But for one moment-one-till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!
"Shivering! Hark! he mutters

Brokenly now-that was a difficult breath-
Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death!
Look! how his temple flutters!

Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!

He shudders-gasps-Jove help him!-so-he's dead.'
How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unrein'd ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,
We look upon our splendor, and forget
The thirst of which we perish!

259.-MILTON'S PRAYER OF PATIENCE.

ELIZABETH LLOYD.

I am old and blind!

Men point at me as smitten by God's frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind,

Yet am I not cast down.

I am weak, yet strong:

I murmur not that I no longer see;

Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father Supreme! to Thee.

All-merciful One!

When men are farthest, then art Thou most near⚫
When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun,
Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face

Is leaning towards me, and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place,

And there is no more night.

On my bended knee

I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown:
My vision Thou hast dimmed that I may see
Thyself, Thyself alone.

I have naught to fear:

This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred,-here

Can come no evil thing.

O! I seem to stand,

Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been,
Wrapped in that radiance from the sinless land
Which eye hath never seen.

Visions come and go,

Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
From angel-lips I seem to hear the flow

Of soft and holy song.

In a purer clime

My being fills with rapture, waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit, strains sublime
Break over me unsought.

Give me now my lyre;

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine;
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire
Lit by no skill of mine.

260.-POEMS FROM HOLMES.

CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And the coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed.

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings, Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from Heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

THE LAST LEAF.

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door;
And again

The pavement-stones resound
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,

Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
So forlorn;

And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has pressed
In their bloom;

And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said,—
Poor old lady! she is dead
Long ago,-

That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff;

And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack

In his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin
At him here;

But the old three-cornered hat
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf on the tree
In the spring,
Let them laugh as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

Where, O where, are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime ?

Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.

Where, O where, are life's lilies and roses,
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile.

Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies,
Saturday's triumph and joy?

Gone like our friend the swift-footed Achilles, Homer's ferocious old boy.

Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion,

Hopes like young eagles at play,

Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion,

How ye have faded away!

Yet, though the ebbing of Time's mighty river

Leave our young blossoms to die,

Let him roll smooth in his current forever,

Till the last pebble is dry.

OLD IRONSIDES.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rang the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar ;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave!
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave!
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

THE LIVING TEMPLE.

Not in the world of light alone,

Where God has built his blazing throne,

Nor yet alone in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen;
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay,
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net,
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides;
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.
But warmed with that unchanging flame,
Behold the outward moving frame;
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in countless chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.
See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light;