Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it, the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered

Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder

By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Among the dead angels, the deathless Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below ;

From the spirits on earth that adore, From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervor and passion of prayer; From the hearts that are broken with losses,

And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands,

Into garlands of purple and red; And beneath the great arch of the portal,

Through the streets of the City Immor tal

Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,
A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediaval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the

more.

When I look from my window at night, And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars, Among them majestic is standing Sandalphon the angel, expanding

His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence :

Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall !

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds and waft through all the

rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE. LABOR with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,

At the threshold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer, Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid; By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems Greater than our strength can bear, Heavy as the weight of dreams,

Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day, Like the dwarfs of times gone by, Who, as Northern legends say,

On their shoulders held the sky.