In vision centering the astounded mind:

The mists that erewhile swathed his front are

broken,

Hurled upward as by some imprisoned wind Earth could no more within her caverns bind; Lo, scroll-like forth in scattered wreathings driven

From his cleft brow, grey clouds that disentwined

From their black trunk shot forth like branches

riven,

Opening their pine-like shape in the profound of heaven!

Statues of fear, mute, motionless they stood:
The mountain that had slept a thousand years
Wakes from his slumber! lo, yon sable flood
Of eddying cloud its giant shape uprears:
They gaze, yet fly not, who had linked with
fears

Vesuvius robed in ever green attire?

But lo, each moment wilder, fiercer nears The unfolding canopy, its skirts respire Lightnings around, away, yon lurid mass is fire!

JOHN EDMUND READE,

A GIRL OF POMPEII

A PUBLIC haunt they found her in:
She lay asleep, a lovely child;
The only thing left undefiled
Where all things else bore taint of sin.

Her charming contours fixed in clay
The universal law suspend,

And turn Time's chariot back, and blend

A thousand years with yesterday.

A sinless touch, austere yet warm,

Around her girlish figure pressed,

Caught the sweet imprint of her breast,

And held her, surely clasped, from harm.

Truer than work of sculptor's art

Comes this dear maid of long ago,
Sheltered from woeful chance, to show

A spirit's lovely counterpart,

And bid mistrustful men be sure

That form shall fate of flesh escape, And, quit of earth's corruptions, shape Itself, imperishably pure.

EDWARD SANFORD MARTIN.

POMPEII

THE giant slept, and pigmies at his feet,

Like children moulding monuments of snow, Piled stone on stone, mapped market-place and street,

And saw their temples column-girdled grow: And, slowly as the gradual glaciers grope Their way resistless, so Pompeii crept, Year by long year, across the shelving slope Toward the sea:-and still the giant slept.

Belted with gardens, where the shivered glass
Of falling fountains broke the pools' repose,
As they had been asleep upon the grass,

A myriad villas stretched themselves and rose: And down her streets, grown long and longer still, Grooving the new-laid stones, the chariots swept,

And of a sudden burst upon the hill

Vast amphitheatres. Still the giant slept.

With liquid comment of the wooing doves,

With wanton flowers, sun-conjured from the

loam,

Grew the white city of illicit loves,

Hostess of all the infamy of Rome!

A marble harlot, scornful, pale, and proud,
Her Circean court on ruin's brink she kept,
Lulled by the adoration of the crowd

To lethal stupor. Still the giant slept.

Incense-encircled, pacing day by day

Through temple-courts reëchoant with song, Sin-stunned and impercipient, on her way

She dragged her languid loveliness along. With lips whereon a dear damnation hung, With dark, dream-clouded eyes that never wept, Flawlessly fair, the faulty fair among,

She kissed and cursed:-and still the giant slept.

Here, for a mute reminder of her shame,
Her ruins gape out baldly from their tomb;
A city naked, shorn of all but name,

Blinking and blind from all her years of gloom: A beldam who was beauty, crying alms

With leprous lips that mouth their prayers in

vain;

Her deaf destroyer to her outstretched palms

Respondeth not. The giant sleeps again!
GUY WETMORE CARRYL.

SORRENTO

SORRENTO

SORRENTO! Bright star! Land
Of myrtle and vine,
I come from a far land

To kneel at thy shrine;
Thy brows wear a garland,
O, weave one for mine!

Her mirror thy city

Fair finds in the sea,

A youth sings a pretty

Song, tempered with glee,—

The mirth and the ditty

Are mournful to me.

Ah, sea boy, how strange is
The carol you sing!

Let Psyche, who ranges

The gardens of Spring,

Remember the changes

December will bring.

FREDERICK LOCKER.