The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics Part 2

Sleep not!--thine image wakes for aye Within my watching breast; Sleep not!--from her soft sleep should fly, Who robs all hearts of rest.

Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, And make this darkness gay, With looks whose brightness well might make Of darker nights a day.

E.C. PINKNEY.

The City in the Sea.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not) Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently, Gleams up the pinnacles far and free: Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls, Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls, Up shadowy, long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers, Up many and many a marvellous shrine, Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye,-- Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas, Along that wilderness of gla.s.s; No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea; No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave--there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide; As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven!

The waves have now a redder glow, The hours are breathing faint and low; And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, h.e.l.l, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.

E.A. POE.

To The Past.

Thou unrelenting Past!

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast, Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years; Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind, Yielded to thee with tears,-- The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring The lost ones back,--yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain; thy gates deny All pa.s.sage save to those who hence depart; Nor to the streaming eye Thou giv'st them back,--nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee Earth's wonder and her pride Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith, Love, that midst grief began, And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; With thee are silent fame, Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a s.p.a.ce are they,-- Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last!

Thy gates shall yet give way, Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, Shall then come forth, to wear The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished,--no!

Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat;

All shall come back, each tie Of pure affection shall be knit again; Alone shall Evil die, And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, And her, who, still and cold, Fills the next grave,--the beautiful and young.

W.C. BRYANT.

Israfel.

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all G.o.d's creatures.

--_Koran._

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamored moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven) Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings,-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up G.o.d, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we wors.h.i.+p in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpa.s.sioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit: Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute: Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the suns.h.i.+ne of ours.

If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

E.A. POE.