There's a bell in Moscow; While on tower and kiosk O The Turkman gets, And loud in air Calls men to prayer, From the tapering summit Such empty phantom "T is the bells of Shandon, Of the river Lee. FATHER PROUT (FRANCIS MAHONY). Swims round the purple peaks remote: Round purple peaks Blue inlets, and their crystal creeks, Through deeps below, A duplicated golden glow. Far, vague and dim, The mountains swim: While on Vesuvius' misty brim, With outstretched hands, The gray smoke stands O'erlooking the volcanic lands. Here Ischia smiles And yonder, bluest of the isles, Her sapphire gates I heed not, if Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; — My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise. With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies,— O'erveiled with vines, She glows and shines Among her future oil and wines. Her children hid The cliffs amid, Are gambolling with the gambolling kid; Or down the walls, Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls. The fisher's child, With tresses wild, Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled, Or Sings as she skips, gazes at the far-off ships. Yon deep bark goes Where traffic blows, From lands of sun to lands of snows; This happier one, Its course is run THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. DICKENS IN CAMP. ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted : On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, He read aloud the book wherein the Master Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,- for the reader But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, While the whole camp, with "Nell," on English meadows Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire; Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory And on that grave where English oak and holly Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, BRET HARTE. EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE. BEAUTIFUL was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest, Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight, Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit. Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian. Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews, Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings, As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees, Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie. Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers. Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens, Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship, Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple, As if a hand had appeared and written upon them "Upharsin." And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fireflies, Wandered alone, and she cried, "O, Gabriel! O, my beloved! Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee! Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me? Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie! Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me! |