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BAYARD TAYLOR.

[U. s. A.]

THE MOUNTAINS.

(From "THE MASQUE OF THE GODS.")

HOWE'ER the wheels of Time go round,
We cannot wholly be discrowned.
We bind, in form, and hue, and height,
The Finite to the Infinite,
And, lifted on our shoulders bare,
The races breathe an ampler air.
The arms that clasped, the lips that kissed,
Have vanished from the morning mist;
The dainty shapes that flashed and passed
In spray the plunging torrent cast,
Or danced through woven gleam and
shade,

The vapors and the sunbeams braid,
Grow thin and pale: each holy haunt
Of gods or spirits ministrant
Hath something lost of ancient awe;
Yet from the stooping heavens we draw
A beauty, mystery, and might,
Time cannot change nor worship slight.
The gold of dawn and sunset sheds
Unearthly glory on our heads;
The secret of the skies we keep;
And whispers, round each lonely steep,
Allure and promise, yet withhold,
What bard and prophet never told.
While Man's slow ages come and go,
Our dateless chronicles of snow
Their changeless old inscription show,
And men therein forever see
The unread speech of Deity.

AN ORIENTAL IDYL.

A SILVER javelin which the hills Have hurled upon the plain below, The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills, Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh

Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cooled in mountain snow.

The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;
And in the distant, dim bazaars,
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.

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"GIVE us a song!" the soldiers cried,

The outer trenches guarding, When the heated guns of the camps allied Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,

Lay, grim and threatening, under; And the tawny mound of the Malakoff No longer belched its thunder.

There was a pause. A guardsman said:

"We storm the forts to-morrow; Sing while we may, another day Will bring enough of sorrow.'

They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.

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SARA J. LIPPINCOTT (GRACE GREENWOOD).

[U. s. A.]

THE POET OF TO-DAY.

MORE than the soul of ancient song is given

To thee, O poet of to-day!— thy dower Comes, from a higher than Olympian heaven,

In holier beauty and in larger power.

To thee Humanity, her woes revealing, Would all her griefs and ancient wrongs rehearse; Would make thy song the voice of her appealing,

And sob her mighty sorrows through thy verse.

While in her season of great darkness sharing,

Hail thou the coming of each promise

star

Which climbs the midnight of her long despairing,

And watch for morning o'er the hills afar.

Wherever Truth her holy warfare wages, Or Freedom pines, there let thy voice be heard;

Sound like a prophet-warning down the

ages

The human utterance of God's living

word.

But bring not thou the battle's stormy | He who, exulting on the trumpet's breath, Came charging like a star across the lists of death,

chorus,

The tramp of armies, and the roar of fight,

Not war's hot smoke to taint the sweet morn o'er us,

Nor blaze of pillage, reddening up the night.

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MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Became a dreadful face which did oppress Me with the weight of its unwinking

eye.

It fled, when I burst forth into a cry, A shoal of fiends came on me from the deep;

I hid, but in all corners they did pry, And dragged me forth, and round did dance and leap;

They mouthed on me in dream, and tore me from sweet sleep.

"Strange constellations burned above my head,

Strange birds around the vessel shrieked and flew,

Strange shapes, like shadows, through the clear sea fled,

As our lone ship, wide-winged, came rippling through,

Angering to foam the smooth and sleeping blue."

The lady sighed, "Far, far upon the sea, My own Sir Arthur, could I die with you! The wind blows shrill between my love and me.

Fond heart! the space between was but the apple-tree.

There was a cry of joy, with seeking hands

She fled to him, like worn bird to her nest;

Like washing water on the figured sands, His being came and went in sweet unrest,

As from the mighty shelter of his breast The Lady Barbara her head uprears With a wan smile, "Methinks I'm but half blest:

Now when I've found thee, after weary years,

I cannot see thee, love! so blind I am with tears."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

THE TERRACE AT BERNE.

TEN years!-and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high,

The stream, and do I linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland,

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The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar,

And from the blue twin lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the churchyard fair,

And 'neath the garden-walk it hums, The house, and is my Marguerite there?

Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush

Of startled pleasure floods thy brow, Quick through the oleanders brush, And clap thy hands, and cry, 'Tis thou?

Or hast thou long since wandered back, Daughter of France! to France, thy home;

And flitted down the flowery track Where feet like thine too lightly come?

Doth riotous laughter now replace

Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare, Thy cheek's soft hue and fluttering lace The kerchief that enwound thy hair?

Or is it over?-art thou dead?

Dead-and no warning shiver ran Across my heart, to say thy thread

Of life was cut, and closed thy span!

Could from earth's ways that figure slight
Be lost, and I not feel 't was so?
Of that fresh voice the gay delight

Fail from earth's air, and I not know?

Or shall I find thee still, but changed, But not the Marguerite of thy prime? With all thy being rearranged,

Passed through the crucible of time;

With spirit vanished, beauty waned,
And hardly yet a glance, a tone,
A gesture, anything, - retained

Of all that was my Marguerite's own?

I will not know!-- for wherefore try To things by mortal course that live A shadowy durability

For which they were not meant to give?

Like driftwood spars which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain,

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