Fair was my hall,—a gallery of Gods

Smoothly appointed;

With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sods
Freshly anointed.

Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,
And fiery Bacchus ;

Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of Fear
Whose visions rack us.

Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,
The hunt just scented;

Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,
The myriad-tented.

Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,
Draped in such clothing

As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,
Look on with loathing.

And yet, methought, his service-badge of soil
With honor wearing;

And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,
A hammer bearing.

But while I waited till his eye should sink,
O'ercome of beauty,

With heart-impatience brimming to the brink
Of courteous duty,-

He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,
His weapon poising;

I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,

No comment voicing.

"Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,

Wreck of past ages,

Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,

Ye grooms and pages!"

Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,
A frame he builded

Of a new feature,-with the power of birth
Fashioned and welded.

It had a might mine eyes had never seen,
A mien, a stature,

As if the centuries that rolled between
Had greatened Nature.

It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic sway
A place was won it:

The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"
He wrote upon it.

What man art thou?" I cried, "and what this wrong
That thou hast wrought me?

My marbles lived on symmetry and song;
Why hast thou brought me

A form of all necessities, that asks
Nurture and feeding?

Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,
Nor my high breeding."

"Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate, Nourished by Labor!

Thy Gods are gone with old-time Faith and Fate; Here is thy Neighbor."

A DREAM.

A woman came, wearing a veil;
Her features were burning and pale;

At the door of the shrine doth she kneel,
And waileth out, bowing her head,
"Ye men of remembrance and dread,

"Exorcise the pangs that I feel.

A boat that is torn with the tide,
A mountain with flame in its side
"That rends its devouring way,

A feather the whirlwind lifts high,
Are not wilder or weaker than I,

"Ye Saints, I fall down at your feet;

"Thou Virgin, so piteous to greet,

"Reach hither the calm of your hands;

Ye statues of power and of art,

"Let your marble weight lie on my heart,
"Hold my madness with merciful bands.”

The priest takes his candle and book

With the pity of scorn in his look,

And chants the dull Mass through his teeth;

But the penitent, clasping his knees,

Cries, "Vain as the sough of the breeze

"Are thy words to the anguish of death."

The priest, with reproval and frown, Bids the listless attendant reach down The water that sprinkles from sin. "Your water is water," she cries: "The further its foolishness flies,

"The fiercer the flames burn within."

"Get thee hence to the cell and the scourge !" The priest in his anger doth urge,

"Or the fire of the stake thou shalt prove, "Maintaining with blasphemous tongue

"That the mass-book and censer, high swung,

Then the Highest stept down from his place, While the depths of his wonderful face

The thrill of compassion did move :

"Come, hide thee," he cried, "in this breast: "I summon the weary to rest;

"With love I exorcise thy love."

Etter Clementine Howart

RUFUS THE KING.

One morn in summer's glory,
Beneath an old oak hoary,
This wild romantic story
I heard a poet sing:-
How once, the wassail ended,
By lords and dukes attended,
From castle well defended,
Rode Rufus the King.

The huntsman's bugle sounded,

The fiery coursers bounded,

And he, by guards surrounded,
Rushed on with reckless spring,

Till soon, a by-way choosing,
All company refusing,

His path in forest losing
Rode Rufus the King.

The darkness gathered o'er him,
An unknown path before him,
And still his courser bore him

As on an eagle's wing:

Till sudden came a crashing,
A steed in fury dashing,

And blood the green sward splashing,
Near Rufus the King.