And things below look up, and wonder when Those lifelike seraphim would start and fly! where the heart is mastered by the eye Not Will worship, anthem-winged, ascend most high. But in the damp cathedral of the grove, Which noiseless waterfowl alone molest, Oft as the parting smiles of day and night Prolong the glory of their warm adieu, Then by the waves that lip Liguaria's land, In Genoa's gulf, thou, wanderer! must have heard What, more than hymns from Pergolesi's hand, The living soul of adoration stirred, And, like the note of Spring's first-welcomed bird, Some thoughts awake for which there is no word. The shipman's chant! as noting travellers tell, But more they might have truly said, and well, For 't is a speech the universe may claim; Men of all times, all climes, and every name, Devotion's tongue! which from the Godhead came. HYMN Tost rudderless around the deep And make a bulrush of our mast, We murmur in our half-hour's sleep Whether for weeks our bark hath striven And locked the lightning in its thunder caves, We know whose hand its help has given, With death in wild Sardinia's waves, O Virgin! when the landsman's hymn, Or cloister cell, is paid to thee, Hear us that ocean's pavement skim, And join our anthem to the raging sea: And when the tempest's wrath is o'er, Though hushed the tumult and the roar, blest; In mare irato, in subita procella, Invoco te, nostra benigna stella. THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. COGOLETO BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS I KNOW not when this hope enthralled me first, Flapped inland, where some league-wide river hurled The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms Far through a gulf's green silence, never scarred My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er The western main shook growling, and still gnawed I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel Who utter wisdom from the central deep, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. |