The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-12-15
Vol. XIII.

a
shelved out in a very precipi,ous way;
But you know you always, if cliffs should be steel
Resolve yourself into a baby, and creep.
And once in the cave, you siraighIway forgot
How you ever got in or should ever get out
The suns fierce eye hath never
Such dense cool MOSES of living green.
The heaviest football, cushioned there,
Stirs wave of the scented air.
Jasper and ruby, by hidden hands strewed,
Blood red in its dark depths rssplendenuy giowed.
A winsome fountain, fairer TO view
Than the sacred river of Xanadu,
Flungup its showers of slitlering spray,
Singing its soul oufin many lay,
Now with murmurous melody dying away,
Then ringing, fuie-ike, sinks and swells
The music imprisoned in silver bells.
Down from the ceiling, broad crystal srars
Flashed evernore a thousand stars
All the walls were OF crystal sheen,
veiLed with purple and psle sea green,
Springiug up inio stately palms,
Or dropping low their wowy arms;
Sunward pointing in slender spires vs.
That never should glow with his golden fres;
Arching caihedrals with nave and aisle,
And crypt and cbancel such erewhile
The stslwart sons of Teuton trod,
When they gathered to worship God;
And the airier shapes that pilgrims seek
In the land ofihe sunny hearted Greek;
And swelling dom-s that proudly rise
Under the Indians burning skies
All that beauty and gold have done
For the swart browed children of The SUM-
And castles with bait emen,s, turte,s, and towers;
Knighy lances and ladies' bowers,
Ice-whte lilies and ruddy grapes,
And numberless wild fantastic shapes
That the hand OF man hath never wrought
That the voice OF man hath Iever taught,
That the brain of man hath thought;
Such shapes as reveal in The morning light
Where the rost-king went by al de I'D of night;
Only, these cold and still,
And die when the fre-king wreaks his will;
And those throbbing, and glowing, and rife
With a tremulous, waving, inner Life
Mystic and fearful. Who shall tell
II Life in the heart of the rock may dwell!
Did Spirit far back in tie night of time,
Heaven born child OF helvenly cline
Work in his madness nameless crime,
And meeting from Justice divine his DOOM
Find in this rock a living tomb,
The light that dars !ingly glowers within,
But hall light, and the a doubt
Is it the glare of a deadly sin?
Is il a soul that is flaming out,
The marvellous grace that is sculptured here,
Is il the throe of his restless hand,
To reproduce i'll this grosser sphere
The beauty that bfeathed in his starry lend?
Striving from the senseess
The shapes that forever are haunting his brain?
Bsff d forever, but striving OH,
With gnawing, and cease ess, and hopeless pain,
Forever ard ever and ever in vain,
In van in vain. Yet 10 thee is given,
Oh tor ured soul! this ease OF woe
Fairer Thy work in lis fragments even
Than any cempl, teness man may know;
For the very failures of thy far heaven
Surpass the successes word can show.
Dear lord of creation, allow the remark
That warmly advise you 10 take my
SHOULD you chance to come Devastating here in m
park
As did your Re, sir " FOR better for worse ~
don't vouch for tia actusl trdih, silly elf
Why, don pretend 10 believe it myself
OF my cavernous sory ] emily say,
What very few caa BY the way
lfiibe not true, it might have ben;
do. I know how il is for I diIn'. go in
couldn't, my dear, without rissing my neck,
And though hope sbou dn't object
To tta, there any great good 10 be DONE
I've decided objections 10 do il for iau;
And don't thirk there's much fun TO he found
In "a dark dish III cave thirty feet the ground,
All Shiny, and drippy, and snaky, and lizardy,
And mouldy, and slippery uncnnny, and wizardy-
enjoy the bris b, river true Minnehaha,
But the shark cave that's above ii isbah
GAIL HAMILTON.
ffo BE LVDtpl