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Judged by no o'erzealous rigour,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigour,

And Silenus of excesses.

These are ancient ethnic revels
Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.

Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,—
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.

Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons
Never would his own replenish.

Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.

Then with water fill the pitcher

Wreathed about with classic fables;

Ne'er Falernian threw a richer

Light upon Lucullus' tables.

Come, old friend, sit down and listen!

As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

"L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: 'Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!'"

JACQUES BRIDAINE.

SOMEWHAT back from the village-street

Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;

And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all,—

"For ever-never!

Never for ever!"

Halfway up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass,

"For ever -never!

Never-for ever !"

By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,

And seems to say, at each chamber-door, —

"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,

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In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality ;

His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased,— "For ever- -never!

Never-for ever!"

There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told,—

"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding night; There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;

And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair,

"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"

As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

Never here, for ever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death and time shall disappear,-
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,-

"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"

THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I SHOT an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song!

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