"Yet, ambitious!"—Yes! ambitious—while he heard the calm and sweet

Aidenn-voices sing-to trample conquer'd Hell beneath his feet.

“Islam?”—Yes! submit to heaven!" Prophet?"—To the East thou art!

What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir the heart?

And the great Heart of the Desert stirr'd unto that solemn strain

Rolling from the trump at Hara over Error's troubled main.

And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod, Daily chaunting-"Allah Akbar! know there is no god but God!"

Call him then no more Impostor! Mecca is the Choral Gate

Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in the morning wait.

WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.

Born at Salem, Mass: 1819

PRAXITELES AND PHRYNE.

A THOUSAND silent years ago,
The twilight, faint and pale,
Was drawing o'er the sunset glow
Its soft and shadowy veil;

When from his work the Sculptor stay'd

His hand, and, turn'd to one
Who stood beside him, half in shade,

Said, with a sigh-""Tis done!

"Thus much is saved from chance and change,

That waits for me and thee;

Thus much-how little! from the range

Of Death and Destiny.

"Phryne thy human lips shall pale,
Thy rounded limbs decay,-

Nor love nor prayers can aught avail
To bid thy beauty stay;

"But there thy smile for centuries
On marble lips shall live,—
For Art can grant what love denies,
And fix the fugitive.

"Sad thought! nor age nor death shall fade The youth of this cold bust;

When this quick brain and hand that made, And thou and I are dust!

"When all our hopes and fears are dead,
And both our hearts are cold,
And love is like a tune that's play'd,
And life a tale that's told,-

"This senseless stone, so coldly fair,
That love nor life can warm,
The same enchanting look shall wear,
The same enchanting form.

"Its peace no sorrow shall destroy;
Its beauty age shall spare

The bitterness of vanish'd joy,
The wearing waste of care.

"And there upon that silent face
Shall unborn ages see
Perennial youth, perennial grace,
And seal'd serenity.

"And strangers, when we sleep in peace, Shall say, not quite unmoved

So smiled upon Praxiteles

The Phryne whom he loved."

THE VIOLET.

O! FAINT, delicious, spring-time violet,
Thine odour, like a key,

Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let
A thought of sorrow free.

The breath of distant fields upon my brow
Blows through that open door

The sound of wind-borne bells, more sweet and low,
And sadder than of yore.

It comes afar, from that beloved place,
And that beloved hour,

When life hung ripening in love's golden grace,
Like grapes above a bower.

A spring goes singing through its reedy grass;
The lark sings o'er my head,

Drown'd in the sky: O pass, ye visions! pass:
I would that I were dead!

Why hast thou open'd that forbidden door
From which I ever flee?

O vanish'd Joy! O Love, that art no more!
Let my vex'd spirit be!

O violet! thy odour through my brain
Hath search'd, and stung to grief
This sunny day, as if a curse did stain
Thy velvet leaf.

WALT WHITMAN.*

Born at West Hills, New York, 1819—

WITH ANTECEDENTS.

WITH antecedents;

With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;

With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:

*See Note 23.

With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,- with laws, artizanship,
wars and journeys;

With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;

With the sale of slaves-with enthusiasts-with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk;

With those old continents whence we have come to this

new continent;

With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;
With the fading religions and priests;

With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores;

With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;

You and Me arrived-America arrived, and making this year;

This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

O but it is not the years—it is I—it is You;
We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;

We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knightwe easily include them, and more;

We stand amid time, beginningless and endless—we stand amid evil and good;

All swings around us there is as much darkness as light;

The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us:

Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

As for me (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days)

I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;

I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is trueI reject no part.

Have I forgotten any part?

Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;

I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception;

I assert that all past days were what they should have been;

And that they could no-how have been better than they

were,

And that to-day is what it should be—and that America is, And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.

In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past,

And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,

And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,

(For the sake of him I typify-for the common average man's sake-your sake, if you are he;)

And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races,

And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.

LONGINGS FOR HOME.

O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!

O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!

O dear to me my birth-things-All moving things, and

the trees where I was born-the grains, plants, rivers; Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow,

distant, over flats of silvery sands, or through swamps;