XII.

Our Euripides, the human,

With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common

Till they rose to touch the spheres! Our Theocritus, our Bion,

And our Pindar's shining goals!— These were cup-bearers undying,

Of the wine that's meant for souls.

XIII.

And my Plato, the divine one,
If men know the gods aright
By their motions as they shine on
With a glorious trail of light!
And your noble Christian bishops,
Who mouthed grandly the last Greek!
Though the sponges on their hyssops
Were distent with wine-too weak.

XIV.

Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him
As a liberal mouth of gold;

And your Basil, you upraised him
To the height of speakers old:
And we both praised Heliodorus
For his secret of pure lies,—
Who forged first his linked stories
In the heat of lady's eyes.

XV.

And we both praised your Synesius
For the fire shot up his odes,

Though the Church was scarce propitious
As he whistled dogs and gods.

And we both praised Nazianzen

For the fervid heart and speech :
Only I eschewed his glancing
At the lyre hung out of reach.

Do

XVI.

you mind that deed of Atè Which you bound me to so fast,Reading 'De Virginitate,'

From the first line to the last? How I said at ending, solemn

As I turned and looked at you, That St. Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do?

XVII.

For we sometimes gently wrangled,
Very gently, be it said,

Since our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old-

Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons
Stained the purple they would fold.

XVIII.

For the rest a mystic moaning,
Kept Cassandra at the gate,
With wild eyes the vision shone in,
And wide nostrils scenting fate.
And Prometheus, bound in passion
By brute Force to the blind stone,
Showed us looks of invocation
Turned to ocean and the sun.

XIX.

And Medea we saw burning
At her nature's planted stake:
And proud Edipus fate-scorning

While the cloud came on to breakWhile the cloud came on slow, slower, Till he stood discrowned, resigned!But the reader's voice dropped lower When the poet called him BLIND.

XX.

Ah, my gossip! you were older,
And more learned, and a man!
Yet that shadow, the enfolder
Of your quiet eyelids, ran
Both our spirits to one level;

And I turned from hill and lea
And the summer-sun's green revel,
To your eyes that could not see.

XXI.

Now Christ bless you with the one light
Which goes shining night and day!
May the flowers which grow in sunlight
Shed their fragrance in your way!
Is it not right to remember

All your kindness, friend of mine,
When we two sate in the chamber,
And the poets poured us wine?

XXII.

So, to come back to the drinking
Of this Cyprus,-it is well,
But those memories, te my thinking,
Make a better œnomel;

And whoever be the speaker,

None can murmur with a sigh That, in drinking from that beaker, I am sipping like a fly.

A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS.

'Fill all the stops of life with tuneful breath.'

POEMS ON MAN, BY CORNELIUS MATHEWS.*

I.

WE are borne into life-it is sweet, it is strange.
We lie still on the knee of a mild Mystery

Which smiles with a change;

But we doubt not of changes, we know not of spaces, The Heavens seem as near as our own mother's face is, And we think we could touch all the stars that we see ; And the milk of our mother is white on our mouth;

And, with small childish hands, we are turning around

.

The apple of Life which another has found;

It is warm with our touch, not with sun of the south,
And we count, as we turn it, the red side for four.
O Life, O Beyond,

Thou art sweet, thou art strange evermore !

* A small volume, by an American poet-as remarkable in thought and manner for a vital sinewy vigour, as the right arm of Pathfinder. 1844.