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THOMAS GORDON HAKE.

THE SUN-WORSHIPPER.

As a wild comet through the night she hies,
Her face bent towards the temple of the sun,
With golden hair that on the darkness lies
Like break of dawn when daylight, scarce begun,
Meanders into flame whose flashes run

Along the lower skies.

Soon as the sun lifts up the morning haze
She rushes towards him; sinks unto the ground
And, clasping the all-shining Presence, prays
In his first beams: again her god is found;
The startled shadows that her heart surround
Are dizzy in his rays.

'Thee I adore, O Sun! this heart is thine!
The youth who blindly claims its ecstasy
Seeks not thy temple, honors not thy shrine;
He kneels not, utters not his vows to thee
Who all the worlds beyond this world can'st see,
And mak'st all things divine.'

The sun-flowers turn to heaven as still she kneels,
Shall then her heart its coming vow deplore?

Not uttered yet, all utterance it reveals,
And she restrains her ecstasy no more:
Her burning lips the hasty vow outpour
Which her heart trouble seals.

'Never, O Sun! till sinking in the west

Thou risest where thy wondrous setting spreads,
While all who love thee slumber in thy rest,
Shall he, who proudly in thy presence treads
Enthrall me in the light his beauty sheds,
Or wed me to his breast!'

Silence has tongues; she hears a sister say,
List to the voice of thy companion-mind!
Thy love is still the same as yesterday;
It has not passed, it only lags behind,
And thou art lonely as the wistful wind
Thou meet'st upon the way.'

Yet she repeats her vow, her heart in pain,

To draw some love from heaven, as from the well
Whose radiant springs she once craved not in vain :
But ebbing hope allures her by its spell
To past despair, on other days to dwell,
And suffer them again.

Across the hills of heliotrope she creeps,
Or winds within the many-shadowed wolds,
Till once again the sun her pathway sweeps,
And from her weary feet the way
withholds;
The sacred flowers embrace her in their folds;
From dawn to dawn she sleeps.

She sleeps; so still, not even her shadow veers
Save when from side to side the moonflood roves;
But in sky-dreams the sun to her appears,

Yet with the visage of the one she loves;

All through her sleep in phantom light he moves, And still that face he bears.

She sleeps, and with the beaming of a bride
Beholds that face; ah! never to be wed!

Yet why a tear, no sorrow shall betide:

Though distant borne, his rays on her are shed;
Her soul, along its way of glory sped,

Shall in his light abide.

She wakes up with the sun, but in his rise
Sees the rich twilight of her love-dream wane:
Day seems to sink in the deserted skies,
Whose broken, many-colored beams remain
As of her dream whose night comes back again;
'T was dawn had closed her eyes.

The cloud-slopes blossom still, but cold and lone;
Down them she floated in those heavenly dreams,
And still the veil that o'er her slumbers shone
Hangs gold-wrought in the fervor of those beams.
She kneels while watching the last fading gleams
O'er the gray twilight thrown.

With speechless lips she questions the chill blaze:
Behold the sun returns; that brighter flush
Were surely day? Yet she mistrusts her gaze
Though the light widens and with lordly rush
The sun bursts forth in morning's youthful blush
And floods the heaven with rays.

Trembling she sees the paleness of her face

In those white clouds which now the sun surround, Who doth in heaven his spectral way retrace.

Behold, the days brought back, the hours unwound, The angry sun unto the zenith bound

And the pale moon replace!

Perplexed, all lost, she staggers to the height
Where the twelve pillars in their beauty shine,
The temple circling in the blessèd light;
There prostrate doth she o'er her vow repine;
But fears to meet the arbiter divine
Who banishes the night.

From the lone steps at length she looks above:
Behold the face is there that filled her dreams;
The youth adored, triumphant o'er her love,
There radiant shines amid descending beams;
His lustrous hair in the rich sunshine streams,
With golden lights inwove.

She lifts her arms, she falls upon the face
She loved in heaven; her yearning heart, too blest,
Doth in deep sobs its erring way retrace.
All passion weeps, while gathers in her breast
A bliss that bears her spirit to its rest

In that divine embrace.

THE SNAKE-CHARMER.

THE forest rears on lifted arms

A world of leaves, whence verdurous light
Shakes through the shady depths and warms
Proud tree and stealthy parasite,

There where those cruel coils enclasp
The trunks they strangle in their grasp.

An old man creeps from out the woods,
Breaking the vine's entangling spell;
He thrids the jungle's solitudes,

O'er bamboos rotting where they fell;
Slow down the tiger's path he wends
Where at the pool the jungle ends.

No moss-greened alley tells the trace

Of his lone step, no sound is stirred,
Even when his tawny hands displace
The boughs, that backward sweep unheard.
His way as noiseless as the trail

Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail.

The old snake-charmer, - once he played Soft music for the serpent's ear,

But now his cunning hand is stayed;

He knows the hour of death is near. And all that live in brake and bough, All know the brand is on his brow.

Yet where his soul is he must go :

He crawls along from tree to tree.
The old snake-charmer, doth he know
If snake or beast of prey he be?
Bewildered at the pool he lies
And sees as through a serpent's eyes.

Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops
Drink of the pool, and serpents hie
To the thin brink as noonday drops,

And in the froth-daubed rushes lie. There rests he now with fastened breath 'Neath a kind sun to bask in death.

The pool is bright with glossy dyes
And cast-up bubbles of decay:

A green death-leaven overlies

Its mottled scum, where shadows play As the snake's hollow coil, fresh shed, Rolls in the wind across its bed.

No more the wily note is heard

From his full flute the riving air That tames the snake, decoys the bird, Worries the she-wolf from her lair. Fain would he bid its parting breath Drown in his ears the voice of death.

Still doth his soul's vague longing skim

The pool beloved: he hears the hiss

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