The famous men of war have fought,
The famous speculators thought,
The famous players, sculptors, wrought,
The famous painters filled their wall,
The famous critics judged it all.
The combatants are parted now-
Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,

The puissant crowned, the weak laid low.
And in the after-silence sweet,

Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet,
Ascending pure, the bell-like fame

Of this or that down-trodden name,
Delicate spirits, pushed away

In the hot press of the noonday.
And o'er the plain, where the dead age
Did its now silent warfare wage-

O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,
Where many a splendor finds its tomb,
Many spent fames and fallen nights -
The one or two immortal lights
Rise slowly up into the sky
To shine there everlastingly,
Like stars over the bounding hill.
The epoch ends, the world is still.

Thundering and bursting
In torrents, in waves-
Carolling and shouting

Over tombs, amid graves-
See! on the cumbered plain
Clearing a stage,
Scattering the past about,
Comes the new age.
Bards make new poems,
Thinkers new schools,
Statesmen new systems,
Critics new rules.

All things begin again;

Life is their prize;

Earth with their deeds they fill, Fill with their cries.

Poet, what ails thee, then?
Say, why so mute?

Forth with thy praising voice!
Forth with thy flute!
Loiterer! why sittest thou
Sunk in thy dream?

Tempts not the bright new age?
Shines not its stream?
Look, ah, what genius,
Art, science, wit!
Soldiers like Cæsar,

Statesmen like Pitt!
Sculptors like Phidias,
Raphaels in shoals,
Poets like Shakespeare —

Beautiful souls!

See, on their glowing cheeks
Heavenly the flush!

-Ah, so the silence was!

So was the hush!

The world but feels the present's spell, The poet feels the past as well; Whatever men have done, might do, Whatever thought, might think it too.

747

LITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one-
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder-bough ;

I brought him home, in his nest, at even.
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;

For I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear-they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore:
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam-
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild up

roar.

The lover watched his graceful maid,
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed;
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;

The gay enchantment was undone

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat

I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole -

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

The Lost Church.

IN yonder dim and pathless wood
Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour,
And peals of solemn music swell

As from some minster's lofty tower.

They light on the fallen shoulder and the lines of a marble head.

grass like snow,

And beyond in the shadowy places the crimson cyclamens grow;

murmuring pass,

How full were their lives that labored, in their fetterless strength and far

From the ways that our feet have chosen as the

sunlight is from the star,

They clung to the chance and promise that once while the years are free

Look over our life's horizon as the sun looks over the sea,

But we wait for a day that dawns not, and cry for unclouded skies,

And while we are deep in dreaming, the light that was o'er us dies;

We know not what of the present we shall stretch out our hand to save,

Who sing of the life we long for, and not of the life we have;

And yet if the chance were with us to gather the days misspent,

Should we change the old resting-places, the wandering ways we went ?

They were strong, but the years are stronger; they are grown but a name that thrills,

And the wreck of their marble glory lies ghost-like over their hills.

So a shadow fell o'er our dreaming for the weary

heart of the past,

For the seed that the years have scattered, to reap so little at last.

starts in the grass.

And we lay in the untrod moss and pillowed our cheeks with flowers,

While the sun went over our heads, and we took no count of the hours;

From the end of the waving branches and under the cloudless blue,

Like sunbeams chained for a banner, the threadlike gossamers flew.

And the joy of the woods came o'er us, and we felt that our world was young

With the gladness of years unspent and the sorrow of life unsung.

So we passed with a sound of singing along to the seaward way,

Where the sails of the fishermen folk came homeward over the bay;

For a cloud grew over the forest and darkened the sea-god's shrine,

And the hills of the silent city were only a ruby line.

But the sun stood still on the waves as we passed from the fading shores,

And shone on our boat's red bulwarks and the golden blades of the oars,

And it seemed, as we steered for the sunset, that we passed through a twilight sea,

From the gloom of a world forgotten to the light of a world to be.

RENNELL RODD.