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And the seers, who sat of yore

By orient palm or wave,

They have pass'd with all their starry lore—
Can ye still fear the grave?

-We fear, we fear !-the sunshine

Is joyous to behold,

And we reck not of the buried kings,
Or the awful seers of old.

Ye shrink!—the bards whose lays

Have made your deep hearts burn,

They have left the sun, and the voice of praise,
For the land whence none return:

And the lovely, whose memorial

Is the verse that cannot die,

They too are gone with their glorious bloom,
From the gaze of human eye.

Would ye not join that throng

Of the earth's departed flowers,

And the masters of the mighty song

In their far and fadeless bowers?

Those songs are high and holy,

But they vanquish not our fear;

Not from our path those flowers are gone

We fain would linger here!

Linger then yet awhile,

As the last leaves on the bough!

-Ye have lov'd the gleam of many a smile

That is taken from you now.

There have been sweet singing voices

In

your walks that now are still;

There are seats left void in your earthly homes, Which none again may fill.

Soft

eyes are seen no more

That made spring-time in your heart;

Kindred and friends are gone before,—

And ye still fear to part?

-We fear not now, we fear not!

Though the way through darkness bends;

Our souls are strong to follow them,

Our own familiar friends!

THE BREEZE FROM LAND.

"As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest; with such delay

Well pleas'd they slack their course, and many a league,

Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles."

Joy is upon the lonely seas,

When Indian forests pour

Forth to the billow and the breeze

Their fragrance from the shore; Joy, when the soft air's glowing sigh Bears on the breath of Araby.

Oh! welcome are the winds that tell

A wanderer of the deep

Paradise Lost.

Where far away the jasmines dwell,

And where the myrrh-trees weep! Bless'd, on the sounding surge and foam, Are tidings of the citron's home!

The sailor at the helm they meet,

And hope his bosom stirs, Upspringing, 'midst the waves to greet

The fair earth's messengers,

That woo him, from the mournful main, Back to her glorious bowers again.

They woo him, whispering lovely tales
Of many a flowering glade,

And fount's bright gleam in island-vales
Of golden-fruited shade;

Across his lone ship's wake they bring
A vision and a glow of spring!

And oh ye masters of the lay!

Come not e'en thus your songs,

That meet us on life's weary way
Amidst her toiling throngs?
Yes! o'er the spirit thus they bear
A current of celestial air!

Their power is from the brighter clime

That in our birth hath part,

Their tones are of the world which time

Sears not within the heart;

They tell us of the living light
In its green places ever bright.

They call us with a voice divine
Back to our early love,

Our vows of youth at many a shrine
Whence far and soon we rove :

-Welcome, high thought and holy strain,
That make us Truth's and Heaven's again!*

* Written immediately after reading the "Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton," in the Christian Examiner.

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