As at a festival; now all's so silent,
That I might hear the footsteps of a child.
The sound of dissolute mirth hath ceased, the lamps Are spent, the voice of music broken off.
No watchman's tread comes from the silent wall, There are nor lights nor voices in the towers. The hungry have given up their idle search For food, the gazers on the heavens are gone; Even Fear's at rest- all still as in a sepulchre ! And thou liest sleeping, O Jerusalem!
A deeper slumber could not fall upon thee, If thou wert desolate of all thy children, And thy razed streets a dwelling-place for owls.
I do mistake! this is the Wilderness,
The Desert, where winds pass and make no sound, And not the populous city, the besieged
And overhung with tempest. Why
My motion, breaks upon the oppressive stillness Like a forbidden and disturbing sound.
The very air's asleep; my feeblest breathing Is audible-I'll think my prayers · and then Ha! 'tis the thunder of the Living God!
It peals! it crashes! it comes down in fire! Again!-it is the engine of the foe;
Our walls are dust before it Wake- oh wake!—
O Israel!-O Jerusalem! awake!
Why shouldst thou wake? thy foe is in the heavens!
Yea, thy judicial slumber weighs thee down,
And gives thee, O lost city! to the Gentile,
Defenceless, unresisting.
As though the Everlasting raged not now Against our guilty Zion, but did mingle The universal world in our destruction,
And all mankind were destined for a sacrifice
On Israel's funeral pile. O Crucified!
Here, here, where thou didst suffer, I beseech thee, Even by thy cross!
Hark! now in impious rivalry
Man thunders. In the centre of our streets The Gentile trumpet, the triumphant shouts Of onset; and I, — I, a trembling girl, Alone, awake, abroad.
ye pour forth, and hideous Massacre,
Loathing his bloodless conquest, joys to see you Thus naked and unarmed.
The Closing Year.-GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
'Tis midnight's holy hour- and silence now Is brooding like a gentle Spirit o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds The bell's deep tones are swelling — 't is the knell Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past, yet, on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred As by a mourner's sigh—and on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, —
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe, In mournful cadences that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, Gone from the Earth for ever.
For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, Heard from the tomb of Ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions, that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love;
And, bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful— And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous - and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield Flashed in the light of mid-day—and the strength Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Fierce Spirit of the Glass and Scythe - what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity? On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down To rest upon his mountain-crag,— but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er Earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
The Spirit of Poetry.-H. W. LONGFELLOW.
There is a quiet spirit in these woods, That dwells where'er the south wind blows; Where underneath the white thorn in the glade, The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air, The leaves above their sunny palms outspread. With what a tender and impassioned voice It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought, When the fast-ushering star of morning comes, O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf; Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve, In mourning weeds from out the western gate, Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves In the green valley, where the silver brook, From its full laver, pours the white cascade; And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth, As to the sunshine, and the pure bright air,
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun, The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way, Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds; The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
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