LITMIR.BIZ

      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

      Through centuries of toil;

      The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound

      From many a stranger-soil!

      Leave me but free, though the eternal sand

      Be all my kingdom now —

      Though the rude splendors of barbaric land

      But mock my crownless brow!"

      There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown,

      A ringing, as of arms,

      When Europe rose, a stately Amazon,

      Stern in her mailéd charms.

      She brooded long beneath the weary bars

      That chafed her soul of flame,

      And like a seer, who reads the awful stars,

      Her words prophetic came:

      "I hear new sounds along the ancient shore,

      Whose dull old monotone

      Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar,

      Wailed through the ages lone!

      I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn

      Beneath a stormy sky,

      And warning throes, my bosom long has borne,

      Proclaim the struggle nigh!

      "The spirit of a hundred races mounts

      To glorious life in one;

      New prophet-wands unseal the hidden founts

      That leap to meet the sun!

      And thunder-voices, answering Freedom's prayer,

      In far-off echoes fail,

      As some loud trumpet, startling all the air,

      Peals down an Alpine vale!"

      O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time!

      How waned thy sisters old

      Before the splendors of thine eye sublime,

      And mien, erect and bold!

      Pure,

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