uin on her face,
Ere Adam turned to contemplate the spot
Where Earth began, where Heaven was forgot.
He gazed in silence, till the crystal wall
Of Eden trembled, as though doomed to fall:
Then bidding Eve direct her tear-dimmed eye
To where the foliage kissed the western sky,
They saw, with horror mingled with surprise,
The wall, the garden, and the foliage rise!
Slowly it mounted to the vaulted dome,
And paused as if to beckon mortals home;
Then, like a cloud when winds are all at rest,
It floated gently to the distant west,
And left behind a crimson path of light,
By which to track the Garden in its flight!

Day after day, the exiles wandered on,
With eyes still fixed, where Eden's smile last shone;
Forlorn and friendless through the wilds they trod,
Remembering Eden, but forgetting God,
Till far across the sea-washed, arid plain,
The billows thundered that the search was vain!

Ah! who can tell how oft at eventide,
When the gay west was blushing like a bride,
Fair Eve hath whispered in her children's ear,
"Beyond yon cloud will Eden reappear!"

And thus, as slow millenniums rolled away,
Each generation, ere it turned to clay,
Has with prophetic lore, by nature blest,
In search of Eden wandered to the West.

I cast my thoughts far up the stream of time,
And catch its murmurs in my careless rhyme.
I hear a footstep tripping o'er the down:
Behold! 'tis Athens, in her violet crown.
In fancy now her splendors reappear;
Her fleets and phalanxes, her shield and spear;
Her battle-fields, blest ever by the free,--
Proud Marathon, and sad Thermopylae!
Her poet, foremost in the ranks of fame,
Homer! a god--but with a mortal's name;
Historians, richest in primeval lore;
Orations, sounding yet from shore to shore!
Heroes and statesmen throng the enraptured gaze,
Till glory totters 'neath her load of praise.
Surely a clime so rich in old renown
Could build an Eden, if not woo one down!

Lo! Plato comes, with wisdom's scroll unfurl'd,
The proudest gift of Athens to the world!
Wisest of mortals, say, for thou can'st tell,
Thou, whose sweet lips the Muses loved so well,
Was Greece the Garden that our fathers trod;
When men, like angels, walked the earth with God?
"Alas!" the great Philosopher replied,
"Though