THE GREEK BOY.

GONE are the glorious Greeks of old,
Glorious in mien and mind;

Their bones are mingled with the mould,
Their dust is on the wind;

The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,

And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there-the springs Gush brightly as of yore;

Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, many an age before.

As

There nature moulds as nobly now,

As e'er of old, the human brow;

And copies still the martial form

That braved Platea's battle storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek Their heaven in Hellas' skies;

Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,

Her sunshine lit thine eyes;

Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains

Heard by old poets, and thy veins

Swell with the blood of demigods,

That slumber in thy country's sods.

Now is thy nation free-though late-
Thy elder brethren broke—

Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight,
The intolerable yoke.

And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see
Her youth renewed in such as thee:

A shoot of that old vine that made

The nations silent in its shade.

THE PAST.

THOU unrelenting Past!

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,

And fetters, sure and fast,

Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn

Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,

And glorious ages gone

Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,

Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth,

Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,

Thou hast my earlier friends-the good-the kind,

Yielded to thee with tears

The venerable form-the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring

The lost ones back-yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring

Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain-thy gates deny

All passage save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye

Thou giv'st them back-nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide

Beauty and excellence unknown-to thee

Earth's wonder and her pride

Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labours of good to man,

Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,—

Full many a mighty name

Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;

With thee are silent fame,

Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a space are they―

Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last;
Thy gates shall yet give way,

Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair

Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,

Shall then come forth to wear

The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished-no!

Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago,

And features, the great soul's apparent seat.

All shall come back, each tie

Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall Evil die,

And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold

Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her, who, still and cold,

Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.