CALLIMACHUS.
I.
FROM THE HYMN TO APOLLO.
“Lo, how the laurel of Apollo shakes!
How the whole temple to its centre quakes!
Far, far aloof, thou sinner! 'tis the God,
With beauteous foot who on his threshold trod.
See how the Delian palm nods suddenly,
And sweet the swan is singing in the sky.
Open yourselves, ye portals! wide expand,
Ye glittering bars, it is the God at hand!
Ye youths, attune your songs, the dance enfold,
None, but the good, Apollo can behold.
On him that sees thee not a curse doth rest,
Great he that sees thee; O be manifest
To us, far-darting God, and we are blest.”
ON THE SAME.
Was it from Siloa's stream and hallowed well,
Or Grecian Scriptures in Egyptian cell,
That, bard of Alexandria, thou hast caught
The fragmentary records of high thought—
From Prophet and from Psalmist,—that each word
More in the heart than on the ear is heard;
And tones of Inspiration there enshrined
Speak higher things than were within thy mind?
When on His threshold treads the Christian's Lord,
The Sun of life and light, the eternal Word,
Shall be invisibly, where'er it stands,
The shaking of His Temple through all lands.
His coming on Mount Sinai shook the earth,
In premonition of that second birth,
Which by its coming shakes the earth and Heaven,
With all the universe asunder riven.
Then shall there be your lifting up on high,
Ye everlasting portals of the sky;
And all spontaneous from its burning shores
The rolling back of the eternal doors.
Of that His presence in majestic power,
For which Creation waits the destined hour,
Gentile and Jew some shadowy gleams discern'd,
Faces of all were to its coming turn'd;
To good and ill shall it be manifest,—
Seen of all eyes, by every tongue confess'd.
There is another Coming, silence-shod,
Wherein none but the holy see their God;
Who lowly stooping down to meet our needs
The threshold of His shrine in meekness treads.
In His humiliations thus brought near
To none but to His own doth He appear.
II.
EPITAPH.
“His sacred sleep Acanthian Saon lies
“Here slumbering; say not that the good man dies.”
ON THE SAME.
Like golden hues, when tempests flee,
Which may an evening sky illume;
Like moon-beams on a stormy sea;
Or lamp that burns within a tomb;—
Such was this truth at random thrown
Which shed its light upon a grave;
Yet 'twas enough if rightly known
To cheer in life, in death to save.
