The poet loves the silent past, And, in his fruitful rhyme, He sets the fairest flowers o’er The grave of buried time; But, from the graves of thy dark years, The night-shade’s ugly blue And spotted henbane shall grow up To poison Heaven’s dew. Woe to thee, fallen England, Who hast betrayed the word, And knelt before a Church when thou Shouldst kneel before the Lord! And, for that scarlet woman Who sits in places high, There cometh vengeance swift to quench The lewdness in her eye. Woe to thee, fallen England, Who, in thy night-mare sleep, O’er a volcano’s heart dost toss Whence sudden wrath shall leap Of that forgotten Titan Who now is trodden down That one weak Guelphic girl may wear Her plaything of a crown! That Titan’s heart is heaving now, And, with its huge uprise, On their sand basements lean and crack The old moss-covered lies; For freedom through long centuries Lives in eternal youth, And nothing can for ever part The human soul and truth. * * * * * MARRIAGE. BY RUFUS DAWES. The inmost region of the mind, where dwells The essences of unborn thought,—those _ends_ In which Effects, through Causes, dwell in power, Opened. ’Twas in vision, and I saw A palace of vast size—such as the eye, The natural eye of man, never beheld. Its massy walls of unhewn agate towered, Girt by a colonnade of crysolite; And there were ninety columns of huge bulk, Sustaining an entablature of gold, Diamond and ruby, glittering like the sun. The windows were each one a double plate Of spacious crystal, sliding from the touch Each side in golden frames. The portico Hung o’er a flight of alabaster steps, Extending to a lawn of delicate moss, Where browsed a flock of innocent, white lambs, That little children garlanded with flowers. Around the palace, orchard-trees were seen, Laden with fruit celestial, that hung down Like gems among the gold and silver leaves. Majestic vines, heavy with clustering grapes, In large festoons swung gorgeously between The opulent boughs that dropped with nectarines.