104 Transactions of the American Institute. 



She comes ! this famous Female — as was indeed to be expected ; 



(For who, so ever-youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions 



such as those, 

 When offer'd quarters with all the modern improvements, 

 With all the fun that's going — and all the best society ?) 



She comes ! I hear the rustling of her gown; 



I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance ; 



I mark her step divine — her curious eyes aturning, rolling, 



Upon this very scene. 



The Dame of Dames ! can I believe, then, 



Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic, could none of them 



restrain her? 

 Nor shades of Virgil and Dante — nor myriad memories, poems, old associations 



magnetize and hold on to her ? 

 But that she's left them all — and here? 



Yes, if you will allow me to say so, 



I, raj friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her, 



The same Undying Soul of Earth's activity's, beauty's, heroism's Expression, 



Out from her evolutions hither come — submerged the strata of her former themes, 



Hidden and cover'd by to-day's — foundation of to-day's; 



Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain ; 



Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt — silent those century- 

 baffling tombs ; 



Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors ; 



Calliope's call for ever closed — Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and dead ; 



Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana — ended the quest of the Holy Graal ; 



Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind — extinct; 



The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the sunrise; 



Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone — Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone, 



Palmerin, ogre, departed — vanish'd the turrets thatUsk reflected, 



Arthur vanish'd with all his knights — Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad — all gone — 

 dissolv'd utterlj', like an exhalation; 



Pass'd ! pass'd! for us, for ever pass'd ! that once so mighty World — now void, 

 inanimate, phantom World! 



Embroider'd, dazzling World ! with all its gorgeous legends, myths, 



Its kings and barons proud — its priests, and warlike lords, and courtly dames; 



Pass'd to its charnel vault — laid on the shelf — coffin'd, with Crown and Armor ou, 



Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page, 



And dirged by Tennyson's sweet, sad rhyme. 



I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World, 



Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead remains, and now 



this spot approaching, filling ; 

 — And I can hear what may be you do not — a terrible sesthetical commotion, 

 With howling, desperate gulp of "flower" and "bower," 

 With " Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow" quite, quite frantic; 

 With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd to ice or stone; 

 With many a squeak (in metre choice), from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 



London ; 



