hes a flush from the rosy day;
And the shade of a deathless grief was there,
Which spake more of ages than years of care;
As though she had borne, since the world began,
Every sorrow and trial that waits upon man.

Such was the shadow that haunted my dream;
Such was the figure that rose from the stream;
And I felt a strange and electric thrill
Of unearthly delight my bosom fill,
As she neared the shore, and I heard the strain
That charmed into silence the listening main.

Child of the earth! behold in me
The desolate spirit of things that were:
I keep Oblivion's iron key,
Far, far below in the pathless sea,
Where never a sound from the upper air
Is heard in those realms where, in darkness hurled,
Lie the shattered domes of the ancient world!

A thousand ages have slowly rolled
O'er temple and tower and fortress strong,
By the giant kings possessed of old,
That buried beneath the waters cold,
Only echo the mermaids' plaintive song,
When they weep o'er the form of some child of clay,
'Mid the wreck of a world that has passed away.

The spirits of earth and air have sighed
To traverse those halls, in vain;
The rolling waters those ruins hide,
And buried beneath the oozy tide,
They sleep in my icy chain;
And if thou canst banish all mortal dread,
Thou shalt view that world of the mighty dead.--

Far over the breast of the waters wide
That song's plaintive cadence in distance died,
And I heard but the tremulous, mournful sweep
Of the night-winds ruffling the azure deep!--

SONGS OF THE HOURS.

THE TWILIGHT HOUR.

Slowly I dawn on the sleepless eye,
Like a dreaming thought of eternity;
But darkness hangs on my misty vest,
Like the shade of care on the sleeper's breast;
A light that is felt--but dimly seen,
Like hope that hangs life and death between;
And the weary watcher will sighing say,
"Lord, I thank thee! 'twill soon be day;"
The lingering night of pain is past,
Morning breaks in the east at last.

Mortal!--thou mayst see in me
A type of feeble infancy,--
A dim, uncertain, struggling ray,
The promise of a future day!

THE MORNING HOUR.

Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the purest pearls;
Brighter diamonds never were seen
Encircling the neck of an Indian queen!
I traverse the east on my glittering wing,
And my smiles awake every living