F

GENIUS

From The Spanish Student'

ROM the barred visor of Antiquity

Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth,

As from a mirror! All the means of action—

The shapeless masses, the materials—

What we need

Lie everywhere about us.
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, footsore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.
He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand,
And by the magic of his touch at once
Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,
And in the eyes of the astonished clown
It gleams a diamond! Even thus transformed,
Rude popular traditions and old tales

Shine as immortal poems at the touch

Of some poor houseless, homeless, wandering bard, Who had but a night's lodging for his pains.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS

T WAS the schooner Hesperus,

IT That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor,

Had sailed to the Spanish Main,

"I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,

A gale from the northeast,

The snow fell hissing in the brine,

And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain

The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither, come hither, my little daughter! And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
O say, what may it be?" —
'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be?"—
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
O say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word,-
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,

With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;

9159

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever, the fitful gusts between,

A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;

But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank,--
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast

To see the form of a maiden fair,

Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,

On the reef of Norman's Woe!

Week in, week out, from morn till night, You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

THE RAINY DAY

HE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

THE

It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining:
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,-

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

IN

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

N THE market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood.
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors

gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.