Oh! hadst thou found but Sparta's wall of men,
Thou hadst raised Poland from the dust again;
And Freedom upon earth to thee had given
The crown of martyrs ratified in heaven!
Strength rests but with the many: never yet
Was Freedom's standard reared but by the few,
The watching men who woke while others slept;
Who, like the night-storm, on the oppressors swept,
Till the mass rose, and, wolf-like, on them flew,
Freedom their rally-word, while Vengeance slew!

Heroes-but martyrs-have ye ever been;
To point the goal-the prize ye could not win:
Ye left behind but earthly memories;

But doth not God, from his inscrutable place,
Look on the hearts who for their country die,

The glorious martyrs of Humanity?

Shall they pass, cloud-like, here, and leave no trace? Shall nought be done for them on earth or skies?— Unchangeable is Nature and her laws:

The miracles are by your valour wrought,

The ever-living and the unforgot;

For He hath fixed in human memory
The veneration for them, and the love,
And imitative faculty, that strove

To be like them who won the world's applause.
Great is the work ye greatly have begun!

Most in defeat your victory was won:

For ye have left, in Ostrolenka's name,
The memory of an heroic strife;

Such as old heroes fought, who felt that life
Was deathless honour-sanctified by fame!

L

RECORD OF A HAPPY DAY.

I.

WE climbed the grassy steep to see her seat
Of childhood's days,

Where those three wild and withered fir-trees meet:
The sun's last rays,

II.

Mellowed and softened, shone o'er that waste plain,
As if he mourned

That our brief day was past-as he in vain
Would have returned!

III.

But now the time, the hour, had entered in us,
The quiet spot!

Meek Evening, like an angel, came to win us
From griefs forgot;—

IV.

From musings sweet, yet sad, whose very sadness
Is sweetest joy:

For, oh! what wassail hour of rudest gladness
Hath not alloy?

V.

We sat together by the silent river,

And heard the note

Of birds, and saw o'er us the aspens quiver;
The light leaves float

VI.

Upon the current, borne on-on-until

They rose no more;

And then we sighed, and felt the moral thrill To our hearts' core.

VII.

The current of our days thus ever gliding;
And we, borne on,

Impulses, not our own, our pathway guiding,
Till life be gone.

VIII.

But then we felt how good and ill are blended :
And thanks were given;

Feeling though life upon a thread suspended,
It hung from Heaven!

IX.

And now meek Evening, beautiful and holy,
Presiding there,

Chased from my eyes away the melancholy,
From hers-the tear!

X.

We felt that blessed hour of Nature's love,
Our type of life:

Quiet and tranquil, thus, removed above

The world's far strife.

XI.

All lovely forms within our hearts were dwelling As in a shrine:

The happiness within her bosom dwelling,

Was felt by mine!

THOUGHTS BEFORE RAFFAELLE'S PORTRAIT
OF THE FORNARINA.

ETERNAL power of Beauty! how the soul
Sinks in the worship of thy nameless spell!
Would in thy shrine there dwelt an oracle,
The yearning questions that we ask to tell.
Dwell'st thou within the magic of the whole
We gaze on, filling the entranced heart?
Or in some nameless grace of form apart,
That thrills upon our being's chords till we
Become a portion of the harmony

And beauty which we dwell upon? Is 't drawn
From eyes?-those deep mysterious orbs, within
Whose dark or azure depths spells lie that win
Our very spirits from us as we gaze?-
Or in the silken tangles of the hair,

Wreathing the o'ershadowed brow with sun-like rays,
Is the chained soul imprisoned? or the air,
The expression of the voice in music borne

From the heart-breathing lips?—or claim thy spells
The bosom where Love born and cradled dwells?

II.

No marvel shrines to thee of old were given ;
And that men peopled streams, hills, woods, with thee,
Yea, knelt and worshipped thy divinity

Far above all the fabled hosts of heaven!

They felt thee life's sole fount of happiness:

Kings prostrated before thy shrine were less

Than their own slaves; stern conquerors owned thy darts, And lost their fame, and felt their mighty hearts

Faint, and their eyes grow dim before the power

Of all-absorbing Beauty! limners drew

Thy hues, and sculptors dared thy form renew:
Vain!-as if hues as fading as the hour,

Cold stone, or colder words, could hope to tell
Thy soul-thy life-thy power ineffable!

LINES IN VERSAILLES FOREST: TO THE LADY A

COME to the forest now the sun is high,
And the leaves dancing to the autumn wind!
While gladness lives in the pure air and sky;

While the sun sheds his glinting rays declined
Through the long vistas green, with boughs entwined,
Where the delighted eye no end can see;

While the quick fancy images behind

Glades greener than e'er bloomed in Arcady!
Nooks of red leafiness-wild heaths more bright
Even than those coverts rich with tinted light!
Where the eye, through the long-drawn aisles of trees,
The mellowing lustre of the sun's rays sees,
Through openings like gothic casements, cast
On the ground tints too glorious to last;
A dim religious light!-which the rapt eye
Dwells on and blesses in its ecstacy;
Each hue a feeling, entering the heart,
Till of the scene itself becomes a part!
Now, while yon sun a warmer ray is shedding
O'er each red branch with fading glory crowned;
Now, while each regal tree is, king-like, shedding