The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me:
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,—
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works,-He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy.
But when? or where?
I'm weary of conjectures,

This world was made for Cæsar.

this must end them.

[Laying his hand on his sword. My death and life,

Thus am I doubly armed.
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings ine to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

THE CLOUD

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 't is my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead,

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depths of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,

As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen thro' me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape with a bridge-like shape,

Over torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof;

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch thro' which I march

With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

I pass thro' the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I can not die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and build it again.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 1

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And the coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair..

1 By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co..

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in its last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew with wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!