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148

LOVE AND FAME.

Like the Chaldean sage,

Fame's worshippers adore

The brilliant orbs that scatter light
O'er heaven's azure floor;

But in their very hearts enshrined,

The votaries of Love

Keep e'er the holy flame, which once
Illumed the courts above.

Give me the boon of Love!
Renown is but a breath,

Whose loudest echo ever floats
From out the halls of death.
A loving eye beguiles me more
Than Fame's emblazoned seal,
And one sweet tone of tenderness
Than Triumph's wildest peal.

Give me the boon of Love!

The path of Fame is drear,

And Glory's arch doth ever span

A hill-side cold and sere.

One wild flower from the path of Love,

All lowly though it lie,

Is dearer than the wreath that waves

To stern Ambition's eye.

LOVE AND FAME.

149

Give me the boon of Love!

The lamp of Fame shines far,

But Love's soft light glows near and warm-
A pure and household star.

One tender glance can fill the soul

With a perennial fire;

But Glory's flame burns fitfully

A lone, funereal pyre.

Give me the boon of Love!

Fame's trumpet-strains depart,

But Love's sweet lute breathes melody
That lingers in the heart;

And the scroll of Fame will burn

When sea and earth consume,

But the rose of Love in a happier sphere,
Will live in deathless bloom!

NAPOLEON AT REST.

BY J. PIERPONT.

His falchion flashed along the Nile,
His host he led through Alpine snows,
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle-flag unrolled—and froze!

Here sleeps he now, alone!-not one,

Of all the kings whose crowns he gave, Bends o'er his dust; nor wife nor son

Has ever seen or sought his grave.

Behind the sea-girt rock, the star

That led him on from crown to crown

Has sunk, and nations from afar

Gazed as it faded and went down.

High is his tomb: the ocean flood,

Far, far below, by storms is curledAs round him heaved, while high he stood, A stormy and unstable world.

NAPOLEON AT REST.

Alone he sleeps: the mountain cloud,

That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.

Pause here! The far-off world at last

Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones And to the earth its mitres cast,

Lies powerless now beneath these stones.

Hark! Comes there from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,

And Europe's hills, a voice that bids
The world be awed to mourn him?-No!

The only, the perpetual dirge

That's heard here, is the sea-bird's cryThe mournful murmur of the surge,

The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

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