Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta: Verses about Faith

The enthusiast brooding in his cell apart
O'er the sad image of the Crucified, —
The drooping head, closed lips and piercéd side, —
A holy vision fills his raptured heart;
With heavenly power inspired, his unskilled arm
Shapes the rude block to this transcendent form.
Oh Son of God! thus, ever thus, would I
Dwell on the loveliness enshrined in Thee;
The lofty faith, the sweet humility;
The boundless love, the love that could not die.
And as the sculptor, with thy glory warm,
Gave to this chiselled ivory thy fair form,
So would my spirit, in thy thought divine,
Grow to a semblance, fair as this, of Thine.

Securely cabined in the ship below,
Through darkness and through storm I cross the sea,
A pathless wilderness of waves to me:
But yet I do not fear, because I know
That he who guides the good ship o'er that waste
Sees in the stars her shining pathway traced.
Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze;
Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass,
Through thornset barren and through deep morass:
But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways,
And bare my head unshrinking to the blast,
Because my Father's arm is round me cast;
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp
The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp.

I know not if thy noble worth
My country's annals claim,
For in her brief, bright history
I have not read thy name.

I know not if thou e'er didst live;
Save in the vivid thought
Of him who chronicled thy life
With silent suffering fraught.

Yet, in thy history I see
Full many a great soul's lot;
Who joins that martyr-army's ranks,
That the world knoweth not; —

Who cannot weep 'melodious tears,'
For fame or sympathy;
But who, in silence, bear their doom
To suffer and to die; —

For whom no poet's harp is struck,
No laurel wreath is twined;
Who pass unheard — unknown, away,
And leave no trace behind; —

Who, but for their unwavering trust
In Justice, Truth, and God,
Would faint upon their weary way,
And perish by the road.

Truth, Justice, God! Oh mighty faith,
To bear us up unharmed;
The gates of Hell may not prevail
Against a soul so armed.

Oh, stern indeed must be that minstrel's heart,
In the world's dusty highway doomed to move,
Who with life's sunshine and its flowers can part,
Who strikes his harp, and sings, Farewell to Love!

To Love! that beam that colors all our light,
As the red rays illume the light of day;
Whose rose-hue, once extinguished from the sight,
Leaves the life-landscape of a dull, cold gray.

To Love! the ethereal, the Promethean spirit,
That bids this dust with life divine be moved;
The only memory that we still inherit
Of the lost Eden where our parents roved.

Oh, hopeless bard, recall that farewell strain,
Nor from thy beast let this fond faith depart;
Recall that utterance of thy cold disdain,
Thy doubt of Love, the atheism of the heart.

And on the altar reared within thy soul,
Let the rekindled flame again aspire
And guard it round by all things beautiful,
As vestal forms watched o'er the sacred fire; -

That fire that once extinguished on the shrine,
Gave fearful sign of coming woe to Rome,
As the quenched brightness of this light divine
Forebodes to thee a dark and loveless doom.

'Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.'

Bury me by the sea,
When on my heart the hand of Death is press'd.
If the soul lingers ere she join the bless'd,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then 'mid the forest shades I would not lie,
For the green leaves, like me, would droop and die.

Nor 'mid the homes of men,
The haunts of busy life, would I be laid:
There ever was I lone, and my vexed shade
Would sleep unquiet then:
The surging tide of life might overwhelm
The shadowy boundaries of the silent realm.

No sculptured marble pile,
To bear my name, be reared upon my breast, —
Beneath its weight my free soul would not rest;
But let the blue sky smile,
The changeless stars look lovingly on me,
And let me sleep beside this sounding sea —

This ever-beating heart
Of the great Universe; here would the soul
Plume her soiled pinions for the final goal,
Ere she should thence depart, —
Here would she fit her for the high abode, —
Here, by the sea, she would be nearer God.

I feel His presence now,
Thou mightiest of his vassals, as I stand
And watch beside thee on the sparkling sand,
Thy crested billows bow;
And, as thy solemn chant swells through the air,
My spirit, awed, joins in thy ceaseless prayer.

Life's fitful fever o'er,
Here then would I repose, majestic sea;
E'en now faint glimpses of eternity
Come o'er me on thy shore:
My thoughts from thee to highest themes are given,
As thy deep distant blue is lost in Heaven.

Eighteen hundred years agone
Was that deed of darkness done -
Was that sacred, thorn-crowned head
To a shameful death betrayed,
And Iscariot's traitor name
Blazoned in eternal shame.
Thou, disciple of our time,
Follower of the faith sublime,
Who with high and holy scorn
Of that traitrous deed dost burn,
Though the years may never more
To our earth that form restore
The Christ-Spirit ever lives -
Ever in thy heart he strives.
When pale Misery mutely calls;
When thy tempted brother falls;
When thy gentle words may chain
Hate, and Anger, and Disdain,
Or thy loving smile impart
Courage to some sinking heart;
When within thy troubled breast
Good and evil thoughts contest;
Though unconscious thou may'st be,
The Christ-Spirit strives with thee.
When he trod the Holy Land,
With his small disciple band,
And the fated hour had come
For that august martyrdom -
When the man, the human love,
And the God within him strove -
As in Gethsemane he wept,
They, the faithless watchers, slept:
While for them he wept and prayed,
One denied and one betrayed!
If to-day thou turn'st aside
In thy luxury and pride,
Wrapped within thyself and blind
To the sorrows of thy kind,
Thou a faithless watch dost keep -
Thou art one of those who sleep:
Or, if waking thou dost see
Nothing of Divinity
In our fallen, struggling race;
If in them thou seest no trace
Of a glory dimmed, not gone,
Of a Future to be won -
Of a Future, hopeful, high -
Thou, like Peter, dost deny:
But if, seeing, thou believest,
If the Evangel thou receivest,
Yet, if thou art bound to Sin,
False to the Ideal within,
Slave of Ease or slave of Gold,
Thou the Son of God hast sold!

As when untaught and blind,
To the mute stone the pagan bows his knee,
Spirit of Love! phantom of my own mind!
So have I worshipped thee!

When first a laughing child,
I gazed on nature with a wondering eye,
I learned of her in calm and tempest wild,
This thirst for sympathy.

I saw the flowers appear,
And spread their petals out to meet the sun,
The dew-drops on their glistening leaves draw near
And mingle into one.

And if a harp was stirred
By the soft pulses of some wandering sound,
Attuned to the same key, then I have heard
Its chords untouched respond.

Fast through the vaulted sky,
Giving no sound or light, when storms were loud,
I saw the electric cloud in silence fly, -
Seeking its sister cloud.

I saw the winds, the sea,
And all the hosts of heaven in bright array,
Governed by this sweet law of sympathy,
Roll on their destined way.

  And then my spirit pined,
And, like the sea-shell for its parent sea,
Moaned for those kindred souls it could not find,
And panted to be free.

And then came wild despair,
And laid her palsying hand upon my soul,
And her dread ministers were with her there,
The dagger and the bowl.

Oh God of life and light,
Thou who didst stay my hand in that dread hour,
Thou who didst save me in that fearful night,
Of maddening passion's power!

Before thy throne I bow;
I tear my worshipped idols from their shrine;
I give to thee, though bruised and aching now,
This heart, - oh! make it thine.

I've sought to fill in vain
Its lonely, silent depths with human love:
Help me to cast away each earthly claim
And rise to thee above.

Where pilgrims seek the Prophet's tomb
Across the Arabian waste,
Upon the ever-shifting sands,
A fearful path is traced.

Far up to the horizon's verge,
The traveller sees it rise, -
The line of ghastly bones that bleach
Beneath those burning skies.

Across it, tempest and simoom
The desert sands have strewed,
But still that line of spectral white
Forever is renewed.

For while along that burning track,
The caravans move on,
Still do the way-worn pilgrims fall,
Ere yet the shrine be won.

There the tired camel lays him down
And shuts his gentle eyes;
And there the fiery rider droops,
Toward Mecca looks and dies.

They fall unheeded from the ranks: -
On sweeps the endless train,
But there, to mark the desert path,
Their whitening bones remain.

And thus I read the mournful tale,
Upon the traveller's page,
I thought how like the march of life
Is this sad pilgrimage.

For every heart hath some fair dream,
Some object unattained,
And far off in the distance lies
Some Mecca to be gained.

But beauty, manhood, love and power
Go in their morning down,
And longing eyes and outstretched arms,
Tell of the goal unwon.

The mighty caravan of life
Above their dust may sweep,
Nor shout, nor trampling feet shall break
The rest of those who sleep.

Oh! fountains that I have not reached,
That gush far off e'en now,
When shall I quench my spirit's thirst
Where your sweet waters flow.

Oh! Mecca of my life-long dreams,
Cloud palaces that rise
In that far distance, pierced by hope,
When will ye greet mine eyes.

The shadows lengthen toward the East
From the declining sun,
And the pilgrim, as ye still recede,
Sighs for the journey done.

Greece! hear that joyful sound,
A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill;
Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations round,
Wake with convulsive thrill.
Athenians! gather there; he brings you words
Brighter than all your boasted lore affords.

He brings you news of One,
Above Olympian Jove. One, in whose light
Your gods shall fade like stars before the sun.
On your bewildered night,
That UNKNOWN GOD of whom ye darkly dream,
In all his burning radiance shall beam.

Behold, he bids you rise
From your dark worship of that idol shrine;
He points to Him who reared your starry skies,
And bade your Phoebus shine.
Lift up your souls, from where in dust ye bow;
That God of gods commands your homage now.

But brighter tidings still!
He tells of One whose precious blood was spilt,
In lavish streams upon Judea's hill,
A ransom for your guilt, -
Who triumphed o'er the grave, and broke its chain;
Who conquered Death and Hell, and rose again.

Sages of Greece! come near -
Spirits of daring thought and giant mould.
Ye questioners of Time and Nature, hear
Mysteries before untold!
Immortal life revealed! light for which ye
Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy.

Searchers for some first cause,
'Midst doubt and darkness - lo! he points to One,
Where all your vaunted reason, lost, must pause,
And faint to think upon, -
That was from everlasting, that shall be
To everlasting still, eternally.

Ye followers of him
Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity!
Your fancies fade, - your master's dreams grow dim
To this reality.
Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound!
Skeptic! dispel those doubts, the Truth is found.

Greece! though thy sculptured walls
Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung,
And, through thy temples and thy pillared halls,
Immortal poets sung, -
No sounds like these have rent your startled air,
They open realms of light, and bid you enter there.

Why mounts my blood to cheek and brow,
Like an ascending flame,
Whene'er from careless lips I hear
The accents of thy name?

Why, when my idle fancy seeks
Some pictured form to trace,
Beneath my pencil still will grow
The features of thy face?

Why comes thy haunting shadow thus
Between the world and me,
To bind my spirit with a charm
That blinds to all but thee?

To bid me watch thine upward course,
Thy path from mine so far;
As earth, 'mid all the hosts of heaven,
Watches the polar star?

Thy cold and polished courtesy,
Each look and tone of thine,
Might well have roused the woman's pride
In duller souls than mine.

They tell me, too, thy heart is light, -
That more than once thou'st loved;
And 'mid all flowers of loveliness
That bee-like thou hast roved.

Why is it, then, while o'er thy heart
There comes no thought of me,
The good, the true, the beautiful,
All speak to me of thee?

Think'st thou 'tis what the world calls love,
Love that return is seeking?
No - I would scorn a love I sought,
Although my heart were breaking.

It is because within the human heart
There is an altar to an _Unknown God,_
Who from the gods of this world dwells apart,
And in the Unseen, the Unreal, has his abode.

This disembodied thought the soul pursues,
And seeking in the visible a sign,
She moulds an image, like the apostate Jews,
And sets her idol on the vacant shrine.

Thus worshipped once an Indian maid the sun;
Thus was an Arab boy won by a star;
Thus loved a maid of France the god in stone;
And thus did Numa love a shape of air.

What were the sun, the star, the god, to them,
The fond idolators! thou art to me;
And rapturous as a poet's earliest dream,
Is the sweet worship that I give to thee.

The world around me is so dark and cold,
Life hath for me such draughts of bitter sadness,
Oh, bid me not the mocking Real behold!
Oh, wake me not from this delicious madness!

Those spirits God ordained,
To stand the watchmen on the outer wall,
Upon whose souls the beams of truth first fall;
They who reveal the ideal, the unattained,
And to their age, in stirring tones, and high,
Speak out for God, Truth, Man, and Liberty -
Such prophets, do they die?

When dust to dust returns,
And the freed spirit seeks again its God,
To those with whom the blessed ones have trod;
Are they then lost? No, still their spirit burns
And quickens in the race; the life they give,
Humanity receives, and they survive,
While Hope and Virtue live.

The landmarks of their age,
High Priests, Kings of the realm of mind, are they,
A realm unbounded as posterity;
The hopeful future is their heritage;
Their words of truth, of love, and faith sublime,
To a dark world of doubt, despair, and crime,
Re-echo through all time.

Such kindling words are thine,
Thou, o'er whose tomb the requiem soundeth still,
Thou from whose lips the silvery tones yet thrill
In many a bosom, waking life divine;
And since thy Master to the world gave token
That for Love's faith the creed of fear was broken,
None higher have been spoken.

Thy reverent eye could see,
Though sinful, weak, and wedded to the clod,
The angel soul still as the child of God,
Heir of His love, born to high destiny:
Not for thy country, creed, or sect speak'st thou,
But him who bears God's image on his brow
Thy _brother_, high or low.

Great teachers formed thy youth,
As thou didst stand upon thy native shore,
In the calm sunshine, in the ocean's roar;
Nature and God spoke with thee, and the truth,
That o'er thy spirit then in radiance streamed,
And in thy life so calmly, brightly beamed,
Shall still shine on undimmed.

Ages agone, like thee,
The faméd Greek with kindling aspect stood,
And blent his eloquence with the wind and flood,
By the blue waters of the Egean Sea;
But he heard not their everlasting hymn;
His lofty soul with error's cloud was dim,
And thy great teachers spake not unto him.

When the fitful fever of the soul
Is awakened in thee first;
And thou goest like Judah's children forth,
To slake thy burning thirst; -

And when dry and wasted, like the springs
Sought by that little band,
Before thee, in their emptiness
Life's broken cisterns stand; -

When the ripened fruits that tempted,
Turn to ashes on the taste;
And thine early visions fade and pass,
Like the mirage of the waste; -

When faith darkens, and hopes languish,
In the shade of gathering years;
And the urn thou bear'st is empty,
Or o'erflowing with thy tears,

Because those transient springs have failed thee,
And those founts of youth are dried;
Wilt thou, among the mouldering stones,
In weariness abide?

Wilt thou sit among the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken,
Till the silver chord is loosened;
Till the golden bowl is broken?

Up, and onward! towards the east,
Green oases thou shalt find;
Streams that rise from higher sources,
Than the pools thou leav'st behind.

Life has import more inspiring
Than the fancies of thy youth;
It has hopes as high as heaven;
It has labor, - it has truth.

It has wrongs that may be righted, -
Noble deeds that may be done; -
Its great battles are unfought,
Its great triumphs are unwon.

There is rising from its troubled deeps,
A low, unceasing moan;
There are arching, there are breaking
Other hearts besides thine own.

From strong limbs, that should be chainless,
There are fetters to unbind;
There are words to raise the fallen;
There is sight to give the blind.

There are crushed and broken spirits,
That electric thoughts may thrill;
Lofty dreams to be embodied,
By the might of one strong will.

There are God and Truth above thee, -
Wilt thou languish in despair?
Tread thy griefs beneath thy feet, -
Scale the walls of Heaven by prayer.

'Tis the key of the Apostle,
That opens Heaven from below;
'Tis the ladder of the patriarch,
Whereon angels come and go.

'Twas but a dream; a fond and foolish dream;
The calenture of a delirious brain,
Whose fever thirst creates the rushing stream.
Now to the actual I awake again:
The vision to my gaze one moment granted,
Fades in its light away, and leaves me disenchanted.

The image that my glowing fancy wrought,
Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast:
Thus I renounce the worship that I sought;
Of my own idol the iconoclast.
The echo of 'Eureka, I have found!'
Falls back upon my heart, a vain and empty sound.

Oh disembodied being of my mind,
So wildly loved, so fervently adored;
In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined,
And my heart's incense on the altar poured;
Now do I know, that clad in mortal guise,
Ne'er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise.

That only in the vague, cold realm of thought,
Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,
Now do I know that I shall never find
But fragments of thy soul within earth's clay enshrined.

Thou whom I have not seen, and shall not see,
Till the sad drama of this life be o'er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee:
Thou art still mine, I think, forevermore;
And this belief shall be the funeral pyre
Of all less noble love, - of all less high desire.

Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring
Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most,
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
And on thy altar lay the holocaust;
And in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume, I consecrate to thee.

To love's sweet tones my heart shall never thrill,
Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,
Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill.
Thus will I live, in widowhood of soul,
Until, at last, my lingering exile o'er,
Upon some lovelier star, too bless'd, we meet once more.

Oh, tell me not, that now indeed I dream;
That these aspirings mocked at last will be: -
Gleams of a higher life, to me they seem
A sacred pledge of immortality.
Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find:
Oh Love, thou art too strong! Oh God, thou art too kind!

Italia! in thy bleeding heart,
I thought, e'en hope was dead;
That from thy scarred and prostrate form,
The spark of life had fled.

I thought, as Memory's sunset glow
Its radiance o'er thee cast,
That all thy glory and thy fame
Were buried in the past.

Twice Mistress of the world! I thought
Thy star had set in gloom;
That all thy shrines and monuments
Were but thy spirit's tomb.

The mausoleum of the world,
Where Art her spoils might keep;
Where pilgrims from all shrines might come,
To wonder and to weep.

The thunders of the Vatican
Had long since died away;
Saint Peter's chair seemed tottering,
And crumbling to decay.

Thy ancient line of Pontiff Kings
Was to the past allied;
And oft in Freedom's holy wars
They fought not on her side.

The sacred banner of the Cross
Was trailing, soiled and torn;
And often had the hostile ranks
That blessed ensign borne.

But from her death-like slumber now,
  The seven-hilled city wakes:
Italia! on thy shrouded sky,
A gleam of morning breaks.

Along the Alps and Appenines
Runs an electric thrill;
A golden splendor lights once more
The Capitolian hill.

And hopes, bright as thy sunny skies,
Are o'er thy future cast;
The future that upon thee beams,
As glorious as thy past.

The laurels that thy Caesars wore,
Were dyed with crimson stains;
Their triumphs glittered with the spoil
Won on thy battle plains.

But for thy Pontiff Prince, to-day,
A laurel might'st thou twine,
Unsullied as the spotless life
He lays upon thy shrine.

For him might the triumphal car
Ascend the hill again;
No slaves, bound to the chariot wheels,
Should swell the lengthened train: -

Such train, as in her proudest days,
Was never seen in Rome, -
Of captives from the dungeon freed, -
Of exiles welcomed home.

When, gazing on the doubtful strife,
The Hebrew leader prayed,
The friends of Israel gathered round,
His drooping hands they staid.

And thus around the Patriarch's chair,
The friends of Freedom stand, -
All eager, though it falters not,
To stay his lifted hand.

And in a clearer, firmer tone,
Is heard their rallying cry;
From AEtna to the Alps it sounds:
'For God and Liberty!'

THE flowers of romance that I cherished,
Around me lie withered and dead;
The stars of my youth's shining heaven,
Were but meteors whose brightness misled;
And the day-dreams of life's vernal morning,
Like the mists of the morning have fled.

But one flower I have found still unwithered;
Like the night-scented jasmin it gleams;
And beyond where the fallen stars vanished,
One light pure and hallowed still beams;
One love I have found, deep and changeless,
As that I have yearned for in dreams.

Too often the links have been broken,
That bound me in friendship's bright chain
Too often has fancy deceived me
To blind or to charm me again;
And I sigh o'er my young heart's illusions,
With a sorrow I would were disdain.

But now, as the clouds return earthward,
From the cold and void ether above;
As on pinions all drooping and weary,
O'er the waste flew the wandering dove;
O'er the tide of the world's troubled waters,
I return to the ark of thy love.

Here, at length, my tired spirit reposes;
Here my heart's strongest tendrils entwine;
Here its warmest and deepest affections
It lays on earth's holiest shrine
Dearest mother, receive the devotion
Of the life thou hast given from thine.

Here, pressed to thy bosom, the tempests
That sweep over life's stormy sea,
Have beat, in their impotent fury, —
They were winged with no terror for me;
If I shrank from the fearful encounter,
If I trembled — it was but for thee.

The spirit of Song that lies buried
In silence or sleep in the breast,
Unlike the wild music of Memnon,
Is changed by the sunshine to rest;
In the clash of contending emotions
Are its harmonies only expressed.

When, at moments, my soul has been shaken,
In the strife with the world's rushing throng;
Or moved by some holier impulse,
As borne by its current along;
This spirit aroused, has responded,
And uttered these fragments of song.

I know they are but passing echoes,
For which time has no place and no name;
But hereafter, in loftier numbers,
Might I seek for the guerdon of fame —
Might I gather its evergreen laurels —
I would twine them around thy loved name.

But I mark now a pallor that deepens,
And spreads o'er thy brow and thy cheek;
And, filled with a fearful foreboding,
My strong heart grows nerveless and weak;
And shrinks back appalled from the anguish,
The blow beneath which it would break.

Oh, leave me not yet, gentle spirit,
Though our loved and our lost, gone before,
In the Better Land watch for thy coming,
And call thee away to that shore;
These clasped arms are strong to detain thee —
Leave, leave me not yet, I implore!

Oh God! let this cup but pass from me,
When thy bitterest draught would be thrown;
Not yet those sweet ties rend asunder
Heart with heart, life with life that have grown!
Not yet can I bear life's great burden,
And tread its dark wine-press alone.

On what sweet shore the blue AEgean laves,
Where loveliness is wedded to decay, -
Beauty to desolation, - 'mid the graves
Of an immortal race, and ruins, gray
With the dim veil of years, a sleeper lay; -
And in his dream, Time's never-ebbing tide
Rolled back, and bore him to that earlier day,
When Greece was decked in beauty, like a bride,
Glory upon her path and freedom by her side.

Against the radiance of her azure sky,
Rose many a pillared fane, divinely wrought,
Whose marble forms defied mortality; -
There pale Philosophy unveiled, and taught
Her mystic lore, and waged her war of thought,
And all her bright and baseless visions wove; -
There Art her never-dying treasures brought:
He saw Apelles' glowing canvas move,
And at Pygmalion's prayer the statue wake to love.

Then came her bards, her orators and sages; -
Once more he heard those voices that had rung
Down through the vista of succeeding ages:
'The blind old bard of Scio's isle' there strung
His matchless lyre, and breathed the earliest song:
And now Demosthenes before him stood,
Pouring his tide of eloquence, that strong,
Deep and o'erwhelming, swayed the multitude,
As the invisible wind sways the wild ocean's flood.

Armed warriors too were there, their helmets gleaming
On deathless Marathon's green, sea-girt plain,
That now with Persia's choicest blood was streaming:
Thermopylae's 'three hundred' fought again;
Again its pass was piled with countless slain,
From the invader's host, as on that day
When Sparta's bravest sons had vowed to drain
Their heart's best blood for her. There, as he lay,
These glorious visions passed, in beautiful array.

The dreamer woke, - he rested there alone,
By that high temple whence had Pallas fled:
Where once she lingered, now the crescent shone,
And round him wandered many a turbanned head,
Treading in mockery o'er the immortal dead;
And conscious Nature there, as if to screen
The nakedness of Ruin, had ouspread
Her gayest flowers to deck her saddest scene,
And hung, o'er mouldering walls, her tapestry of green.

And many a Grecian slave to Turkish foe
In hopeless bondage bowed the unwilling knee,
And, all too weak to strike the avenging blow,
To rend the galling chains of slavery,
And write their names once more among the free,
But humbled in despair, unmoved behold
Their shrine defaced, their altars borne away,
By every plunderer, even the hallowed mould
Of Marathon itself, exchanged for foreign gold.

And as he mused upon her buried worth,
'Mid her fallen columns and her ruined fanes, -
That none were there to lead her children forth;
To strike with them, and burst their servile chains,
And with their blood to wash away the stains
That their great name on Freedom's record dyed, -
He touched his harp, and the enchanting strains,
The world was hushed to hear - and then aside
Bade Poesy retire, and made sad Greece his bride.

A fitting bride for one like him, who stood
On that high steep, where few have dared their flight;
Against whose name Time's all resistless flood
Shall dash in vain; who, through decay and blight
And desolation, dazzled with the light
That fast consumed him, where he stood on high,
Like a lone star on the dark brow of night: -
He sleeps upon that shore - a Grecian sky,
For a high soul like his, were fitting canopy.

Rest, warrior bard! Above thy head shall bloom
The greenest laurel of Peneus' tide; -
Genius shall come a pilgrim to thy tomb,
And for her champion Freedom turn aside,
To weep the bitter tears she may not hide;
And thy young handmaid, Poesy, shall shed
Her brightest halo there; and Greece, thy bride,
Shall give to thee (and oh, can more be said!)
A name to live with hers - a home among her Dead.

Hail! thou eternal flood, whose restless waves
Roll onward in their course, as wild and free,
As if the shores they lashed were not the graves
Of mouldering empires; When I think of thee,
Thou dost remind me of that ebbless sea -
The sea of Time, whose tide sweeps unconfined,
Its channel Earth, its shores Eternity;
Whose billows roll resistless o'er mankind; -
Like that thou rollest on, nor heed'st the wrecks behind.

Thy shores were empires; but the tide of Time
Rolled o'er them, and they fell; and there they lie,
Wrecked in their greatness, mouldering, yet sublime
And beautiful in their mortality.
And god-like men were there, the wise and free;
But what are they who now look o'er thy waves?
They're but as worms that feed on their decay;
They kneel to stranger lords - a land of slaves,
Of men whose only boast is their ancestral graves.

Upon thy shores the Holy Prophets trod,
  And from their hill-tops came the voice of One
Whom _thou_ obeyest, even the Eternal God;
And on thy breast the star of Bethlehem shone:
That star, though quenched in blood, hath risen a sun,
And other climes are radiant with its light;
But thy fair shores, alas! it shines not on,
Save when some land, with its effulgence bright,
Reflects the heavenly rays upon their moral night.

Philosophy hath decked her form divine,
In all her loveliest draperies, and wrought
Her brightest dreams by thee, thy shores her shrine,
Thy sons her oracles, the kings of thought;
But they have passed, and, save their names, are naught,
And their bright dreams are buried like their clay,
Or shattered, like the fanes where they were taught.
But though religions, empires, men decay,
Thou, restless, changeless flood - thou dost not pass away.

There Poesy hath woven such fair dreams,
That man hath deemed them bright reality;
There she hath peopled hills, and vales, and streams,
And thy blue waters with her phantasy;
And fabled gods left heaven to roam by thee:
There she embodied passions of the heart,
In such fair forms, that frail morality
Failed to conceive, until triumphal Art
Bade from the Parian stone the immortal image start.

The loftiest bards, whose names illume the past,
Have sung upon thy shores; and thy deep tone
Ceased at their Orphean lyres; - but now the last,
'The pilgrim bard,' whose matchless song alone
Had made thy name immortal as his own, -
A stranger of the north, but, 'as it were
A child of thee,' his spirit too hath flown.
Thus have the greatest passed. Thine azure air
Still echoes to their song, but thou alone art there.

Thine empires, one by one, have fall'n, and now
The last is crumbling in decay: - yes, she,
The coronet upon thy furrowed brow,
The mistress of the world, the queen of thee,
The paradise of earth, sweet Italy;
Stript of her queenly robes, in dust she lies,
Enchained by _slaves,_ nor struggling to be free.
There hath she fallen, as the dolphin dies,
More brightly beautiful in her last agonies.

But though thy shores are sepulchres, that Time
Hath peopled with dead empires; though they are
But shattered wrecks, and every other clime
Hath sprung from their decay; yet Nature there
Hath made their _pall_ of beauty sadly fair;
And they shall be, while thy blue waves shall foam,
The Mecca of the world, - the altar, where
Science, Devotion, Genius, Art shall come,
And feel as Moslems feel above their prophet's tomb.

And thou, unchanging flood, that wanderest on,
Through that dark path of ruin and decay,
Still must thou roll untended and alone.
Men shall arise, and shine, and pass away,
Like the bright bubbles of thy glittering spray;
And thrones shall totter, kingdoms be laid waste -
Yea, empires rise and fall along thy way,
Like the dark heavings of thy troubled breast;
But thou shalt still roll on - for thee there is no rest.

THERE are countless fields the green earth o'er,
Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore;
Where hostile ranks in their grim array,
With the battle's smoke have obscured the day;
Where hate has stamped on each rigid face
As foe met foe in the death embrace;
Where the groans of the wounded and dying rose,
Till the heart of the listener with horror froze,
And the wide expanse of the crimsoned plain
Was piled with its heaps of uncounted slain: —
But a fiercer combat, a deadlier strife,
Is that which is waged in the Battle of Life.

The hero that wars on the tented field,
With his shining sword and his burnished shield,
Goes not alone with his faithful brand,
Friends and comrades around him stand;
The trumpets sound and the war-steeds neigh,
To join in the shock of the coming fray,

And he flies to the onset, he charges the foe,
Where the bayonets gleam and the red tides flow;
And he bears his part in the conflict dire,
With an arm all nerve, and a heart all fire.
What though he fall! at the battle's close,
In the flush of victory won, he goes,
With martial music and waving plume,
From a field of fame to a laurelled tomb.
But the hero that wars in the Battle of Life,
Must stand alone in the fearful strife;
Alone in his weakness or strength must go,
Hero or craven to meet the foe;
He may not fly, — on that fated field,
He must win or lose, he must conquer or yield.
Warrior who com'st to this battle now,
With a careless step and a thoughtless brow,
As if the field were already won;
Pause, and gird all thy armor on.
Myriads have Come to this battle-ground,
With a valiant arm and a name renowned,
And have fallen vanquished, to rise no more,
Ere the sun was set, or the day half o'er.

Dost thou bring with thee hither a dauntless will,
An ardent soul that no blast can chill;
Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved;
Canst thou say to the mountain — ' Be thou moved;'
In thy hand does the sword of truth flame bright;
Is thy banner emblazoned — 'For God and the Right;'
In the might of prayer, dost thou strive and plead?
Never had warrior greater need.
Unseen foes in thy pathway hide;
Thou art encompassed on every side.
There Pleasure waits, with her syren train,
Her poison flowers and her hidden chain;
Hope, with her Dead Sea fruits, is there;
Sin is spreading her gilded snare;
Flattery courts, with her hollow smiles;
Passion with silvery tone beguiles;
Love and Friendship their charmed spells weave:
Trust not too deeply, they may deceive.
Disease with a ruthless hand would smite,
and Care spread o'er thee a with'ring blight;
Hate and Envy, with visage black,
And the serpent Slander are on thy track;
Guilt and Falsehood, Remorse and Pride,
Doubt and Despair in thy pathway glide;
Haggard Want, in her demon joy,
Waits to degrade thee and then destroy;
Palsied Age in the distance lies,
And watches his victim with rayless eyes;
And Death, the insatiate, is hovering near,
To snatch from they grasp all thou holdest dear.
No skill may avail, and no ambush hide,
In the open field must the champion bide,
And face to face, and hand to hand,
Alone in his valor confront that band.
In war with these phantoms that gird him round,
No limbs dissevered may strew the ground;
No blood may flow, andno mortal ear
The groans of the wounded heart may hear,
As it struggles and writhes in their dread control,
As the iron enters the riven soul.
But the youthful form grows wasted and weak,
And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek;
The brow is furrowed, but not with years;
The eye is dimmed with its secret tears,
And streaked with white is the raven hair:
These are the tokens of conflict there.

The battle is over; the hero goes,
Scarred and worn, to his last repose.
He has won the day, he has conquered Doom,
He has sunk unknown to his nameless tomb.
For the victor's glory no voices plead,
Fame has no echo, and earth no meed.
But the guardian angels are hovering near;
They have watched unseen o'er the conflict here,
And they bear him now, on their wings away,
To a realm of peace, — to a cloudless day.
Ended now is the earthly strife,
And his brow is crowned with the Crown of Life.