POETRY.
NEPENTHE.
THE north wind follows free and fills Our rounding sail, and overhead Deepens the rainless blue, and red The sunset burns on quarried hills ; And peace is over all, as deep As where, amid the secular gloom • Of some far-reaching, rock-built tomb, The nameless generations sleep ; While, undecayed as on the day That saw them first, the Kings of old, In sculptured calm serene, behold The slow millenniums pass away.
Still, far behind us, as we cleave Smooth-flowing Nile, the din of life And passionate voices of the strife Are hushed to silence, and we leave The cares that haunt us, dark regret For wasted years, and wild unrest, Yearning for praise or pleasure, blest With life's last blessing,—to forget.
For still in Egypt's kindly air, Strong antidote of mortal woes,
The painless herb, Nepenthe, grows, Which she whom fair-haired Leda bare
Mixed in the wine, and stilled their pain Who wept in Spartan halls for sire Or brother, wrapped in funeral fire,
Or wandering o'er the boundless main. A. T. C.
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