Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms And singing slow their old Armenian psalms Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, These have passed over it, or may have passed! And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand ;- Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, And onward, and across the setting sun, The column and its broader shadow run, The vision vanishes! These walls again Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain ; BIRDS OF PASSAGE. BLACK shadows fall From the lindens tall, That lift aloft their massive wall And from the realms Of the shadowy elms A tide-like darkness overwhelms But the night is fair, And everywhere A warm, soft, vapor fills the air, And above, in the light Of the star-lit night, Swift birds of passage wing their flight Through the dewy atmosphere. I hear the beat Of their pinions fleet, As from the land of snow and sleet They seek a southern lea. I hear the cry Of their voices high Falling dreamily through the sky, O, say not so! Those sounds that flow In murmurs of delight and woe Come not from wings of birds. They are the throngs Of the poet's songs, Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs, The sound of winged words. This is the cry Of souls, that high On toiling, beating pinions, fly, From their distant flight Through realms of light It falls into our world of night, With the murmuring sound of rhyme. THE OPEN WINDOW. THE old house by the lindens I saw the nursery windows The large Newfoundland house-dog They walked not under the lindens, The birds sang in the branches, But the voices of the children Will be heard in dreams alone! And the boy that walked beside me, Why closer in mine, ah! closer, KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN. WITLAF, a king of the Saxons, That, whenever they sat at their revels, So sat they once at Christmas, In their beards the red wine glistened They drank to the soul of Witlaf, They drank to the Saints and Martyrs And as soon as the horn was empty And the reader droned from the pulpit, Till the great bells of the convent, Proclaimed the midnight hour. And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney, Yet still in his pallid fingers He clutched the golden bowl, But not for this their revels The jovial monks forbore, For they cried, "Fill high the goblet! GASPAR BECERRA. By his evening fire the artist Pondered o'er his secret shame; Baffled, weary, and disheartened, Still he mused, and dreamed of fame. 'T was an image of the Virgin That had tasked his utmost skill; But alas! his fair ideal Vanished and escaped him still. |