SANDALPHON. Have you read in the Talmud of old, From the hearts that are broken with In the Legends the Rabbins have told

losses, Of the limitless realms of the air,- And weary with dragging the crosses Have you read it, — the marvellous Too heavy for mortals to bear.

story Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

And be gathers the prayers as he stands, Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer ?

| And they change into flowers in his

hands, How, erect, at the outermost gates

Into garlands of purple and red; Of the City Celestial he waits,

And beneath the great arch of the portal, With his feet on the ladder of light, Through the streets of the City Inmortal That, crowded with angels unnumbered, Is wafted the fragrance they shed. By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night?

It is but a legend, I know,

A fable, a phantom, a show, The Angels of Wind and of Fire

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore, Chant only one hymn, and expire Yet the old mediæval tradition,

With the song's irresistible stress ; The beautiful, strange superstition, Expire in their rapture and wonder, But baunts me and holds me the more. As harp-strings are broken asunder By music they throb to express.

When I look from my window at night,

And the welkin above is all wbite,
But serene in the rapturous throng, All throbbing and panting with stars,
Unmoved by the rush of the song, Among them majestic is standing

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Sandalphon the angel, expanding
Among the dead angels, the deathless His pinions in nebulous bars.
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below ;-

And the legend, I feel, is a part

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, From the spirits on earth that adore, The frenzy and fire of the brain, From the souls that entreat and im. That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, plore

The golden pomegranates of Eden, In the fervour and passion of prayer ;! To quiet its fever and pain.

EPIMETHEUS ;

OR, THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT.
Have I dreamed ? or was it real, Ah! how cold are their caresses !
What I saw as in a vision,

Pallid cheeks, and baggard bosoms! When to marches hymeneal

Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, In the land of the Ideal

And from loose, dishevelled tresses Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian ? Fall the hyacinthine blossoms ! What! are these the guests whose glances O my songs ! whose winsome measures Seemed like sunshine gleaming round Filled my heart with secret rapme?

ture! These the wild, bewildering fancies, Children of my golden leisures ! That with dithyrambic dances,

Must even your delights and pleasures As with magic circles, bound me? I Fade and perish with the capture ?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,

When they came to me unbidder;
Voices single, and in chorus,
Like the wild birds sicging o'er us

In the dark of branches hidden.
Disenchantment! Disillusion !

Must each noble aspiration
Come at last to this conclusion,
Jarring discord, wild confusion,

Lassitude, renunciation ?
Not with steeper fall nor faster,

From the sun's serene dominions,
Not through brighter realms nor vaster,
In swift ruin and disaster,

Icarus fell with shattered pinions !
Sweet Pandora ! dear Pandora !

Why did mighty Jove create thee Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

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,
1 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!

No, not hate thee! for this feeling

Of unrest and long resistance Is but passionate appealing,

FLIGHT THE SECOND.

A DAY OF SUNSHINE. O GIFT of God! O perfect day: Where through a sapphire sea the sun Whereon shall no man work, but play ; Sails like a golden galleon, Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Through every fibre of my brain, Whose steep sierra far uplifts Through every nerve, through every Its craggy summits white with drifts.

vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch Blow, winds! and waft through all the Of life, that seenis almost too much.

rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms !
I hear the wind among the trees Blow, winds ! and bend within my reach
Playing celestial symphonies ;

The fiery blossoms of the peach
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

| O Life and Love! O happy throng

Of thoughts, whose only speech is song And over me unrolls on high

O heart of man! canst thou not be The splendid scenery of the sky,

Blithe as the air is, and as free?

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.
BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, They climb up into my turret

When the night is beginning to lower, O'er the arms and back of my chair; Comes a pause in the day's occupations If I try to escape they surround me ;

That is known as the Children's Hour. They seem to be everywhere.
I hear in the chamber above me They almost devour me with kisses,
The patter of little feet,

Their arms about me entwine,
The sound of a door that is opened, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
And voices soft and sweet.

In his Mouse Tower on the Rhine ! From my study I see in the lamplight, Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Descending the broad ball stair,

Because you have scaled the wall,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, Such an old moustache as I am
And Edith with golden hair.

Is not a match for you all !
A whisper and then a silence ;

I have you fast in my fortress,
Yet I know by their merry eyes

And will not let you depart,
They are plotting and planning together But put you down into the dungeon
To take me by surprise.

In the round-tower of my heart.
A sudden rush from the stairway, | And there will I keep you for ever,
A sudden raid from the hall !

Yes, for ever and a day, By three doors left unguarded

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, They enter my castle wall !

| And moulder in dust away!

ENCELADUS. UNDER Mount Etna he lies,

| At the ominous sounds they hear, It is slumber, it is not death;

And tremble, and mutter, "At For he struggles at times to arise,

length !” And above him the lurid skies Are hot with his fiery breath.

Ah me! for the land that is sown

With the harvest of despair, The crags are piled on his breast, Where the burning cinders, blown

The earth is heaped on his head; From the lips of the overthrown But the groans of his wild unrest,

Enceladus, fill the air. Though smothered and half suppressed,

Where ashes are heaped in drifts Are heard, and he is not dead.

Over vineyard and field and town,

Whenever be starts and lifts And the nations far away

His head through the blackened rifts Are watching with eager eyes ;

Of the crags that keep him down. They talk together and say, “ To-morrow, perhaps to-day,

See, see! the red light shines ! Enceladus will arise !"

'Tis the glare of his awful eyes !

And the storm-wind shouts through the And the old gods, the austere

pines Oppressors in their strength,

Of Alps and of Apennines, Stand aghast and white with fear | “Enceladus, arise !"

THE CUMBERLAND.

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,

On board of the Cumberland, sloop of war; And at times from the fortress across the bay

The alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle blast
From the camp on the shore.
Then far away to the south uprose

A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foe

Was steadily steering its course

To try the force
Of our ribs of oak.
Down upon us heavily runs,

Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,

And leaps the terrible death,

With fiery breath,
From each open port.
We are not idle, but send her straight

Defiance back in a full broadside !
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate

Rebounds our heavier hail

From each iron scale Of the monster's hide. “Strike your flag!” the rebel cries,

In his arrogant old plantation strain. “Never !” our gallant Morris replies;

"It is better to sink than to yield !"

And the whole air pealed
With the cheers of our men.
Then, like a kraken huge and black,

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp !
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,

With a sudden shudder of death,

And the cannon's breath
For her dying gasp.
Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,

Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day!

Every waft of the air

Was a whisper of prayer,
Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas !

Ye are at peace in the troubled stream,
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,

Thy flag, that is rent in twain,

Shall be one again,
And without a seam !

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.
LABOUR with what zeal we will, By the cares of yesterday

Something still remains undone, Each to-day is heavier made ;
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.

Till at length the burden seems

Greater than our strength can bear ; By the bedside, on the stair,

Heavy as the weight of dreams,
At the threshold, near the gates, Pressing on us everywhere.
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits ;

And we stand from day to day,

Like the dwarfs of times gone by, Waits, and will not go away;

Who, as Northern legends say, Waits, and will not be gainsaid: | On their shoulders held the sky.

WEARINESS. O LITTLE feet! that such long years 1 little hearts ! that throb and beat Must wander on through hopes and with such impatient, feverish heat, fears,

| Such limitless and strong desires ; Must ache and bleed beneath your load; Mine that so long has glowed and burned, I, nearer to the Wayside Inn

With passions into ashes turned Where toil sball cease and rest begin, Now covers and conceals its fires. Am weary, thinking of your road!

O little souls ! as pure and white O little bands! that, weak or strong, And crystalline as rays of light Have still to serve or rule so long,

Direct from heaven, their source Have still so long to give or ask ;

divine ; I, who so much with book and pen Refracted through the mist of years, Have toiled among my fellow-men, How red my setting sun appears,

Am weary, thinking of your task. How lurid looks this soul of mine!

SNOW-PLAKES. Out of the bosom of the Air,

| Even as the troubled heart doth make Out of the cloud-folds of her garments In the white countenance confession, shaken,

The troubled sky reveals
Over the woodlands brown and bare,

The grief it feels.
Oyer the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow

This is the poem of the Air,
Descends the snow.

Slowly in silent syllables recorded ;

This is the secret of despair, Even as our cloudy fancies take

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Suddenly shape in some divine expres- | Now whispered and revealed sion,

To wood and field.