BLIND BARTIMEUS. BLIND Bartimeus at the gates Of Jericho in darkness waits; He hears the crowd;-he hears a breath And calls, in tones of agony,, The thronging multitudes increase; Then saith the Christ, as silent stands Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight!" 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! Ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε! MAIDENHOOD. MAIDEN! with the meek brown eyes, Like the dusk in evening skies! Z Thou whose locks outshine the sun, Standing with reluctant feet, Gazing, with a timid glance, Deep and still, that gliding stream Then, why pause with indecision, Seest thou shadows sailing by, Hearest thou voices on the shore, O, thou child of many prayers! 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, Bear a lily in thy hand; Gates of brass cannot withstand Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, O, that dew, like balm, shall steal And that smile, like sunshine, dart EXCELSIOR. THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, 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 "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!" This was the peasant's last good-night! At break of day, as heavenward A traveller, by the faithful hound, There, in the twilight cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, And from the sky, serene and far, 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. |