Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][ocr errors][merged small]
[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[graphic][subsumed]

"THERE!' SAID THE DEACON, NAOW SHE'LL DEW!'"- Page 222.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

223

Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main, -
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled
wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun
their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont
to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

[blocks in formation]

UNDER THE VIOLETS.

HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;-
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

But not beneath a graven stone,

To plead for tears with alien eyes;

A slender cross of wood alone

Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

And gray old trees of hugest limb
Shall wheel their circling shadows
round

To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground,

And drop their dead leaves on her mound.

When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call,

And, ripening in the autumn sun,
The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.

Stretched in his last-found home, and For her the morning choir shall sing

knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of Spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.

At last the rootlets of the trees
Shall find the prison where she lies,

Build thee more stately mansions, O my And bear the buried dust they seize

soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise!

« ZurückWeiter »