FLIGHT THE SECOND.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.

B

ETWEEN the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to
lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence :

Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall !
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me ; They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you for ever, Yes, for ever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away!

ENCELADUS.

NDER Mount Etna he lies,
It is slumber, it is not death;

For he struggles at times to arise,

And above him the lurid skies

Are hot with his fiery breath.

The crags are piled on his breast,
The earth is heaped on his head;
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half suppressed,
Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far away

Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
"To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Enceladus will arise!"

And the old gods, the austere
Oppressors in their strength,

Stand aghast and white with fear

At the ominous sounds they hear,

And tremble, and mutter, "At length !"

Ah me! for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in drifts
Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts

His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down.

See, see! the red light shines!

'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!

And the storm-wind shouts through the pines Of Alps and of Apennines,

"Enceladus, arise!"