HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told

Of the limitless realms of the air,Have you read it, the marvellous story

Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered

Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Among the dead angels, the deathless Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;

From the spirits on earth that adore, From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervour and passion of prayer;

From the hearts that are broken with losses,

And weary with dragging the crosses

Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And be gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands,

Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,—
A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore,
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night, And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sanda phon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,

The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

HAVE I dreamed? or was it real,
What I saw as in a vision,
When to marches hymeneal
In the land of the Ideal

Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian? What are these the guests whose glances Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me?

These the wild, bewildering fancies,
That with dithyrambic dances,

As with magic circles, bound me ?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!
Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms !
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,
And from loose, dishevelled tresses

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms !

O my songs! whose winsome measures Filled my heart with secret rapture !

Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture ?

A prophetic whisper stealing
O'er the chords of our existence.

Him whom thou dost once enamour,

Thou, beloved, never leavest; In life's discord, strife, and clamour, Still he feels thy spell of glamour;

Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted,

Struggling souls by thee are strength-
ened,

Clouds of fear asunder rifted,
Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!
Therefore art thou ever dearer,

O my Sibyl, my deceiver!
For thou makest each mystery clearer,
And the unattained seems nearer,

When thou fillest my heart with fever! Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!

Though the fields around us wither,
There are ampler realms and spaces,
Where no foot has left its traces:
Let us turn and wander thither!

O GIFT of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through
vein,

I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,

every

Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the

rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song
heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall !
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape they surround me; They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old moustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you for ever,
Yes, for ever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

UNDER Mount Etna he lies,

It is slumber, it is not death; For he struggles at times to arise, And above him the lurid skies

Are hot with his fiery breath.

The crags are piled on his breast,

The earth is heaped on his head; But the groans of his wild unrest, Though smothered and half suppressed, Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far away

Are watching with eager eyes; They talk together and say, "To-morrow, perhaps to-day,

Enceladus will arise !"

And the old gods, the austere Oppressors in their strength, Stand aghast and white with fear

At the ominous sounds they hear,
And tremble, and mutter, "At
length!"

Ah me! for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair,
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in drifts

Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down.

See, see the red light shines!

'Tis the glare of his awful eyes! And the storm-wind shouts through the pines

Of Alps and of Apennines,

"Enceladus, arise!"

LABOUR with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,

At the threshold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer, Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid:

By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems Greater than our strength can bear; Heavy as the weight of dreams,

Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.

O LITTLE feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears,

Must ache and bleed beneath your load; I, nearer to the Wayside Inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin,

Am weary, thinking of your road! O little hands! that, weak or strong, Have still to serve or rule so long,

Have still so long to give or ask ; I, who so much with book and pen Have toiled among my fellow-men,

Am weary, thinking of your task.

OUT of the bosom of the Air,

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,

Such limitless and strong desires; Mine that so long has glowed and burned, With passions into ashes turned

Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light

Direct from heaven, their source
divine;

Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,

How lurid looks this soul of mine!

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Oyer the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the Air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.