Runs the white limit of a line I may not overleap.

Once thou wert sleeping on my breast,
Till fiery Titans lifted thee
From the fair silence of thy rest,

Out of the loving sea.

And I swing eternal to and fro;
I strive in vain to reach thy feet,
O Garden of joy! whose walls are low,
And odors are so sweet!

ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.

SONG OF THE LIGHTNING.

"PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes." MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

AWAY! away! through the sightless air

Stretch forth your iron thread ! For I would not dim my sandals fair

With the dust ye tamely tread ! Ay, rear it up on its million piers,

Let it circle the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years I'll clear at a single bound!

Though I cannot toil, like the groaning slave
Ye have fettered with iron skill

To ferry you over the boundless wave,
Or grind in the noisy mill,

Let him sing his giant strength and speed!
Why, a single shaft of mine

Would give that monster a flight indeed,
To the depths of the ocean's brine !

No! no! I'm the spirit of light and love!
To my unseen hand 't is given

To pencil the ambient clouds above
And polish the stars of heaven!

I scatter the golden rays of fire
On the horizon far below,
And deck the sky where storms expire
With my red and dazzling glow.

With a glance I cleave the sky in twain;
I light it with a glare,

When fall the boding drops of rain

Through the darkly curtained air!
The rock-built towers, the turrets gray,
The piles of a thousand years,
Have not the strength of potter's clay
Beneath my glittering spears.

From the Alps' or the Andes' highest crag,
From the peaks of eternal snow,
The blazing folds of my fiery flag
Illume the world below.

The hieroglyphs on the Persian wall,
The letters of high command,
Where the prophet read the tyrant's fall,
Were traced by my burning hand.
And oft in fire have I wrote since then
What angry Heaven decreed;
But the sealed eyes of sinful men
Were all too blind to read.

At length the hour of light is here,
And kings no more shall bind,
Nor bigots crush with craven fear,
The forward march of mind.
The words of Truth and Freedom's rays
Are from my pinions hurled;
And soon the light of better days
Shall rise upon the world.

GEORGE W. CUTTER.

ORIGIN OF THE OPAL.

A DEW-DROP came, with a spark of flame
He had caught from the sun's last ray,
To a violet's breast, where he lay at rest
Till the hours brought back the day.

The rose looked down, with a blush and frown;
But she smiled all at once, to view
Her own bright form, with its coloring warm,
Reflected back by the dew.

Then the stranger took a stolen look

At the sky, so soft and blue;
And a leaflet green, with its silver sheen,
Was seen by the idler too.

A cold north-wind, as he thus reclined,
Of a sudden raged around;
And a maiden fair, who was walking there,
Next morning, an opal found.

ANONYMOUS.

THE ORIGIN OF GOLD.

THE Fallen looked on the world and sneered. "I can guess," he muttered, "why God is feared,

For the eyes of mortal are fain to shun
The midnight heaven that hath no sun.
I will stand on the height of the hills and wait
Where the day goes out at the western gate,
And, reaching up to its crown, will tear
From its plumes of glory the brightest there:
With the stolen ray I will light the sod,
And turn the eyes of the world from God."

He stood on the height when the sun went down,
He tore one plume from the day's bright crown,
The proud beam stooped till he touched its brow,
And the print of his fingers are on it now;
And the blush of its anger forevermore
Burns red when it passes the western door.
The broken feather above him whirled,
In flames of torture around him curled,
And he dashed it down on the snowy height,
In broken flashes of quivering light.
Ah, more than terrible was the shock
Where the burning splinters struck wave and rock!
The green earth shuddered, and shrank and paled,
The wave sprang up, and the mountain quailed;
Look on the hills, let the scars they bear
Measure the pain of that hour's despair.

The Fallen watched while the whirlwind fanned
The pulsing splinters that ploughed the sand;
Sullen he watched while the hissing waves
Bore them away to the ocean caves;
Sullen he watched while the shining rills
Throbbed through the hearts of the rocky hills;
Loudly he laughed, "Is the world not mine?
Proudly the links of its chain shall shine;
Lighted with gems shall its dungeon be,
But the pride of its beauty shall kneel to me."
That splintered light in the earth grew cold,
And the diction of mortals hath called it gold.

SARAH E. CARMICHAEL, of Utah.

O THEN I see, Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams; Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid : Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of

love;

On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies

straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetineats tainted

are:

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice :
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes :

WHERE THE BEE SUCKS.

Save the faint chip of early bird, Or bleat of flocks along the hill.

I traced that rivulet's winding way;
New scenes of beauty opened round,
Where meads of brighter verdure lay,
And lovelier blossoms tinged the ground.
"Ah, happy valley stream!" I said,

"Calm glides thy wave amid the flowers, Whose fragrance round thy path is shed Through all the joyous summer hours.

O, could my years, like thine, be passed
In some remote and silent glen,
Where I could dwell and sleep at last,
Far from the bustling haunts of men!"

But what new echoes greet my ear? The village school-boy's merry call; And mid the village hum I hear

The murmur of the waterfall.

I looked; the widening vale betrayed
A pool that shone like burnished steel,
Where that bright valley stream was stayed
To turn the miller's ponderous wheel.

Ah! why should I, I thought with shame,
Sigh for a life of solitude,

When even this stream without a name
Is laboring for the common good.

No longer let me shun my part
Amid the busy scenes of life,

But with a warm and generous heart
Press onward in the glorious strife.

JOHN HOWARD BRYANT.

THE CULPRIT FAY.

'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night, The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Naught is seen in the vault on high

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,

And the flood which rolls its milky hue,
A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Cronest;
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below.
His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut bough and the cedar made;
And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark,
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam

In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still;
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
And naught is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katydid;
And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,
Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow.

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell :
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
He has counted them all with click and stroke
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak,
And he has awakened the sentry elve

Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
And call the fays to their revelry;
Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell
('T was made of the white snail's pearly shell):
Midnight comes, and all is well!