But oh the cone aloft and clear

Where Atlas in the heavens withdrawn To hemisphere and hemisphere

Disparts the dark and dawn!

O vaporous waves that roll and press!
Fire-opalescent wilderness!

O pathway by the sunbeams ploughed
Betwixt those pouring walls of cloud!

We watched adown that glade of fire
Celestrial Iris floating free,
We saw the cloudlets keep in choir
Their dances on the sea;

The scarlet, huge, and quivering sun
Feared his due hour was overrun,-
On us the last he blazed, and hurled
His glory on Columbus' world.

Then ere our eyes the change could tell,
Or feet bewildered turn again,
From Teneriffe the darkness fell

Head-foremost on the main :

A hundred leagues was seaward flown The gloom of Teyde's towering cone,— Full half the height of heaven's blue That monstrous shadow overflew.

Then all is twilight; pile on pile

The scattered flocks of cloudland close,

An alabaster wall, erewhile

Much redder than the rose !—

Falls like a sleep on souls forspent
Majestic Night's abandonment;
Wakes like a waking life afar
Hung o'er the sea one eastern star.

O Nature's glory, Nature's youth!
Perfected sempiternal whole!
And is the World's in very truth
An impercipient soul?

Or doth that Spirit, past our ken,
Live a profounder life than men,
Awaits our passing days, and thus
In secret places calls to us?

O fear not thou, whate'er befall
Thy transient individual breath,-
Behold, thou knowest not at all

What kind of thing is Death;
And here indeed might Death be fair,
If Death be dying into air,-

If souls evanished mix with thee,

Illumined heaven, eternal sea.

SIMMENTHAL

Far off the old snows ever new
With silver edges cleft the blue
Aloft, alone, divine;

The sunny meadows silent slept,
Silence the sombre armies kept,
The vanguard of the pine.

In that thin air the birds are still,
No ringdove murmurs on the hill
Nor mating cushat calls;
But gay cicalas singing sprang,
And waters from the forest sang
The song of waterfalls.

O Fate! a few enchanted hours Beneath the firs, among the flowers, High on the lawn we lay,

Then turned again, contented well, While bright about us flamed and fell The rapture of the day.

And softly with a guileless awe
Beyond the purple lake she saw

The embattled summits glow;

She saw the glories melt in one, The round moon rise, while yet the sun Was rosy on the snow.

Then like a newly-singing bird

The child's soul in her bosom stirred;

I know not what she sung :

Because the soft wind caught her hair,
Because the golden moon was fair,
Because her heart was young.

I would her sweet soul ever may
Look thus from those glad eyes and grey,
Unfearing, undefiled:

I love her; when her face I see,
Her simple presence wakes in me
The imperishable child.

ROBERT BRIDGES

Born 1844

ELEGY

ON A LADY, WHOM GRIEf for the death of hER
BETROTHEd killed.

Assemble, all ye maidens, at the door,
And all ye loves assemble; far and wide
Proclaim the bridal, that proclaimed before
Has been deferred to this late eventide :
For on this night the bride,

The days of her betrothal over,

Leaves the parental hearth for evermore; To-night the bride goes forth to meet her lover.

Reach down the wedding vesture, that has lain Yet all unvisited, the silken gown:

Bring out the bracelets, and the golden chain Her dearer friends provided: sere and brown Bring out the festal crown,

And set it on her forehead lightly: