overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in drifts
Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down.

See, see! the red light shines!
'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines,
Of Alps and of Apennines,
"Enceladus, arise!"

--Henry W. Longfellow

NIL ADMIRARI

When Horace in Venusian groves
Was scribbling wit or sipping "Massic,"
Or singing those delicious loves
Which after ages reckon classic,
He wrote one day--'twas no vagary--
These famous words:--_Nil admirari!_

"Wonder at nothing!" said the bard;
A kingdom's fall, a nation's rising,
A lucky or a losing card,
Are really not at all surprising;
However men or manners vary,
Keep cool and calm: _Nil admirari!_

If kindness meet a cold return;
If friendship prove a dear delusion;
If love, neglected, cease to burn,
Or die untimely of profusion,--
Such lessons well may make us wary,
But needn't shock: _Nil admirari!_

Ah! when the happy day we reach
When promisers are ne'er deceivers;
When parsons practice what they preach,
And seeming saints are all believers,
Then the old maxim you may vary,
And say no more, _Nil admirari!_

--John G. Saxe

PERDIDI DIEM

The Emperor Titus, at the close of a day in which he had neither
gained any knowledge nor conferred benefit, was accustomed to
exclaim, "Perdidi diem," "I have lost a day."

Why art thou sad, thou of the sceptred hand?
The rob'd in purple, and the high in state?
Rome pours her myriads forth, a vassal band,
And foreign powers are crouching at thy gate;
Yet dost thou deeply sigh, as if oppressed by fate.

"_Perdidi diem!_"--Pour the empire's treasure,
Uncounted gold, and gems of rainbow dye;
Unlock the fountains of a monarch's pleasure
To lure the lost one back. I heard a sigh--
One hour of parted time, a world is poor to buy.

"_Perdidi diem!_"--'Tis a mournful story,
Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell,
Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory,
Hope's honey left within the withering bell
And plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed so well.

Hail, self-communing Emperor, nobly wise!
There are, who thoughtless haste to life's last goal.
There are, who time's long squandered wealth despise.
_Perdidi vitam_ marks their finished scroll,
When Death's dark angel comes to claim t