THE TRUMPETS OF DOOLKARNEIN

LEIGH HUNT

WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possessed
The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains,
Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West,

Shut up the northern nations in their mountains; And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew, Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder, Craftily purposed, when his arms withdrew,

To make him thought still housed there, like the thunder:

And it so fell; for when the winds blew right,
They woke their trumpets to their calls of might.

Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew,
Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers,
Till the long fear into religion grew,

And nevermore those heights had human darers.
Dreadful Doolkarnein was an earthly god;

His walls but shadowed forth his mightier frowning; Armies of giants at his bidding trod

From realm to realm, king after king discrowning. When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirred, Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.

But when the winters marred the mountain shelves,
And softer changes came with vernal mornings,
Something had touched the trumpets' lofty selves,
And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings;

Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads

In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left dying,

Fail by degrees upon their angry beds,

Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing. One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew, Till now no more the imperious music blew.

Is he then dead? Can great Doolkarnein die?
Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed?
Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy
Phantoms, that faded as himself receded?
Or is he angered? Surely he still comes;

This silence ushers the dread visitation;
Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums,

And then will follow bloody desolation.

So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round.

Then gathered in a band, with lifted eyes,

The neighbors, and those silent heights ascended. Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprise,

They met, though twice they halted, breath suspended;

Once, at a coming like a god's in rage

With thunderous leaps - but 'twas the piled snow, falling;

And once, when in the woods, an oak, for age,
Fell dead, the silence with its groan appalling.

At last they came where still, in dread array,
As though they still might speak, the trumpets lay.

Unhurt they lay, like caverns above ground,

The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging, Their tubes as straight, their mighty mouths as round And firm, as when the rocks were first set ringing. Fresh from their unimaginable mould

They might have seemed, save that the storms had stained them

With a rich rust, that now, with gloomy gold

In the bright sunshine, beauteously engrained them. Breathless the gazers looked, nigh faint for awe, Then leaped, then laughed. What was it now they saw?

Myriads of birds. Myriads of birds, that filled

The trumpets all with nests and nestling voices! The great, huge, stormy music had been stilled

By the soft needs that nursed those small, sweet noises!

O thou Doolkarnein, where is now thy wall?

Where now thy voice divine and all thy forces? Great was thy cunning, but its wit was small

Compared with nature's least and gentlest courses. Fears and false creeds may fright the realms awhile; But Heaven and Earth abide their time, and smile.

THE TREATY ELM

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ

ERE to the honored patriot's mansion yonder
These charmed and emblematic relics' pass,

1 A piece of Penn's "Treaty Elm." with some other relics, was presented to President Lincoln and this poem was written to accompany them.

Upon the sacred fragments let me ponder,
While Fancy, to the admiring eye of Wonder,
Withdraws the veil, as in a magian's glass.

I see the "Treaty Elm," and hear the rustle
Of autumn leaves, where come the dusky troops,
In painted robes and plumes, to crowd and jostle,
A savage scene, save that the peace-apostle

Stands central, and controls the untamed groups.

These are the boughs the forest eagle lit on,
Long ere he perched upon our nation's banner;
Beneath their shade I see the gentle Briton,
And hear the contract, binding, though unwritten,
And worded in the plain old scriptural manner.

Across the Delaware the sound comes faintly,
And fainter still across the tide of Time,
Though history yet repeats the language quaintly
That from lips of Penn, the calm and saintly,
Speaking of love, the only true sublime.

This is his mission, and his sole vocation;

To hear of this, the savage round him presses;
How sweetly falls the beautiful oration

Which bids them hear the marvelous revelation
Of Christian peace through all their wildernesses!

Not to defraud them of their broad possessions
He comes, or to control their eagle pinions,
But to pledge friendship and its sweet relations,
Truth and forbearance, gentleness and patience,
To all the people of their wild dominions.

"We meet," he said, " upon the open highway
Of broad good will, and honest faith and duty;
Let love fraternal brighten every by-way,
And peace inviolate be thy way as my way,

Till all the forest blossoms with new beauty."

So spake their friend, and they revered his teaching;
They said, "We will be true to thee and thine."
And through long seasons toward their future reaching
No act was shown their plighted faith impeaching -
Marring the compact, loving and divine.

O thou, like noble Penn, who truth adorest,

A priest at her great shrine in Freedom's temple, While o'er this gift in thoughtful mood thou porest, Point to the faithful children of the forest, And bid the nations learn from their example.

THE CHRIST OF THE ANDES

NEVIN O. WINTER

[ON the summit of the mountains and about thirteen thousand feet above sea-level] stands the famous statue known as the Christ of the Andes. This statue was erected in 1904 as a symbol of perpetual peace between the two neighboring nations. It was cast in bronze from the cannon of the two nations, which had been purchased through fear of impending war. Its location is on the new international boundary line that has just been established by arbitration. Near it is a sign with the words "Chile " on one side, and “ Argentina" on the other side.