DANTE.

TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom
With thoughtful pace, and sad majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.

Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilario in his diocese,

As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
And as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers "Peace!"

THE LADDER OF ST AUGUSTINE.

SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things-each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end;

Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire-the base design,

That makes another's virtues less;

The revel of the giddy wine,

And all occasions of excess.

The longing for ignoble things,

The strife for triumph more than truth,
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth!

All thoughts of ill-all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill,
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will!

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright field of Fair Renown
The right of eminent domain !

We have not wings-we cannot soar-
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees-by more and more-
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their frowning foreheads to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern, unseen before,
A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If rising on its wrecks, at last,
To something nobler we attain.

THE PHANTOM SHIP.

IN Mather's Magnalia Christi,
Of the old colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme.

A ship sailed from New Haven,
And the keen and frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,

Were heavy with good men's prayers.

"Oh Lord! if it be thy pleasure," Thus prayed the old divine,

"To bury our friends in the ocean, Take them, for they are thine!"

But Master Lamberton muttered,
And under his breath said he-
"This ship is so crank and wolty,
I fear our grave she will be!"

And the ships that came from England,
When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of this vessel
Nor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to praying

That the Lord would let them hear

What, in his greater wisdom,

He had done with friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered:

It was in the month of June,

An hour before the sunset

Of a windy afternoon;

When steadily steering landward

A ship was seen below,

And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,

Who sailed so long ago.

On she came, with a cloud of canvas,
Right against the wind that blew,
Until the eye could distinguish
The faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining top-mast, Hanging tangled in the shrouds, And her sails were loosened and lifted, And blown away like clouds.

And the masts, with all their rigging,
Fell slowly one by one,

And the hulk dilated and vanished,

As a sea-mist in the sun!

And the people who saw this marvel,
Each said unto his friend,

That this was the mould of their vessel,
And thus her tragic end.

And the pastor of the village
Gave thanks to God in prayer,
That to quiet their troubled spirits
He had sent this Ship of Air.

THE SEA DIVER.

My way is on the bright blue sea,
My sleep upon its rocky tide;
And many an eye has followed me,
Where billows clasp the worn sea-side.

My plumage bears the crimson blush, When ocean by the sun is kissed! When fades the evening's purple flush, My dark wing cleaves the silver mist.

Full many a fathom down beneath

The bright, arch of the splendid deep, My ear has heard the sea-shell breathe O'er living myriads in their sleep.

They rested by the coral throne,
And by the pearly diadem,

Where the pale sea-grape had o'ergrown
The glorious dwellings made for them.

At night, upon my storm-drenched wing,
I poised above a helmless bark,
And soon I saw the shattered thing
Had passed away and left no mark.

And when the wind and storm had done,
A ship, that had rode out the gale,
Sunk down-without a signal gun,
And none was left to tell the tale.

I saw the pomp of day depart

The cloud resign its golden crown,
When to the ocean's beating heart
The sailor's wasted corse went down.

Peace be to those whose graves are made
Beneath the bright and silver sea!
Peace that their relics there were laid,
With no vain pride and pageantry.

THE INDIAN HUNTER.

WHEN the summer harvest was gathered in,
And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,

And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,

Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,

An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,

Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.

He was a stranger there, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,

But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,
And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet,
And bitter feelings passed o'er him then,
As he stood by the populous haunts of men.