did break
Through the azure of her eyes,
And her heart was warm and meek,
And her hope was in the skies.
But the lady loved at last,
And the passion pain'd her soul,
And her hope away was cast,
Far beyond her own control;
And the clouded thoughts that roll
Through the midnight of the mind,
O'er her eyes of azure stole,
Till they grew deject and blind.
He to whom her heart was given,
When May music was in tune,
Dared forsake that amorous heaven,
Changed and careless soon!
O, what is all beneath the moon
When this heart will answer not!
What are all the dreams of noon
With our love forgot!
Heedless of the world she went,
Sorrow's daughter, meek and lone,
Till some spirit downwards bent
And struck her to this sleep of stone.
Look! Did old Pygmalion
Sculpture thus, or more prevail,
When he drew the living tone
From the marble pale?
By JOHN STIRLING, contributed originally to Blackwood's Magazine. It is a graceful poem, the production of a highly cultivated mind, but there is no genius in it.
WAIL for Dædalus all that is fairest!
All that is tuneful in air or wave!
Shapes whose beauty is truest and rarest,
Haunt with your lamps and spells his grave!
Statues bend your heads in sorrow,
Ye that glance mid ruins old,
That know not a past, nor expect a morrow
On many a moonlight Grecian wold!
By sculptured cave and speaking river,
Thee, Dædalus, oft the Nymphs recall;
The leaves with a sound of winter quiver,
Murmur thy name, and withering fall.
Yet are thy visions in soul the grandest
Of all that crowd in the tear-dimm'd eye,
Though Dædalus thou no more commandest
New stars to that ever widening sky.
Ever thy phantoms arise before us,
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
With looks of beauty and words of good.
Calmly they show us mankind victorious
O'er all that's aimless, blind and base ;
Their presence has made our nature glorious,
Unveiling our night's illumined face.
Thy toil has won them a god-like quiet;
Thou hast wrought their path to a lovely sphere;
Their eyes to peace rebuke our riot,
And shape us a home of refuge here.
For Dædalus breathed in them his spirit;
In them their sire his beauty sees:
We too, a younger brood, inherit
The gifts and blessing bestow'd on these.
But ah! their wise and graceful seeming
Recalls the more that the sage is gone;
Weeping we wake from deceitful dreaming,
And find our voiceless chamber lone.
Dædalus thou from the twilight fleest
Which thou with visions has made so bright;
And when no more those shades thou seest,
Wanting thine eye they lose their light.
E'en in the noblest of Man's creations,
Those fresh worlds round this old of ours,
When the seer is gone, the orphan'd nations
See but the tomb of perish'd powers.
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