Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers win for thee the world's regard,
But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away

As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay;

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labor, the long pedigree of toil.

THE OPEN WINDOW.

The old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the graveled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery window
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children
They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;
But shadow and silence and sadness
Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet familiar tone;

But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone.

And the boy that walked beside me
He could not understand

Why closer in mine,-ah, closer!-
I pressed his warm soft hand!

The charming touch in the last stanza has a pathos peculiar to Professor Longfellow. The next poem is also one which, if printed anonymously, we should, I think, be ready to assign to the right author

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: Toujours-jamais! Jamais toujours!-JAQUES BRIDAINE.

Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient time-piece says to all:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, alas !

With sorrowful voice to all who pass:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
As if, like God, it all things saw,

It calmly repeats those words of awe:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;

The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning time-piece never ceased:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

There groups of merry children played;
There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold

Those hours the ancient time-piece told:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding-night! There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in its shroud of snow!

And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
Ah! when shall they all meet again
As in the days long since gone by?
The ancient time-piece makes reply:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain and care,
And death and time shall disappear!
Forever there, but never here!

The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly :

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

TWILIGHT.

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And, like the wings of sea-birds,
Flash the wild caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,
To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean

And the night-wind wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the color from her cheek?

RESIGNATION.

There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors

Amid these earthly damps,

What seem to us but sad funereal tapers,

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead, the child of our affection,

But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day, we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her,
For when with rapture wild,

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion
Clothed with a celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion

And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That can not be at rest,-

We will be patient and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

I add one simile from the "Address to a Child :"

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!
Like the new moon thy life appears
A little strip of silver-light,
And, widening outward into night,
The shadowy disk of future years!

And yet, upon its outer rim,

A luminous circle faint and dim,

And scarcely visible to us here,

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere,

A prophecy and intimation,

A pale and feeble adumbration,

Of the great world of light that lies

Beyond all human destinies !

The concluding extract has a stronger recommendation than any that I can give; it is Mrs. Browning's favorite among the poems of Longfellow :