Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848. Various

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      Bring me the juice of the honey fruit,

      The large translucent, amber-hued,

      Rare grapes of southern isles, to suit

      The luxury that fills my mood.

      And bring me only such as grew

      Where rarest maidens tent the bowers,

      And only fed by rain and dew

      Which first had bathed a bank of flowers.

      They must have hung on spicy trees

      In airs of far enchanted vales,

      And all night heard the ecstasies

      Of noble-throated nightingales:

      So that the virtues which belong

      To flowers may therein tasted be —

      And that which hath been thrilled with song

      May give a thrill of song to me.

      For I would wake that string for thee

      Which hath too long in silence hung,

      And sweeter than all else should be

      The song which in thy praise is sung.

      Far in the ocean of the Night

      There lyeth an Enchanted Isle,

      Within a veil of mellow light,

      That blesseth like affection's smile.

      It tingeth with a rosy hue

      All objects in that country fair,

      Like summer twilight, when the dew

      Is trembling in the fragrant air.

      And there is music evermore,

      That seemeth sleeping on the breeze.

      Like sound of sweet bells from the shore

      Lingering along the summer seas.

      And there are rivers, bowers, and groves,

      And fountains fringed with blossomed weeds,

      And all sweet birds that sing their loves

      'Mid stately flowers or tasseled reeds.

      All that is beautiful of earth,

      All that is valued, all that's dear,

      All that is pure of mortal birth,

      Lives in immortal beauty here.

      All tender buds that ever grew

      For us on Hope's ephemeral tree,

      All loves, all joys, that e'er we knew,

      Bloom in that country gloriously.

      There is no parting there, no change,

      No death, no fading, no decay;

      No hand is cold, no voice is strange,

      No eye is dark – or turned away.

      To us, who daily toil and weep,

      How welcome is Night's starry smile,

      When in the fairy barge of Sleep

      We visit the Enchanted Isle.

      All holy hearts that worship Truth,

      Though bleak their daily pathway seems,

      Find treasure and immortal youth

      In that fair isle of happy dreams.

      But, if the soul have dwelt with sin,

      It landeth on that isle no more,

      Though it would give its life to win

      One glimpse but of the pleasant shore.

      Their joys, which have been thrown away,

      Or stained with guilt, can bloom no more,

      And o'er the night their vessels stray

      Where pale shades weep, and surges roar.

      I had a vision in that solemn hour,

      Last of the year sublime,

      Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power

      Rippling the shores of Time!

      On the lone margin of that hoary sea

      My spirit stood alone,

      Watching the gleams of phantom History

      Which through the darkness shone:

      Then, when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands

      Tolled for the dead year's doom,

      I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands

      Stand up amid the gloom!

      The crownéd deities, whose reign began

      In the forgotten Past,

      When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man

      Her empires green and vast!

      First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones

      Of twice three thousand years,

      Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns

      Who longs for mortal tears:

      The dust of ruin to her mantle clung,

      And dimmed her crown of gold,

      While the majestic sorrows of her tongue

      From Tyre to Indus rolled:

      "Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo,

      Whose only glory streams

      From its lost childhood, like the artic glow

      Which sunless Winter dreams!

      In the red desert moulders Babylon,

      And the wild serpent's hiss

      Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone

      And waste Persepolis!

      Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined

      In Elephanta's caves,

      And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind

      That stirs Amboyna's waves!

      The ancient gods amid their temples fall,

      And shapes of some near doom,

      Trembling and waving on the Future's wall,

      More fearful make my gloom!"

      Then from her seat, amid the palms embowered

      That shade the Lion-land,

      Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered —

      The fetters on her hand!

      Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse,

      The mighty Theban years,

      And the deep anguish of her mournful lips

      Interpreted her tears.

      "Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound

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