POE CENTENARY EXERCISES. 19 



lie steered toward shadow with melodious helm. 



Touching with somber prow the wharves of His, 

 Exploring all the dim and hollow realm 



This side the last abyss. 



lie looked on cities in their crumbling hours, 

 Where Heath obscurely mumbles out his nine. 



Hoary, reunite, alone, where time-torn towers 

 Hang spectral in the moon. 



lie mused among the dim sarcophagi, 



While far upon the rim of ruin tied 

 A host of hooded forms that hurried by 

 With laughters to the dead. 



Ill 



lie walked our streets as on a lonely strand: 



His country was not here — it was afar. 

 Not here his home, not here his motherland. 



But in si ime statelier star. 



Life wa^ his exile. Earth his alien shore. 



And these were foreign faces that he passed: 

 For he had other language, other lore, 



And he must home at last. 



His country was nut here, hut in the isles 



Of Aidenn ringed around with lustrous seas. 

 Where golden gallc\ s skim the silver miles 



Or sleep upon the breeze. 



And there were gardens where the fountains springs 



In valleys of a many-colored grass — 

 Gardens where hulhuls in the shadows sing. 



And rose-pale maidens pass — 



Gardens of hyacinths and asphodels, 



Inwoven with the sounds of warbling rills. 

 With triple-tinted suns and lilied wells. 



Walled in by golden hills. 



