Oh! earth. Oh! heaven. Oh! death, which is but life.
That still small voice within doth ever say,
Here for a season set amid the strife,
Live thou thy best—for all must pass away.
Passing away where crowns and sceptred right,
Kings, lowly, meekly lay before the Throne,
And saints with creeds, and sinners, in the light
Of God’s great dawn, will worship Him alone.
MUSIC.
Let the sound of sweet music my spirit fill,
Come like the fall of a sparkling rill
Which murmureth ever a golden hymn
Of enchanting melody, or the dim
Low symphony, soft as the zephyrs make,
When they ruffle the face of the silver lake.
Then pouring beauty, and grace, and light
In voluptuous sounds of majestic might;
Nearer the beat of the mystic wings,
Sweet strains which only an angel sings,
While stars as the dew seems to fall around,
Then melt again at the heavenly sound.
Breathing, ravishing, tender notes,
A billow of chords which for ever floats
O’er shimmering seas of exalted bliss,
Touching the waves with a soft caress,
Sighing through forests where pale moon flowers
Glimmer and thirst for thy limpid showers,
Or pulsing and thrilling the heart and brain,
Oh! loosen the clouds of thy golden rain,
And steep my soul in its precious dower
Till it panteth overwhelmed ’neath thy magic power.
THE CITY OF THE “VIOLET CROWN.”
Stately upon Egea stands
The city of the “Violet Crown,”
Where gods and men in fancy met
And oratory attained renown;
Where sculptured beauty art disclosed
In all its matchless symmetry,
Brilliant as first when Phœbus glowed
Upon its dazzling purity.
There for all time the Prophylæ,
The glorious Acropolis,
And Nike Apteron doth speak
Of Marathon and Salamis.
Still looks the Areopagos o’er
Where Socrates was once arraigned,
His sentence heard—the hemlock drank,
And died, but his great words remained.
Here was the lap of literature
With elegance and wisdom blent,
With the majestic Parthenon
Its overwhelming monument.
In spirit once again we hear
The voices borne upon the wind,
High in the Temple of great Zeus,
On Mount Olympus far behind.
Oh! gods and heroes, ye no more
In solemn conclave since have met,
Thy gods were myths, but thy great deeds
Burneth within our memory yet.
And Corinth, Athens’ sister, lies
Straight, straight along the sacred road
Where gray Hymettus proudly swells
’Mid purple plain by heroes trode.