And all the beauties of his verse become

Her own ;-so be it with the poet's Vale:
Listen those emerald waters murmuring,

Behold the cliffs, that wall the gods' old home,
And float into the Past with softly swelling sail.

OLYMPUS.

WITH no sharp-sided peak or sudden cone,
Thou risest o'er the blank Thessalian plain,
But in the semblance of a rounded throne,
Meet for a monarch and his noble train
To hold high synod ;-but I feel it vain,
With my heart full and passionate as now,
To frame my humble verse, as I would fain,
To calm description,—I can only bow

My head and soul, and ask again, "if that be Thou?"

I feel before thee, as of old I felt,

(With sense, as just, more vivid in degree)
When first I entered, and unconscious knelt
Within the Roman Martyr's sanctuary :
I feel that ages laid their faith on Thee,

And if to me thou art a holy hill,

Let not the pious scorn,-that Piety

Though veiled, that Truth, though shadowy, were still All the world had to raise its heart and fallen will.

Thou Shrine which man, of his own natural thought,
Gave to the God of Nature, and girt round
With elemental mightiness, and brought

Splendour of form and depth of thunderous sound,
To wall about with awe the chosen ground,—
All without toil of slaves or lavished gold,
Thou wert upbuilt of memories profound,
Imaginations wonderful and old,

And the pure gems that lie in Poets' hearts untold.

God was upon Thee in a thousand forms

Of Terror and of Beauty, stern and fair, Upgathered in the majesty of storms,

Or floating in the film of summer air; Thus wert Thou made ideal everywhere; From Thee the odorous plumes of Love were spread, Delight and plenty through all lands to bear,From Thee the never-erring bolt was sped

To curb the impious hand or blast the perjured head.

How many a Boy, in his full noon of faith,
Leaning against the Parthenon, half-blind

With inner light, and holding in his breath,
Awed by the image of his own high mind,

Has seen the Goddess there so proudly shrined,
Leave for awhile her loved especial home,

And pass, though wingless, on the northward wind, On to thy height, beneath the eternal dome,

Where Heaven's grand councils wait, 'till Wisdom's self shall come.

Ours is another world, and godless now

Thy ample crown; 'tis well,—yes,—be it so,
But I can weep this moment, when thy brow
Light-covered with fresh hoar of autumn snow,
Shines in white light and chillness, which bestow
of reverend loveliness, as seen

New

grace

With the long mass of gloomy hills below : Blest be our open faith! too grand, I ween,

To grudge these votive tears to Beauty that has been.

A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS.

THE gulf of Volo (Pelasgicus Sinus) has received the merited homage of every tourist in northern Greece. As seen from some miles inland, and even from some parts of its own shore, it is so weather-fended and mountain-bound, that it becomes difficult to imagine it as a part of the open Ægean, the manyislanded Ægean,-to believe that the waters at your feet are of the sea, over which Delos wandered, and which now contains it within "her glassy cestus." The form of Pelion is improved by a close approach, and the villages which climb above half-way up its sides would beautify the least attractive surface, each house rising with its own cypresses and platans about it, in an irregular succession. Here too, as elsewhere, the first and oldest association is the brightest,-that of the Argonauts; the light of the tradition is refracted in its different colours on almost all the many cities that have lived and perished on this hilly shore; it was doubtless an object of eager rivalry, from which of them went forth the parent ship,—the aboriginal sea-conqueror,-the ocean-opener! A peasant

asked us whether it were not true that "hence set out the first Ship that ever sailed."

It is a privilege of great price to walk

With that old sorcerer Fable, hand in hand,
Adown the shadowy vale of History:

There is no other wand potent as his,

Out of that scene of gloomy pilgrimage,

Where prostrate splendors and unsated graves
Are ever rained upon by human tears,
To make a Paradise of noblest art,
A gallery of bright thoughts, serene ideas,
Pictorial graces, everlasting tints,

To the heart's eye delicious,-pure delight
Of Beauty and calm Joy alternating
With exercise of those high attributes,
Which make the will of man indomitable,—
Justice, and enterprise, and patriot-love.

That Peasant's simple question to my thoughts
Became a mystic thread,-a golden clue ;
For when I drew it towards me, all the veil
Of the deep past shrunk up, and light profuse
Fell round me from time-clouded memories;
The full-noon-day, it seemed to me, went back,
And passed into the pearly grey of morn,

From which, in outline dim, slowly came forth
Pelion, his lower steeps (now populous

With village voices) desolate and bare ;
And the now naked range of loftier rock,
Thick-vested with a mantle of warm pine.
Along the shore, the turreted serail,
And bright-adorned kiosks, and low bazaar,
Into a city strange, of ancient form,