Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

4 Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade;

Then

say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played.†
Perhaps thou wert a priest; if so, my struggles
Are vain; Egyptian priest ne'er owned his juggles.

5 Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass:
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great temple's dedication.

6 I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled;
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:·

7

Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

:

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended;

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

8 Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,

* Pompey's Pillar is a column almost a hundred feet high, near Alexandria, It is now generally admitted by the learned to have had no connection with the Roman general whose name it bears.

This was a statue at Thebes, said to utter at sunrise a sound like the twanging of a harpstring or of a metallic wire,

9

Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis, †

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:·

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled:
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What were thy name and station, age and race?

10

Statue of flesh

immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

11 Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost forever?

O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that when both must sever
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

FLING forth the proud banner of Leon again;

Let the watchword, Castile, go resounding through Spain!
And thou, free Asturias, encamped on the height,
Pour down thy dark sons to the vintage of fight;

* Egypt was conquered 525 B. C., by Cambyses, the second king of Persia. †These are the names of Egyptian deities.

Wake! wake! the old soil where our warriors repose, Rings hollow and deep to the trampling of foes. The voices are mighty that swell from the past, With Aragon's cry on the shrill mountain blast; 5 The ancient Sierras give strength to our tread, Their pines murmur song where bright blood hath been shed. Fling forth the proud banner of Leon again, And shout ye, "Castile! to the rescue for Spain!"

1

WHAT's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod

Its Maker meant not should be trod

By man, the image of his God,

Erect and free,

Unscourged by Superstition's rod

To bow the knee?

2 Is 't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies in Heaven's sight
The sword he draws:
:-

What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause!

3 Give that! and welcome War to brace
Her drums! and rend Heaven's reeking space!

The colors planted face to face,

The charging cheer,

Though Death's pale horse iead on the chase,
Shall still be dear.

4 And place our trophies where men kneel
To Heaven! but Heaven rebukes my zeal..

O God above!

The cause of Truth and human weal,
Transfer it from the sword's appeal
To Peace and Love.

5 Peace, Love! the cherubim that join
Their spread wings o'er Devotion's shrine,
Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine,
Where they are not-

The heart alone can make divine

Religion's spot.

6 To incantations dost thou trust,
And pompous rites in domes august?
See mouldering stones and metal's rust
Belie the vaunt

That men can bless one pile of dust
With chime or chant.

7 The ticking wood-worm mocks thee, man!
Thy temples creeds themselves grow wan!
But there's a dome of nobler span,
A temple given

Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban ·
Its space is Heaven!

8 Its roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling,
Where, trancing the rapt spirit's feeling,
And God himself to man revealing,
The harmonious spheres

Make music, though unheard their pealing
By mortal ears.

9 Fair stars! are not your beings pure? Can sin, can death, your worlds obscure? Else why so swell the thoughts at your

Aspect above?

Ye must be Heavens that make us sure
Of heavenly love!

10 And in your harmony sublime
I read the doom of distant time;
That man's regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,

11

And reason on his mortal clime

Immortal dawn.

What's hallowed ground? 'T is what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!

Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round;

And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground!

LIII.

- FASHIONABLE

PARTIES IN NEW NETHERLANDS.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

IN those happy days, a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sunset. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incontestable signs of disapproba 5 tion and uneasiness at being surprised by a visit from a neighbor on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea-parties.

10

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o'clock, and went away