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THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS,

AT ATHENS.

AFTER A PICTURE BY WILLIAMS, IN HIS "VIEWS IN GREECE."

THOU art not silent!-oracles are thine
Which the wind utters, and the spirit hears,
Lingering, 'mid ruined fane and broken shrine,
O'er many a tale and trace of other years!
Bright as an ark, o'er all the flood of tears
That wraps thy cradle-land-thine earthly love,
Where hours of hope, 'mid centuries of fears,

Have gleamed, like lightnings through the gloom

above,

Stands, roofless to the sky, thy home, Olympian Jove!

Thy columned aisles with whispers of the past Are vocal, and, along thine ivied walls, While Elian echoes murmur on the blast, And wild-flowers hang, like victor-coronals, In vain the turbaned tyrant rears his halls, And plants the symbol of his faith and slaughters; Now, even now, the beam of promise falls Bright upon Hellas, as her own bright daughters, And a Greek Ararat is rising o'er the waters!

Thou art not silent!--when the southern fair-
Ionia's moon-looks down upon thy breast,'
Smiling, as pity smiles above despair,

Soft as young beauty soothing age to rest,—
Sings the night-spirit in thy weedy crest,
And she-the minstrel of the moonlight hours
Breathes-like some lone one, sighing to be blest,-
Her lay-half hope, half sorrow,—from the flowers,
And hoots the prophet owl, amid his tangled bowers!

And, round thine altar's mouldering stones are born
Mysterious harpings,-wild as ever crept

From him who waked Aurora, every morn,
And sad as those he sung her, till she slept !
A thousand and a thousand years have swept
O'er thee, who wert a moral from thy spring,
A wreck in youth !-nor vainly hast thou kept 2
Thy lyre,-Olympia's soul is on the wing,

And a new Iphitus has waked, beneath its string!

SAINT CECILIA.

AFTER A PICTURE BY MIGNARD, IN THE GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE. 3

HER hair streams backward,-like a cloud

Before the sun-light of her eyes,

That seem to pierce the fleecy shroud

Of the far, blue Italian skies!

Her hands amid the golden strings
Play,—like a spirit's wanderings,

Still making music as they stray,
And scattering incense on their way!
And softest harpings float around,

That make the chamber hallowed ground;

Till every breeze that wanders by

Seems holy with the maiden's sigh,
And seraph-forms come stealing down,
To hear a music like their own!

Her robe is of the same pure white
Whose silver skirts yon azure sky,
Her form is like a form of light,-

But all the woman dims her eye

With tears that dare to look to heaven,

And griefs that mount-and are forgiven!

Deep in her warm and holy heart,

Are thoughts that play a mortal part,

And her young worship wafts above

The breathings of an earthly love!

Of earth,-yet not a love that flings
One clog upon her spirit's wings,
Or, like a shadow, dimly lies
Upon her pure heart's sacrifice!

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