"Yet there's a deathless name!
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,
And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;
And, though its crown of flame
Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars I'd bind it on!
"Ay, though it bid me rifle
My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst;
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first;
Though it should bid me stifle
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild—
"All—I would do it all
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot—
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!
O heavens! but I appall
Your heart, old man! Forgive—ha! on your lives
Let him not faint!—rack him till he revives!
"Vain—vain—give o'er. His eye
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now;
Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow.
Gods I if he do not die
But for one moment—one—till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!
"Shivering! Hark! he mutters
Brokenly now: that was a difficult breath—
Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death?
Look how his temple flutters!
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!
He shudders—gasps—Jove help him! So—he's dead!"
How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought,
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,
We look upon our splendor and forget
The thirst of which we perish!
II. ARCHITECTURE.
In Architecture, too, thy rank supreme!
That art where most magnificent appears
The little builder, man; by thee refined,
And smiling high, to full perfection brought.
—THOMSON.
We have already referred, in general terms, to the monuments of art for which the era of Athenian greatness was distinguished, and have stated that it was more particularly in the "Age of Pericles" that Athenian genius and enthusiasm found their full development, in the erection or adornment of those miracles of architecture that crowned the Athenian Acropolis or surrounded its base. The following eloquent description, from the pen of BULWER, will convey a vivid idea of the magnitude and the brilliancy of the labors performed for