Then with a smile, that filled the house with light, "T was at thy door, O friend! and not at mine, The angel with the amaranthine wreath, Pausing, descended, and with voice divine, Whispered a word that had a sound like Death. Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, All is of God! If He but wave his hand, Angels of Life and Death alike are his; Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er; Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this, Against his messengers to shut the door? DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT. In broad daylight, and at noon, In broad daylight, yesterday, But at length the feverish day Then the moon in all her pride, Filled and overflowed the night And the Poet's song again All its grace and mystery. THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT. How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down! The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death. And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown, The very names recorded here are strange, With Abraham and Jacob of old times. "Blessed be God! for He created Death!" The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace;" Then added, in the certainty of faith, "And giveth life that never more shall cease.” Closed are the portals of their Synagogue, Gone are the living, but the dead remain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green. How came they here? What burst of Christian hate, Drove o'er the sea -that desert desolate These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind? They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure, All their lives long, with the unleavened bread And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears. Anathema maranatha! was the cry That rang from town to town, from street to street; At every gate the accursed Mordecai Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet. Pride and humiliation hand in hand Walked with them through the world where'er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent. For in the background figures vague and vast And thus for ever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book Till life became a Legend of the Dead. But ah! what once has been shall be no more! The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again. OLIVER BASSELIN. In the Valley of the Vire Still is seen an ancient mill, With its gables quaint and queer, And beneath the window sill, On the stone, These words alone: "Oliver Basselin lived here." Far above it, on the steep, Ruined stands the old Château; Nothing but the donjon-keep Left for shelter or for show. Its vacant eyes Stare at the skies, Stare at the valley green and deep. |