And on the Dead a lustre shedɛ
From its crimson floating hair!

The rites are read, the requiem sung;
And as the echoes die,
The Shadow Chaos rises
With a wild unearthly cry, -
A giant, to the sky!

His arms outstretched on high
Over Time that dead doth lie;

And with a voice that shakes the
spheres,

He shouts to the mourners mad with fears,

"Depart! Lo! here am I!"

Down, showering fire, the comet sweeps;
Shivering the pillars fall;

And lightning-like the red flames rush,
A whirlwind, over all !

And Silence spreads her pall,
Like pinions over the hall,

Over the temple overthrown,

Over the dying and the unburied dead;

And, with a heavily-drooping head, Sits, statue-like, alone!

Though winter howleth at the gate, In our hearts 't is summer still!

For we full many summer joys

And greenwood sports have shared, When, free and ever-roving boys,

The rocks, the streams, we dared; And, as I looked upon thy face, Back, back o'er years of ill, My heart flies to that happy place, Where it is summer still.

Yes, though like sere leaves on the ground,

Our early hopes are strown,

And cherished flowers lie dead around,

And singing birds are flown, The verdure is not faded quite,

Not mute all tones that thrill;
And seeing, hearing thee to-night,
In my heart 't is summer still.

Fill up The olden times come back
With light and life once more;
We scan the Future's sunny track
From Youth's enchanted shore;
The lost return: through fields of bloom
We wander at our will;

Gone is the winter's angry gloom, -
In our hearts 't is summer still.

THE BRAVE OLD SHIP, THE ORIENT

The steadying sun heaved up as day drew

on,

And there grew a long swell of the sea. And, first in upper air, then under, everywhere,

From the topmost towering sail
Down, down to quarter-rail,
The wind began to breathe more free.
It was soon to breathe its last,
For a wild and bitter blast

Was the master of that stormy day to be.

"IIo! Hilloa! A sail!" was the topman's bail:

"A sail, hull-down upon our lee!" Then with sea-glass to his eye, And his gray locks blowing by, The Admiral sought what she might be. And from top, and from deck, Was it ship? Was it wreck? A far-off, far-off speck,

Of a sudden we found upon our lee.

On the round waters wide, floated no thing beside,

But we and the stranger sail;

And a hazy sky, that threatened storm,
Came coating the heaven so blue and warm,
And ahead hung the portent of a gale:
A black bank hanging there

When the order came, to wear,

Was remembered, ever after, in the tale.

Across the long, slow swell That scarcely rose and fell,

The wind began to blow out of the cloud; And scarce an hour was gone ere the gale was fairly on,

And through our strained rigging howled aloud.

Before the story wind, that was maddening behind,

We gathered in our canvas farthest spread. Black clouds had started out

From the heavens all about,

And the welkin grew all black overhead. But though stronger and more strong The fierce gale rushed along,

The stranger brought her old wind in her breast.

Up came the ship from the far-off sca
And on with the strong wind's breath rushed

we.

She grew to the eye, against the clouded sky,

And eagerly her points and gear we guessed. As we made her out, at last,

She was maimed in spar and mast

And she hugged the easy breeze for rest.

We could see the old wind fail
At the nearing of our gale;

We could see them lay their course with the wind:

Still we neared and neared her fast,
Hurled on by our fierce blast,

With the seas tumbling headlong behind. She had come out of some storm, and, in many a basy swarm,

ller crew were refitting, as they might, The wreck of upper spars That had left their ugly sears, As if the ship had come out of a fight. We scanned her well, as we drifted by, A strange old ship, with her poop built high,

And with quarter-galleries wide, And a huge beaked prow, as no ships are builded now,

And carvings all strange, beside.

A Byzantine bark, and a ship of name and mark

Long years and generations ago;

Ere any mast or yard of ours was growing hard

With the seasoning of long Norwegian

snow.

She was the brave old Orient, The old imperial Orient, Brought down from times afar,

bay,

For the tempest had left us far behind.
So before the sunny town

Went our anchors splashing down;
Our sails we hung all out to the sun;
While airs from off the steep
Came playing at bo-peep

With our canvas, hour by hour, in their fun. We leaned on boom or rail with many a lazy tale

Of the work of the storm that had died;
And watched, with idle eyes,
Our floats, like summer flies,
Riding lazily about the ship's side.
Suddenly they cried, from the other deck,
That the Orient was gone to wreck !
That her hull lay high on a broken shore,
And the brave old ship would float no more.

But we heard a sadder tale, ere the night

came on,

And a truer tale, of the ship that was gone.
They had seen from the height,
As she came from yester-night,
While the storm had not gone by, and the
sea was running high,

A ship driving heavily to land;

A strange great ship (so she seemed to bo While she tumbled and rolled on the far

off sea,

New were red lip, true eyes, fresh dew;
All dells, all shores, had not been rabbled;
Nor yet the rhyming lovers' crew
Tree-bark and casement-pane had scrab
bled.

Feelings sprang fresh, to them, and thought; Fresh things were hope, trust, faith, endeavor;

All things were new, wherein men wrought, And so they had the lead, forever.

Not even where to set their lever.

And that must have been gallantly manned. So she came, driving fast;

They could tell her men, at last;

There were harbors down the coast on her lec;

When, strangely, she bronched to,-
Then, with her gallant crew,

Went headlong down into the sea.

Then utterance, like thought, was young,
And, when these yearning two were mated,
What shapes of airy life were flung
Before the world as yet unsated!
Life was in hand; life was in tongue;
Life in whatever they created.

Must then the world to us be stale?
Must we be only after-comers?
Must wilted green and sunshine pale
Make mean all our dear springs and sum-
mers?

To those free lords of song and talo
Must we be only tricked-out mummers?

Oh, no! was ever life-blood cold?
Was wit e'er dull, when mirth was in it?
Or when will blushing love be old?
Or thrill of bobolink or linnet?
Are all our blossoms touched with mould?
Lurks not fresh bloom where we may win
it?

Yes! Life and strength forever can ;
Life springs afresh through endless ages;
Nor on our true work falls a ban,
That it must halt, at shortened stages:
Throw man into it! man draws man
In canvas, stone, or written pages.