To the shadow of God's throne!

To the world-bespangled floor!
Where sit the white-robed seraphs,
Singing for evermore !

O Music! oh, my life!

How beautiful art thou!

With the Love in thy deep, deep heart,
And the Wisdom on thy brow!

As I play with the golden hair
That falls o'er thy shoulders fair,
I deem that every thread
To my toying fingers given,

Is a ray of sunlight spread,

Or a string from the Harp of Heaven.

I feel thy beating heart,

And know, sweet lady mine,

That it throbs to the march of worlds,

With a harmony divine.

I touch; but dare not kiss thee,

For the glow of thy burning eyes,

Lest I should yield my spirit.

In my speechless ecstasies,

And be slain like a mortal lover

Who dares to raise his thought To the beauty of a goddess,

Loving, but lightning-fraught!

Yet, since I'm born to die,

And to float into the Past,

Let me die on thy beating bosom, My bride, my first and last! Drinking thy whisper'd rapture, Let me faint upon thy breast, And melt away in echoes,

Immortal with the blest!

77

KILRAVOCK TOWER.

FORLORN old tower! that lookest sadly down
Upon the river glittering in the light,

Upon the green leaves of the clambering woods,
And o'er the wide expanse of mountain-land,
How many tales thine ancient walls might tell!
And yet, thou silent undivulging tower,

What couldst thou tell us that we do not know?

The matter of all history is the same.

Time in all changes can but iterate

The morn and eve, the noon-time and the night, The spring's fresh promise and the autumnal fruit, The leaves of summer and the winter's snow. And human story still repeats itself,—

The form may differ, but the soul remains.

Four hundred years ago, when thou wert built,

Men err'd and suffer'd ;-Truth and Falsehood waged
One with the other their perpetual war ;-
And Justice and Injustice, Right and Wrong,
Succumb'd and triumph'd as they do to-day.
The young heart loved with passionate earnestness,
The old heart scorn'd all follies but its own;
And Joy and Sorrow-Jealousy-Revenge-
Lusty Ambition-skulking Avarice-
Patience and Zeal-and persecuting Rage-
Pity and Hope-and Charity and Love-

All good and evil passions of the mind,
Brighten'd or darken'd-oh, thou mouldering wall!
Through all the landscape of humanity.

Couldst thou divulge whatever thou hast seen, Thou couldst but call these spirits from the Past To read us lessons.-Ancient Tower! thy voice Need not instruct us; for we look around

On highways or on byways of our life,

And find no sorrow of the ancient days
Unparallel'd in ours; no love sublime,

No patient and heroic tenderness,

No strong endurance in adversity,

No womanly or manly grace of mind,

That we could not, if every truth were known,
Match with its fellow in our later days.

So keep, old Tower, thy secrets to thyself!
There's not a hovel in the crowded town,
That could not tell us tomes of histories

Of good and evil, wonderful as thine.

KILRAVOCK, NAIRNSHIRE.

79