THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.
A DREAM OF PONCE DE LEON.

A STORY of Ponce de Leon,

A voyager withered and old, Who came to the sunny Antilles, In quest of a country of gold. He was wafted past islands of spices, As bright as the emerald seas, Where all the forests seem singing,

So thick were the birds on the trees; The sea was clear as the azure,

And so deep and so pure was the sky That the jasper-walled city seemed shining

Just out of the reach of the eye.

The shadowy world is behind us,
The shining Cipango before;
Each morning the sun rises brighter
On ocean, and island, and shore.
And still shall our spirits grow lighter,
As prospects more glowing unfold;
Then on, merry men! to Cipango,
To the west, and the regions of
gold!"

There came to De Leon the sailor,

Some Indian sages, who told Of a region so bright that the waters Were sprinkled with islands of gold. And they added: "The leafy Bimini, A fair land of grottos and bowers Is there; and a wonderful fountain Upsprings from its gardens of flowers.

That fountain gives life to the dying,

And youth to the aged restores: They flourish in beauty eternal,

Who set but their feet on its shores!"

Then answered De Leon, the sailor:

"I am withered, and wrinkled, and

old;

I would rather discover that fountain Than a country of diamonds and gold."

Away sailed De Leon, the sailor;

Away with a wonderful glee,

Till the birds were more rare in the

azure,

The dolphins more rare in the sea. Away from the shady Bahamas,

Over waters no sailor had seen, Till again on his wandering vision, Rose clustering islands of green. Still onward he sped till the breezes Were laden with odors, and lo! A country embedded with flowers,

A country with rivers aglow! More bright than the sunny Antilles, More fair than the shady Azores. "Thank the Lord!" said De Leon, the sailor,

As feasted his eye on the shores, "We have come to a region, my brothers,

More lovely than earth, of a truth; And here is the life-giving fountain, The beautiful Fountain of Youth."

But wandered De Leon, the sailor,

In search of the fountain in vain; No waters were there to restore himi To freshness and beauty again. And his anchor he lifted, and murmured,

As the tears gathered fast in his eye, "I must leave this fair land of the flowers,

Go back o'er the ocean, and die." Then back by the dreary Tortugas,

And back by the shady Azores, He was borne on the storm-smitten waters

To the calm of his own native shores.

And that he grew older and older,

His footsteps enfeebled gave proof, Still he thirsted in dreams for the fountain,

The beautiful Fountain of Youth.

One day the old sailor lay dying

On the shores of a tropical isle, And his heart was enkindled with rapture; [smile. And his face lighted up with a

His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his spirit may oppose
Itself and equal to all woes,

And a firm vill, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry

Its own concentered recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making death a victory!

WHEN COLDNESS

Away, away, without a wing,
O'er all, through all, its thoughts
shall fly;

A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die.

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS.

SUFFERING CLAY.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay,

Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stray,
But leaves its darkened dust be-

hind.

Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way?

Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecayed,

A thought unseen, but seeing alı, All, all in earth, or skies displayed, Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all that was, at once appears.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eyes shall roll through chaos back;

And where the furthest heaven had birth,

The spirit trace its rising track, And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quenched or system breaks,

Fixed in its own eternity.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure.

How like art thou to joy remembered

well!