the elements and to outlive tradition.
Old age restores it to more than its primeval significance; and when
humbler erections have passed away and crumbled in ruins, it appears
once more to rise above the customary uses of men, and to become a
companion for tempests and clouds. Dismantled, deserted, and bearing,

"Inscribed upon its visionary sides,
This history of many a winter's storm,
And obscure record of the path of fire,"

Nature lays claim to it, and with moss and ivy and eld, with weeds and
flowers, she takes it to her bosom.

"Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,"

we at length associate it with no achievements of man, and its masonry
becomes venerable to us, as shaped by mysterious beings,--Ghouls or
Titans,--no fellow-workers of ours.

Let us for a while forget the tedious realisms around us, and eat of the
dreamy Lotos. Let us look eastward over the wide waters, and behold,
along the horizon, the "dim rich cities" printing themselves against the
morning. Let us listen to their mellow chimes that come faintly to us,
and bless those deep-toned utterances so full of the tenderness of
ancient days and the melody of gray traditions. Let us bless them; for,
like lyres of Amphion, at their sound arose the bell-bearing tower,
which made cities beautiful and their people happy. O St. Chrysostom!
there were other golden mouths than thine that preached by the
Bosphorus, and their pulpits were the airy chambers of the first
Christian towers. Where the muezzin every hour from the lofty minaret
now calls the faithful Mahometan to prayer, were first heard those matin
and vesper chimes which since then throughout Catholic Europe have
accompanied the rising and the setting of the sun. Thus the Christian
tower immediately becomes associated with the tenderest and most
poetical ideas of monastic and pastoral religion. It seemed emulous from
the beginning to be the first to catch the beams of morning, and, like
the statue of Memnon, to respond to the golden touch by sounds of music.
Then the fervid heart of Italy took fire, and from her bosom uprose over
all her cities the beautiful campanile. Still and solemn it stood on
the plains of Lombardy, like a sentinel on the outskirts of our faith,
whispering to the vast of space that all was well. Over the lagunes of
Venice the weary toil of two centuries piled up the tower of St. Mark.
Ravenna, with barbaric pride, built her round-cinctured towers