THE debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed,
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death for evermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door,
Bolted down for evermore.
None can re-enter there,-
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick,
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.
THE wings of Time are black and white,
Pied with morning and with night.
Mountain tall and ocean deep
Trembling balance duly keep.
In changing moon and tidal wave
Glows the feud of Want and Have.
Gauge of more and less through space,
Electric star or pencil plays;
The lonely Earth amid the balls
That hurry through the eternal halls,
A makeweight flying to the void,
Supplemental asteroid,
Or compensatory spark,
Shoots across the neutral Dark.
Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine;
Staunch and strong the tendrils twine:
Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,
None from its stock that vine can reave.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
There's no god dare wrong a worm;
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,
And power to him who power exerts.
Hast not thy share? On winged feet,
Lo! it rushes thee to meet;
And all that Nature made thy own,
Floating in air or pent in stone,
Will rive the hills and swim the sea,
And, like thy shadow, follow thee.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
[Born in 1806, died in 1871. LL.D. of the University of Alabama. A remarkably voluminous author-journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist, biographer, historian. Mr. Simms was a native of South Carolina, and an ardent Southerner in the War of Secession].
NOT in the sky
Where it was seen,
Nor or the white tops of the glistering wave,
Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep,-
And beautiful its caves of mystery,
Shall the bright watcher have
A place and, as of old, high station keep.
Gone, gone!
Oh never more to cheer
The mariner who holds his course alone
On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers and do sleep,
Shall it appear,
With the sweet fixedness of certain light,
Down-shining on the shut eyes of the deep.
Hopeful most idly then, shall he look forth,
That mariner from his bark—
Doth raise his certain lamp when tempests lour-
He sees no more that perished light again!
And gloomier grows the hour
Which may not, through the thick and crowding
Restore that lost and loved one to her tower.
He looks, the shepherd on Chaldea's hills,
Tending his flocks,-
And wonders the rich beacon doth not blaze,
Gladdening his gaze,
And, from his dreary watch along the rocks,
Guiding him safely home through perilous ways!
How stands he in amaze,
Still wondering, as the drowsy silence fills
The sorrowful scene, and every hour distils
Its leaden dews-how chafes he at the night,
Still slow to bring the expected and sweet light,
So natural to his sight!
Where its first splendours shone,
Shall be that pleasant company of stars:
How should they know that death
Such perfect beauty mars?
And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath,
Fallen from on high,
Their lights grow blasted by its touch, and die-
All their concerted springs of harmony
Snapped rudely, and the generous music gone.
A strain-a mellow strain
Of wailing sweetness filled the earth and sky;
The stars lamenting in unborrowed pain
That one of the selectest ones must die,-
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!
Alas! 'tis evermore the destiny,—
The hope heart-cherished is the soonest lost;
The flower first budded soonest feels the frost:
Are not the shortest-lived still loveliest?
And, like the pale star shooting down the sky,
Look they not ever brightest when they fly
The desolate home they blessed?
[Born about 1807, of a naval family. Has held various legal and other public offices in Massachusetts. Besides divers volumes of poetry, he has published, under the pseudonym of Wesley Brooke, a novel named Eastford].
OVER the mountain wave, see where they come ;
Storm-cloud and wintry wind welcome them home;
Yet, where the sounding gale howls to the sea,
There their song peals along, deep-toned and free:
"Pilgrims and wanderers, hither we come ;
Where the free dare to be-this is our home!"
England hath sunny dales, dearly they bloom;
Scotia hath heather-hills, sweet their perfume:
Yet through the wilderness cheerful we stray,
Native land, native land-home far away!
"Pilgrims and wanderers, hither we come;
Where the free dare to be-this is our home!"
Dim grew the forest-path: onward they trod;
Firm beat their noble hearts, trusting in God.
Grey men and blooming maids, high rose their song;
Hear it sweep, clear and deep, ever along :
"Pilgrims and wanderers, hither we come;
Where the free dare to be-this is our home!"
Not theirs the glory-wreath, torn by the blast;
Heavenward their holy steps, heavenward they passed.
Green be their mossy graves! ours be their fame,
While their song peals along, ever the same:
"Pilgrims and wanderers, hither we come;
Where the free dare to be-this is our home!"
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.
[Born in 1807, died in 1867. While still at college, he acquired a showy but unstable reputation by certain Scripture Sketches in verse; and continued producing various metrical and more numerous prose compositions, of a light and miscellaneous kind for the most part. He travelled in England and in Europe; making numerous acquaintances, some friends, and not a few enemies, by his social talents and his pen].
THE CONFESSIONAL.
I THOUGHT of thee-I thought of thee,
On ocean many a weary night,
When heaved the long and sullen sea,
With only waves and stars in sight.
We stole along by isles of balm,
We furled before the coming gale,
We slept amid the breathless calm,
We flew beneath the straining sail,-
But thou wert lost for years to me,
And day and night I thought of thee!
I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In France, amid the gay saloon,
Where eyes as dark as eyes may be
Are many as the leaves in June:
Where life is love, and e'en the air
Is pregnant with impassioned thought,
And song and dance and music are
With one warm meaning only fraught.
My half-snared heart broke lightly free,
And, with a blush, I thought of thee!
I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Florence, where the fiery hearts
Of Italy are breathed away
In wonders of the deathless arts;
Where strays the Contadina down
Val d'Arno, with a song of old;
Where clime and women seldom frown,
And life runs over sands of gold.
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