The poets-the poets— The poets-the poets— Those kingly minstrels dead, Well may we twine a votive wreath Around each honoured head: No tribute is too high to give Those crowned ones among men. The poets-the true poets— Thanks be to GOD for them! Rev. William Croswell, D. D. THE CLOUDS. "Cloud land! gorgeous land!"-COLERIDGE. I CANNOT look above and see Yon high-piled, pillowy mass Of evening clouds, so swimmingly And think not, LORD, how thou wast seen On Israel's desert way, Before them, in thy shadowy screen, Or, of those robes of gorgeous hue When, ravished from his followers' view, Aloft his flight He bore, When lifted, as on mighty wing, He curtained his ascent, And, wrapped in clouds, went triumphing Above the firmament. Is it a trail of that same pall That high above, o'ermantling all, For in like manner as He went,- When man expecteth not! Strength, Son of Man, against that hour, Be to our spirits given, When Thou shalt come again with power, Upon the clouds of heaven! William Pitt Palmer. LINES то A CHRYSALIS. MUSING long, I asked me this: "Chrysalis, Lying helpless in my path, Obvious to mortal scath From a careless passer-by, What thy life may signify? Why, from hope and joy apart, "Nature surely did amiss, Chrysalis, When she lavished fins and wings, "E'en the very worm may kiss, Roses on their topmost stems, Quoth the Chrysalis: "Sir Bard, Not so hard Is my rounded destiny In the great Economy. Nay, by humble reason viewed, In the shaping and upshot Of my lot. Though I seem of all things born Most obtuse of soul and sense, Next of kin to Impotence, Nay, to Death himself; yet ne'er Priest or prophet, sage or seer, May sublimer wisdom teach "From my pulpit of the sod, I proclaim this wondrous truth: Farthest age is nearest youth, Where, with pale, inverted torch, "Mark yon airy butterfly's Rainbow-dyes! Yesterday that shape divine Was as darkly hearsed as mine; But to-morrow I shall be Free and beautiful as she, And sweep forth on wings of light, Like a sprite. "Soul of man in crypt of clay! Bide the day When thy latent wings shall be And with transport marvellous O'er Elysian fields to soar Mary Noel Meigs. THE SPELLS OF MEMORY. T was but the note of a summer bird, IT But a dream of the past in my heart it stirred, And wafted me far to a breezy spot, Where blossomed the blue forget-me-not. And the broad, green boughs gave a checkered gleam To the dancing waves of a mountain-stream; And there, in the heat of a summer day, Again on the velvet turf I lay, And saw bright shapes in the floating clouds, And reared fair domes mid their fleecy shrouds, As I looked aloft to the azure sky, And longed for a bird's soft plumes to fly, Till lost in its depths of purity. Alas! I have waked from that early dream : Far, far away is the mountain-stream; And the dewy turf, where so oft I lay, And the woodland flowers, they are far away; |