And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,

A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;

Yet the old mediæval tradition,

The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,

The frenzy and fire of the brain, That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, The golden pomegranates of Eden, To quiet its fever and pain.

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

Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me? These the wild, bewildering fancies, That with dithyrambic dances

As with magic circles bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!

Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms!

Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,

And from loose, dishevelled tresses

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous When they came to me unbidden; Voices single, and in chorus,

Like the wild birds singing o'er us

In the dark of branches hidden.

Disenchantment!

Disillusion!

Must each noble aspiration

Come at last to this conclusion,

Jarring discord, wild confusion,

Lassitude, renunciation?

Not with steeper fall nor faster,

From the sun's serene dominions, Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster,

Icarus fell with shattered pinions!

Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!

Why did mighty Jove create thee

Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora,

Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance

Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.

Him whom thou dost once enamour,

Thou, beloved, never leavest;