THE TOMB OF CYRUS.

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Olet my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly, wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live.

WORDSWORTH.

The Tomb of Cyrus.

A VOICE from stately Babylon, a mourner's rising

cry

And Libya's marble palaces give back their deep

reply;

And like the sound of distant winds o'er ocean's

billows sent,

Ecbatana, thy storied walls send forth the wild

lament.

92

THE TOMB OF CYRUS.

For he, the dreaded arbiter-adawning empire's trust The eagle child of victory-the great, the wise, the

just,

Assyria's famed and conquering sword, and Media's regal strength

Hath bowed his head to earth beneath a mightier hand at length.

And darkly, through a sorrowing land, Euphrates winds along,

And Cydnus, with its silver wave, has heard the funeral song;

And through the wide and sultry East, and through the frozen North,

The tabret and the harp are hush'd—the wail of grief goes forth.

There is a solitary tomb, with rankling weeds o'ergrown,

A single palm bends mournfully besides the mouldering stone,

Amidst whose leaves the passing breeze, with fitful gust and slow,

Seems sighing with a feeble dirge for him who sleeps below.

Beside it sparkling drops of foam a desert fountain showers,

And, floating calm, the lotus wreathes its red and scented flowers;

THE TOMB OF CYRUS.

93

And lurks the mountain fox, unseen, beside the vulture's nest,

And steals the wild hyena past in lone and silent

quest.

Is this ambition's resting-place-the couch of fallen

might?

And ends the path of glory thus, and fame's enshrining light?

Chief of a progeny of kings renowned and feared

afar,

How is thy boasted name forgot, and dimm'd thine honour's star?

Approach: what said the graven verse? Alas, for human pride !

66

'Dominion's envied gifts were mine-nor earth her praise denied:

Thou, traveller, if a suppliant's voice find echo in thy

O envy

breast,

not the little dust which hides my mortal rest!"

ANON.

God an Anfailing Refuge.

THE smoothest seas will sometimes prove
To the confiding bark untrue!

And if she trust the stars above,
They can be treacherous too.

Th' umbrageous oak, in pomp outspread,
Full oft, when storms the welkin rend,
Draws lightnings down upon the head
It promised to defend.

But Thou art true, incarnate Lord!
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die:

Thy smile is sure, thy plighted word
No change can falsify!

I bent before thy gracious throne,

And ask'd for peace with suppliant knec; And peace was given-nor peace alone,

But faith, and hope, and ecstacy!

WORDSWORTH.

Who Loves me best?

WHO loves me best?-My Mother, sweet,
Whose every look with love's replete ;
Who held me, infant, on her knee,——
Who hath ever watch'd me tenderly ;
And yet I have heard my mother say,
That she some time must pass away :
Who then shall shield me from earthly ill?
Some one must love me better still!

Who loves me best?-My father dear,
Who delights to have me always near;
He whom I fly each eve to meet,
When pass'd away is the noontide heat:
Who from the bank where the sunbeam lies
Brings me the wild wood strawberries.

O he is dear as my mother to me,—
But he will perish, even as she.

Who loves me best?—The gentle dove
That I have tamed with my childish love,
That every one save myself doth fear,
Whose soft coo soundeth when I come near;
Yet perhaps it loves me because I bring
To its cage the drops from the clearest spring.

G