XXV.

The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn,
  But shakes not sorrow under his gray hair;
The solemn clerk goes lavender’d and shorn
  Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair;—­
And ancient lips that pucker’d up in scorn,
  Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray’r;
And in the garden-plot, from day to day,
The lily blooms its long white life away.

XXVI.

And where two haughty maidens used to be,
  In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod,
Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly,
  Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod;
There, gentle stranger, thou may’st only see
  Two sombre Peacocks. 
  Age, with sapient nod
Marking the spot, still tarries to declare
How they once lived, and wherefore they are there.

HYMN TO THE SUN.

  Giver of glowing light! 
Though but a god of other days,
    The kings and sages
    Of wiser ages
Still live and gladden in thy genial rays!

  King of the tuneful lyre,
Still poets’ hymns to thee belong;
    Though lips are cold
    Whereon of old
Thy beams all turn’d to worshipping and song!

  Lord of the dreadful bow,
None triumph now for Python’s death;
    But thou dost save
    From hungry grave
The life that hangs upon a summer breath.

  Father of rosy day,
No more thy clouds of incense rise;
    But waking flow’rs
    At morning hours,
Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies.

  God of the Delphic fame,
No more thou listenest to hymns sublime;
    But they will leave
    On winds at eve,
A solemn echo to the end of time.

MIDNIGHT.

Unfathomable Night! how dost thou sweep
  Over the flooded earth, and darkly hide
  The mighty city under thy full tide;
Making a silent palace for old Sleep,
Like his own temple under the hush’d deep,
  Where all the busy day he doth abide,
  And forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide

His dusky wings, whence the cold waters sweep! 
How peacefully the living millions lie! 
  Lull’d unto death beneath his poppy spells;
There is no breath—­no living stir—­no cry
No tread of foot—­no song—­no music-call—­
  Only the sound of melancholy bells—­
The voice of Time—­survivor of them all!

TO A SLEEPING CHILD.

I.