Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/337

1840-50.] CATHERINE A. WARFIELD. 321 Of that proud step which well his soul expressed ; No more with outstretched hand, There shall the master stand To welcome coming, speed departing guest. No more the singing tone Shall fill that mansion lone. Of that rich voice that stirred the inmost soul, And gave the words a power They knew not till that hour : As music strengthened by the organ's roll. No more ! the soul is stirred By that funereal word, As with a gi'ief it scarce hath strength to bear ; O God, if this were all, The colSn and the pall Might seem indeed the symbols of despair. If of the great and just This silent, mouldering dust Were all remaining, what were being worth ? To-day, a shining star Men worship from afar : To-morrow, mingling with the clods of earth. But Thou hast deigned to shed On the path that mortals tread, A ray of glory from Thy home divine, And teachest those who crave The life beyond the grave, This very yearning marks them truly Thine. Within his country's page, The patriot and the sage Shall dwell enshrined while memory holds her throne ; While of his country's fame There resteth but a name, His shall be treasured as her noblest song. THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH. In the gray depths of the silent sea Wliere twilight reigns over mystery ; Where no signs prevail of the tempest's mood, And no forms of the upper life intrude ; Where the wrecks of the elder world are laid In a realm of stillness, of death, of shade, And the mournful forests of coral grow — o They have chained the lightning and laid it low! Life of the universe ! Spirit of fire ! From that single chord of thy living lyre. Sweep us a strain of the depths profound — Teach us the mysteries that gird thee 'round — Make us to know through what realms unsought By the mariner's eye, or the poet's thought. Thy thrilling impulse flows free and strong. As the flash of soul, or the stream of song! Say, does the path of the lightning lie Through desolate cities still fair and high? With their massive marbles and ancient state — Though the sea-snake coils at the temple's gate? Or lays his length in the streets of sand, Where rolled the chariot, or marched the band — Or where, oppressed by his martial load. The monstrous step of the mammoth strode ? Doth he raise for a moment his crested head As the thrill of thought is above him sped ? And feel the shock — through every fold — Firing his blood — from its torpor cold? Till he learns to woo the mystic chain That stirs new life in each sluggish vein And seeks its warmth, as it works its task, As a desert serpent in sun may bask ? 21