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NORTHERN LIGHTS.

JELL'S gates swing open wide!

Hell's furious chiefs forth ride!

The deep doth redden

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towns,

With flags of armies marching through the Moscow, and purple Rome, and cannon-girt

Night,

As kings shall lead their legions to the fight At Armageddon.

Peers and princes mark I,

Captains and Chilarchi;

Thee, burning Angel of the Pit, Abaddon! Charioteers from Hades, land of Gloom, Gigantic thrones, and heathen troopers, whom

The thunder of the far-off fight doth madden.

Lo! Night's barbaric Khans, Lo! the waste gulf's wild clans Gallop across the skies with fiery bridles! Lo! flaming Sultans. Lo! infernal Czars, In deep-ranked squadrons gird the glowing

cars

Of Lucifer and Ammon, towering Idols.

See yonder red platoons!

See! see the swift dragoons Whirling aloft their sabres to the zenith! See the tall regiments whose spears incline Beyond the circle of that steadfast sign, Which to the streams of ocean never leaneth.

Whose yonder dragon-crest? Whose that red-shielded breast? Chieftain Satanas! Emp'ror of the Furnace! His bright centurions, his blazing earls; In mail of lightning-dealing gems and

pearls,

Vienna ?

Go bid your prophets watch the troubled

skies!

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Dare ye again, fierce Thrones and scarlet Powers,

Assail with Hell's wild host those crystal towers ?

Tempt ye again the angels' shining blades,

Alarm the kingdoms with their gleaming har- Ithuriel's spear and Michael's circling trun

ness.

All shades and spectral hosts,

All forms and gloomy ghosts,

All frowning phantoms from the Gulf's dim

gorges

Follow the Kings in wav'ring multitudes;

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While savage giants of the Night's old WITH HUSKY-HAUGHTY LIPS, O

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Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to Thy lonely state-something thou ever seek'st the goal, and seek'st, yet never gain'st,

Thy ample, smiling face, dashed with the Surely some right withheld-some voice, in sparkling dimples of the sun, huge monotonous rage, of freedomlover pent,

Thy broodings scowl and murk-thy unloos'd

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Great as thou art above the rest, thy many By lengthen'd swell, and spasm, and panting

tears-a lack from all eternity in thy
content

(Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs,
defeats, could make thee greatest-no
less could make thee),

breath,

And rythmic rasping of thy sands and waves, And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,

And undertones of distant lion roar

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What saith the river to the rushes gray,

Rushes sadly bending,

River slowly wending?

It is near the closing of the day,

Near the night. Life and light

For ever, ever fled away!

Draw him tideward down; but not in haste. Mouldering daylight lingers;

Night with her cold fingers

Sprinkles moonbeams on the dim sea-waste. Ever, ever fled away!

Vainly cherish'd! vainly chased!

What saith the river to the rushes gray,
Rushes sadly bending,
River slowly wending?

Where in darkest glooms his bed we lay,
Up the cave moans the wave,
For ever, ever, ever, fled away?

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I would that the wind awaking To a fierce and gusty birth

Might vary this dull refrain
Of the rain, the desolate rain;
For the heart of the heavens seems
breaking

In tears o'er the fallen earth,
And again, again, again,
We list to the somber strain-
The faint, cold monotone
Whose soul is a mystic moan

Of the rain, the mournful rain,
The soft, despairing rain.
The rain, the mournful rain!
Weary, passionless, slow;

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

'Tis the rhythm of settled sorrow, The sobbing of cureless woe! And all the tragic of life,

The pathos of long ago, Comes back on the sad refrain Of the rain, the dreary rain; Till the graves in my heart unclose, And the dead who are buried there, From a solemn and a weird repose Awake, and with eyes that glare And voices that melt in pain On the tide of the plaintive rain, The yearning, hopeless rain, The long, low, whispering rain!

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

THE CLOUD.

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, BRING fresh showers for the thirsting And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, By the midnight breezes strewn;

flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams;

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun;

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plain under;
And then again I dissolve in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea.

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or

stream,

The Spirit he loves remains;

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,

Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and
swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above the soft colors wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue I pass through the pores of the ocean and

smile,

While he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning-star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings;

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded, I rest on my airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

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