None could doubt the wondrous story
Of himself and of his comrades.
Shortly, to the cave returning,
King and people all go with him,
And they saw him enter in.
But no more to king or people
Did the Chosen reappear.
For the seven, who long had tarried, -
Nay, but they were Eight in number,
For the faithful dog was with them,
Thenceforth from the world were sundered.
The most blessed angel Gabriel,
By the will of God Almighty,
Walling up the cave forever,
Led them unto Paradise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
ND where stands Ephesus, in days gone by
Pride of the East, Ionia's radiant eye,
Boasting the shrine to famed Diana reared,
Earth's wonder called, that myriad hearts revered ?
There spreads Selinus' lake beneath the hill,
And flows unchanged the Cayster's willowed rill;
These speak the city near,-through waving grass,
O'er blackened stones, we slowly laboring pass;
Across our way the timid leveret springs;
Woke from his sleep, the snake uncoils his rings.
No street we tread, but climb a grass-grown mound, —
What is this Ephesus that moulders round?
The embattled walls that swept o'er Lepre's side,
To shapeless ruin crushed, have stooped their pride:
Where stood that early church Paul loved so well,
No cross, no tomb, no stone remains to tell.
Diana's fane that, glassed in depths below,
From bronze and silver cast a starry glow,
With statues, colonnades, and courts apart,
And porphyry pillars, each the pride of art,
Have Time's stern scythe, man's rage, and flood and fire,
Left naught for curious pilgrims to admire?
A few poor footsteps now may cross the shrine,
Cell, long arcade, high altar, all supine;
Bound with thick ivy, broken columns lie,
Through low rent arches winds of evening sigh,
Rough brambles choke the vaults where gold was stored,
And toads spit venom forth where priests adored.
The shivering bolt of ruthless ruin falls On pleasure's haunts, as well as priestly walls: See! in the circus, where gay chariots pressed Their rapid race, the plover builds her nest. Ten thousand voices rang from yonder hill, There, clothed with moss, sweep circling benches still, But e'en the peasant shuns that spot in fear, So deep the voiceless calm, its look so drear. Poor actors! Greek or Roman, where are they, That toiled and laughed to make their fellows gay? Down the long stream of sable Lethe tost,
Their graves unknown, and e'en their memories lost.
Yet, Ephesus! while desolate and lorn,
And though thy starless night shall know no morn, Cold is the breast of him who looks on thee,
And feels no thrill of solemn ecstasy.
As musing now we walk thy desert bound,
The heart leaps up as at a trumpet's sound,
For here, e'en here, name never to expire,
Paul taught his church, and breathed his words of fire;
These very stones his foot perchance hath trod,
These roofless walls have heard his prayers to God.
There did Demetrius raise his heathen cry
'Gainst him who led men's wandering thoughts on high, Showed the dark errors of their baseless dreams, Poured on the spirit's night celestial beams,
And cheered us with the hope, when worms shall prey
On this poor form consigned to slow decay,
The soul, with added powers and new-fledged plume,
Shall spring to life and joy, beyond the tomb.
Ay, Paul's bright fame, above the fame of kings,
On these sad ruins dazzling lustre flings.
But chief tradition points to yon rude tower,
Where passed in bonds the apostle's lonely hour,
And pious hands have reared in later day
These fretted Gothic walls, and arches gray:
Within this cell-hush, heart! thy fluttering fears -
To Fancy's eye his godlike form appears :
What solemn thought that lofty brow displays!
What holy fervor in that lifted gaze!
Monarchs! behold a greater far than ye;
Conquerors! to Christ's brave champion bend the knee!
Eurymedon, the River.
ON THOSE WHO FELL AT EURYMEDON.
HESE by the streams of famed Eurymedon
Their short but brilliant race of life have run;
In winged ships and on the embattled field
Alike, they forced the Median bows to yield, Breaking their foremost ranks. Now here they lie, Their names inscribed on rolls of victory.
Simonides. Tr. J. H. Merivale.
HERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling through the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Garfiarus
Stands up and takes the morning; but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's columned citadel,
Mournful Enone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
"O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass:
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop; the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.
"O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves,
That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain
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