Than Egypt's river: from that gentle side

Drink, drink and live, old man! heaven's realm holds

no such tide.

The starry fable of the milky way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,

And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds: O holiest nurse!
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
To thy sire's heart replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.
Lord Byron.

ARA CELL.

HOEVER will go to Rome may see,

Win the chapel of the Sacristy

Of Ara-Cœli, the Sainted Child,

--

Garnished from throat to foot with rings
And brooches and precious offerings,
And its little nose kissed quite away
By dying lips. At Epiphany,

If the holy winter day prove mild,

It is shown to the wondering, gaping crowd
On the church's steps, held high aloft, -
While every sinful head is bowed,

And the music plays, and the censers' soft
White breath ascends like silent prayer.

Many a beggar kneeling there,
Tattered and hungry, without a home,
Would not envy the Pope of Rome,
If he, the beggar, had half the care
Bestowed on him that falls to the share
Of youder Image,

for you must know
It has its minions to come and go,
Its perfumed chamber, remote and still,
Its silken couch, and its jewelled throne,
And a special carriage of its own

To take the air in, when it will.

And though it may neither drink nor eat,
By a nod to its ghostly seneschal

It could have of the choicest wine and meat.
Often some princess, brown and tall,

Comes, and unclasping from her arm
The glittering bracelet, leaves it, warm
With her throbbing pulse, at the Baby's feet.
Ah, he is loved by high and low,

Adored alike by simple and wise.

The people kneel to him in the street.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

FESTIVAL OF ST. AGNES, AT HER CHURCH WITHOUT

0

THE WALLS.

"O virgo felix, O nova gloria,

Cœlestis arcis nobilis incola."

Inscription over the Tribune.

QUAINTEST and most ancient fane,
Whose simple beauty rears

The memory of a pure life slain,

Through thrice five hundred years!

I journey down the stairs' long line
Beneath the hollow ground;

For what I deemed the dusky shrine
Of holy Agnes bound.

But the half-buried church is bright
With many a candle's ray,

And windows high pour on the sight
The purer blaze of day.

Nothing is dark or saddening there,
Nothing is worn or old;

Lo! colors rich and marbles rare,
And virgin white and gold.

No faded frescos stain the wall,
No blackened paintings grim;
'T was glittering as a festival,
And warming as a hymn.

The sculptured Maid within her arm
Her typic lamb caressed;
While music, with its living charm,

The silent pageant blest.

And, see, two lambs to the altar brought!

Not for a victim's fate,

But to express a gentle thought,

And to be consecrate.

Thus, yearly, keeps this ancient fane,

With garlands, light, and song,

The memory of one pure life slain,
So tenderly and long.

And thus, without the Roman wall,
To all the world it saith:
"Behold what shining honors fall
Round Innocence and Faith!"

Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham.

SANT' ONOFRIO.

TASSO's tomb is in one of the chapels of Sant' Onofrio, on the Janiculum, where there is a modern monument by Falerio. The writing-desk, crucifix, inkstand, and sonie autographs of the poet, are in the adjoining convent, where he died (A. D. 1595); and the tree called Tasso's Oak is shown in the garden.

THE tepid air bespeaks repose,
The noonday city sleeps;

No shadow from the cypress groves
Athwart the Tiber creeps.

This seems the very land of rest
To wondering wanderers from the West,
Who walk as if in dreams;

English Ambition's onward cry,
To all beneath this opiate sky
Yet untranslated seems.

Here is the goal; here ended all
His tragedy of life!

The honors, banishment, recall,

The love, the hate, the strife!

A weary man, the poet came
To light a funeral-torch's flame

At yonder chancel light;

When here he summed up all his days,
Heedless of human blame or praise,
And turned him to the Night!

O holy Jerome! at thy shrine,
Who could hope better meed,
Than he who sang the song divine
Of crusade and of creed!

Who loved upon Jerusalem,
As thou didst when at Bethlehem,
The Master's steps to trace!
Who burned to tread the very sod
Imprinted by the feet of God,

In the first years of grace!

Wrapt in the shade of Tasso's Oak,
I breathe the air of Rome :
He found his final home

Where, freed from every patron's yoke,
The Alban and the Sabine range
Down yonder, seeming nothing strange,
Although first seen by me;

Firm as those storied highlands stand,
So, deep-laid in Italian land,

Shall Tasso's glory be.

Calm here, within his altar-grave,

The restless takes his rest;