THE LAST PROPHECY OF CASSANDRA

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THE LAST PROPHECY OF CASSANDRA.

THE sun is fading in the skies,

And evening shades are gathering fast;

Fair city, ere that sun shall rise,

Thy night hath come-thy day is past!

Ye know not-but the hour is nigh;
Ye will not heed the warning breath

h;

No vision strikes your clouded eye,
To break the sleep that wakes in death.

Go, age, and let thy withered cheek

Be wet once more with freezing tears;
And bid thy trembling sorrow speak,
In accents of departed years.

Go, child, and pour thy sinless prayer
Before the everlasting throne;

And he who sits in glory there
May stoop to hear thy silver tone.

Go. warrior, in thy glittering steel,
And bow thee at the altar's side,

And bid thy frowning gods reveal
The doom their mystic counsels hido.

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THE LAST PROPHECY OF CASSANDRA.

Go, maiden, in thy flowing veil,

And bare thy brow, and bend thy knee; When the last hopes of mercy fail,

Thy God may yet remember thee.

Go, as thou went in happier hours,
And lay thine incense on the shrine;
And greener leaves, and fairer flowers,
Around the sacred image twine.

mound:

1 saw them rise-the buried dead-
From marble tomb and grassy
I heard the spirits' printless tread,
And voices not of earthly sound.

I looked upon the quivering stream,
And its cold wave was bright with flame;
And wild, as from a fearful dream,
The wasted forms of battle came.

Ye will not hear-ye will not know. -
Ye scorn the maniac's idle song;

Ye care not! but the voice of wo
Shall thunder loud, and echo long.

Blood shall be in your marble halls,

And spears shall glance, and fire shall glow; Ruin shall sit upon your walls,

But ye shall lie in death below.

DEATH.

Ay, none shall live-to hear the storm
Around their blackened pillars sweep:

To shudder at the reptile's form,

Or scare the wild bird from her sleep.

POUR not the voice of grief
Above the sable bier!

The weary spirit finds relief

In some more hallowed sphere.

What recks it that the lip

Hath lost its thrilling hue—

Untainted was their fellowship

As blushing rose and dew.

And now-too soon a creeping thing,
Will, like a leech, there feed and cling!

Yet weep not for the dead

Who early pass away,

Ere hope and joy and youth have fled,
Ere wo has wrought decay!

Better to die in youth

When life is green and bright,

Than when the heart has lost its truth

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DEATH.

In age and sorrow's night

Then woes and years around us throng, And death's chill grasp is on us long.

Life is a rifled flower

When love's pure visions fade—

A broken spell—a faded hour—
An echo-and a shade!

The poet's thirst for fame,

And siren beauty's kiss,

Ambition's height, and honor's name
But yield a phantom bliss-

And man turns back from every goal
Thirsting for some high bliss of soul!

Would I had died when young!
How many burning tears,

And wasted hopes and severed ties
Had spared my after years!

And she on whose pale brow,

The damp and cold earth lies,

Whose pure heart in its virgin glow
Was mirrored in dark eyes!

Would I had faded soon with her,
My boyhood's earliest worshipper!

Pour not the voice of wo!

Shed not the burning tear When spirits from the cold earth go Too bright to linger here'

THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

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Unsullied let them pass

Into oblivion's tomb

Like snow flakes melting in the sea
When rife with vestal bloom.

Then strew fresh flowers above the grave
And let the tall grass o'er it wave!

THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

BY. J. G. WHITTIER.

Cotton Mather-the author of 'Magnalia Christi Americana,' -gives a singular account of a vessel and crew, which left Salem some time during the 17th century, for 'Old England. ' It seems that among the passengers were a young man and a beautiful girl-pale and sorrowful, however-whom no one knew, and who held communion with no one. This excited the alarm of some of the credulous people of Salem: they supposed them to be demons or prestigious spirits;' and they endeavored to dissuade their friends from entering the ship,-but, nevertheless, a goodly number of passengers went on board the fatal ship. The remainder of the story is told in the following lines.

The morning light is breaking forth

All over the dark blue sea

And the waves are changed-they are rich with gold As the morning waves should be;

And the rising winds are wandering out,

On their seaward pinions free.