The horrible color the color of flame! 'Tis a romance to them -a wonder I know that the great All-Father UNREQUITING. The hot sun has o'erflowed from his I CANNOT love thee, but I hold thee broken urn O thou pitiless sky! wilt thou show me my shame ? While the cursed gold clings to my fingers like flame And glitters only to burn! SOMEBODY OLDER. How pleasant it is that always There's somebody older than you Some one to pet and caress you, Some one to scold you too! Some one to call you a baby, To laugh at you when you're wise; Some one to care when you're sorry, To kiss the tears from your eyes. When life has begun to be weary, The path cannot be so lonely, For some one has trod it before; The golden gates are the nearer, That some one stands at the door! I can think of nothing sadder Than to feel, when days are few, There's nobody left to lean on, Nobody older than you! The younger ones may be tender To the feeble steps and slow; But they can't talk the old times over Alas! how should they know! Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Before the uprisen sun - God's lidless eye[holy Throw from your chalices a sweet and Incense on high! Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty The floor of Nature's temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create! 'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned; To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply · Its choir, the winds and waves; its organ, thunder, Its dome the sky. "Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy When the Memnonium was in all its like ours; glory, And Time had not begun to overthrow How vain your grandeur! Ah, how Those temples, palaces, and piles Then say what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played; Perhaps thou wert a priest — if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. Perhaps that very hand, now pinioned flat, Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; AND thou hast walked about, (how Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat; Or doffed thine own, to let Queen Dido pass; Thou could'st develop if that withered tongue Might tell us what those sightless A heart has throbbed beneath that orbs have seen How the world looked when it was fresh and young, And the great Deluge still had left it green; [pages Or was it then so old that history's Contained no record of its early ages? Still silent, incommunicative elf! Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But prythee tell us something of thyself Reveal the secrets of thy prisonhouse; Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered leathern breast, And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled; Have children climbed those knees and kissed that face; What was thy name and station, age and race? Statue of flesh! Immortal of the dead! Imperishable type of evanescence! Posthumous man, who quit' st thy narrow bed, And standest undecayed within our presence! Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning, What hast thou seen - what strange | When adventures numbered? the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost forever? Oh! let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue- that when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom! |