At Salem was the law. The holy land
Its orient terrace by the ocean reared
And thereon walked the Holy One, at cool
Of the world's morn; there visible state He kept:
At Salem was the law on stone inscribed:
But over all the world, within man's heart
The unwritten law abode, from earliest time
Upon our being stampt, nor wholly lost:
Men saw it, loved it, praised — and disobeyed.
Therefore the conscience, whose applausive voice
Their march triumphant should have led with joy
To all perfection, from a desert pealed

Those eyes, those sparkling saphires of delight,
Which thousand thousand hearts did set on fire,
Which made that eye, of heauen that brings the light,
Oft jealous, staye amaz'd them to admire;
That liuing snow, those crimson roses bright,
Those pearles, those rubies, which did breede desire,
Those lockes of gold, that purple faire of Tyre,
Are wrapt, aye mee! vp in eternall night.
What hast thou more to vaunt of, wretched world,
Sith shee, who cursed thee made blest, is gone?
Thine euer-burning lamps, rounds euer whorld,

It chanced that in the dubious dusk of sleep
I seemed to attain that realm where mortals throw
All gross mortality earthward ere they go
Forth as frail spirits amid death's hollow deep.
All folly and sin was here that life may reap,
All desperate fear and hope, all joy or woe;
And here all precious crowns the exalted know,
Lay gathered in superb tumultuous heap!

Stooping toward these, I marked with silent awe
Their ponderous gold, or gems that beamed like day,
Or lovelier laurel that grand brows had worn;

My life, till these rich hours of precious gage,
Was like that drowsy palace, vine-o'ergrown,
Where down long shadowy corridors lay strown
The slumbering shapes of seneschal or page,
Where griffon-crested oriels, dim with age,
Viewed briery terraces and lawns unmown,
And where from solemn towers of massive stone
Drooped the dull silks of mouldering bannerage.

But now the enchanted halls break sleep's control,
With murmurous change, at fate's predestined stroke,
And while my fluttering pulses throb or fail,

Said the Goddess of Fame to the pedestalled shade
Of Farragut looming on high:
" Move over a bit on your pedestal, man,
For a twin-born of Fame draweth nigh;
Move over a bit, give him room at your side,
A trifle of space you must spare
For the first of the sons of the sea of our day,
So make room for Dewey up there. "

" And who is this Dewey? " the gray shade replies.
" He is one of your sailors, " said Fame;
" And the sea-winds that blow on both sides of the world
Are loud with the sound of his name.

Watching your precious work, we vainly guess
What miracle creates as potent fact
Such height in brevity, width in narrowness,
And liberal vigor wed with cunning tact.

Your virile patience that no toil can crush,
The more we muse upon we prize the more,
O Liliput Angelo, whose wizard brush
Could paint a battle upon a louis d'or!

Where spacious oak-trees thrive in rustling state,
No fragile saplings quiver with weak hate.

Where palaces loom proud in sculptured height,
No lowlier roofs desire the earthquake's might.

Where groups of chaste-urned lilies whitely blow,
Dark soilure does not crave their balmy snow.

Yet what life ever towered, sublimely sweet,
But sneers, like adders, hissed about its feet?

When all my life was wounded and forlorn,
It felt the sacred influence wrought by thee,
As when sweet airy couriers of the morn
Fling rosy prophecies o'er shadowed sea!

And now, though manlier force yet droop and fail,
Though deathless memories haunt me past control,
Dear spirit of peace, thou art the nightingale
That warbles amid the darkness of my soul!

I

Hear my song of a river ,
Its calm and its strife;
'Tis the song of a river,
The song of a life.

A FAR amid benignant hills in caverns of deep shade,
'Neath rippling arches of cool leaves, within a forest glade,
The mountain rivulet leaps down in silvery cascade.
Child of the hills, it sings its song and spills its wayward glee
In tangled music through the rocks and dreams not of the sea,

Place mee where angry Titan burnes the more,
And thirstie Africke firie monsters brings,
Or where the new-borne phÅ?nix spreades her wings,
And troupes of wond'ring birds her flight adore;
Place mee by Gange, or Inde's empampred shore,
Where smyling heauens on earth cause double springs;
Place mee where Neptune's quire of syrens sings,
Or where, made hoarse through cold, hee leaues to roare;
Me place where Fortune doth her darlings crowne,
A wonder or a sparke in Enuie's eye,
Or late outragious fates vpon mee frowne,