And all with pearl and ruby glowing
    Was the fair palace door,
  Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
    And sparkling evermore,
  A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
    Was but to sing,
  In voices of surpassing beauty,
    The wit and wisdom of their king.

  But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
    Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
  (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
    Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
  And round about his home the glory
    That blushed and bloomed
  Is but a dim-remembered story
    Of the old time entombed.

  And travellers now within that valley
    Through the red-litten windows see
  Vast forms that move fantastically
    To a discordant melody;
  While, like a ghastly rapid river,
    Through the pale door
  A hideous throng rush out forever,
    And laugh—­but smile no more.

E.A.  POE.

To a Waterfowl.

        Whither, midst falling dew,
  While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
  Far, through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
        Thy solitary way?

        Vainly the fowler’s eye
  Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
  As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
        Thy figure floats along.

        Seek’st thou the plashy brink
  Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
  Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
        On the chafed ocean-side?

        There is a Power whose care
  Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—­
  The desert and illimitable air—­
        Lone wandering, but not lost.

        All day thy wings have fanned,
  At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
  Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
        Though the dark night is near.

        And soon that toil shall end;
  Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
  And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
        Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.

        Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
  Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
  Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
        And shall not soon depart: 

        He who, from zone to zone,
  Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
  In the long way that I must tread alone,
        Will lead my steps aright.

W.C.  BRYANT.

To Helen.

  Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicaean barks of yore,
  That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
    The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
    To his own native shore.

  On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
  Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
    To the glory that was Greece
  And the grandeur that was Rome.

  Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
    How statue-like I see thee stand,
    The agate lamp within thy hand! 
  Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
    Are Holy Land!