Dark were the heavens above Thee, Saviour!—dark
The gulfs, Deliverer! round the straining bark.
But Thou!-o'er all thine aspect and array
Was poured one stream of pale, broad, silvery light :
Thou wert the single star of that all-shadowing night!

Aid for one sinking! Thy lone brightness gleamed
On his wild face, just lifted o'er the wave.
With its worn, fearful, human look, that seemed

To cry, through surge and blast-"I perish !-save!"
Not to the winds-not vainly! Thou wert nigh.
Thy hand was stretched to fainting agony,

Even in the portals of the unquiet grave!

O Thou that art the Life! and yet didst bear
Too much of mortal woe to turn from mortal prayer!

But was it not a thing to rise on death,

With its remembered light, that face of thine,
Redeemer dimmed by this world's misty breath,
Yet mournfully, mysteriously divine?
Oh! that calm, sorrowful, prophetic eye,
With its dark depths of grief, love, majesty :

And the pale glory of the brow!-a shrine

Where power sat veiled, yet shedding softly round.

What told that Thou couldst be but for a time uncrowned!

And more than all, the heaven of that sad smile,
The lip of mercy, our immortal trust!

Did not that look, that very look, erewhile

Pour its o'ershadowed beauty on the dust?

Wert Thou not such when earth's dark cloud hung o er Thee?

Surely Thou wert! My heart grew hushed before Thee, Sinking with all its passions, as the gust

Sank at Thy voice, along the billowy way:

What had I there to do but kneel, and weep, and pray? -The Forest Sanctuary.

AVE, SANCTISSIMA, ORA PRO NOBIS.

Thy sad sweet hymn, at eve, the seas along :—

Oh! the deep soul it breathed!-the love, the woe,

The fervor, poured in that full gush of song,
As it went floating through the fiery glow
Of the rich sunset! bringing thoughts of Spain,
With all their vesper voices o'er the main,

Which seemed responsive in its murmuring flow
Ave, Sanctissima!—how oft that lay

Hath melted from my heart the martyr's strength away.

Ora pro nobis, Mater! What a spell

Was in those notes, with day's last glory dying On the flushed waters! Seemed they not to swell From the far dust wherein my sires were lying With crucifix and sword? Oh! yet how clear Comes their reproachful sweetness to mine ear! Ora-with all the purple waves replying,

All my youth's visions rising in the strain

And I had thought it much to bear the rack and chain !

-The Forest Sanctuary.

ELYSIUM.

Fair wert thou in the dreams

Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers

And summer winds and low-toned silvery streams,

Dim with the shadow of thy laurel bowers,
Where, as they passed, bright hours

Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings
To earthly love, and joy in loveliest things.

Fair wert thou, with the light

On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast,
From purple skies ne'er deepening into night,
Yet soft, as if each moment were their last
Of glory, fading fast

Along the mountains! But thy golden day
Was not as those that warn us of decay.

And ever, through thy shades,

A swell of deep Æolian sound went by,
From fountain-voices in their secret glades,
And low reed-whispers making sweet reply
To Summer's breezy sigh,

And young leaves trembling to the wind's light breath,
Which ne'er had touched them with a hue of death,

And who, with silent tread,

Moved o'er the plains of waving asphodel?

Called from the dim procession of the dead ;

Who 'midst the shadowy amaranth bowers might dwell, And listen to the swell

Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale

The spirit wandering in the immortal gale ?

They of the sword, whose praise

With the bright wine at nations' feasts went round;
They of the lyre, whose unforgotten lays

Forth on the winds had sent their mighty sound,

And in all regions found

Their echoes 'midst the mountains, and become

In man's deep heart as voices of his home.

They of the daring thought

Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied,

Whose flight through stars and seas and depths had

sought

The soul's far birthplace-but without a guide!

Sages and seers, who died,

And left the world their high mysterious dreams,
Born 'midst the olive-woods, by Grecian streams.

But the most loved are they

Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice
In regal halls. The shades o'erhang their way;
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice;
And gentle hearts rejoice

Around their steps; till silently they die,

As a stream shrinks from Summer's burning eye.

And these-of whose abode

'Midst her green valleys earth retained no trace, Save a flower springing from their burial-sod,

A shade of sadness on some kindred face,

A dim and vacant place

In some sweet home: thou hadst no wreaths for these, Thou sunny land, with all thy deathless trees.

The peasant at his door

Might sink to die when vintage feasts were spread,
And songs on every wind.-From thy bright shore
No lovelier vision floated round his head;

Thou wert for nobler dead!

He heard the bounding steps which round him fell,
And sighed to bid the festal sun farewell.

Calm on its leaf-strewn bier
Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,

Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before the mother lay,

E'en so to pass away,

With its bright smile! Elysium, what wert thou
To her who wept o'er that young slumberer's brow?

Thou hadst no home, green land!

For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life's fresh flowers just opening in its hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown
Which in its clear eyes shone,

Like Spring's first wakening. But that light was past:-
Where went the dewdrop swept before the blast ?—