As great Pythagoras of yore,

Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note,

Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,

The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.

Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold;
For, like Acestes' shaft of old,

The swift thought kindles as it flies,

And burns to ashes in the skies.

THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.

I SAW, as in a dream sublime,

The balance in the hand of Time.

O'er East and West its beam impended;

And day, with all its hours of light,
Was slowly sinking out of sight,
While, opposite, the scale of night
Silently with the stars ascended.

Like the astrologers of eld,

In that bright vision I beheld

Greater and deeper mysteries.
I saw, with its celestial keys,
Its chords of air, its frets of fire,
The Samian's great Æolian lyre,
Rising, through all its sevenfold bars,
From earth unto the fixed stars.

And through the dewy atmosphere,
Not only could I see, but hear,
Its wondrous and harmonious strings,
In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,
From Dian's circle light and near,
Onward to vaster and wider rings,

Where, chanting through his beard of snows,
Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,

And down the sunless realms of space

Reverberates the thunder of his bass.

Beneath the sky's triumphal arch
This music sounded like a march,

And with its chorus seemed to be

Preluding some great tragedy.
Sirius was rising in the east;
And, slow ascending one by one,
The kindling constellations shone.
Begirt with many a blazing star,
Stood the great giant Algebar,
Orion, hunter of the beast!

His sword hung gleaming by his side.

And, on his arm, the lion's hide
Scattered across the midnight air

The golden radiance of its hair.

The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint,

Serenely moving on her way

In hours of trial and dismay.

As if she heard the voice of God,

Unharmed with naked feet she trod

Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars

That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity.

Thus moving on, with silent pace,
And triumph in her sweet, pale face,
She reached the station of Orion.
Aghast he stood in strange alarm!
And suddenly from his outstretched arm

Down fell the red skin of the lion

Into the river at his feet.

His mighty club no longer beat

The forehead of the bull; but he

Reeled as of yore beside the sea,
When, blinded by Enopion,

He sought the blacksmith at his forge,
And, climbing up the mountain gorge,

Fixed his blank eyes upon

the sun.