Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me, I implore!'

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting

'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore !

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.' And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting-still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber

door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a Demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!

Lenore.

Aн, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!

Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.

And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or never more!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read-the funeral song be sung!

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young

A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.

Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her -that she died!

How shall the ritual, then, be read ?-the requiem how be sung

By you-by yours, the evil eye,-by yours, the slanderous tongue

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?'

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath 'gone before,' with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride

For her, the fair and débonnaire, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her

eyes

The life still there, upon her hair-the death upon her eyes.

'Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a pean of old days!

Let no bell toll!-lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven

From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.'

Hymn.

AT morn-at noon-at twilight dim—
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe-in good and ill—
Mother of God! be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

A Valentine.

FOR her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes, Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly the lines!-they hold a treasure Divine-a talisman-an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the

measure

The words-the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labour ! And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Which one might not undo without a sabre, If one could merely comprehend the plot. Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing Of poets by poets-as the name is a poet's, too. Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto-Mendez FerdinandoStill form a synonym for Truth-Cease trying! You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

[To find the name referred to in this poem, read consecutively the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, and so on to the end.]

The Colosseum.

TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length-at length-after so many days

Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie),
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now-I feel ye in your strength-
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane !
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the hornèd moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

But stay! these walls-these ivy-clad arcadesThese mouldering plinths-these sad and blackened shafts

These vague entablatures-this crumbling friezeThese shattered cornices,-this wreck,-this ruinThese stones,-alas! these grey stones,-are they

all,

All of the famed, and the colossal left

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

'Not all '-the Echoes answer me-'not all!
Prophetic sounds and loud, arise for ever
From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.