CLXVII.
"LOOK NOT UPON THE WINE."
Look not upon the wine when it
Is red within the cup!
Stay not for pleasure when she fills
Her tempting beaker up!
Though clear its depths, and rich its glow,
A spell of madness lurks below.
They say 't is pleasant on the lip,
And merry on the brain;
They say it stirs the sluggish blood,
And dulls the tooth of pain.
Ay—but within its glowing deeps
A stinging serpent, unseen, sleeps.
Its rosy lights will turn to fire,
Its coolness change to thirst;
And, by its mirth, within the brain
A sleepless worm is nursed.
There's not a bubble at the brim
That does not carry food for him.
Then dash the brimming cup aside,
And spill its purple wine;
Take not its madness to thy lip—
Let not its curse be thine.
'T is red and rich but grief and woe
Are in those rosy depths below.
N. P. Willis.
CLXVIII.
THE LEPER.
Day was breaking,
When at the altar of the temple stood
The holy priest of God. The incense lamp
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant
Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof,
Like an articulate wail; and there, alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.
The echoes of the melancholy strain
Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up,
Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head
Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off
His costly raiment for the leper's garb,
And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still,
Waiting to hear his doom:—