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In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars-illumination of all gems!

By earthly nature had the effect been wrought
Upon the dark materials of the storm
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves
And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto
The vapours had receded, taking there

Their station under a cerulean sky.

O, 't was an unimaginable sight!

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf,

Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,
Molten together, and composing thus,
Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name,
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapp'd.
Right in the midst, where interspace appear'd
Of open court, an object like a throne,
Beneath a shining canopy of state,

Stood fix'd; and fix'd resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,

But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew prophets were beheld
In vision-forms uncouth of mightiest power,
For admiration and mysterious awe.
Below me was the earth; this little vale
Lay low beneath my feet; 'twas visible-
I saw not, but I felt that it was there.
That which I saw, was the reveal'd abode
Of spirits in beatitude: my heart

Swell'd in my breast.-"I have been dead," I cried, "And now I live! Oh! wherefore do I live?"

And with that pang I pray'd to be no more!

WORDSWORTH.

THE DEITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE.

ONCE more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
To unenlighten'd swains of Pagan Greece.
-In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretch'd
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lull'd his indolent repose:

And, in some fit of weariness, if he,

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetch'd,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,

A beardless youth, who touch'd a golden lute,
And ill'd the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes

Towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart,
Call'd on the lovely wanderer, who bestow'd
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
And hence, a beaming goddess with her nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave,)
Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heavens,
When winds are blowing strong.

slaked

The traveller

His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thank'd
The Naiad.-Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transform'd
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly."

The Zephyrs, fanning, as they pass'd, their wings,
Lack'd not, for love, fair objects, whom they woo'd
With gentle whisper. Wither'd boughs grotesque,
Stripp'd of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;

And, sometimes, intermix'd with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard;
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!

WORDSWORTH.

THE FOSSIL ELEPHANT.

THE earth is old! Six thousand years
Are gone since I had birth;
In the forests of the olden time,
And the solitudes of earth.

We were a race of mighty things;
The world was all our own.

I dwelt with the Mammoth large and strong,
And the giant Mastodon.

No ship went over the waters then,
No ship with oar or sail;

But the wastes of the sea were habited

By the Dragon and the Whale.

And the Hydra down in the ocean caves
Abode, a creature grim;

And the scaled Serpents huge and strong

Coil'd up in the waters dim.

The wastes of the world were all our own:

A proud, imperial lot!

Man had not then dominion given,

Or else we knew it not.

There was no city on the plain;

No fortress on the hill;

No mighty men of strength who came
With armies up, to kill..

There was no iron then-no brass

No silver and no gold;

The wealth of the world was in its woods, And its granite mountains old.

And we were the kings of all the world;
We knew its breadth and length;
We dwelt in the glory of solitude,
And the majesty of strength.

But suddenly came an awful change!
Wherefore, ask not of me;

That it was, my desolate being shows,-
Let that suffice for thee.

The Mammoth huge and the Mastodon
Were buried beneath the earth;
And the Hydra and the Serpents strong,
In the caves where they had birth!

There is now no place of silence deep,
Whether on land or sea;

And the Dragons lie in the mountain-rock,
As if for eternity!

And far in the realms of thawless ice,
Beyond each island shore,

My brethren lie in the darkness stern,
To awake to life no more!

And not till the last conflicting crash
When the world consumes in fire,
Will their frozen sepulchres be loosed,
And their dreadful doom expire!

HOWITT.

CONSCIENCE.

CONSCIENCE, What art thou? thou tremendous power!
Who dost inhabit us without our leave;
And art within ourselves, another self,
A master-self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave:
How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds?
Make the past, present, and the future frown?
How, ever and anon, awake the soul,

As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors,
In this long restless dream, which idiots hug-
Nay, wise men flatter with the name of life.

YOUNG.

MAN'S CONSTITUTION SUITED TO HIS

CONDITION.

THE bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear,
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason-man is not a fly.
Say for what use were finer optics given
T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,

How would he wish that heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise
Alike in what it gives and what denies.

POPE.

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