Ye matin worshipers! who bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun-God's lidless eye-
Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy
Incense on high!
Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty
The floor of Nature's temple tesselate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty
Your forms create!
To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply-
Its choir the wind and waves, its organ thunder,
Its dome the sky.
Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers,
From loneliest nook.
"Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy glory,
Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like ours;
How vain your grandeur! Ah, how transitory
Are human flowers !"
In the sweet-scented pictures, Heavenly Artist!
With which thou paintest Nature's wide-spread hall,
What a delightful lesson thou impartest
Not useless are ye, Flowers! though made for pleasure
Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night,
From every source your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight
Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining,
Far from all voice of teachers or divines,
My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining,
Priests, sermons, shrines!
THE DEATH-BED.-THOMAS HOOD.
WE watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied-
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had
Another morn than ours.
THE MAIN-TRUCK, OR A LEAP FOR LIFE
OLD IRONSIDES at anchor lay,
In the harbor of Mahon;
A dead calm rested on the bay-
The waves to sleep had gone;
When little Hal, the captain's son,
A lad both brave and good,
In sport, up shroud and rigging ran,
And on the main-truck stood!
THE MAIN-TRUCK, OR A LEAP FOR LIFE.
THE BUGLE-SONG.-ALFRED TENNYSON.
THE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
"BRING forth the horse!"-the horse was brought;
In truth, he was a noble steed,
A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,
Who looked as though the speed of thought
Were in his limbs; but he was wild,
Wild as the wild deer, and untaught,
With spur and bridle undefiled-
'Twas but a day he had been caught;
And snorting with erected mane,
And struggling fiercely, but in vain,
In the full foam of wrath and dread,
To me the desert-born was led :
They bound me on, that menial throng
Upon his back with many a thong;
They loosed him with a sudden lash:
Away! away!-and on we dash !—
Torrents less rapid and less rash.
Away, away, my steed and I,
Upon the pinions of the wind,
All human dwellings left behind;
We sped like meteors through the sky,
When with its crackling sound, the night
Is checkered with the northern light;
Town,-village,—
‚—none were on our track,
But a wild plain of far extent,
And bounded by a forest black;
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray,
And a low breeze crept moaning by;
I could have answered with a sigh;
But fast we fled, away, away,
And I could neither sigh nor pray;
And my cold sweat-drops fell, like rain,
Upon the courser's bristling mane.
We neared the wild-wood--'twas so wide,
I saw no bounds on either side ;—
The boughs gave way, and did not tear
My limbs, and I found strength to bear
My wounds, already scarred with cold-
My bonds forbade to loose my hold.
We rustled through the leaves like wind,
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind.
By night I heard them on my track:
Their troop came hard upon our back,
With their long gallop, which can tire
The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire;
Where'er we flew they followed on,
Nor left us with the morning sun.
Oh how I wished for spear or sword,
At least to die amidst the horde,
And perish, if it must be so,
At bay, destroying many a foe.
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