ildest fancy, bound
And petrified to immortality!
A holy presence seems to hover round
The deep, perpetual loveliness, as crowned
With angel radiance, and plumed for flight,
Thy pinioned sandals spurn the flowerless ground,
Striving to gain that far Olympian height
Towards which in rapturous awe upturns thy longing sight.

"Why are thy parted lips so dumb and cold?
Else with my eager arms about thee thrown
And folded in thy soft embrace, had rolled
The Lethean tide of love, in which, unknown
And all unheeded in their state, had flown
The future and the past, merged in that sea
The present, whose far deeps are felt alone
By the pale diver, reaching breathlessly
Through pearled and coral caves concealed from mortal eye.

"Oh, shape divine! Such madd'ning grace must have
A soul, a consciousness of love and life
Though tombed in pallor, with no epitaph
But silence! What mighty spell with power rife
Can wake thee into Being's passion strife?
Yet if there be such, let it rest unsought;
For every boon thou couldst from breath derive
I would not wrest from thee that higher lot,
The need of deathlessness, thou pale, embodied thought!

"Great poet souls and people yet unborn
Shall lay their speechless homage at thy feet,
And still thy life be in its rosy dawn,
Whose eve eternity alone shall greet.
While I, to whom thy changeless smile were sweet
As heaven, long mingled with earth's vilest mould,
Shall be forgot! What wealth of fame can mete
The loss of love? None, none! Thy fate is cold,
But oh, what starry treasures might it not unfold!"

He ceased. A lambent halo seemed to play
About her head, as lightnings round the moon;
Her marble tresses streamed in golden spray--
A tremor throbbed along her limbs of stone,
And sky-hued veins with life's warm pulses shone.
One thought of wordless love beamed from her eyes,
Then, gently floating from her shining throne
'Mid blushing smiles half drowned in tearful sighs,
She faded slowly heavenward through the sunset skies.

_Quarterly_, 1853.

[Footnote 1: Died 1900.]

OPPORTUNITY

JOHN J. INGALLS '55

Master of human destinies am I;
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait.
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late,
I knock unbidden once on ever