For the eyes of mortal are fain to shun
The midnight heaven that hath no sun.
I will stand on the height of the hills and wait
Where the day goes out at the western gate,
And, reaching up to its crown, will tear
From its plumes of glory the brightest there:
With the stolen ray I will light the sod,
And turn the eyes of the world from God."

He stood on the height when the sun went down,
He tore one plume from the day's bright crown,
The proud beam stooped till he touched its brow,
And the print of his fingers are on it now;
And the blush of its anger forevermore
Burns red when it passes the western door.
The broken feather above him whirled,
In flames of torture around him curled,
And he dashed it down on the snowy height,
In broken flashes of quivering light.
Ah, more than terrible was the shock
Where the burning splinters struck wave and rock!
The green earth shuddered, and shrank and paled,
The wave sprang up, and the mountain quailed;
Look on the hills, let the scars they bear
Measure the pain of that hour's despair.

The Fallen watched while the whirlwind fanned
The pulsing splinters that ploughed the sand;
Sullen he watched while the hissing waves
Bore them away to the ocean caves;
Sullen he watched while the shining rills
Throbbed through the hearts of the rocky hills;
Loudly he laughed, "Is the world not mine?
Proudly the links of its chain shall shine;
Lighted with gems shall its dungeon be,
But the pride of its beauty shall kneel to me."
That splintered light in the earth grew cold,
And the diction of mortals hath called it gold.

SARAH E. CARMICHAEL, of Utah.

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial vot'ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell :

It fell upon a little western flower

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it, love-in-idleness.

QUEEN MAB.

FROM "ROMEO AND JULIET."

1

O THEN I see, Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams; Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid : Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies

straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted

are:

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice :
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:

OVER HILL, OVER DALE.
FROM "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

OVER hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green :
The cowslips tall her pensioners ba
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favors,

In those freckles live their savors:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

FULL FATHOM FIVE.
FROM "THE TEMPEST."

FULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;

'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night, The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Naught is seen in the vault on high

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,

And the flood which rolls its milky hue,
A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Cronest;
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below.
His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut bough and the cedar made;
And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark,
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

--

The stars are on the moving stream,

And fling, as its ripples gently flow, A burnished length of wavy beam

In an eel-like, spiral line below; The winds are whist, and the owl is still; The bat in the shelvy rock is hid; And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid; And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow.

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
He has counted them all with click and stroke
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak,
And he has awakened the sentry elve
Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
And call the fays to their revelry ;
Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell
('T was made of the white snail's pearly shell):
Midnight comes, and all is well!

Hither, hither wing your way! "T is the dawn of the fairy-day."

They come from beds of lichen green,

They creep from the mullein's velvet screen; Some on the backs of beetles fly

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,

And rocked about in the evening breeze;

Some from the hum-bird's downy nest, They had driven him out by elfin power, And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charméd hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid ;

And some had opened the four-o'-clock, And stole within its purple shade.

And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above, below, on every side, —

Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!

They come not now to print the lea,
In freak and dance around the tree,
Or at the mushroom board to sup,
And drink the dew from the buttercup :
A scene of sorrow waits them now,
For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;
He has loved an earthly maid,
And left for her his woodland shade;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,

And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played in the ringlets of her hair,
And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behest.
For this the shadowy tribes of air

To the elfin court must haste away:
And now they stand expectant there,
To hear the doom of the culprit fay.

The throne was reared upon the grass,
Of spice-wood and of sassafras;
On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell
Hung the burnished canopy,
And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell
Of the tulip's crimson drapery.
The monarch sat on his judgment-seat,
On his brow the crown imperial shone,
The prisoner fay was at his feet,

And his peers were ranged around the throne. He waved his sceptre in the air,

He looked around and calmly spoke;
His brow was grave and his eye severe,
But his voice in a softened accent broke :

"Fairy fairy! list and mark :
Thou hast broke thine elfin chain;
Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain,
Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity

In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye;
Thou hast scorned our dread decree,

And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high. But well I know her sinless mind

Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,

Such as a spirit well might love.
Fairy had she spot or taint,
Bitter had been thy punishment :
Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb-dungeon dim,
Your jailor a spider, huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:
These it had been your lot to bear,

Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
Now list, and mark our mild decree, -

Fairy, this your doom must be :

"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand

Where the water bounds the elfin land;
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,

The goblin marked his monarch well; He spake not, but he bowed him low, Then plucked a crimson colen-bell,

And turned him round in act to go. The way is long, he cannot fly,

His soiled wing has lost its power,
And he winds adown the mountain high,
For many a sore and weary hour.
Through dreary beds of tangled fern,
Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,
Over the grass and through the brake,
Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake;
Now o'er the violet's azure flush
He skips along in lightsome mood;

And now he thrids the bramble-bush,
Till its points are dyed in fairy blood.

He has leaped the bog, he has pierced the brier,
He has swum the brook, and waded the mire,
Till his spirits sank, and his limbs grew weak,
And the red waxed fainter in his cheek.
He had fallen to the ground outright,

For rugged and dim was his onward track,
But there came a spotted toad in sight,

He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist, And he laughed as he jumped upon her back;

He lashed her sides with an osier thong; And now, through evening's dewy mist, With leap and spring they bound along, Till the mountain's magic verge is past, And the beach of sand is reached at last.

Soft and pale is the moony beam,
Moveless still the glassy stream;
The wave is clear, the beach is bright