It stands in the Comitium, Halting upon one knee; How valiantly he kept the bridge In the brave days of old. Abridged from THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. TO A WATER FOWL WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, There is a Power whose care Lone wandering but not lost. All day thy wings have fann'd, And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form: yet on my heart He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS THIS is the ship of pearl which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. THE FORCED RECRUIT IN the ranks of the Austrian you found him, He died with his face to you all; Yet bury him here where around him Venetian, fair-featured and slender, He lies shot to death in his youth, With a smile on his lips over-tender For any mere soldier's dead mouth. No stranger, and yet not a traitor, By your enemy tortured and goaded To march with them, stand in their file, His musket (see) never was loaded, He facing your guns with that smile! As orphans yearn on to their mothers, He yearned to your patriot bands; "Let me die for our Italy, brothers, If not in your ranks, by your hands! "Aim straightly, fire steadily! spare me Deliver my heart here, and tear me |