“Why are thy parted lips so dumb and cold? 
    Else with my eager arms about thee thrown
  And folded in thy soft embrace, had rolled
    The Lethean tide of love, in which, unknown
    And all unheeded in their state, had flown
  The future and the past, merged in that sea
    The present, whose far deeps are felt alone
  By the pale diver, reaching breathlessly
  Through pearled and coral caves concealed from mortal eye.

  “Oh, shape divine!  Such madd’ning grace must have
    A soul, a consciousness of love and life
  Though tombed in pallor, with no epitaph
    But silence!  What mighty spell with power rife
    Can wake thee into Being’s passion strife? 
  Yet if there be such, let it rest unsought;
    For every boon thou couldst from breath derive
  I would not wrest from thee that higher lot,
  The need of deathlessness, thou pale, embodied thought!

  “Great poet souls and people yet unborn
    Shall lay their speechless homage at thy feet,
  And still thy life be in its rosy dawn,
    Whose eve eternity alone shall greet. 
    While I, to whom thy changeless smile were sweet
  As heaven, long mingled with earth’s vilest mould,
    Shall be forgot!  What wealth of fame can mete
  The loss of love?  None, none!  Thy fate is cold,
  But oh, what starry treasures might it not unfold!”

  He ceased.  A lambent halo seemed to play
    About her head, as lightnings round the moon;
  Her marble tresses streamed in golden spray—­
    A tremor throbbed along her limbs of stone,
    And sky-hued veins with life’s warm pulses shone. 
  One thought of wordless love beamed from her eyes,
    Then, gently floating from her shining throne
  ’Mid blushing smiles half drowned in tearful sighs,
  She faded slowly heavenward through the sunset skies.

Quarterly, 1853.

[Footnote 1:  Died 1900.]

OPPORTUNITY

JOHN J. INGALLS ’55

  Master of human destinies am I;
  Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 
  Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
  Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
  Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late,
  I knock unbidden once on every gate. 
  If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before
  I turn away; it is the hour of fate,
  And they who follow me reach every state
  Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
  Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
  Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
  Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;
  I answer not, and I return no more.

The date of first appearance of this sonnet is not known to the editors.  It is extracted here from Professor A.L.  Perry’s Williamstown and Williams College, (1899), and of it Dr. Perry remarks “Ingalls also wrote a notable sonnet on ‘Opportunity,’ which will no doubt survive, for it has a fine form and considerable literary merit, though godless in every line.”