POETRY.

A LIVID blur In vaults of coal and sullen lead—• O'er this gigantic stir

Swung like a dying lantern overhead.

Is this the same

Blithe orb I loved in western lands ? Where is thy cresset's flame,

Thou dotard—where thy golden brands?

Dark lies the town; The steeples and the domes uplift ; Foully thou smoulder'st down, Half-drowned within the sulphur-drift.

O grey!! how grey !

The oceanic darkness crawls !—.

Canst thou not burn away These batchments blear—these hideous palls ?

What end is ours—

We phantoms that by shades are led Lost to the spacious hours We knew when skies gleamed overhead.

We warm our bands ; We huddle o'er our helpless fires, Draping their swarthy bands Of hearth-smoke round the smothered spires.

The sick red are Sears ghostly wounds within the night; The gas-cones bleach the dark ; We blunder, and the links bleed light . Oh, send to me

Some smile, some golden beam in this abyss,—. Drowned in an inky sea, I perish in the sable town of Dia !

HERMAN SCHEFF AUER.

Bank Point, Jackson's Lane, Highgate, N.