THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER.

The arrow goes forth with the singing breeze,
And is not my spirit as one of these?

Oh! the green earth with its wealth of flowers,
And the voices that ring through its forest bowers,
And the laughing glance of the founts that shine,
Lighting the valleys-all, all are mine!

I may urge through the desert my foaming steed,
The wings of the morning shall lend him speed;
I may meet the storm in its rushing glee-
Its blasts and its lightnings are not more free !
Captive! and hast thou then rent thy chain?
Art thou free in the wilderness, free on the main?
Yes! there thy spirit may proudly soar,
But must thou not mingle with throngs the more?
The bird when he pineth, may hush his song,
Till the hour when his heart shall again be strong;
But thou canst thou turn in thy woe aside,
And weep, 'midst thy brethren ?—no, not for pride.
May the fiery word from thy lip find way,

When the thoughts burning in thee shall spring to day!
May the care that sits in thy weary breast
Look forth from thine aspect, the revel's guest?

No! with the shaft in thy bosom borne,

Thou must hide the wound in thy fear of scorn;
Thou must fold thy mantle that none may see,

And mask thee with laughter, and say thou art free!
No! thou art chain'd till thy race is run,
By the power of all in the soul of one;
On thy heart, on thy lip, must the fetter be-
Dreamer, fond dreamer! oh! who is free?

THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER.

"La voila telle que la mort nous l'a faite."-Bossuet.

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[Never was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that ex quisite one of Kircher, Digby, and others, who discovered in the ashes of plants their primitive forms, which were again raised up by the power of heat. The ashes of roses, say they, will again revive in roses, unsubstantial and unodoriferous; they are not roses which grow on rose-trees, but their delicate apparitions, and, like apparitions, they are seen but for a moment.-Curiosities of Lite rature.]

'Twas a dream of olden days,

That Art, by some strange power,
The visionary form could raise
From the ashes of a flower,

That a shadow of the rose,

By its own meek beauty bow'd,

Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,
Like pictures in a cloud.

Or the hyacinth, to grace,
As a second rainbow, Spring:
Of Summer's path a dreary trace,
A fair, yet mournful thing!
For the glory of the bloom

That a flush around it shed,
And the soul within, the rich perfume,
Where were they?-fled, all fled!
Nought but the dim faint line

To speak of vanish'd hours... ... –
Memory! what are joys of thine?
-Shadows of buried flowers!

LINES TO A BUTTERFLY RESTING ON A SKULL.
CREATURE of air and light!
Emblem of that which will not fade or die!
Wilt thou not speed thy flight,

To chase the south wind through the glowing sky?
What lures thee thus to stay

With silence and decay,

Fix'd on the wreck of cold mortality?

The thoughts once chamber'd there,

Have gather'd up their treasure and are gone;
Will the dust tell thee where

That which hath burst the prison-house is flown?
Rise, nursling of the day!

If thou would'st trace its way—

Earth has no voice to make the secret known.

Who seeks the vanish'd bird

Near the deserted nest and broken shell?
Far thence, by us unheard,

He sings, rejoicing in the woods to dwell :
Thou of the sunshine born,

Take the bright wings of morn!

Thy hope springs heavenward from yon ruin'd cell.

THE BELL AT SEA.

[The dangerous islet called the Bell Rock, on the coast of Fife, used formerly to be marked only by a bell, which was so placed as to be swung by the motion of the waves, when the tide rose above the rock. A lighthouse has since been erected there.]

WHEN the tide's billowy swell

Had reach'd its height,
Then toll'd the rock's lone bell,
Sternly by night.

THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM.

Far over cliff and surge

Swept the deep sound,
Making each wild wind's drge
Still more profound.

Yet that funereal tone

The sailor bless'd

Steering through darkness on

With fearless breast.

E'en so may we, that float
On life's wide sea,
Welcome each warning note,
Stern though it be !

THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM

"Thou stream,

Whose source is inaccessibly profound,

Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
-Thou imagest my life."

DARKLY thou glidest onward,

Thou deep and hidden wave!

The laughing sunshine hath not look'd
Into thy secret cave.

Thy current makes no music-
Á hollow sound we hear,
A muffled voice of mystery,
And know that thou art near.

No brighter line of verdure
Follows thy lonely way;
No fairy moss, or lily's cup,
Is freshen❜d by thy play.

The halcyon doth not seek thee,

Her glorious wings to lave!

Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky,

Thou dark and hidden wave!

Yet once will day behold thee,
When to the mighty sea,

Fresh bursting from their cavern'd veins,

Leap thy lone waters free.

There wilt thou greet the sunshine

For a moment, and be lost,

With all thy melancholy sounds,
In the ocean's billowy host.

Oh! art thou not, dark river,

Like the fearful thoughts untold,

Which haply in the hush of night
O'er many a soul have roll'd?

085

Those earth-born strange misgivings-
Who hath not felt their power?

Yet who hath breathed them to his friend,
E'en in his fondest hour?

They hold no heart communion,
They find no voice in song
They dimly follow far from earth
The grave's departed throng.
Wild is their course, and lonely,
And fruitless in man's breast;
They come and go, and leave no trace
Of their mysterious guest.

Yet surely must their wanderings
At length be like thy way;

Their shadows, as thy waters, lost

In one bright flood of day!

THE SILENT MULTITUDE.

"For we are many in our solitudes."--Lament of Tasse.

A MIGHTY and a mingled throng
Were gather'd in one spot;
The dwellers of a thousand homes-
Yet 'midst them voice was not.

The soldier and his chief were there-
The mother and her child:
The friends, the sisters of one heartn--
None spoke-none moved-none smiled
There lovers met, between whose lives
Years had swept darkly by ;

After that heart-sick hope deferr'd-
They met-but silently.

You might have heard the rustling leaf,
The breeze's faintest sound,

The shiver of an insect's wing,
On that thick-peopled ground.

Your voice to whispers would have died
For the deep quiet's sake;

Your tread the softest moss have sought,
Such stillness not to break.

What held the countless multitude
Bound in that spell of peace?

How could the ever-sounding life

Amid so many cease?

Was it some pageant of the air

Some glory high above,

That link'd and hush'd those human souls
In reverential love?

--------- ---- ---------------

THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.

Or did some burdening passion's weight
Hang on their indrawn breath?
Awe-the pale awe that freezes words?
Fear-the strong fear of death?

A mightier thing-Death, Death himself
Lay on each lonely heart!

Kindred were there yet hermits all-
Thousands-but each apart.

287

THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.*

O EVER joyous band
Of revellers amidst the southern vines!
On the pale marble, by some gifted hand,
Fixed in undying lines!

Thou, with the sculptured bowl,

And thou, that wearest the immortal wreath,
And thou, from whose young lip and flute, the soul
Of music seems to breathe ;

And ye, luxuriant flowers!

Linking the dancers with your graceful ties,
And cluster'd fruitage, born of sunny hours,
Under Italian skies:

Ye, that a thousand springs,
And leafy summers with their odorous breath
May yet outlast,-what do ye there, bright things!
Mantling the place of death?

Of sunlight and soft air,

And Dorian reeds, and myrtles ever green,
Unto the heart a glowing thought ye bear;→
Why thus, where dust hath been?

Is it to show how slight

The bound that severs festivals and tombs
Music and silence, roses and to blight,
Crowns and sepulchral glooms?

Or when the father laid

Haply his child's pale ashes here to sleep,
When the friend visited the cypress shade,
Flowers o'er the dead to heap;

Say if the mourners sought,
In these rich images of summer mirth,

These wine-cups and gay wreaths, to lose the thought
Of our last hour on earth?

"Les sarcophages même chez les anciens, ne rapellent que des idées guerrières ou riantes :--on voit des jeux, des danses, representés en bas-relief sur les tombeaux."-Corinne.