FROM LAMARTINE.

HAIL to thee, sacred fane!

Where GoD descends, a mortal's voice to hear;
Mysterious altar, hail,

Which Faith to seek her food divine draws near,

And oracles, though mute, oh! questioned ne'er in vain!

When the last hour of day

Fades in thy turrets vast,

When on the summit dies his lingering ray,

When the meek widow with her child hath passed,

And poured repentant tears upon thy stone,

And takes her homeward way

Like some pale phantom, silent and alone —
When the far organ's faintly murmured hymn
Seems to expire as evening's smile grows dim,

To wake with morn its strain;

When through the aisle the measured step and slow
Of priests that watch the holy tapers' glow,
We listen for in vain.

At such still hour, beneath thy arches deep,
When not a beam of sunlight breaks,-

I come, when Nature 'round is wrapt in sleep,
To meet the Eye which ever wakes!

And you that shroud the holy place,
Too holy for a sinner's eye,

Before your bases motionless,
Columns! I come to sigh.

Around me pour your sacred shade;

Render the darkness yet more dread,

The gloom more deep; let murmurs cease;

Forests of marble! e'en the air

The soul inhales your feet before

Is full of mystery and peace!

Let Love and sad Inquietude,

Spreading to every ear their grief,

Seek for their shade and solitude

Where waves the forest's palmy leaf.

Oh! darkness of the holy shrine !

The pious eye your gloom divine

Prefers to woods where breezes sigh;

No autumn wind your foliage dyes,
Your moveless shadow images
Immutable eternity!

The heart that's crushed by suffering,
Earth's promises too sad to greet,

Coy Hope that flies on rapid wing,

Pursues unto the altar's feet.
In moanings roll the waves of time;
Man clings unto these shafts sublime,

Even as the panting pilot, pressed
By billows foaming, wild and dark,
The most of his own shipwrecked bark
Clasps frantic, to his trembling breast.

Where, pillars speaking of the past,

The hands that built your ancient forms?

Answer, ye vaults obscurely vast!

Dust scattered to the sweeping storms! Our hands that shaped the marble, first Crumble again to parent dust;

Nor grieve that such a lot is given;

Man dies but holy thought, his own,

Lives in the cold unconscious stone,

And points with this his work to Heaven!

Forums and palaces decay

Time o'er them treads with mocking stride,

The traveller's foot upon the way

Pushes by chance their wrecks aside.

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With incense wafted toward the sky

When the wrapt prophet's chants ascend,
Heardst not, with them, these portals old,
These tombs-the ages bygone, cold,
Their spirit voices blend?

Lord! I have loved my soul's deep thoughts to pour
On mountain peaks, amid the desert's night-

Where burst the sea-wave on the lonely shore,

In Heaven's own presence, while your orbs of light Studded the fields of air, proud creatures of thy might!

And there it seemed my spirit, self-oppressed,

Before immensity dilated grew;

Till o'er the winds, o'er flame, o'er ocean's breast,
From thought to thought it flew,

To lose itself in thee thou source of endless rest!