TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length-at length-after so many days

Here, where the mimic Eagle

A midnight vigil holds the swarty at
Here, where the dames of Rome the
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed.
Here, where on golden throne the monemm
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble E
Lit by the wan light of the hornéd moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

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And purified in their electric fire,

And sanctified in their elysian fire.

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven-the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still-two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

HYMN.

AT morn- at noon -at twilight dim
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe-in good and ill —
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

ΤΟ

Nor long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,

A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue :
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables-
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit " dew
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,'
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures")
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
I cannot write-I cannot speak or think-

Alas, I cannot feel; for 't is not feeling,

This standing motionless upon the golden

Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
Upon the left, and all the way along,
Amid unpurpled vapours, far away

To where the prospect terminates—thee only.

TO MY MOTHER. *

BECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you·
You, who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.

My mother-my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

* Addressed to a lady who well deserved that name from PoeMARIA CLEMM, his mother-in-law. See WILLIS'S " Hurry-Graphs."

-ED.