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BLIND BARTIMEUS.

BLIND Bartimeus at the gates

Of Jericho in darkness waits;

He hears the crowd;-he hears a breath
Say, "It is Christ of Nazareth!"

And calls, in tones of agony,,
Ἰησοῦ, ἐλέησόν με !

The thronging multitudes increase;
Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace!
But still, above the noisy crowd,
The beggar's cry is shrill and loud;
Until they say, “He calleth thee ;”
Θάρσει, ἔγειραι

φωνεῖ σε!

Then saith the Christ, as silent stands
The crowd, "What wilt thou at my hands?"
And he replies, "O give me light!

Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight!"
And Jesus answers, "Yñaуe*

Ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε !

Ye that have eyes, and cannot see,

In darkness and in misery,

Recall those mighty Voices Three,

Ἰησοῦ, ἐλέησόν με !

Θάρσει, ἔγειραι, ὕπαγε!

Η πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε!

MAIDENHOOD.

MAIDEN! with the meek brown eyes,

In whose orb a shadow lies,

Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse !

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then, why pause with indecision,
When bright angels, in thy vision,
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?

O, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands,-Life hath snares:
Care and age come unawares!

Like the swell of some sweet tune,

Morning rises into noon,

May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered Birds and blossoms many-numbered ;— Age, that bough with snows encumbered

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.

Bear a lily in thy hand;

Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.

O, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds, that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;

And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

EXCELSIOR.

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a faulchion from its sheath,

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;

Above, the spectral glaciers shone,

And from his lips escaped a groan,

Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said,
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

"O stay!" the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!”
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night! A voice replied, far up the height, Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,

Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,

Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer-morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,

And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,

Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghostlike, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;

And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then, most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden

times,

With their strange unearthly changes, rang the melancholy chimes.

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

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