Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak ! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;

Thou hast a tongue — come, let us hear its tune; Thou’rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy!

“Revisiting the glimpses of the moon;" Not like thin ghosts, or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us

for doubtless 'thou canst recollect -
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?
Was Cheops, or Cephrenes, architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer ?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer ?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden,

By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade; 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 - Egyptian priests ne'er owned their juggles.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,

Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled, For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled !

Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, How the world looked when it was fresh and young,

And the great deluge still had left it green ; Or was it then so old, that history's pages 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 prison-house ! Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen, what strange adventures numbered ?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations : The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations, And countless kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,

O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Meninon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold:
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled :

Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face? What was thy name and station, age and race ?

Statue of Alesh - 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, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning !

Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost forever? 0, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that, when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, Th’immortal spirit in the skies may bloom !

LESSON CLI.

Hymn to the Flowers.

HORACE SMITH.

DAY-STARS, that ope your eyes with morn to twinkle,

From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation, And dew-drops on her lovely altars sprinkle

As a libation !

Ye matin worshippers, who, bending lowly

Before the uprisen sun, God's lidless eye, Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy

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.

There, as in solitude and shade I wander

Through the lone aisles, or, stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder

The ways of God,

Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers; Each

cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers

From loneliest nook.

Floral apostles, that in dewy splendor

Weep without sin and blush without a crime, O, may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender

Your love sublime !

“ Thou wast not, Solomon, in all thy glory,

Arrayed,” the lilies cry, in robes like ours : How vain your grandeur! O, how transitory

Are human flowers!

In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist,

With which thou paintest nature's wide-spread hall, What a delightful lesson thou impartest

Of love to all !

Not useless are ye, flowers, though made for pleasure,

Blooming o'er fields and wave by day and night ; From every source your sanction bids me treasure

Harmless delight.

Ephemeral sages, what instructors hoary

For such a world of thought could furnish scope ? Each fading calyx a'"memento mori," — .

Yet fount of hope.

Posthumous glories, angel-like collection,

Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection

And second birth.

Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining,

Far from all teachers and from all divines, My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining,

Priests, sermons, shrines.

LESSON CLII.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day.

DRYDEN.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began.
When Nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,