The tones amid a lake of silence fell Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land

To listening crowds in expectation spanned.

Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake;

They spread along the train from front to wake

In one great storm of merriment, while

he

Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,

And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein

Of passionate music came with that dream-pain,

Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing,

And all appearance is mere vanishing. But ere the laughter died from out the rear,

Anger in front saw profanation near; Jubal was but a name in each man's faith

For glorious power untouched by that slow death

Which creeps with creeping time; this too, the spot,

And this the day, it must be crime to blot,

Even with scoffing at a madman's lie: Jubal was not a name to wed with mockery.

Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout

In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out, And beat him with their flutes. 'Twas little need;

He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,

As if the scorn and howls were driving wind

That urged his body, serving so the mind

Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen

Of thorny thickets, and there fell un

seen.

The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,

While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.

He said within his soul, "This is the end:

O'er all the earth to where the heavens bend

And hem men's travel, I have breathed my soul:

I lie here now the remnant of that whole,

The embers of a life, a lonely pain;
As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,
So of my mighty years nought comes
to me again.

"Is the day sinking? Softest coolness springs

From something round me: dewy shadowy wings

Enclose me all around-no, not aboveIs moonlight there? I see a face of love,

Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong:

Yea-art thou come again to me, great Song?"

The face bent over him like silver night In long-remembered summers; that calm light

Of days which shine in firmaments of thought,

That past unchangeable, from change still wrought.

And there were tones that with the

vision blent:

He knew not if that gaze the music sent,

Or music that calm gaze: to hear, to

see,

Was but one undivided ecstasy:
The raptured senses melted into one,
And parting life a moment's freedom

won

From in and outer, as a little child

Sits on a bank and sees blue heavens mild

Down in the water, and forgets its limbs,

And knoweth nought save the blue heaven that swims.

"Jubal," the face said, "I am thy loved Past,

The soul that makes thee one from first to last.

I am the angel of thy life and death, Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath.

Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride Who blest thy lot above all men's beside?

Thy bride whom thou wouldst never

change, nor take

Any bride living, for that dead one's sake?

Was I not all thy yearning and delight, Thy chosen search, thy senses' beauteous Right,

Which still had been the hunger of thy frame

In central heaven, hadst thou been still the same?

Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god

Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod

Or thundered through the skies-aught else for share

Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear

The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest

Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast?

No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain,

Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate

Was human music's self incorporate: Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife

Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of life.

And greatly hast thou lived, for not alone

With hidden raptures were her secrets shown,

Buried within thee, as the purple light Of gems may sleep in solitary night; But thy expanding joy was still to give, And with the generous air in song to live

Feeding the wave of ever-widening bliss Where fellowship means equal perfect

⚫ness.

And on the mountains in thy wandering Thy feet were beautiful as blossomed spring.

That turns the leafless wood to love's glad home,

For with thy coming Melody was come This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shriveled, dead,

A seed primeval that has forests bred.

Praying alone, like one that waits,
By Tigris' sacred tide.

Or by some lonely shore,
Where the hollow echo dwells,
And sounding sea beats evermore,
'Mid rocks and strange bright shells?
Or chanting God's praises, with happy
cheer,

When the songs of the angels broke on his ear?

And the gray Chaldean plains
With a golden radiance shone,

As Earth caught full the light that reigns

Beside the Eternal Throne.

Far off, and low, she heard

The flow of Life's bright stream,

And the music of strange sweet melodies

That haunt her like a dream;
And only God's angels, with solemn eye,
Saw the glorious pageant passing by.
And still the rocks frown high,
Amid the shadows, lone-

But their echoes nevermore reply,
To the sweet angelic tone;
And an awful mystery fills
That land of unknown graves,
And ever thrills the solemn hills
That guard Euphrates' waves;
But the word of God, through ages dim,
Reveals how ENOCH went home to
Him.
LUCY A. RANDALL.

THE TRANSLATION OF ENOCH. (Genesis v: 24.)

THOUGH proudly through the vaulted sky

Was borne Elisha's sire, And dazzling unto mortal eye

His car and steeds of fire:

To me as glorious seems the change
Accorded to thy worth;

As instantaneous and as strange
Thy exit from this earth.

Something which makes a deeper thrill
These few brief words unfold,
Than all description's proudest skill
Could of that hour have told.

Fancy's keen eye may trace the course Elijah held on high:

Slept on his ample forehead, and the locks

Of crispèd silver, beautiful in age, And (but that pride had dimmed, and lust of war,

Those reverend features with a darker shade),

Of saintly seeming, yet no saintly mood,

No heavenward musing fixed that steadfast eye,

God's enemy, and tyrant of mankind. To whom that demon herald, from the wing

Alighting, spake: "Thus saith the prince of air,

Whose star flames brightest in the van of night,

Whom gods and heroes worship, all who sweep

On sounding wing the arch of nether heaven,

Or walk in mail the earth,--"Thy prayers are heard,

And the rich fragrance of thy sacrifice Hath not been wafted on the winds in vain.

Have I not seen thy child that she is fair?

Give me thine Ada, thy beloved one, And she shall be my queen; and from her womb

Shall giants spring to rule the seed of Cain,

And sit on Jared's throne.'" Then Jared

Called on his daughter,-"Haste, my beautiful!

Mine Ada, my beloved! Bind with flowers

Thy coal-black hair, and heap the sacred pile

With freshest odours, and provoke the dance

With harp and gilded organ, for this night

We have found favour in immortal eyes, And the great gods have blessed us." Thus he spake,

Nor spake unheeded: in the ample hall His daughter heard, where, by the cedar fire,

Amidst her maidens, o'er the ivory loom She passed the threads of gold. They hushed the song

Which, wafted on the fragrant breeze of night,

Swept o'er the city like the ringdove's call;

And forth with all her damsels Ada

came,

As 'mid the stars the silver-mantled

moon,

In stature thus and form pre-eminent, Fairest of mortal maids. Her father

saw

That perfect comeliness, and his proud heart

In purer bliss expanded. Long he gazed, Nor wonder deemed that such should

win the love

Of genius or of angel; such the cheek Glossy with purple youth, such the large

eye,

Whose broad black mirror, through its silken fringe,

Glistened with softer brightness, as a

star

That nightly twinkles o'er a mountain well;

Such the long locks, whose raven mantle fell

Athwart her ivory shoulders, and o'erspread

Down to the heel her raiment's filmy fold.

She, bending first in meekness, rose to

meet

Her sire's embrace, than him alone less tall,

Whom, since primeval Cain, the sons of

men