I weep and call: they do not hear my voice;
I never shall within the gate rejoice."

"O heart unwise!" the voice did answer him,

"I reign o'er all the hosts of seraphim.
Are not these angels also in my hand?
If they come not to thee, 'tis my command.
The darkness chills thee, tumult vexes thee;
Are angels more than I? Come in to me."

Then in the dark and restlessness and woe
That spirit rose and through the gate did go,
Trembling because no angel walked before,
Yet by the voice drawn onward evermore.
So came he weeping where the glory shone,
And fell down crying, "Lord, I come alone!"

"And it was thee I called," the voice replied; "Be welcome." Then Love rose, a mighty tide That swept all else away. Speech found no place, But silence, rapt, gazed up unto that face; Nor saw two angels from the radiance glide, And take their place forever at his side.

Albert Laighton.

AMERICAN.

A native of Portsmouth, N. H., Laighton was born in 1829. He was for some time employed as the teller of a bank in his native town. In 1859 he published a volume of" Poems," of which the specimens we give are the best commendation. Another edition of his poems appeared in 1878. He is a cousin of Mrs. Celia Thaxter, to whom he dedicates his last volume.

TO MY SOUL..

Guest from a holier world,

Oh, tell me where the peaceful valleys lie! Dove in the ark of life, when thou shalt fly, Where will thy wings be furled?

Where is thy native nest?

Where the green pastures that the blesséd roam?
Impatient dweller in thy clay-built home,
Where is thy heavenly rest?

On some immortal shore,

Some realm away from earth and time, I know,—
A land of bloom where living waters flow,
And grief comes nevermore.

Faith turns my eyes above;

Day fills with floods of light the boundless skies; Night watches calmly with her starry eyes

All tremulous with love.

And, as entranced I gaze,

Sweet music floats to me from distant lyres; I see a temple round whose golden spires Unearthly glory plays.

Beyond those azure deeps

I fix thy home,-a mansion kept for thee Within the Father's house, whose noiseless key Kind Death, the warder, keeps!

Henry Timrod.

AMERICAN.

Born in Charleston, S. C., in 1829, Timrod died in Columbia, S. C., in 1867. In his brief career he gave tokens of rare poetical powers, which, if life had been prolonged, and opportunities had been more favorable, would unquestionably have placed him in the front rank of contemporary poets. An eloquent and touching memoir of him by Paul H. Hayne, himself a true poet, was published in 1873, as an accompaniment to a collection of Timrod's poems. See the lines by his father, page 420.

Small tributes! but your shades will smile More proudly on these wreaths to-day, Than when some cannon-moulded pile Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!

There is no holier spot of ground Than where defeated valor lies, By mourning beauty crowned!

Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, Flushed by the season's dawn;

Or where, like those strange semblances we find
That age to childhood bind,

The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,
The brown of Autumn corn.

As yet the turf is dark, although you know
That, not a span below,

A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
And soon will burst their tomb.

Already here and there, on frailest stems,
Appear some azure gems,

Small as might deck, upon a gala-day,
The forehead of a fay.

In gardens you may note amid the dearth
The crocus breaking earth;

And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.

But many gleams and shadows needs must pass Along the budding grass,

And weeks go by before the enamored South Shall kiss the rose's mouth.

Still, there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn

In the sweet airs of morn;

One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
And brings, you know not why,

A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,

If from a beech's heart,

A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, "Behold me! I am May!"

SONNETS.

I.

Poet! if on a lasting fame be bent

Thy unperturbing hopes, thou wilt not roam
Too far from thine own happy heart and home;
Cling to the lowly earth, and be content!
So shall thy name be dear to many a heart;

So shall the noblest truths by thee be taught;
The flower and fruit of wholesome human thought
Bless the sweet labors of thy gentle art.
The brightest stars are nearest to the earth,
And we may track the mighty sun above,
Even by the shadow of a slender flower.
Always, O bard, humility is power!

And thou may'st draw from matters of the hearth
Truths wide as natious, and as deep as love.

II.

I scarcely grieve, O Nature! at the lot
That pent my life within a city's bounds,
And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds.
Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot
Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart
Taught me amid its turmoil; so my youth
Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth.
Here, too, O Nature! in this haunt of Art,
Thy power is on me, and I own thy thrall.
There is no unimpressive spot on earth!
The beauty of the stars is over all,

And Day and Darkness visit every hearth.
Clouds do not scorn us: yonder factory's smoke
Looked like a golden mist when morning broke.

Lizzie Doten.

AMERICAN.

Miss Doten was born in Plymouth, Mass., about the year 1829. She received a good early education, but was mostly self-taught. She is publicly known as an "inspirational speaker," and her poems are nearly all improvisations, produced with little or no intellectual labor. She has put forth two volumes of poems, which have attracted a good deal of attention in England as well as in her native country. Her residence for several years has been in Boston.

"GONE IS GONE, AND DEAD IS DEAD."

"On returning to the inn, he found there a wandering minstrel-a woman-singing, and accompanying her voice with the music of a harp. The burden of the song was, 'Gone is gone, and dead is dead.'"-JEAN Paul Richter.

"Gone is gone, and dead is dead!"
Words to hopeless sorrow wed-
Words from deepest anguish wrung,

Which a lonely wanderer sung,

While her harp prolonged the strain,

Like a spirit's cry of pain

When all hope with life is fled:

"Gone is gone, and dead is dead."