"So-let him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! "Pity' thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar- A thousand lives were perishing in thine- "Hereafter!' Ay-hereafter! A whip to keep a coward to his track! Come from the grave to-morrow with that story "No, no, old man! we die Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, "Ay-though it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst- The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, "All-I would do it all Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot- O heavens-but I appall Your heart, old man! forgive-ha! on your lives Let him not faint!-rack him till he revives! "Vain-vain-give o'er! His eye Glazes apace. He does not feel you now- But for one moment-one-till I eclipse Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head! He shudders-gasps-Jove help him!-so-he dead. The heart to ashes, and with not a spring 259.-MILTON'S PRAYER OF PATIENCE. ELIZABETH LLOYD. I am old and blind! Men point at me as smitten by God's frown; Yet am I not cast down. I am weak, yet strong: I murmur not that I no longer see; Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, All-merciful One! When men are farthest, then art Thou most near· Thy glorious face Is leaning towards me, and its holy light And there is no more night. On my bended knee I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown: I have naught to fear: This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing; Can come no evil thing. O! I seem to stand, Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, Visions come and go, Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng; Of soft and holy song. In a purer clime My being fills with rapture, waves of thought Give me now my lyre; I feel the stirrings of a gift divine; 260.-POEMS FROM HOLMES. CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings And the coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, Before thee lies revealed Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed. Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings, Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. THE LAST LEAF.' I saw him once before, The pavement-stones resound They say that in his prime, Not a better man was found But now he walks the streets, And he shakes his feeble head, They are gone." The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed And the names he loved to hear My grandmamma has said,― Long ago. That he had a Roman nose, But now his nose is thin, And a crook is in his back, In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin But the old three-cornered hat And if I should live to be Let them laugh as I do now, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Where, O where, are the visions of morning, Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, Where, O where, are life's lilies and roses, Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies, Gone like our friend the swift-footed Achilles, Homer's ferocious old boy. Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, Hopes like young eagles at play, Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, How ye have faded away! Yet, though the ebbing of Time's mighty river Let him roll smooth in his current forever, OLD IRONSIDES. Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! And burst the cannon's roar ; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, |