In majesty thy walls above the storm, Mocking the generations as they pass, And pilgrims of the far-off centuries Will sometimes linger in their wanderings, To ponder, with a deep and sacred awe, The legend of the fight above the clouds.
George Dennison Prentice.
Louisville, Ky.
CAVE HILL CEMETERY.
ERE, whilst the twilight dews
Are softly gathering on the leaves and flowers,
I come, O patriot dead, to muse
A few brief hours.
Hard by you, rank on rank,
Rise the sad evergreens, whose solemn forms
Are dark as if they only drank
The thunder-storms.
Through the thick leaves around
The low, wild winds their dirge-like music pour, Like the far ocean's solemn sound,
From all the air a sigh,
Dirge-like and soul-like, melancholy, wild, Comes like a mother's wailing cry
Where mounds rise thick like surges on the sea, Those whom ye met in fierce array Sleep dreamlessly.
The same soft breezes sing,
The same birds chant their spirit-requiem, The same sad flowers their fragrance fling O'er you and them.
And pilgrims oft will grieve
Alike o'er Northern and o'er Southern dust, And both to God's great mercy leave In equal trust.
Oh, ye and they, as foes,
Will meet no more, but calmly take your rest, The meek hands folded in repose
No marble columns rear
Their shafts to blazon each dead hero's name, Yet well, oh, well, ye slumber here,
The dead as free will start
From the unburdened as the burdened sod,
And stand as pure in soul and heart
THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON.
FOUR limpid lakes, four Naiades
Or sylvan deities are these,
In flowing robes of azure dressed; Four lovely handmaids that uphold Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold, To the fair city in the West.
By day the coursers of the Sun Drink of these waters as they run Their swift, diurnal round on high; By night the constellations glow Far down the hollow deeps below, And glimmer in another sky.
Fair lakes, serene and full of light, Fair town, arrayed in robes of white, How visionary ye appear!
All like a floating landscape seems In cloud-land or the land of dreams, Bathed in a golden atmosphere!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
LL day, as day is reckoned on the earth,
I've wandered in these dim and awful aisles, Shut from the blue and breezy dome of heaven, While thoughts, wild, drear, and shadowy, have swept Across my awe-struck soul, like spectres o'er The wizard's magic glass, or thunder-clouds O'er the blue waters of the deep. And now I'll sit me down upon yon broken rock To muse upon the strange and solemn things Of this mysterious realm.
All day my steps Have been amid the beautiful, the wild, The gloomy, the terrific. Crystal founts, Almost invisible in their serene
And pure transparency; high, pillared domes, With stars and flowers all fretted like the halls
Of Oriental monarchs; rivers dark
And drear and voiceless as Oblivion's stream,
That flows through Death's dim vale of silence; gulfs All fathomless, down which the loosened rock Plunges until its far-off echoes come Fainter and fainter like the dying roll Of thunders in the distance; Stygian pools Whose agitated waves give back a sound Hollow and dismal, like the sullen roar
In the volcano's depths; these, these have left Their spell upon me, and their memories Have passed into my spirit, and are now Blent with my being till they seem a part Of my own immortality.
At the creation, hollowed out this vast
Domain of darkness, where no herb nor flower Ere sprang amid the sands, nor dews, nor rains, Nor blessed sunbeams fell with freshening power, Nor gentle breeze its Eden message told
Amid the dreadful gloom. Six thousand years Swept o'er the earth ere human footprints marked This subterranean desert. Centuries Like shadows came and past, and not a sound Was in this realm, save when at intervals, In the long lapse of ages, some huge mass Of overhanging rock fell thundering down, Its echoes sounding through these corridors A moment, and then dying in a hush
Of silence, such as brooded o'er the earth When earth was chaos. The great mastodon, The dreaded monster of the elder world, Passed o'er this mighty cavern, and his tread Bent the old forest oaks like fragile reeds And made earth tremble; armies in their pride Perchance have met above it in the shock Of war, with shout and groan, and clarion blast, And the hoarse echoes of the thunder gun; The storm, the whirlwind, and the hurricane Have roared above it, and the bursting cloud
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