Come to me, O ye children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. For what are all our contrivings, Ye are better than all the ballads For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead. SANDALPHON. HAVE How, erect, at the outermost gates With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night? The Angels of Wind and of Fire With the song's irresistible stress; But serene in the rapturous throng, With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Among the dead angels, the deathless Sandalphon stands listening breathless To sounds that ascend from below; From the spirits on earth that adore, And he gathers the prayers as he stands, It is but a legend, I know,— Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; But haunts me and holds me the more. When I look from my window at night, All throbbing and panting with stars, And the legend, I feel, is a part EPIMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT. HAVE I dreamed? or was it real, What I saw as in a vision, When to marches hymeneal, In the land of the ideal, Moved my thought o'er fields Elysian ? What! are these the guests whose glances That with dithyrambic dances, As with magic circles, bound me? Ah! how cold are their caresses! O my songs! whose winsome measures Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, Like the wild birds singing o'er us Disenchantment! Disillusion! Not with steeper fall nor faster, Icarus fell with shattered pinions! Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora! If to win thee is to hate thee? No, not hate thee! for this feeling Is but passionate appealing, O'er the chords of our existence. Him whom thou dost once enamour, Him of hope thou ne'er bereavest. Weary hearts by thee are lifted, Struggling souls by thee are strengthened, Clouds of fear asunder rifted, Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted, Therefore art thou ever dearer, O my Sibyl! my deceiver! For thou makest each mystery clearer, When thou fillest my heart with fever! Muse of all the Gifts and Graces! NOTES. Note 1, p. 101.-"As Lope says.” "La cólera de un Español sentado no se templa, hasta el final juicio desde el Génesis."-Lope de Vega. Note 2, p. 104.-"Abernuncio Satanas."-"Digo, Señora, respondió Sancho, lo que tengo dicho, que de los azotes abernuncio. Abrenuncio, habeis de decir, Sancho, y no como decis, dijo el Duque."-Don Quixote, Part II., ch. 35. Note 3, p. 115.-" Fray Carrillo."-The allusion here is to a Spanish epigram. Siempre Fray Carrillo estás cansándonos acá fuera; quien en tu celda estuviera para no verte jamas!" Böhl de Faber. Floresta, No. 611. Note 4, p. 115.-"Padre Francisco."-This is from an Italian popular song. "Padre Francesco, Padre Francesco !' -Cosa volete del Padre Francesco- Che si vuole confessar !' Fatte l' entrare, fatte l' entrare! Che la voglio confessare." Kopisch. Volksthümliche Poesien aus allen Mundarten Note 5, p. 117.-"Ave! cujus calcem clare."-From a monkisn hymn of the twelfth century, in Sir Alexander Croke's Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Decline of Rhyming Latin Verse, p. 109. Note 6, p. 125.-"The gold of the Busné."-Busné is the name given by the Gipsies to all who are not of their race. Note 7, p. 125.-"Count of the Calés."-The Gipsies call themselves Calés. See Borrow's valuable and extremely interesting work, The Zincali, or an Account of the Gipsies in Spain. London, 1841. Note 8, p. 129.-"Asks if his money-bags would rise."-"¿Y volviéndome á un lado, ví á un Avariento, que estaba preguntando á otro (que por haber sido embalsamado, y estar léxos sus tripas no hablaba, porque no habian llegado si habian de resucitar aquel dia todos los enterrados), si resucitarian unos bolsones suyos ?"-El Sueno de las Calaveras. |