N DEATH.

But not to you alone, O Sons Of Song,
The wings that float the loftier airs along.
Whoever lifts us from the dust we are,
Beyond the sensual to spiritual goals;
Who from the MOMENT and the SELF afar
By deathless deeds allures reluctant souls,
Gives the warm life to what the Limner draws,--
Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.*
Recall the Wars of England's giant-born,
Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in vain?
Have all the meteors of the vernal morn
But wasted light upon a frozen main?
Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown?
The Sybarite lolls upon the martyr's throne.
Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal;
And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel.
Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrilled,
And hushed the senates Vane's large presence filled.
In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell?
Where art thou, Freedom? Look! in Sidney's cell!
There still as stately stands the living Truth,
Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth.
Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown,
The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone,
No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope,
Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope.
Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild,
The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,--
Till each foundation garnished with its gem,
High o'er Gehenna flames Jerusalem!
O thou blood-stained Ideal of the free,
Whose breath is heard in clarions,--Liberty!
Sublimer for thy grand illusions past,
Thou spring'st to Heaven,--Religion at the last.
Alike below, or commonwealths or thrones,
Where'er men gather some crushed victim groans;
Only in death thy real form we see,
All life is bondage,--souls alone are free.
Thus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went,
Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent.
At last on Pisgah see the prophet stand,
Before his vision spreads the PROMISED LAND;
But where revealed the Canaan to his eye?--
Upon the mountain he ascends to die.

* What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was.--POPE.

VI.

YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD; NAMELY, MEMORY AND
HOPE.--EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDED FROM ACTION AND
DESIRE.--NAPOLEON'S SON.

Yet whatsoever be our bondage here,
All have two portals to the phantom sphere.
What hath not glided through those gates that ope
Beyond the Hour, to MEMOR