In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led,
Sa'e 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 raptures 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 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 cannot 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.

THE BUILDERS.

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show,

Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled; Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care, Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS.

A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime

Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,

The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been

About those deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen,

How many histories known !

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite

Trampled and passed it o'er,
When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight

His favourite son they bore.
Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,

Crushed it beneath their tread;
Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air

Scattered it as they sped ;
Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth

Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith

Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms

Pacing the Dead Sea beach,
And singing slow their old Armenian psalms

In half-articulate speech;

Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate

With westward steps depart;
Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,

And resolute in heart!

These have passed over it, or may have passed !

Now in this crystal tower
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,

It counts the passing hour.

And as I

gaze,

these narrow walls expand ;Before my dreamy eye Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,

Its unimpeded sky.

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,

This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,

A form of fear and dread.

a

And onward, and across the setting sun,

Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,

Till thought pursues in vain.

The vision vanishes! These walls again

Shut out the lurid sun,
Shut out the hot immeasurable plain,

The half-hour's sand is run!

PEGASUS IN POUND.

a

ONCE into a quiet village,

Without haste and without heed, In the golden prime of morning,

Strayed the poet's winged steed. It was Autumn, and incessant

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, And, like living coals, the apples

Burned among the withered leaves. Loud the clamorous bell was ringing

From its belfry gaunt and grim; 'Twas the daily call for labour,

Not a triumph meant for him. Not the less he saw the landscape,

In its gleaming vapour veiled; Not the less he breathed the odours

That the dying leaves exhaled. Thus, upon the village common,

By the schoolboys he was found; And the wise men, in their wisdom,

Put him straightway into pound. Then the sombre village crier,

Ringing loud his brazen bell, Wandered down the street proclaiming

There was an estray to sell. And the curious country people,

Rich and poor, and young and old, Came in haste to see this wondrous

Winged steed, with mane of gold.