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SANDALPHON.

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 he 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 medieval 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 Sandalphon 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.

EPIMETHEUS ;

OR, THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT.

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 ?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,
When they came to me unbidden;
Voices single, and in chorus,
Like the wild birds singing 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?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance
Is but passionate appealing,

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 strengthened,

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 !

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THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.

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!

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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, 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.

WEARINESS.

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 bands! 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,

An weary, thinking of your task.

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 bosom of the Air,

SNOW-FLAKES.

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments
shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over 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.

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