DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend, sit down and listen! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; And possessing youth eternal. Round about him fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses; Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing delirious verses. Thus he won, through all the nations, Bore, as trophies and oblations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour. Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour, Much this mystic throng expresses. These are ancient ethnic revels Of a faith long since forsaken; Now the Satyrs, changed to devils, Frighten mortals wine o'ertaken. Now to rivulets from mountains Cladius, though he sang of flagons Even Redi, though he chanted Then with water fill the pitcher Wreathed about with classic fables; Ne'er Falernian threw a richer Light upon Lucullus' tables. Come, old friend, sit down and listen! THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. "L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"-JACQUES BRIDAINE. SOMEWHAT back from the village-street Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; And from its station in the hall An ancient time-piece says to all,- Never-for ever!" Halfway up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands G g From its case of massive oak, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, By day its voice is low and light; Never-for ever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood Never-for ever!" In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared But, like the skeleton at the feast, That warning time-piece never ceased,— "For ever-never! Never-for ever!" There groups of merry children played, And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient time-piece told, From that chamber, clothed in white, The bride came forth on her wedding night; There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair, "For ever-never! Never-for ever!" All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again?" As in the days long since gone by, The ancient time-piece makes reply,"For ever-never! Never-for ever!" Never here, for ever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, Sayeth this incessantly, "For ever-never! Never for ever!" THE ARROW AND THE SONG. I SHOT an arrow into the air, I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; song Long, long afterward, in an oak THE EVENING STAR. Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night, AUTUMN. THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, |