OZOKERIT.
(By A. T., or some one who writes as well as he).
Wild whispers on the air did flit,
Wild whispers, shaped to mystic hints,
When bright in breadths of public prints
Shone that great name "Ozokerit."
And much the people marvelled when
That embryon thing should leap to view!
And "what is it," and "whereunto?"
Rang frequent in the mouths of men.
"This babbler! is he not to blame?
Or will he, in the cycled course
Of Time, with circumstance and force
Invest this nothing of a name?"
And one his thought would thus declare,
"Our fooling makes this fellow blithe,
He joys to see conjecture writhe
And flutter in the wordy snare."
Thereat one wiselier—"Watch and see
(When Time be ripe, which now is rathe)
His Titan-touch unfold the swathe
That darkly wraps the great 'To be.'"
Shine forth yet undiscovered star!
Shed largess of all precious balms!
We dimly grope with vacant palms
And wondering wait thy Avatar.
Thou cam'st by Prejudice withstood
In vain, and lulling doubt to sleep:
But one—yet two in one—the cheap
Divinely wedded to the good.
A thing of beauty, form combined
With soul phlogistic, sent to cloy
Our Æon, with Promethean joy:—
A joy from central darkness mined.
Of regions haunted by the Hun;
Thence baled with cost of countless gold
To Lambeth's marish, and in mould
Of seeming-waxen tapers run:
Whose radiance is as that of moons
Innumerous, making day of night;
With most intensity of light,
Emblazing fashion's gay saloons.
When sound of midnight morrice rings
On floor and roof, and all is noise,
Of jubilant Ophicleids, hautboys,
Clear twanging harp, and fiddle strings.
And shapes of silver-bosomed girls,
In bacchant revel wheeling, trace
The waltz with sweet disordered grace
Of twinkling feet and flashing curls.