/K. yX 
 
 
s 
 
 
THE 
 
 ^ENEID OF VIRGIL. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 0. P. CRANCH. 
 
 Uniform with LONGFELLOW S Dante, BRYANT S 
 Homer, and TAYLOR S Faust. $5.00. 
 
 " We do not hesitate to give the preference to Mr. 
 Cranch s version over any translation of the yEneid with 
 \vhicli we are acquainted. His work is not only a splen 
 did memorial of his own genius, but a worthy representa 
 tion of the immortal Roman bard." New York Tribune. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Publishers. 
 
THE 
 
 BIRD AND THE BELL, 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCII 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co. 
 
 1875. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1875. 
 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co. 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 

 As one who in some cellar crypt lias kept 
 His wines of many an autumn vintage, pressed 
 Prom wild wood grapes, or vineyard fields that slept 
 On sunny hillsides, by his own hand dressed ; 
 And calls his neighbors in to taste and share 
 His store ; yet overvaluing, perchance, 
 What seemed to keep for him a flavor rare 
 Which love might prize when critics frown askance : 
 So to my board I bid my friends, and ope 
 The hoarded flasks of many a varying year, 
 The verse from lonely dells of dreamland won, 
 Or by sweet toiling on the sun-flecked slope 
 Of life, ere yet my summer leaves were sere 
 In lengthening shadows of the sinking sun. 
 
 9JS9760 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE BIRD AND THE BELL 1 
 
 THE THREE MUSES 23 
 
 THE SHADOWED RIVER 35 
 
 NOVEMBER TREES 38 
 
 THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 40 
 
 THE CATARACT ISLE . 42 
 
 IN THE GARDEN 45 
 
 IN THE PINE-\VOODS 46 
 
 LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE 47 
 
 IN THE PALAIS ROYAL GARDEN 53 
 
 CORNUCOPIA .55 
 
 A FRIEND ......... 59 
 
 THE AUTUMN RAIN 63 
 
 SPIRITS IN PRISON 65 
 
 BLONDEL 69 
 
 THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW 73 
 
 AYHY? f 77 
 
 THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S ... 88 
 
 MARION DALE . 95 
 
 VEILS . 100 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE ....... 106 
 
 ATALANTA 109 
 
 AL HASSAN S SECRET 112 
 
 MY OLD PALETTE 119 
 
 THE BOBOLINKS 121 
 
 CRETE 125 
 
 J. R. L. ON HIS FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY .... 128 
 
 SEA SHADOWS 132 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN PATH 137 
 
 BIRD LANGUAGE . . 141 
 
 THE CHANGING YEAR . . . . . . . 143 
 
 SONG, " SOFT, BROWN, SMILING EYES" . . . 145 
 
 THE DREAM OF PILATE S WIFE 147 
 
 THE DISPUTE OF THE SEVEN DAYS . . . . 152 
 
 A THRUSH IN A GILDED CAGE . . . . .156 
 
 UNDER THE SKYLIGHT . . . . . . 158 
 
 I IN THEE, AND THOU IN ME . . . . .161 
 
 ODE, MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI .... 163 
 
 IAPIS . . 173 
 
 THE WORKSHOP AND THE BRONZE .... 183 
 
 THE EVENING PRIMROSE. . ... . . 185 
 
 IN A CHURCH . 188 
 
 DECEMBER . . . . . . . . .190 
 
 A CHINESE STORY 192 
 
 A SONG OF HOME ........ 195 
 
 A SPRING-GROWL ....... 197 
 
 WAITING, BY THE SEA 200 
 
 SHELLING PEAS, A PASTORAL 203 
 
 Louis NAPOLEON 207 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 BY THE SHORE OF THE RIVER 214 
 
 THE AMERICAN PANTHEON 217 
 
 IN THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU .... 220 
 
 A DAY OF MEMORIES 223 
 
 THE GUEST ........ . . . . 227 
 
 OCTOBER. . . . / 229 
 
 To A HALF-FRIEND 231 
 
 Music . .......... . . . 234 
 
 COMPENSATION . . . . . . . . 238 
 
 A BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS 241 
 
 MEMORIAL HALL . . . . . . . . . 244 
 
 DREAM-LIFE . . 247 
 
 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION, $ B K POEM . 231 
 
 THE LAY OF THUYM ; OR, THE HAMMER RECOVERED . 270 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI 277 
 
 ON RE-READING TENNYSON S PRINCESS .... 283 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 THE HIGHER LAW 2S7 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCE 288 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 289 
 
 THE GARDEN 290 
 
 THE GARDEN (continued) 291 
 
 To G. \V. C . . 292 
 
 To W. \V. S. 293 
 
 To W. W. S 294 
 
 To 0. B. F 295 
 
 To 0. B. P. (continued) 29(5 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE . 297 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 POEMS OE THE WAR. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF THE FLAG 301 
 
 THE HOSE OF DEATH, A BALLAD .... 304 
 
 NOVEMBER 8m, 1864 ....... . . .309 
 
 SONNETS FOR THE TIMES. 
 
 I. THE DARK TOWER . .. . . . . 321 
 
 II. DELIVERANCE . . ....... . 322 
 
 III. THE ABOLITIONISTS 323 
 
 IV. THE DAWN OF PEACE 324 
 
 V. THE DEATH-BLOW . . . . . . 325 
 
 VI. THE MARTYR 326 
 
 VII. OUR COUNTRY 327 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL, 
 
 \VITH 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
I HE reader will find in this poem allusions to events which have 
 passed in Italy, fluent when the lines were written, hut now 
 crystallized into history, and prophecies, some of which have 
 come, or are coming true, while others have been fulfilled otherwise 
 than was foreboded. These passages of the poem may therefore 
 lose somewhat of the flavor they might have had if read at that 
 period. The rapid and wonderful scene-shifting, too, that has gone 
 on in the great European theatre of Church and State may have the 
 effect of dimming their freshness somewhat. But the thoughts and 
 principles here embodied can never cease to interest all who care 
 for liberty of thought and speech, and will maintain a supreme im 
 portance so long as the Romish Church holds to its assumptions in 
 the face of the nineteenth century. 
 
 If much of the language in these verses apostrophizing this 
 mighty organization seems too unqualified and denunciatory, it will 
 be seen that I have endeavored to give praise also where I felt it 
 to be due. But the poem was written in Catholic Europe, where I 
 was daily impressed with characteristics which stood out more baldly 
 prominent than any which come to our notice in America. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL 
 
 i. 
 
 T WAS earliest morning in the early spring, 
 In Florence. Winter, dark and damp and chill, 
 Had yielded to the fruit-trees blossoming, 
 Though sullen rains swept from the mountains still. 
 The tender green scarce seemed to have a will 
 To peep above the sod and greet the sky, 
 Like an o er-timid child who dreads a stranger s eye. 
 
 ir. 
 
 The city slumbered in the dawning day; 
 Old towers and domes and roof-tiles looming dim, 
 Bridges and narrow streets and cloisters gray, 
 And sculptured churches, where the Latin hymn 
 By lamplight called to mass. As o er a limb 
 The spells of witchcraft strong but noiseless fall, 
 The shadows of the Past reigned silent over all. 
 
 1 A 
 
2 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 III. 
 ^Wddrig from sleep, I heard, but knew not where, 
 
 A bird, that sang alone its early song. 
 \ ; Xhn quick) clear wavlxle leaping through the air, 
 The voice of spring, that all the winter long 
 Had slept, nuw burst in melodies as strong 
 And tremulous as Love s first pure delight ; 
 I could not choose, but bless a song so warm and bright. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sweet bird ! the fresh, clear sprinkle of thy voice 
 Came quickening all the springs of trust and love. 
 What heart could hear such joy, and not rejoice ? 
 Thou blithe remembrancer of field and grove, 
 Dropping thy fairy flute-notes from above, 
 Fresh message from the Beauty Infinite 
 That clasps the world around and fills it with delight ! 
 
 v. 
 
 It bore me to the breeze-swept banks of bloom, 
 To trees and falling waters, and the rush 
 Of south-winds sifting through the pine-grove s gloom 
 Home-gardens filled with roses, and the gush 
 Of insect-trills in grass and roadside bush ; 
 And apple-orchards flushed with blossoms sweet ; 
 And all that makes the round of nature most complete. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 3 
 
 VI. 
 
 It sang of freedom, dimmed by no alloy ; 
 Peace, unpossessed upon our troubled sphere ; 
 Some long Arcadian day of love and joy, 
 Unsoiled by fogs of superstitious fear ; 
 A world of noble beings born to cheer 
 The wilderness of life, and prove the fact 
 Of human grandeur in each thought and word and act. 
 
 VII. 
 
 What was it jarred the vision and the spell, 
 And brought the reflux of the day and place ? 
 Athwart the bird s song clanged a brazen bell. 
 Nature s improvisations could not face 
 That domineering voice ; and in the race 
 Of rival tongues the Bell outrang the Bird, 
 The swinging, clamoring brass which all the city heard. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Santa Maria Novella s Church, hard by, 
 Calling its worshippers to morning prayer, 
 From its old Campanile lifted high 
 In the dull dampness of the clouded air, 
 Poured out its monotones, and did not spare 
 Its ringing shocks of unremitting sound, 
 That soon my warbler s notes were swept away and drowned. 
 
4 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Down from the time-stained belfry clanged the bell, 
 Joined in a moment by a hundred more. 
 Had I not heard the bird, I might have well 
 Floated on that sonorous flood that bore 
 Away all living voices, as with roar 
 Of deep vibrations, grand, monastic, bold, 
 Through street and stately square the metal music rolled. 
 
 x. 
 
 Oft have I listened in the dead of night, 
 When all those towers like chanting priests have prayed ; 
 And the weird tones seemed tangled in the height 
 Of palaces, as though all Florence made 
 One great ghost-organ, and the pipes that played 
 "Were the dark channelled streets, pouring along 
 In beats and muffled swells the deep resounding song. 
 
 XI. 
 
 So now the incessant peal filled all the air, 
 And the sweet bird-voice, utterly forced away, 
 Ceased. And it seemed as if some spirit fail- 
 Were hurled into oblivion ; and the day 
 Grew suddenly more darkly, grimly gray, 
 Like a vast inert-cloth stretched from south to north, 
 While that tyrannic voice still rang its mandates forth. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 XII. 
 
 And so I mused upon the things that were, 
 And those that should be, or that might have been ; 
 And felt a life and freedom in the air, 
 And in the sprouting of the early green, 
 I could not match with man, who builds his screen 
 Darkening the sun, and in his own light stands, 
 And casts the shadow of himself along the lands. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 For him who haunts the temples of the Past, 
 And shapes his fond ideals by its rules ; 
 Whose creed, whose labors, are but thoughts recast 
 In worn and shrunken moulds of antique schools, 
 Copies of copies, wrought with others tools ; 
 For whom law stands for justice, Church for God, 
 Symbol for fact, for right divine the tyrant s rod ; 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Who fears to utter what his reason bids, 
 Unless it wears the colors of a sect ; 
 Who hardly dares to lift his heavy lids, 
 And greet the coming Day with head erect, 
 But apes each general posture and defect 
 Entailed by time, alert in others tracks, 
 Like owls that build in some time-mantled ruin s cracks;- 
 
6 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XV. 
 
 For him yon clanging Bell a symbol bears, 
 That deadens every natural voice of spring. 
 Fitter for him the croaking chant, the prayers, 
 The torch, the cross, the censer s golden swing, 
 The organ-fugue, a prisoned eagle s wing 
 Beating the frescoed dome, the empty feast 
 Where at his tinselled altar stands the gay -robed priest. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 O mighty Church ! who, old, but still adorned 
 With jewels of thy youth, a wrinkled bride 
 Affianced to the blind, so long hast scorned 
 The rising of the inevitable tide 
 That swells and surges up against thy pride, 
 Thou, less the artist s than the tyrant s nurse, 
 Blight of philosophy, false star of poet s verse ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 What though thy forms be picturesque and old, 
 And, clustered round thee, works of noblest art 
 Hallow thy temples ! Once they may have told 
 Profound emotions of the inmost heart ; 
 Now shadowed by a faith that stands apart, 
 And scowls against the sunlight shared abroad, 
 Burning in altar-nooks its candles to its god ! 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 7 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The saints who toiled to help the world s distress ; 
 The noble lords of thought and speech divine ; 
 The prophets crying through Time s wilderness ; 
 The vast discoveries, the inventions fine 
 That stamped upon the centuries a sign 
 Of grandeur, all, like music thundered down 
 By stern cathedral bells, were silenced by thy frown. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Chained to Madonnas and ascetic saints, 
 Even Art itself felt thy all-narrowing force. 
 The painter saw thee peeping o er his paints ; 
 The sculptor s thought was fettered from its source ; 
 Thy gloomy cloisters shaped the builder s course ; 
 Thy organ drowned the shepherd s festive flute 
 With penitential groans, as though God s love were mute. 
 
 xx. 
 
 And yet, because there lurked some element 
 Of truth within the doctrine, to man s need 
 Some fitness in the form ; since more was meant 
 And more expressed than in the accepted creed, 
 The artist s genius giving far less heed 
 To formulas than to his own ideal, 
 The hand and heart wrought works the world has stamped 
 as real. 
 
o THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 What didst thou for the already teeming soil 
 Of souls like Dante, Raphael, Angelo, 
 Save to suggest a theme or pay their toil ? 
 While they o erlooked their prison walls, and so 
 Caught from the skies above and earth below 
 Splendors wherewith they lit thy tarnished crown, 
 And clothed thee with a robe thou claimest as thine own. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Names that in any age would have been great, 
 Works that to all time speak, and so belong, 
 Claim not as thine ; nor subsidize the fate 
 That gave them to the nations for a long, 
 Unceasing heritage. Amid a throng 
 Of starry lights they live. Thy clanging bells 
 Can never drown their song, nor break their mighty spells. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 No mother thou of Genius, but the nurse. 
 Seek, not to stamp a vulgar name upon 
 The sons of Morning. Take the Poet s verse, 
 But not the Poet. He is not thy son. 
 Enough for thee, if sometimes he hath gone 
 Into thy narrow fold from pastures wide, 
 Where through immortal flowers God pours the living tide. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Enough if he hath decked thee with the wealth 
 Of his heaven-nurtured spirit, showering gems 
 Of thought and fancy, coining youth and health 
 To gild with fame thy papal diadems ; 
 Plucking life s roses with their roots and stems 
 To wreathe an altar which returned him naught 
 But the poor patronage of some suspected thought. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 What didst thou for the studious sage who saw 
 Through nature s veils the great organic force, 
 Who sought and found the all-pervading law 
 That holds the rolling planets in their course ? 
 When didst thou fail to check the flowing source 
 Of truths whose waters needs must inundate 
 The theologic dikes that guarded thy estate ? 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Is there a daring thought thou hast not crushed ? 
 Is there a generous faith thou hast not cursed ? 
 Is there a whisper, howe er low and hushed, 
 Breathed for the future, but thou wast the first 
 To silence with thy tortures, thou the worst 
 Of antichrists, and cunningest of foes 
 That ever against God and man s great progress rose ? 
 1* 
 
10 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Yet life was in thce once. Thy earlier youth 
 Was flushed with blossoms of a heavenly bloom. 
 Thy blight began, when o er Grod s common truth 
 And man s nobility thou didst assume 
 The dread prerogative of life and doom ; 
 And creeds which served as swaddling-bands were bound 
 Like grave-clothes round the limbs laid living under ground. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 When man grows wiser than his creed allows, 
 And nobler than the church he has outgrown ; 
 When that which was his old familiar house 
 No longer is a home, but all alone, 
 Alone with God, he dares to lift the stone 
 Prom off the skylight between heaven and him, 
 Then shines a grander day, then fade the spectres grim. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 And never yet was growth, save when it broke 
 The letter of the dead scholastic form. 
 The bark drops off, and leaves the expanding oak 
 To stretch his giant arms through sun and storm. 
 The idols that upon his breast lay warm 
 The sage throws down, and breaks their hallowed shrine, 
 And follows the great hand that points to light divine. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 11 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But thou, Church ! didst steal the mother s mask, 
 The counterfeit of Heaven, so to enfold 
 Thy flock around thee. None looked near, to ask 
 " Art thou our mother, truly ? " None so bold 
 As lift thy veils, and show how hard and cold 
 Those eyes of tyranny, that mouth of guile, 
 That low and narrow brow, the witchcraft of that smile, 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 That subtle smile, deluding while it warmed ; 
 That arrogant, inquisitorial nod ; 
 That hand that stabbed, like Herod, the new-formed 
 And childlike life which drew its breath from God, 
 And, for that star by which the Magi trod 
 The road to Bethlehem, the Good Shepherd s home, 
 Lit lurid idol-fires on thy seven hills of Rome. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Rome, paralyzed and dumb, who sat a queen 
 Among the nations, now thy abject slave ; 
 Yet muttering in her cell, where gaunt and lean 
 Thy priests have kept her pining ! Who shall save 
 And lift the captive from her living grave ? 
 Is there no justice left to avert her doom, 
 Where monarchs sit and play their chess-games on her 
 tomb ? 
 
12 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And them, too, Venice, moaning by the sea, 
 Which moans and chafes with thee, on Lido s beach, 
 Thou, almost in despair lest there should be 
 In Europe s life no life within thy reach, > 
 
 No respite from thy tyrant, thou shalt teach 
 Thy Austrian despot yet what hoarded hate 
 And sudden strength can do to change thy sad estate ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 I For, lo, the fires are kindled. Hark ! afar, 
 At last the thunders mutter under ground, 
 The northern lights flash cimeters of war, 
 Sardinia s trumpets to the battle sound. 
 See Florence, Parma, Modena, unbound, 
 Leap to their feet, and stout Komagna brave 
 
 The Cardinal s frown, and swear to cower no more a slave ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 See Sicily, whose blood is Etna s veins 
 Of sleepless fire, heave with volcanic pants, 
 Seething, a restless surge of hearts and brains, 
 Till Garibaldi s quick Ithuriel lance 
 Wakes the whole South from its long, troubled trance, 
 And Naples, catching the contagious flame, 
 Welcomes her hero in with blessings on his name ! 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 13 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The nations that in darkness sat have seen 
 The light. The blind receive their sight again. 
 The querulous old man who stands between 
 His children and their hopes, with threats insane, 
 Trembles, as though an earthquake split in twain 
 The crumbling rock beneath Saint Peter s dome ; 
 And the last hiding-place of tyranny is Home. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 For Italy, long pining, sad, and crushed, 
 Has hurled her royal despots from the land. 
 Back to her wasted heart the blood has gushed. 
 Her wan cheek blooms, and her once nerveless hand 
 Guides with firm touch the purpose she has planned. 
 Thank God ! thank generous France ! the battle smoke 
 Lifts from her bloody fields. See, at her feet her yoke ! 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Not like a maddened anarch does she rise : 
 The torch she holds is no destroying flame, 
 But a clear beacon, like her own clear eyes 
 Straining across the war-clouds ; and the shame 
 Of wild misrule has never stained her name. 
 Calm and determined, politic yet bold, 
 She comes to take her place, the Italy of old. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 She asks no "boon, except to stand enrolled 
 Among the nations. Give her space and air, 
 Our Sister. She has pined in dungeons cold. 
 A little sunshine for our Sister fair, 
 A little hope to cover past despair. 
 God s blessing on the long-lost, the unbound ! 
 The earth has waited long ; the heavens now answer 
 " Found ! " 
 
 XL. 
 
 The nations greet her as some lovely guest 
 Arriving late, where friends pour out the wine. 
 Ay, press around, and pledge her in the best 
 Your table yields, and in her praise combine ! 
 And ye who love her most, press near, and twine 
 Her locks with wreaths, and in her large dark eyes 
 See all her sorrowing past, and her great future rise ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 But thou who claim st the keys of God s own heaven, 
 And who wouldst fain usurp the keys of earth, 
 Thou, leagued with priests and tyrants who have given 
 Their hands, and pledged their oaths to blight the birth 
 Of thine own children s rights, for scorn and mirth 
 One day shalt stand, thy juggling falsehoods named, 
 Thy plots and wiles unmasked, thy heaven-high titles 
 shamed ! 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 15 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Look to the proud tiara on thy brow ! 
 Its gems shall crush thee down like leaden weights. 
 Thy alchemy is dead ; and wouldst thou now 
 Thunder anathemas against the states 
 Whose powers are Time s irrefragable fates ? 
 Look to thy glories ! they must shrink away, 
 With meaner pomp must fall, and sink into decay. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Lo, thou art numbered with the things that were, 
 Soon to be laid upon the dusty shelves 
 Of antiquaries, once so strong and fair, 
 Now classed with spells of magic, midnight elves, 
 And all half-lies, that pass away themselves 
 When once a people rises to the light 
 Of primal truths and comprehends its heaven-born right. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Toil on ; but little canst thou do to-day. 
 The sun is risen. The daylight dims thy shrines. 
 The age outstrips thee, inarching on its way, 
 And overflowing all thy boundary lines. 
 How art thou fallen, O star ! How lurid shines 
 Thy taper underneath the glowing sky ! 
 How feeble grows thy voice, how lustreless thine eye ! 
 
16 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Like some huge shell left by the ebbing tide, 
 In which once dwelt some wonder of the sea, 
 Thou liest, and men know not that thy pride 
 Of plaee outlives thy earlier potency, 
 But, coming nearer to thy mystery, 
 Might call thee lovely, did not thy decay 
 And death-like odor drive them in contempt away. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 So perish like thee all lies stereotyped 
 By human power or devilish artifice, 
 Dark blot on Christ s pure shield, soon to be wiped 
 Away, and leave it fair for Heaven s free kiss ; 
 So perish like thee, drowned in Time s abyss, 
 All that hath robbed strong Genius of its youth, 
 All that hath ever barred the struggling soul from truth ! 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 And yet we need not boast our larger scope 
 In this broad land, if creeds of later stamp 
 Still cast their gloom o er manhood s dearest hope, 
 Still quench the heavenward flame of Reason s lamp, 
 And dogmas shamed by science still can cramp 
 The aspiring soul in dungeons scarce less drear 
 Than those of older times, when faith was one with fear. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 17 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Nor dream that here the inquisitorial chair 
 Is but a byword, though we flush and weep 
 In honest indignation, when we hear 
 Chains clank in Eome, and wonder how the cheap 
 And common truth of Heaven must cringe, and creep, 
 And mask its face, lest Mother Church disown 
 The rebel thought that flouts the apostolic throne ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 If we indeed are sure our faith is best, 
 Then may we dare to leave it large and free, 
 Nor fear to bring the creed to reason s test ; 
 For best is strongest, fearing not to see 
 As well as feel. Then welcome, Liberty ! 
 Down with the scaffolding the priest demands ! 
 Let Truth stand free, alone, a house not built with hands ! 
 
 L. 
 
 Down with the useless and the rotting props 
 That only cumber and deface each wall ! 
 Off with the antiquated cloth that drops 
 Moth-eaten draperies round the columns tall. 
 Nor needs the heavenly Architect our small 
 Superfluous tricks of ornament and gilt, 
 To deck the royal courts his wisdom planned and built, 
 
18 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 LI. 
 
 He wills a temple beautiful and wide 
 As man and nature, not a cloister dim, 
 Nor strange pagoda of barbaric pride 
 Scrawled o er with hieroglyph and picture grim 
 Of saint and fiend. Why seek to honor him 
 By crusting o er with gold of Palestine 
 The simple, stainless dome whose builder is divine ? 
 
 LII. 
 
 Thanks to the Central Good, the inflowing Power, 
 The Primal Life in which we live and move, 
 The aroma of the soul, the passion-flower 
 We bear upon our hearts, the deathless love 
 Of right, outlives device, and floats above 
 All human creeds, though armed with power to brave 
 The scholar s daring thought, and make the world their 
 slave. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 The music of the soul can ne er be mute. 
 What though the brazen clang of antique form 
 Stop for a hundred years the angel s lute, 
 The angel smiles, and when the deafening storm 
 Has pealed along the ages, with the warm 
 Touch the immortals own, he sings again, 
 Clearer and sweeter, like the sunshine after rain. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 10 
 
 LIV. 
 
 He sings the song no tyrant long resists ; 
 lie sings the song the world perforce must join, 
 Though ages stand as notes. For he insists 
 With such sweet emphasis, such chords divine, 
 That, soon or late, along the living line 
 Of hearts that form Humanity, there thrills 
 A sympathetic nerve no time or custom kills. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Humanity must answer when God speaks, 
 As sure as echo to the human voice. 
 And every grand o ertopping lie which breaks 
 With furious flood and century-deafening noise 
 In the eternal symphony that joys 
 Along, is bin: some baser pipe or chord 
 That shall be tuned again when Kcason sits as lord. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Eternal Truth shines on o er Error s cloud, 
 Which, for a little, veils the living light. 
 .Therefore, though the true bard may sing aloud 
 His soul-song in the unrcceptive night, 
 His words swift, arrowy fires must fly and light, 
 Sooner or later, kindling south and north, 
 Till skulking Falsehood from her den be hunted forth. 
 
20 THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Work on, fainting hearts ! Through storm and drouth, 
 Somewhere your winged heart-seeds will be blown, 
 And plant a living grove ; from mouth to mouth, 
 O er oceans, into speech and lands unknown, 
 Even till the long-foreseen result be grown 
 To ripeness, rilled like fruit with other seed, 
 Which Time shall sow anew, and reap when men shall need. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 There is no death, but only change on change. 
 The life-force of all forms, in tree and flower, 
 In rocks and rivers, and in clouds that range 
 Through heaven, in grazing beasts, and in the power 
 Of mind, goes forth forever, an unspent dower, 
 Glowing and flashing through the universe, 
 Kindling the light of stars, and joy of poet s verse ! 
 
 LTX. 
 
 Each hour and second is the marriage-morn 
 Of spirit-life and matter ; as when kings 
 Wed peasants, and their simple charms adorn 
 With Oriental gems and sparkling rings 
 And diadems, and with all royal things 
 Making their eyes familiar, so, with tones 
 Sweet and unheard before, conduct them to their thrones. 
 
THE BIRD AND THE BELL. 21 
 
 LX. 
 
 One mighty circle God in heaven hath set, 
 Woven of myriad links, lives, deaths unknown, 
 Where all beginnings and all ends are met 
 To follow and serve each other, Nature s zone 
 And zodiac, round whose seamless arc are strewn 
 A million and a million hues of light 
 That blend and glow and burn, beyond our realm of night. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 O ye who pined in dungeons for the sake 
 Of truths which tyrants shadowed with their hate ; 
 Whose only crime was that ye were awake 
 Too soon, or that your brothers slept too late, 
 Mountainous minds ! upon whose tops the great 
 Sunrise of knowledge came, long ere its glance 
 Fell on the foggy swamps of fear and ignorance, 
 
 LXII. 
 
 The time shall come when from your heights serene 
 Beyond the dark, ye will look back and smile 
 To see the sterile earth all growing green, 
 Where Science, Art, and Love repeat Heaven s style 
 In crowded city and on desert isle, 
 Till Eden blooms Avhere martyr-fires have burned, 
 And to the Lord of Life all hearts and minds are turned. 
 
22 THE 13IRD AND THE BELL. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 The seeds are planted, and the spring is near. 
 Ages of blight are but a fleeting frost. 
 Truth circles into truth. Each mote is dear 
 To God. No drop of ocean e er is lost, 
 No leaf forever dry and tempest-tossed. 
 Life centres deathless underneath decay, 
 And no true word or deed can ever pass away. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 And ye, O Seraphs in the morn of time ! 
 Birds whose entrancing voices in the spring 
 Of primal Truth and Beauty, were the chime 
 Of heaven and earth ! still we may hear you sing. 
 No clang of hierarclial bells shall ring, 
 To drown your carol, in the airs that move 
 And stir the dawning age of Liberty and Love ! 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Light, light breaks on the century s farthest round ; 
 Light in the sky, light in the humblest home. 
 The unebbing tides of God, where errors drowned 
 Sink down to fathomless destruction, come 
 Swelling amain. Truth builds her eternal dome 
 Vast as the sky. Nations are linked in one. 
 Light, Love, henceforth shall reign forever and alone ! 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 IN a deep vale enclosed by mountains steep, 
 
 A still, green sheltered nook hid for away, 
 
 Where grand old forest-trees in shadowy sleep 
 
 Nodded above a stream that all the day 
 
 Rin rippling down o er sun-flecked rocks and stones, 
 
 And filled the air with murmuring undertones ; 
 
 Where from the sky the golden sun of June 
 
 Shed softened radiance through the stillest noon ; 
 
 And in the verdure of the oaks that spread 
 
 Their gnarled and mossy branches overhead, 
 
 The shy thrush trilled his liquid clarionet 
 
 Minute by minute, with his soul all set 
 
 To music in each gush of peerless tone, 
 
 While with a bubbling base the brook played on ; 
 
 Deep in that vale so dreamy, still, and cool, 
 
 A youth lay tranced, till visionary things 
 
 Seemed real, and his heart was over-full 
 
 Of thoughts and fancies and imaginings. 
 
24 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 And as he mused beside the flowing stream, 
 There came to him what seemed a waking dream. 
 Three radiant forms he saw before him stand, 
 Three woodland nymphs, perchance, he thought, who met 
 His wondering gaze, each with a beckoning hand, 
 While he, abashed, bewildered, stood. And yet 
 For so our dreams will mix our memories dim 
 Not all unknown their faces seemed to him. 
 And he was bound, as by a spell, to choose 
 One of the three to be his guiding muse. 
 
 So stood they beckoning, and yet stood apart, 
 As if a separate purpose each impelled ; 
 While a divided worship in his heart 
 In doubtful poise his soul and senses held. 
 
 " Strange, it was so in Ida s vale," he mused, 
 
 " The shepherd-prince, abashed, perplexed, confused, 
 
 Stood in the presence of the radiant Three, 
 
 To choose the goddess of his destiny. 
 
 So shone upon his soul like dawning skies 
 
 The electric splendor of Olympian eyes. 
 
 Somehow I seem to know these forms of light. 
 
 Somewhere they have lit my pathway, day and night. 
 
 If through this veil of dreams I could but hear 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 25 
 
 Their voices, my bewildered sense would clear. 
 
 And yet, alas ! I cannot give to each, 
 
 AYliile thus to me their wooing arms they reach, 
 
 The pledge of homage and fidelity, 
 
 The golden apple Nature gave to me." 
 
 Then one of them drew near. She held a lyre, 
 
 And with low strains the enchanted silence broke. 
 
 Her mystic tones diffused a subtle fire, 
 
 And in his soul sweet harmonies awoke. 
 
 Then in his hands she placed a golden lute, 
 
 And bade him touch its sympathetic chords. 
 
 No longer now he stood abashed and mute ; 
 
 But sang a prelude soft in simple Avords, 
 
 A lay of love and longing, till his song 
 
 Grew deeper, richer, blending with the strings ; 
 
 Then soaring as on swift expanded wings, 
 
 With gathered strength it ran through varying moods, 
 
 And echoed from the rocks and ran"; around the woods. 
 
 - 
 
 Then said the muse, " T is thus that I will dower 
 The soul that feels my all-pervading power. 
 This nest of winged harmonies shall give 
 Responses to each mood that he hath known, 
 And all the subtler shades of fueliim- live 
 
26 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 Perfected life, when wed to chord and tone. 
 Arid thou shalt know how tone embodies love, 
 As speech embodies thought, and haply reach 
 The large, creative power of those who move 
 The heart by music, superseding speech. 
 And thus would I enroll thee in the bands 
 Who dedicated youth and age to me 
 In costly strains that speak to all the lands 
 The language of the gods. Look np and see ! " 
 
 The youth looked up, and on the mountain height 
 He saw a group of forms enwreathed with light ; 
 While floated down such strains as never ear 
 Had dreamed of in our dim, discordant sphere. 
 
 Filled with the rapturous symphony 
 
 That from that orchestra divine 
 
 Came flowing like a spiritual wine 
 
 Into his soul, the youth in ecstasy, 
 
 As when a flower is bowed with morning dews, 
 
 Bent low before the muse. 
 
 " Spirit of Harmony divine," he said, 
 " Ah, worshipped from my boyhood s early hour ! 
 How oft, how long my footsteps have been led 
 Apart from men, by thy mysterious power ! 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 27 
 
 How oft the deep enchanted waves of tone 
 Have lured me with a rapture all too sweet ! 
 Thine were those tides, O fairest, thine alone, 
 That from the dull shore swept my willing feet. 
 Though my untutored hands but feebly ring 
 The imperfect chords, the themes I may not sing, 
 Yet fain would I thy humble votary be, 
 And find my muse, my guiding star, in thee ! " 
 
 But now a touch, as t were some earthly maiden, 
 
 Dissolved the trance with which his soul was laden. 
 
 Before him stood the second of the three ; 
 
 And on his ear these accents rang in free 
 
 And healthy measure, like the morning air. 
 
 " Dream not," she said, " these vague, seductive dreams. 
 
 I give thee choice of forms and colors rare, 
 
 Fair images of skies, of trees, of streams ; 
 
 All shapes of beauty and all forms of power ; 
 
 The themes that through the past and present shine ; 
 
 The varying lights that flash from hour to hour ; 
 
 Life, Nature, Spirit. Be the effort thine ; 
 
 The out-world wooes thee. Give thy utmost heart 
 
 To enrich the ever-growing realm of Art. 
 
 Be this thy love, thy toil, thy high ambition, 
 
 To tread the path of Raphael, Claude, and Titian. 
 
28 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 Here choose thy brothers, who in robes of light 
 Throng the green shades beneath yon woody height ! " 
 
 He looked, and saw a train as bright as those 
 
 Who just had vanished, grouped in grand repose : 
 
 Great, earnest brows, and loving, piercing eyes 
 
 Which saw the unveiled divinity that lies 
 
 In forms and faces and in trees and skies. 
 
 And as they passed, woods, rocks, and mountains took 
 
 A richer light and color. Then the brook 
 
 More silvery ran, the sky shone deeper blue, 
 
 The clouds were tinted with an opal hue. 
 
 The landscape glowed as if it gave its heart 
 
 To those who loved it through the soul of art. 
 
 " Go forth," the goddess said. " The earth is fair. 
 
 Where beauty smiles, the artist s work is there. 
 
 What nobler task than this, canst thou but stay 
 
 The fleeting splendors of a single day ! " 
 
 Thus while with breezy tones she spoke, 
 The youth stood rapt and listening. 
 The artist-fire, long smouldering, woke ; 
 And Avith a sudden spring 
 He seized his paints and pencils eagerly, 
 And bent before the muse a lowly knee. 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 29 
 
 " Alas ! and was I blind ? " he said, " and thou, 
 The charm of earth and air, wast here e en now ? 
 Thou, with all color and rare forms allied, 
 O t ie with all nature, thou wast by my side ! 
 And could I slight the presence that illumes 
 The eye-beams and the splendors of the world, 
 The mists of dawn, the depths of forest glooms, 
 The crimson clouds in western twilights furled, 
 The river, and the mountain, and the face 
 Of man and maid, and childhood s winning grace ? 
 Have I not known, queen, muse of art, 
 Thy service, all the joyous toil of those 
 Who give the flowering of their hope and heart 
 A sweet and yet so oft a thorn-clad rose . 
 To thee, as kneeling now I dare to touch 
 Thy garment s hem 
 
 E en then he felt approach 
 The third bright form. Taller and fairer she 
 Than the other two. A qucenlier majesty 
 Upon her brow. Around her all the air 
 Seemed touched with wandering odors sweet and rare, 
 Wafted from unseen nooks of eglantine. 
 She neither smiled nor frowned. She made no sign, 
 But only stood before him. Every grace 
 Of mingled, earth and heaven illumed her face 
 
30 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 And shaped her form. Upon her brow a star 
 
 Flamed, like the diamond planet of the dawn . 
 
 When night s cold coronets are all withdrawn 
 
 And scattered through her solitudes afar, 
 
 Flamed and streamed backward through her golden hair ; 
 
 And all the freshness of the summer morn 
 
 Breathed from her presence. Fairest of the fair 
 
 She stood, of all in bright Olympus born. 
 
 She spoke. But hardly had she moved her lips, 
 
 When in a gradual, yet not dark eclipse 
 
 Her sisters faded. Rather did it seem 
 
 Those muses three had mingled into one, 
 
 One form to whom all beauty tribute paid, 
 
 One bringer of an overpowering dream, 
 
 One central light all other lights obeyed. 
 
 And all that he had dreamed and felt and known, 
 
 And all that he could hear, imagine, see, 
 i Flushed in the Morning Star of Poesy. 
 
 She was a presence that did well comprise 
 ! The soul and essence of all other art ; 
 
 For all the world contains of sweetest, lies 
 
 Like an aroma hoarded in her heart. 
 
 Now all seemed music, all was magic hue, 
 
 All was unfettered joy and inspiration. 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 31 
 
 Now Beauty bathed the universe anew, 
 And kindled thought, and tired imagination. 
 Then rose the strong necessity to write, 
 As once to sing, to paiiit his fondest dream. 
 Flooded he stood as in the auroral light, 
 Or in the waves of some great flowing stream ; 
 While that one voice again and yet again 
 Came, earnest as a cry of joy or pain. 
 It called upon him as a trumpet calls 
 The laggard soldier to his spear and shield. 
 It seemed to sweep him as a leaf that falls 
 Whirls in the autumn blast across the field. 
 It pressed upon him as the truth sublime 
 Lay on the prophets of the olden time, 
 The soul within the soul, the hidden life, 
 The fount of dreams, the vision and the strife 
 Of thoughts that seized on every other force, 
 And turned it to their own resistless course. 
 
 For the muse spake with words that came 
 Leaping into his heart like flame : 
 
 " Why should I show to thee here 
 Shadows of poet and seer, 
 
32 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 Bards of the olden time, 
 
 Singers of lofty rhyme ? 
 
 Beauty and truth are the same 
 
 Now as of old, and the flame 
 
 Of the morning on Homer s brow 
 
 Is a flame of the morning now. 
 
 The poets sit ever apart, 
 
 With heaven and earth in their heart, 
 
 One truth, and unnumbered hints ; 
 
 One light, and a thousand tints ; 
 
 Ages of speech and of tone, 
 
 One mystical voice alone. 
 
 " When the bard utters his own, 
 Rivals and peers there are none. 
 His life is the life of the All. 
 
 His dreams are of air and of fire ; 
 To the depths of all nature they call 
 
 In the thirst of their soaring desire. 
 And ever by day and by night 
 The arrows of thought s delight, 
 Feathered with musical words, 
 
 Barbed with the adamant truth, 
 Fly gentle and swift as the winging of birds 
 
 To the bosom of beauty and youth." 
 
THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 And still she spoke ; and still he listened there, 
 And felt the ambrosial breathing fan his hair ; 
 And still his soul rose brimming to her eyes, 
 As swells the sea beneath the moonlit skies. 
 
 " Foremost of seers and strong creators he 
 
 Who steeps life, nature, heaven, in poesy. 
 
 He is no athlete trained to win a prize 
 
 In an arena thronged with vulgar eyes ; 
 
 No juggler with his tricks of tinselled phrase, 
 
 Cheap bubbles blown to catch ephemeral praise. 
 
 No lawless passion and no trivial aim 
 
 Shall dim his vision clear, or damp his flame. 
 
 Strong be his faith, and pure as it is strong, 
 
 The heart-throb pulsing through the poet s song. 
 
 T is his to read the sunshine and the storms, 
 
 The mystic alphabet of natural forms, 
 
 The deeper lore of dreams and heart and brain, 
 
 The heights, the depths, the glory and the pain. 
 
 " The muse who leads the poet guides the spheres. 
 One orbit serves for both. He cannot stoop 
 To palter to unsympathetic ears. 
 His wings must never droop. 
 Buoyed by a wind that blows beyond the stars, 
 Lit by a sun that never fades or sets, 
 
34 THE THREE MUSES. 
 
 He comes to proffer through fate s prison-bars 
 
 The soul s strong amulets. 
 To press the wine of life from bitter hours ; 
 To open doors where morning never streamed ; 
 To find in common fields that rarest flowers 
 
 Are nearer than we dreamed ; 
 To intone the music of the deepest heart 
 Through all the changing chords of joy and pain, 
 Where canst thou track a loftier flight of Art ? 
 
 Where seek diviner gain ? " 
 
 She ceased, yet seemed to speak. The youth 
 Still heard that voice of love and truth ; 
 And all his soul stood over-flushed, 
 Arid every clamorous impulse hushed. 
 
 Then, reverent, before her face 
 
 He half upraised his downcast eyes, 
 
 His heart all glowing in the light and grace 
 
 That matched her radiance with the unsaddcncd skies. 
 
 " Thou Presence dear and great ! " he cried ; 
 
 " Thou wast the earliest at my side. 
 
 Thou on the topmost golden stair of art 
 
 With thrilling voice dost stand and call to me. 
 
 O fairest goddess, I must give my heart, 
 
 My spirit, and my life to none but thee ! " 
 
THE SHADOWED RIVER. 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A. J. DOWNING. 
 
 IN the clear September moonlight 
 Dark the eastern mountains rise, 
 
 And the river ealm as ever 
 One broad lake of silver lies. 
 
 Like a frame, the leafy garden 
 Clasps the dreamy picture round, 
 
 And I gaze for hours upon it, 
 By the spell of beauty bound. 
 
 O er the water s burnished mirror 
 Darkly glide the shadowed ships ; 
 
 So the glowing past is shaded 
 
 By our sorrowing thoughts eclipse. 
 
 Bright, broad River ! flow forever 
 In the moonlight to the sea ; 
 
36 THE SHADOWED RIVER. 
 
 But those joyous days thou never, 
 Never canst bring back to me. 
 
 See, the frame the leafy garden 
 Arches round the pictured scene, 
 
 Like a cypress wreath is growing 
 Dark, too dark for this, I ween. 
 
 He who wreathed the lovely landscape 
 With these green and shady bowers, 
 
 Taken from us, went forever 
 
 With his fleeting garden flowers. 
 
 And the lawn beneath the linden, 
 And the shrubs and vines so green, 
 
 And the fragrant beds of roses, 
 And the winding paths between, 
 
 And the house in beauty bowered, 
 Bare in beauty of its own, 
 
 Ne er again may hear the music 
 Of those days forever flown ; 
 
 Ne er again shall hear the laughter 
 
 Of the joyous company 
 Whom the festal days of summer 
 
 Crowned with mirth and melody. 
 
THE SHADOWED RIVER. 
 
 Silent River, sadly flowing ! 
 
 Shadowed sails like thoughts of pain 
 Slowly cross thy gleaming silver, 
 
 But they catch the light again. 
 
 Darkly bend the mountains o er thee, 
 Dim and dusky in the night, 
 
 But their summits woo the moonbeams, 
 And are touched with heavenly light, 
 
 Life is rich, and nature lavish ; 
 
 Providence is large as Fate : 
 Many a joy they hide in secret 
 
 For the lone and desolate. 
 
 After sunset clouds of crimson ; 
 
 After twilight comes the moon ; 
 After moon-set still the starlight ; 
 
 Still the morning s daily boon. 
 
 And the cloud that lowers the darkest 
 Holds the blessing of the rain ; 
 
 And the grief that stuns the deepest 
 Hath another touch than pain. 
 
 NEWBURGH ox THE HUDSON, September, 1852. 
 
NOVEMBER TREES. 
 
 JuET poets sing of their leafy trees 
 
 When the tides of summer fancies swell 
 And rock their thoughts, as a tropic breeze 
 
 Eocks the bee in a lily s bell ; 
 But give me a harp whose ring is sharp, 
 
 Tuned for November melodies, 
 That I may roam the bleak hills alone 
 
 And sing of the gray and leafless trees. 
 
 Their boughs are bare in the twilight dark, 
 Cold and bare when the moon is high, 
 
 Like the cordage and masts of a stranded bark 
 That warp and freeze in a polar sky. 
 
 There is never a leaf the sky-born thief 
 Did not hurry awav ere its color was one. 
 
 t- / 
 
 But the boughs, though bare, to me are as fair 
 As the naked forms of the Parthenon. 
 
NOVEMBER TREES. 3D 
 
 Where the branches part in the dusky wood 
 
 The golden mist of the sunset streams ; 
 And tracts of starlit solitude 
 
 Glimmer at night on a world of dreams. 
 The wind is chill on the rugged hill, 
 
 And the early snow is gathering ; 
 But the winter is naught, for the boughs arc fraught 
 
 With the flow of sap and the hope of spring. 
 
 O patriots whom the tyrant s hate 
 
 O ershadows like the winter drear, 
 While like the patient trees ye wait, 
 
 Freedom, the nation s spring, is near. 
 Never despair, though the darkening air 
 
 Sweep all your summer leaves away ; 
 The Avind may rifle your branches bare, 
 
 Your leaves will burst anew in May ! 
 
 1852. 
 
THE FLOWER AND THE BEE. 
 
 JLOVE me as the flower loves the bee. 
 Ask no monopoly of sympathy. 
 
 I must flit by, 
 
 Nor stay to heave too deep a sigh, 
 Nor dive too deep into thy charms. 
 Untwine thy prisoning arms ; 
 
 Let the truth-garnering bee 
 
 Pass ever free ! 
 
 Yield all the tliymy fragrance I can draw 
 
 From out thy soul s rich sweetness. Not forever 
 Can lovers sec one truth, obey one law, 
 
 Though they spend long endeavor. 
 Give me thy blossoming heart ; 
 I can but take thereof that part 
 Which grand Economy 
 Permitteth me to see. 
 
THE FLOWER AND THE BEE. 41 
 
 Friendship and love may last in name, 
 
 As lamps outlive their flame ; 
 An earthly tie may bind our hands ; 
 
 The spirit snaps the bands. 
 If Nature made us different, 
 Our compliments in vain are spent ; 
 But if alike, ah, then I rest in thee 
 As in the flower s full heart the sated bee. 
 
 1852. 
 
THE CATAKACT ISLE. 
 
 I WANDEKED through the ancient wood 
 
 That crowns the cataract isle. 
 I heard the roaring of the flood 
 
 And saw its wild, fierce smile. 
 
 Through tall tree-tops the sunshine flecked 
 The huge trunks and the ground, 
 
 And the pomp of fullest summer decked 
 The island all around. 
 
 And winding paths led all along 
 Where friends and lovers strayed, 
 
 And voices rose with laugh and song 
 From sheltered nooks of shade. 
 
 Through opening forest vistas whirled 
 
 The rapids foamy flash, 
 As they boiled along and plunged and swirled. 
 
 And neared the last long dash. 
 
THE CATARACT ISLE. 43 
 
 I crept to the island s outer verge, 
 Where the grand, broad river fell, 
 
 Fell sheer down mid foam and surge 
 In a white and blinding hell. 
 
 The steady rainbow gayly shone 
 
 Above the precipice, 
 And the deep low tone of a thunder groan 
 
 Kolled up from the drear abyss. 
 
 And all the day sprang up the spray 
 
 Where the broad white sheets were poured, 
 
 And fell around in showery play, 
 Or upward curled and soared. 
 
 And all the night those sheets of white 
 Gleamed through the spectral mist, 
 
 When o er the isle the broad moonlight 
 The wintry foam-flakes kissed. 
 
 Mirrored within my dreamy thought, 
 
 I see it, feel it all, 
 That island with sweet visions fraught, 
 
 That awful waterfall. 
 
44 THE CATARACT ISLE. 
 
 With simflecked trees, and birds and flowers, 
 
 The Isle of Life is fair ; 
 But one deep voice thrills through its hours, 
 
 One spectral form is there, 
 
 A power no mortal can resist, 
 
 Boiling forever on, 
 A floating cloud, a shadowy mist, 
 
 Eternal undertone. 
 
 And through the sunny vistas gleam 
 
 The fate, the solemn smile. 
 Life is Niagara s rushing stream ; 
 
 Its dreams that peaceful isle ! 
 
 September, 1853. 
 
IN THE GARDEN, 
 
 WlTH rose and orange scents this place was laden ; 
 
 The summer air was quivering thick with birds. 
 In these cool garden walks I met the maiden 
 
 Whose beauty robs her praisers tongues of words. 
 
 A crimson rose was in her hand. She held it 
 Close to my lips, in truth, a flower divine ; 
 
 But I looked in her eyes and scarcely smelled it, 
 But took the flower and hand in both of mine. 
 
 These are the shades where arm in arm for hours 
 
 We walked, brief hours of throbbing pain and bliss. 
 
 Here drank love s bitter-sweet, deep hid in flowers ; 
 Here gave and took our last despairing kiss. 
 
 And where is she, the fair light-footed comer ? 
 
 I pace these lonely garden walks in vain. 
 O long-lost joy ! Rose of love and summer ! 
 
 That day ye bloomed will never come again ! 
 
IN THE PINE WOODS. 
 
 JJlM distances that open through the pines, 
 Blue misty mountains sleeping in the west : 
 
 Beneath the tall tree-trunks I watch your lines 
 Waving beyond the. field s unshadowed breast. 
 
 Amid the pine-tops sighs the wandering air, 
 The locust s trill swells dying on the breeze, 
 
 The cloudless August noon to me doth wear 
 The sadness of life s distant melodies. 
 
 BetAveen me and the far horizon stream 
 The viewless spirits of the days long gone. 
 
 I see the landscape as from out a dream ; 
 
 I hear the wind s sigh as if twere my own. 
 
LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE, 
 
 I TO-NIGHT was at a party 
 
 Given by the fair Astarte. 
 
 Star-like eyes danced twinkling round me ; 
 
 Cold they left me, as they found me. 
 
 One bright vision, one face only, 
 
 Made me happy and yet lonely. 
 
 It was hers to whom is given 
 
 Eule by night, the queen of heaven. 
 
 " Ah, how fair she is !" I muttered, 
 
 Like a night-moth as I fluttered 
 
 Round her light, but dared not enter 
 
 That intensely radiant centre, 
 
 Whence she filled the clouds about her, 
 
 Whence she lit the very outer 
 
 Darkness, and the ocean hoary 
 
 With her floods of golden glory. 
 
 Some one, then, as I stood gazing, 
 Filled too full of her for praising, 
 
48 LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE. 
 
 Of the old time vaguely dreaming, 
 When she took a mortal seeming ; 
 When the shepherd sprang to meet her, 
 And he felt a kiss, ah, sweeter 
 Than e er lips of mortal maiden 
 Gave her lover passion-laden, 
 Some one with a sneer ascetic 
 Broke in on my dream poetic. 
 " I see more," he said, "than you, sir; 
 Would you like a nearer view, sir ? " 
 And with that, politely handing 
 A lorgnette, he left me standing, 
 In her face directly gazing ; 
 And I saw a sight amazing. 
 Ah, these dreadful magnifiers 
 Kill the life of our desires. 
 Shall I tell you what I saw then ? 
 All of you around me draw then. 
 
 Can she be as once I thought her, 
 Phoebus sister, Jove s fair daughter? 
 Whom the night-flowers turn to gaze on, 
 Whom the sleeping streams emblazon : 
 Lover s planet, lamp of heaven, 
 Goddess to whom power is given 
 
LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE. 4 ( J 
 
 Over tides and rolling oceans, 
 Over all the heart s emotions ! 
 
 Ah, farewell, my boyish fancies ! 
 
 Farewell, all my young romances ! 
 
 As that orb that shone Elysian 
 
 On my young poetic vision, 
 
 As that crescent boat which lightly 
 
 Tilted o er the cloud-rack nightly, 
 
 I again can see her never, 
 
 Though I use my best endeavor. 
 
 On me once her charms she sprinkled, 
 
 Now her face is old and wrinkled. 
 
 As Diana chaste and tender, 
 
 Can I now as once defend her ? 
 
 She is full of histories olden 
 
 Wrapped up in her bosom golden. 
 
 Sorceress of strange beguiling, 
 
 Thousands perished by her smiling, 
 
 Girls kept waking, old men saddened, 
 
 Lovers lost, and poets maddened. 
 
 Now the well-armed eye of Science 
 
 Bids her magic spells defiance ; 
 
 Moonstruck brains by moonlight haunted 
 
 Telescopes have disenchanted. 
 
50 LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE. 
 
 Talk not of the brow of Dian. 
 Gentle bards, you may rely on 
 What I ve seen to-night ; t is clearly 
 Known the moon s constructed qucerly, 
 Pull of wrinkles, warts, and freckles, 
 Gilded cracks and spots and speckles ; 
 As if in wandering through the void, 
 Her face were marked with varioloid. 
 Then her cheeks and eyes so hollow, 
 That I in sure the bright Apollo 
 Ne er would know her for his sister, 
 Nor Endymion have kissed her. 
 
 Nay, good Moon, I in loath to slander 
 Thy mysterious beauty yonder ; 
 Bather as I gaze upon thce, 
 Truer lines be written on thee. 
 Take away your telescope, sir ; 
 Let me still, as ever, hope, sir. 
 Ill does it become a lover 
 All the bare truth to discover. 
 Keach me, friends, a brimming beaker ; 
 Wine shall make my vision weaker. 
 Songs of olden days come sing me, 
 Charms that cheat the senses bring me. 
 
LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE. 51 
 
 Nay, I have a sweet suspicion 
 
 It was a distorted vision. 
 
 What I saw that looked so quecrly, 
 
 Was exaggeration merely. 
 
 Things remote by law of nature 
 
 Should be kept within their stature. 
 
 Telescopic eyes are clever 
 
 Things to own ; but use them never ! 
 
 So, fair Moon, again I in dreaming 
 On thy face above me beaming ! 
 Orb of beauty, mid star-clusters 
 Hanging heavy with thy lustres ; 
 Saturated with the sun-fire, 
 Which thou turnest into moon-fire, 
 Baying from thy fields and mountains, 
 Silvering earth s rejoicing fountains, 
 Crystal vase with light o er-brimming ; 
 Eye of night with love-tears swimming ; 
 Heaven s left heart, in music beating 
 Through the cloud robes round thee fleeting ; 
 Cheering all within, without thee, 
 Even the wind-chased mists about thee, 
 Though I mocked thy face mysterious, 
 I have grown more sage and serious. 
 
LUNA THROUGH A LORGNETTE. 
 
 Cold astronomers may show tliee 
 
 Rough in feature, fair I know tliee ! 
 
 At thy critics thou art laughing, 
 
 Spite of all their photographing, 
 
 In their rig-id prose detailing 
 
 Every spot and every failing. 
 
 I will be thy enamored poet, 
 
 Though my friends may smile to know it 
 
 For my dreams do scorn alliance 
 
 With these prying thieves of science. 
 
IN THE PALAIS ROYAL GARDEN. 
 
 IN the Palais Royal Garden I stood listening to-day, 
 Just at sunset, in the crowd that flaunted up and down 
 
 so gay 
 As the strains of " Casta Diva " rose and fell and died 
 
 away. 
 
 Lonely in the crowd of French I stood and listened to 
 
 the strain, 
 And the breath of happier hours came blowing from the 
 
 past again ; 
 But the music brought a pleasure that was near akin to 
 
 pain. 
 
 Italy, dear Italy, came back, with all her orange flowers, 
 With her sapphire skies and ocean, with her shrines and 
 
 crumbling towers, 
 And her dark-eyed women sitting under their vine-shaded 
 
 bowers. 
 
54 IN THE PALAIS ROYAL GARDEN. 
 
 And the rich and brilliant concerts in my own far distant 
 
 land, 
 Where the world-renowned singers, circled by the orchestral 
 
 band 
 Poured their music on the crowds like costly wine upon 
 
 the sand. 
 
 All the aroma of the best and brightest hours of love and 
 
 song 
 Mingled with the yearning music, floated to me o er the 
 
 throng. 
 But it died as died the sunset. Ah, it could not linger 
 
 long ! 
 
 Through the streets the carriages are rolling with a heavy 
 
 jar, 
 Feebly o er the staring gas-lamps glimmers here and there 
 
 a star. 
 Night looks down through narrow spaces ; men are near, 
 
 the skies are far. 
 
 Far too are my friends, the cherished, north and south 
 
 and o er the sea. 
 
 And to-night I pant for music and for life that cannot be, 
 For the foreign city s crowd is naught but solitude to me. 
 
 PARIS, August, 1854. 
 
CORNUCOPIA. 
 
 TlIERE s a lodger lives on the first floor ; 
 
 (My lodgings are up in the garret ;) 
 At night and at morn he taketh a horn, 
 
 And calleth his neighbors to share it, 
 A horn so long and a horn so strong, 
 
 I wonder how they can bear it. 
 
 I don t mean to say that he drinks, 
 
 I might be indicted for scandal. 
 But every one knows it, he night and day blows it, 
 
 (I wish he d blow out like a candle !) 
 His horn is so long, and he blows it so strong, 
 
 lie would make Handel fly off the handle. 
 
 By taking a horn I don t hint 
 
 That he swigs either rum, gin, or whiskey. 
 
56 CORNUCOPIA. 
 
 It s we, I am thinking, condemned to be drinking 
 
 His strains that attempt to be frisky, 
 But are grievously sad. A donkey, I add, 
 
 Is as musical, braying in Jus key. 
 
 It s a puzzle to know what he s at. 
 
 I could pity him if it were madness. 
 I never yet knew him to play a tune through ; 
 
 And it gives me more anger than sadness 
 To hear his horn stutter and stammer in utter 
 
 Confusion of musical badness. 
 
 At his wide-open window he stands, 
 
 Overlooking his bit of a garden. 
 One can see the great ass at one end of his brass 
 
 Blaring out, never asking your pardon. 
 Our nerves though he shatter, to him it s no matter, 
 
 As long as his tympanums harden. 
 
 He thinks, I ve no doubt, it is sweet, 
 
 While time, tune, and breath are all straying. 
 
 The little house- sparrows feel all through their marrows 
 The jar and the fuss of his playing;. 
 
 The windows are shaking, the babies are waking, 
 The very dogs howling and baying. 
 
CORNUCOPIA. 57 
 
 One note out of twenty he hits ; 
 
 Blows all liis pianos like fo rtcs. 
 His time is his own. He goes sounding alone, 
 
 A sort of Columbus or Cortes, 
 O.i a perilous ocean, without any notion 
 
 Whereabouts in the dim deep his port is. 
 
 If he gets to his haven at last, 
 
 He must needs be a desperate swimmer. 
 Ho has plenty of wind, but no compass, I find ; 
 
 And being a veteran trimmer, 
 Ho veers and he tacks, and returns on his tracks ; 
 
 And his prospects grow dimmer and dimmer. 
 
 Like a man late from club, he has lost 
 
 His key, and around stumbles, moping, 
 Touching this, trying that, now a sharp, now a flat, 
 
 Till he strikes on the note he is hoping ; 
 And a terrible blare at the end of his air 
 
 Shows he s got through at last with his groping. 
 
 There, he s finished, at least for a while ; 
 
 He is tired, or come to his senses ; 
 And out of his horn shakes the drops that were borne 
 
 By the winds of his musical frenzies. 
 
58 CORNUCOPIA. 
 
 There s a rest, thank our stars ! of ninety-nine bars, 
 Ere the tempest of sound recommences. 
 
 When all the bad players are sent 
 
 Where all the false notes are protested, 
 
 I m sure that Old Nick will there play him a trick, 
 When his bad trump and he are arrested ; 
 
 And down in the regions of discord s mad legions 
 His head with two French horns be crested ! 
 
 PARIS, August, 1856. 
 
A FRIEND, 
 
 A FRIEND ! it seems a simple boon to crave, 
 
 An easy tiling to have ; 
 Yet our world dift ers somewhat from the days 
 
 Of the romancer s lays. 
 A friend ? why, all are friends in Christian lands. 
 
 We smile and clasp the hands 
 With merry fellows o er cigars and wine ; 
 
 We breakfast, walk, and dine 
 With social men and women. Yes, we are friends ; 
 
 And there the music ends ! 
 No close heart-heats, a cool, sweet ice-cream feast ; 
 
 Mild thaws, to say the least ; 
 The faint slant smile of winter afternoons ; 
 
 The inconstant moods of moons 
 Sometimes too late, sometimes too early rising, 
 
 But for a night sufficing ; 
 
60 A FRIEND. 
 
 Showing a half-face, clouded, shy, and null ; 
 
 Once in a month at full ; 
 Lending to-night what from the sun they borrow ; 
 
 Quenched in his light to-morrow. 
 If thou rt my friend, show me the life that sleeps. 
 
 Down in thy spirit s deeps ; 
 Give all thy heart, the thought within thy thought. 
 
 Nay, I ve already caught 
 Its meaning in thine eyes, thy tones. What need 
 
 Of words ? Flowers keep their seed. 
 I love thee ere thou tellest me " I love." 
 
 We both are raised above 
 The ball-room puppets with their one-typed faces, 
 
 Chatting stale commonplaces, 
 Or aiming to express a lifeless thought 
 
 In tinselled phrase, worth naught ; 
 Or, at the best, throwing a passing spark 
 
 Like fireflies in the dark, 
 Not the continuous lamplight of the soul, 
 
 Which, though the seasons roll 
 Without, on tides of ever- varying winds, 
 
 The watcher never finds 
 nickering in draughts, or dim for lack of oil. 
 
 There is a clime, a soil 
 
A FRIEND. Gl 
 
 Where loves spring up twin-stemmed from mere chance 
 seed 
 
 Dropped by a Avord, a deed. 
 As travellers toiling through the Alpine snow 
 
 See Italy below ; 
 Down glacier slopes and craggy cliff s and pines 
 
 Descend upon the vines, 
 And meet the welcoming South who half-way up 
 
 Lifts her overbrimming cup, 
 So, blest is he, from peaks of human ice 
 
 Lit on this paradise ; 
 Who mid the jar of tongues hears music sweet ; 
 
 Who in some foreign street 
 Thronged with cold eyes, catches a hand, a glance 
 
 That deifies his chance, 
 That turns the dreary city to a home, 
 
 The blank hotel to a dome 
 Of splendor, while the unsympathizing crowd 
 
 Seems with his light endowed. 
 Many there be who call themselves our friends ; 
 
 Yet ah ! if Heaven but sends 
 One, only one, so mated to our soul, 
 
 To make our half a whole, 
 Rich beyond price are we. The millionriaire 
 
 Without such boon is bare, 
 
62 A FRIEND. 
 
 Bare to the skin, a gilded tavern-sign 
 Creaking with fitful whine 
 
 Beneath chill winds, with none to look at him 
 Save as a label grim 
 
 To the good cheer and company within 
 His comfortable inn. 
 
THE AUTUMN EAIN. 
 
 i. 
 
 ItOOF and spire and darkened vane 
 
 Steep and soak in the night-long rain 
 
 That drips through the barns on the golden grain 
 
 And a drowning mist sweeps over the plain, 
 
 And spatters with mud the rutted lane 
 
 And the dead flower- stalks that bud not again. 
 
 II. 
 
 Wind-driven drops of the autumn rain, 
 
 Beat, beat on the window-pane ! 
 
 Beat, beat, sorrowful rain ! 
 
 Drive through the night o er the desolate plain ! 
 
 Beat and sob to the old refrain, 
 
 And weep for the years that come not again. 
 
THE AUTUMN RAIN. 
 
 III. 
 
 Years, with your mingling of joy and of pain, 
 Joys long forgotten, and cares that remain ; 
 Hopes lying stranded and choked in the drain 
 Of the down-rushing river of fate, I would fain 
 Sigh with the night- wind and weep with the rain, 
 For ye come not again ! ye come not again ! 
 
 1855. 
 
SPIEITS IN PRISON. 
 
 YE who, prisoned in these festive rooms, 
 Lean at the windows for a breath of air, 
 
 Staring upon the darkness that o erglooms 
 The heavens, and waiting for the stars to bare 
 
 Their glittering glories veiled all night in cloud, 
 I know ye scorn the gas-lights and the feast. 
 
 1 saw you leave the music and the crowd, 
 And turn unto the casements opening east. 
 
 I heard you sigh, " When will the dawn s dull ashes 
 
 Kindle their fires behind yon fir-fringed height ? 
 When will the prophet clouds with golden flashes 
 
 Unroll their mystic scrolls of crimson light ? " 
 Fain would I come and sit beside you here, 
 
 And, silent, press your hands, and with you lean 
 Into the night-air, mingling hope and fear 
 
 With vain regrets for days that might have been. 
 
66 SPIRITS IN PRISON. 
 
 Arc we not brothers ? In the throng that fills 
 
 These strange, enchanted rooms, we met. One look 
 Told that we knew each other. Sudden thrills, 
 
 As of two lovers reading the same book, 
 Ban through our hurried grasp. But when we turned, 
 
 The scene around was smitten with a change ; 
 The lamps with lurid torchlight flared and burned : 
 
 And through the wreaths and flowers mockery 
 
 strange ! 
 The prison walls with ghastly horror frowned. 
 
 Scarce hidden by vine-leaves and clusters thick, 
 A grim, cold iron grating closed around. 
 
 Then from our silken couches leaping quick, 
 We hurried past the dancers and the sights, 
 
 Nor heeded the entrancing music then, 
 Nor the fair women scattering soft delights 
 
 In flower-like flush of dress, nor paused till when, 
 Leaning against our prison-bars, we gazed 
 
 Into the dark, and wondered where we were. 
 Speak to me, brothers ! for ye stand amazed. 
 
 I come your secret burden here to share. 
 
 I know not this mysterious land around, 
 
 Nor what those shapes may be that loom obscure. 
 
SPIRITS IN PRISON. 67 
 
 Odors of gardens and of woods profound 
 
 Blow in from out the darkness, fresh and pure. 
 
 Faint sounds of friendly voices come and go, 
 That seem to lure us forth into the air. 
 
 But whence they come perchance no ear may know, 
 And where they go perchance no foot may dare I 
 
 A realm of shadowy forms out yonder lies ; 
 
 Beauty and Power, fair dreams pursued by Fate, 
 Wheel in unceasing vortex, and the skies 
 
 Flash with strange lights that bear no name or date. 
 Sweet winds are breathing that just fan the hair, 
 
 And fitful gusts that howl against our bars, 
 And harp -like songs, and groans of wild despair, 
 
 And angry clouds that chase the trembling stars. 
 And on the iron grating the hot cheek 
 
 We press, and forth into the night we call, 
 And thrust our arms, that, manacled and weak, 
 
 Clutch but the empty air, arid powerless fall. 
 
 And yet, O brothers, we who cannot share 
 This life of lies, this stifling day in night, 
 
 Know we not well that if we did but dare 
 
 Break from our cell, and trust our manhood s might, 
 
 When once our feet shoufd venture on these wilds, 
 The night would prove a still sweet solitude, 
 
68 SPIRITS IN PRISON. 
 
 Not dark for eyes that, earnest as a child s, 
 
 Strove in the chaos but for truth and good ? 
 And O, sweet liberty though wizard gleams 
 
 And elfin shapes should frighten or allure 
 To find the pathway of our hopes and dreams ; 
 
 By toil to sweeten what we might endure ; 
 To journey on, though but a little way, 
 
 Towards the morning and the fir-clad heights ; 
 To follow the sweet voices, till the day 
 
 Bloomed in its flush of colors and of lights ; 
 To look back on the valley and the prison, 
 
 These windows smouldering still with midnight fires, 
 And know the joy and triumph to have risen 
 
 Out of that falsehood into new desires ! 
 O friends ! it may be hard our chains to burst, 
 
 To scale the ramparts, pass the sentinels. 
 Dark is the night ; but we are not the first 
 
 Who break from the enchanter s evil spells. 
 Though they pursue us with their scofl s, their darts, 
 
 Though they allure us with their siren song, 
 Trust we alone the Light within our hearts. 
 
 Forth to the air ! Freedom will dawn erelong ! 
 
 PARIS, 1858. 
 
BLONDEL, 
 
 AT the castle s outer door 
 Stood Blondel the Troubadour. 
 Up the marble stairs the crowd, 
 Pressing, talked and laughed aloud. 
 Upward with the throng he went ; 
 With a heart of discontent 
 Tuned his sullen instrument, 
 Tried to sing of mirth and jest 
 As the knights around him pressed ; 
 But across his heart a pang 
 Struck him wordless ere he sang. 
 
 Then the guests and vassals roared, 
 Sitting round the oaken board : 
 " If thou canst not wake our mirth, 
 Touch some softer rhyme of earth. 
 Sing of knights in ladies bowers, 
 Twine a lay of love and flowers ! " 
 
70 BLONDEL. 
 
 " Can I sing of love ? " he said, 
 And a moment bowed Iris head ; 
 Then looked upward, out of space, 
 With a strange light in his face. 
 
 Said Blondel the Troubadour, 
 " When I hear the battle roar, 
 And the trumpet tones of war, 
 Can I tinkle my guitar ? " 
 
 "But the war is o er," said all; 
 " Silent now the bugle s call, 
 Love should be the warrior s dream, 
 Love alone the minstrel s theme. 
 Sing us Rose-Leaves on a Stream." 
 
 Said Blondel : " Not rose-leaves now ; 
 Leafless thorns befit the brow. 
 In this crowd my voice is weak, 
 But ye force me now to speak. 
 Know ye not King Kit-hard groans 
 Chained neath Austria s dungeon stones ? 
 What care I to sing of aught 
 Save what presses on my thought ? 
 Over laughter, song, and shout 
 From these windows swelling out, 
 
BLONDEL. 71 
 
 Over passion s tender words 
 Intonating through the chords, 
 Kings the prisoned monarch s lay 
 Through and through me night and day. 
 And the only strain I know 
 Haunts my brain where er I go, 
 Trumpet tones that ring and ring 
 Till I see my Richard king. 
 
 " Gallants, hear my song of love, 
 Deeper tones than courtiers move. 
 Hear my royal captain s sigh, 
 England, Home, and Liberty ! " 
 
 Then he struck his lute and sang 
 Till the shields and lances rang : 
 How for Christ and Holy Land 
 Fought the Lion Heart and Hand ; 
 How the craft of Leopold 
 Trapped him in a castle old ; 
 How one balmy morn in May, 
 Singing to beguile the day 
 In his tower, the minstrel heard 
 Every note and every word ; 
 How he answered back the song, 
 
BLONDEL. 
 
 " Let thy hope, my king, be strong ; 
 We will bring thee help erelong ! " 
 
 Still he sang, " Who goes with me ? 
 Who is it wills King Richard free ? 
 He who bravely toils and dares, 
 Pain and danger with me shares ; 
 He whose heart is true and warm, 
 Though the night perplex with storm 
 Forest, plain, and dark morass, 
 Hanging rock and mountain pass, 
 And the thunder bursts ablaze, 
 He is the lover that I praise ! " 
 
 As the minstrel left the hall, 
 Silent, sorrowing, sat they all. 
 Well they knew his banner sign, 
 The Lion Heart of Palestine. 
 Like a flame the song had swept 
 O er them. Then the warriors leapt 
 Up from the feast with one accord, 
 Pledged around their knightly word. 
 From the old castle s windows rang 
 The last verse the minstrel sang, 
 Then from out the castle door 
 They followed the brave Troubadour. 
 
THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW, 
 
 i. 
 A POET came singing along the vale : 
 
 " Ah, well-a-day for the dear old days ! 
 They come no more as they did of yore, 
 By the flowing River of Aise." 
 
 He piped through the meadow, he sang through the grove 
 
 "Ah, well-a-day for the good old days ! 
 They have all gone by, and I sit and sigh 
 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
 " Knights and ladies, and shields and swords, 
 
 Ah, well-a-day for the grand old days ! 
 Castles and moats, and the bright steel coats, 
 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 4 
 
74 THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. 
 
 " The lances are shivered, the helmets rust ; 
 
 Ah, well-a-day for the stern old days ! 
 And the clarion s blast has rung its last 
 
 By the flowing Eiver of Aise. 
 
 " For the warriors who swept to glory and death, 
 Ah, well-a-day for the "brave old days ! 
 
 They have fought and have gone, and I sit here alone 
 By the flowing Eiver of Aise. 
 
 " The queens of beauty whose smile was life, 
 Ah, well-a-day for the rare old days ! 
 
 With love and despair in their golden hair, 
 By the flowing Eiver of Aise, 
 
 " They have flitted away from hall and bower ; 
 
 Ah, well-a-day for the rich old days ! 
 Like the sun they shone, like the sun they have gone, 
 
 By the flowing Eiver of Aise. 
 
 " And buried beneath the pall of the past, 
 Ah, well-a-day for the proud old days ! 
 
 Lie valor and worth, and the beauty of earth, 
 By the flowing Eiver of Aise. 
 
THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. /5 
 
 " And I sit and sigh l)y the idle stream ; 
 
 Ah, well-a-day for the bright old days ! 
 For naught remains for the poet s strains 
 
 But the flowing River of Aisc." 
 
 n. 
 
 Then a voice sang out from the oak overhead : 
 " Why well-a-day for the grand old days ? 
 
 The world is the same, if the bard has an aim, 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
 " There s beauty and love, and truth and power. 
 
 Cease well-a-day for the old, old days ! 
 The humblest home is worth Greece and Rome, 
 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
 " There arc themes enough for the poet s strains. 
 
 Leave well-a-day for the quaint old days ! 
 Take thine eyes from the ground ; look up and around, 
 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
 "To-day is as grand as the centuries past; 
 
 Leave well-a-day for the famed old days ! 
 There are wrongs to right, there are battles to fight, 
 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
76 -THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW. 
 
 " There are hearts as true to love, to strive : 
 No well-a-day for the dark old days ! 
 
 Go put into type the age that is ripe, 
 By the flowing River of Aise." 
 
 Then the merry poet sang down the vale, 
 " Farewell, farewell to the dead old days ! " 
 
 By day and by night, there is music and light 
 By the flowing River of Aise. 
 
WHY 
 
 i. 
 
 I HE old and melancholy truth 
 Still haunts the hours of age and youth. 
 The world s great problem on our dreams 
 Falls freezing like the ice on streams. 
 The vision sweet, the bitter fact ; 
 The promise large, the meagre act ; 
 The glorious hope, the sigh of pain, 
 Like wave on wave, with old refrain 
 Sound on, again and yet again. 
 
 wise philosopher ! too well 
 Upon our ears your reasoning fell ; 
 Too easily the doors you ope 
 That lead into our boundless hope. 
 The road to light is not so cheap ; 
 The hills are rough, the vales are steep. 
 
78 AVI1Y? 
 
 You see not that within each breast 
 Is rooted deep the great Unrest, 
 The god within a prison pent, 
 That may not yield to argument. 
 Your proofs we cannot well deny, 
 Yet clings behind the unsolaced Why. 
 We strain our vision to the end ; 
 We trust we love the heavenly Friend ; 
 We sun our thoughts in Being s beam, 
 And Avake to find our faith a dream. 
 
 Why was I born, and where was I 
 Before this living mystery 
 That weds the body to the soul ? 
 What are the laws by whose control 
 I live and feel and think and know ? 
 What the allegiance that I owe 
 To tides beyond all time and space ? 
 What form of faith must I embrace ? 
 Why thwarted, starved, and overborne 
 By fate, an exile, driven forlorn 
 By fitful winds, where each event 
 Seems but the whirl of accident ? 
 Why feel our wings so incomplete, 
 Or, flying, but a plumed deceit, 
 
WHY? 70 
 
 Ronowing all our lives to us 
 The fable old of Icarus ? 
 
 Tell me the meaning of the breath 
 That whispers from the house of death, 
 That chills thought s metaphysic strife, 
 That dims the dream of After-life. 
 Why, if we lived not ere our birth, 
 Hope for a state beyond this earth ? 
 Tell me the secret of the hope 
 That gathers, as we upwards ope 
 The skylights of the prisoned soul 
 Unto the perfect and the whole. 
 Yet why the loveliest things of earth 
 Mock in their death their glorious birth. 
 Why, when the scarlet sunset floods 
 The west beyond the hills and woods, 
 Or June with roses crowds my porch, 
 Or northern lights with crimson torch 
 Illume the snow and veil the stars 
 With streaming bands and wavering bars, 
 Or music s sensuous, soul-like wine 
 Intoxicates with trance divine, 
 Why then must sadness like a thief 
 Steal mv aromas of belief, 
 
80 
 
 And like a cloud that shuts the day 
 At sunrise, turn my gold to gray ? 
 
 Tell me why instincts meant for good 
 Turn to a madness of the blood ; 
 And, baffling all our morals nice, 
 Nature seems nearly one with vice. 
 What sin and misery mean, if blent 
 With good in one divine intent. 
 Why from such source must evil spring, 
 And finite still mean suffering ? 
 
 Thus ever questioning we stand, 
 
 As though upon some alien land, 
 
 And grope for truth beyond our reach, 
 
 Through foreign modes and .unknown speech. 
 
 Oae mystery above, below, 
 
 Within, o erveiling all we know. 
 
 What riddle harder to unwind 
 
 Than man himself can man e er find ? 
 
 Wiser than prophet and than sage 
 
 Must be the eye that reads this page, 
 
 The enigma of the double soul, 
 
 This angel-devil, half and whole, 
 
 Whose eye is filled with wisdom s light, 
 
81 
 
 Whose lips are breathing lust and spite ; 
 
 The dim vaults of whose heart and brain 
 
 Heaven s warmth, hell s heat at once contain. 
 
 The isolated text is he 
 
 For clashing creeds and prophecy ; 
 
 The sibyl-leaf that winds have whirled 
 
 About the corners of the world ; 
 
 A scrap, a hint, that chance has swept 
 
 Out of the book the heavens have kept. 
 
 How can we know, forlorn we cry, 
 
 Our origin, our destiny ? 
 
 What need to strive, we ask, so fast 
 
 The web of fate is o er us cast ? 
 
 Why, if the authentic seal we wear, 
 
 Should we prove aught than good and fair ? 
 
 Look on the millions born to blight ; 
 The souls that pine for warmth and light ; 
 The crushed and stifled swarms that pack 
 The foul streets and the alleys black, 
 The miserable lives that crawi 
 Outside the grim partition wall 
 Twixt rich and poor, twixt foul and fair, 
 Twixt vaulting hope and lame despair. 
 On that wall s sunny side, within, 
 
82 WHY ? 
 
 Hang ripening fruits and tendrils green, 
 O er garden-beds of bloom and spice, 
 And perfume as of paradise. 
 There happy children run and talk 
 Along the shade-flecked gravel-walk, 
 Arid lovers sit in rosy bowers, 
 And music overflows the hours, 
 And wealth and health and mirth and books 
 Make pictures in Arcadian nooks. 
 But on that wall s grim outer stones 
 The fierce north-wind of winter groans ; 
 Through blinding dust, o er bleak highway, 
 The slant sun s melancholy ray 
 Sees stagnant pool and poisonous weed, 
 The hearts that faint, the feet that bleed, 
 The grovelling aim, the flagging faith, 
 The starving curse, the drowning death ! 
 
 wise philosopher ! you soothe 
 
 Our troubles with a touch too smooth. 
 
 Too plausibly your reasonings come. 
 
 They will not guide me to my home ; 
 
 They lead me on a little way 
 
 Through meadows, groves, and gardens gay, 
 
 Until a wall shuts out my day, 
 
WHY ? 
 
 A screen whose top is hid in clouds, 
 
 Whose base is deep on dead men s shrouds. 
 
 Could I dive under pain and death, 
 
 Or mount and breathe the whole heaven s breath, 
 
 I might begin to comprehend 
 
 How the Beginning joins the End. 
 
 Like one who wanders where he lists 
 
 In some enchanted land of mists, 
 
 Mid mighty temples to explore 
 
 Of hieroglyphs the hidden lore, 
 
 Or forms of demigods to trace 
 
 Carved on the crumbling ruin s face : 
 
 He sees the sculptured column stand, 
 
 With bas-reliefs wrought, small or grand ; 
 
 In spiral bands the heroic troops 
 
 Circling the shaft in crowded groups ; 
 
 But, gazing up, sees not at all 
 
 The mist-enshrouded capital, 
 
 And cornice, frieze, and architrave 
 
 Sleep buried in one cloudy grave. 
 
 We agonize in doubt, perplexed 
 
 O er fate, free-will, and Bible-text. 
 
 In vain. The spirit finds no vent 
 
 From out the imprisoning temperament. 
 
84 WHY ? 
 
 Philosophies that stalk in pride 
 
 Seem but our shadows magnified ; 
 
 Windows of many-colored giass 
 
 Tinting all thoughts that through us pass ; 
 
 And Revelation but a name 
 
 For the intense grand tones that came 
 
 To a few saints whose ears were fine, 
 
 In old and distant Palestine. 
 
 Truth, truth, God s truth ! naught else, we cry ; 
 
 For somewhere in the earth and sky 
 
 The master-mind must lurk, whose word 
 
 Sounds the keynote of all accord. 
 
 Give us thyself, godlike Truth ! 
 
 Thy blood-warm veins, thy kiss of youth. 
 
 Flit not in many-colored light ; 
 
 Shine clear, as to the All-seeing Sight. 
 
 II. 
 
 Yet why should we forever press and dent 
 The brain with ceaseless blows of argument ? 
 Why overstrain the object-wearied sight, 
 Nor rest content with passages of light ? 
 Perhaps it seems that we are backward thrust 
 From God, that, toiling upward through the dust, 
 Groping our blindfold way to Truth and Him, 
 
WHY? 85 
 
 Excess of glory may not pain or dim 
 The eyes that must be daily trained to see 
 The full-orbed truths that type the Deity, 
 Who overcasts his splendors to ensnare 
 His children in the good and true and fair. 
 
 Say blest Illusion, that hoodwinks our eyes, 
 
 And veils for us the overpowering skies, 
 
 And lights a fire that only cheers and warms. 
 
 God weds our souls to undeveloped forms, 
 
 And tempers his great lights, which, too intense 
 
 For untried eyes, might blind, or craze the sense. 
 
 O burning day-star ! could the Parsee old 
 
 Have worshipped thee, save that with fold on fold 
 
 Of space and air the intolerable fire 
 
 Were fitted to the limits of desire ? 
 
 O sacred boundaries twixt unknown and known ! 
 
 O wholesome stringency of nature s zone ! 
 
 Spirit immersed in form, that form may know 
 
 Its source, through growth and spiritual throe, 
 
 And work together with the all-circling law 
 
 That knows no lapse, no accident, no flaw r ! 
 
 So, step by step, through tortuous ways we grope, 
 
 Becalmed by faith, blown on by fitful hope ; 
 
 The vast light-region ne er entirely hid, 
 
86 WHY ? 
 
 Still shimmering through the labyrinths we thrid ; 
 
 Still glittering on the angles that project 
 
 Along- our cavern windings, and protect 
 
 Our stumbling steps, nor suffer that we run 
 
 Like candle-blinded moths into the sun. 
 
 The Himalayan heights are kindly screened ; 
 
 Their upward sloping bases over-greened 
 
 With flowery paths and arbors here and there 
 
 For noontide rest ; and vistas opening fair, 
 
 Where birds are carolling through boughs and vines, 
 
 And odors of the aromatic pines. 
 
 Therefore I boAV my spirit to the Power 
 That underflows and fills my little hour. 
 I feel the eternal symphony afloat, 
 In which I am a breath, a passing note. 
 I may be but a dull and jarring nerve 
 In the great body, yet some end I serve. 
 
 Yea, though I dream and question still the dream 
 Thus floating by me upon Being s stream, 
 Some end I serve. Love reigns. I cannot lose 
 The Primal Light, though thousand-fold its hues. 
 ) I can believe that someAvhere Truth abides ; 
 Not in the ebb and flow of those small tides 
 
AVIIY? 87 
 
 That float the dogmas of our saints and sects ; 
 
 Not in a thousand tainted dialects, 
 
 But in the one pure language, could we hear, 
 
 That fills with love and light the seraphs sphere. 
 
 I can believe there is a Central Good, 
 
 That burns and shines o er temperament and mood ; 
 
 That somewhere God will melt the clouds away, 
 
 And his great purpose shine as shines the day. 
 
 Then may we know why now we could not know ; 
 
 Why the great Isis-curtain drooped so low ; 
 
 AVhy we were blindfold on a path of light; 
 
 Why came wild gleams and voices through the night ; 
 
 Why we seemed drifting, storm-tost, without rest, 
 
 And were but rocking on a Mother s breast. 
 
THROUGH TM^IflLDS TO ST, PETER S. 
 
 1HERE s a by-road to St. Peter s. First you swing 
 
 across the Tiber 
 In a ferry-boat that floats you in a minute from the 
 
 crowd : 
 Then through high-hedged lanes you saunter ; then by 
 
 fields and sunny pastures ; 
 
 And beyond the wondrous dome uprises like a golden 
 cloud. 
 
 And this morning, Easter morning, while the streets 
 
 were thronged with people, 
 And all Rome moved toward the apostle s temple by 
 
 the usual way, 
 I strolled by the fields and hedges, stopping now to view 
 
 the landscape, 
 Now to sketch the lazy cattle in the April grass that lay. 
 
THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S. 89 
 
 Galaxies of buttercups and daisies ran along the 
 
 meadows, 
 Rosy flushes of red clover, blossoming shrubs and 
 
 sprouting vines. 
 Overhead the larks were singing, heeding not the bells 
 
 a-ringing, 
 
 Little knew they of the Pasqua, or the proud St. Peter s 
 shrines. 
 
 Contadini, men and women, in their very best apparel 
 Trooping one behind another, chatted all along the 
 
 roads. 
 Boys were pitching quoits and coppers, old men in the 
 
 sun were basking. 
 
 In the festal smile of Heaven all laid aside their weary 
 loads. 
 
 Underneath an ancient portal soon I passed into the 
 
 city ; 
 Entered San Pietro s Square, now thronged with 
 
 upward crowding forms, 
 Past the Cardinals gilded coaches, and the gorgeous 
 
 scarlet lackeys, 
 
 And the flashing files of soldiers, and black priests in 
 gloomy swarms. 
 
90 THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST, PETER S. 
 
 All were moving to the temple. Push aside the ponder 
 ous curtain ; 
 Lo ! the glorious heights of marble, melting in the 
 
 golden dome, 
 Where the grand mosaic pictures, veiled in warm and 
 
 misty softness, 
 
 Swim in faith s religious trances, high above all heights 
 of Rome. 
 
 Grand as Pergolesi chantings, lovely as a dream of Titian, 
 Tones and tints and chastened splendors wreathed and 
 
 grouped in sweet accord ; 
 While through nave and transept pealing, soar and sink 
 
 the choral voices, 
 
 Telling of the death and glorious resurrection of the 
 Lord. 
 
 But, ah, fatal degradation for this temple of the na 
 tions ! 
 For the soul is never lifted by the accord of sights and 
 
 sound, 
 But yon priest in gold and satin, mumming with his 
 
 ghostly Latin, 
 
 Drags it from its natural nights, and trails its plumage 
 on the ground. 
 
THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S. 91 
 
 And to-day the Pope is heading his whole army of gay 
 
 puppets, 
 And the great machinery moving round us with an 
 
 extra sho\v : 
 
 Genuflections, censers, mitres, mystic motions, candle- 
 lighters, 
 
 And the juggling show of relics to the crowd that 
 gapes below ; 
 
 Till at last they show the Pontiff, draped and diademed 
 
 and tinselled, 
 Under canopy and fan-plumes borne along in splendor 
 
 proud 
 
 To a show-box of the temple overlooking all the Piazza. 
 There he gives his benediction to the long-expectant 
 crowd. 
 
 Benediction ! while this people, blighted, cursed by 
 
 superstition, 
 Steeped in ignorance and darkness, taxed and starved, 
 
 looks up and begs 
 For a little light and freedom, for a little law and 
 
 justice, 
 
 That at least the cup so bitter they may drain not to 
 the dregs. 
 
92 THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S. 
 
 Benediction ! while old Error keeps alive a nameless 
 
 terror. 
 Benediction ! while the poison at each pore is entering 
 
 deep, 
 And the sap is slowly withered, and the wormy fruit is 
 
 gathered, 
 
 And a vampire sucks the life out, while the soul is 
 fanned asleep ! 
 
 Ah ! this splendor gluts the senses, while the spirit pines 
 
 and dwindles. 
 Mother Church is but a dry-nurse, singing while her 
 
 infant moans ; 
 
 While anon a cake or rattle gives a little half-oblivion, 
 And the sweetness and the glitter mingle with her 
 drowsy tones. 
 
 But the infant moans and tosses with a nameless want 
 
 and anguish, 
 While with coarse unmeaning bushings louder sings 
 
 the hireling nurse ; 
 
 Knows no better in her dull and superannuated blind 
 ness, 
 
 Tries no potion, seeks no nurture, but consents to 
 worse and worse. 
 
THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S. 03 
 
 If sucli be thy ultimation, Church of infinite preten 
 sion, 
 If within thy chosen garden flowers and fruits like 
 
 these be found, 
 Ah, give me the book of nature, open wide to every 
 
 creature, 
 
 And the unconsecrated thoughts that spring like 
 daisies all around. 
 
 Send me to the woods and waters, to the studio, to the 
 
 market ; 
 Give me simple conversation, books, arts, sports, and 
 
 friends sincere. 
 Let no priest be e er my tutor, on my brow no label 
 
 written ; 
 
 Coin or passport to salvation rather none than ask 
 it here. 
 
 Give me air, and not a prison ; love for heart, and light 
 
 for reason. 
 Let me walk no slave or bigot, God s untrammelled, 
 
 fearless child. 
 Yield me rights each soul is born to, rights not given 
 
 and not taken, 
 
 Free to cardinals and princes, and Campagna shepherds 
 wild. 
 
94 THROUGH THE FIELDS TO ST. PETER S. 
 
 Like these Boman fountains gushing clear and sweet in 
 
 open spaces, 
 Where the poorest beggar stoops to drink, and none 
 
 can say him nay, 
 Let the law, the truth, be common, free to man and child 
 
 and woman, 
 
 Living waters for the souls that now in sickness waste 
 away. 
 
 Therefore are these fields far sweeter than yon temple of 
 
 St. Peter. 
 Through this grander dome of azure God looks down 
 
 and blesses all. 
 In these fields the birds sing clearer, to the Eternal Heart 
 
 are nearer, 
 
 Than the proud monastic chants that yonder on my 
 ears did fall. 
 
 Never smiled Christ s holy vicar on the heretic and sinner 
 As this sun, true type of Godhead, smiles o er all the 
 
 peopled land. 
 Sweeter smells this blowing clover than the perfume of 
 
 the censer, 
 
 And the touch of spring is kinder than the pontiffs 
 jewelled hand. 
 
 ROME, Easter, 1859. 
 
MAKION DALE, 
 
 MARION DALE, I remember you once 
 
 In the days when you blushed like a rose half blown, 
 Long ere that wealthy respectable dunce 
 
 Sponged up your beautiful name in his own. 
 
 I remember you, Marion Dale, 
 
 So artless and cordial, so modest and sweet ; 
 You did not walk in that glittering mail 
 
 That covers you now from your head to your feet. 
 
 Well I remember your welcoming smile 
 When Alice and Annie and Edward and I 
 
 Walked over to see you, you lived but a mile 
 
 From my uncle s old house and the grove that stood 
 nigh. 
 
 I was no lover of yours (pray excuse me) ; 
 You and I differed on many a view. 
 
MARION DALE. 
 
 I never gave you a chance to refuse me, 
 
 Already I loved one less changeful than you. 
 
 Still it was ever a pride and a pleasure 
 Just to be near you, the rose of our vale. 
 
 Often I thought, " Who will own such a treasure ? 
 Who win the fresh heart of our Marion Dale ? " 
 
 I wonder now if you ever remember, 
 
 Ever sigh over fifteen years ago ; 
 Whether your June is all turned to December ; 
 
 Whether your hopes are rewarded, or no. 
 
 Gone are those winters of chats and of dances, 
 Gone are those summers of picnics and rides ; 
 
 Gone the aroma of life s young romances, 
 Gone the swift flow of our passionate tides. 
 
 Marion Dale, no longer our Marion, 
 
 You have gone your way, and I have gone mine. 
 Lowly I ve labored, while fashion s gay clarion 
 
 Sounded your name through the waltz and the Avine. 
 
 Now, when I meet you, your smile it is colder ; 
 
 Statelier, prouder, your features have grown ; 
 Bounder each white and magnificent shoulder ; 
 
 Barer your bosom than once, I must own. 
 
MARION DALE. 07 
 
 Jewelled and satined, your tresses gold-netted, 
 Queenly mid flattering voices you move ; 
 
 Half to your own native graces indebted, 
 Half to the station and fortune you love. 
 
 " Marion " we called you. My wife was " dear Alice." 
 I was plain Phil. We were intimate all. 
 
 Strange, as we send in our cards at your palace, 
 For " Mrs. Prime Goldbanks of Bubblemere Hall." 
 
 Six golden lackeys illumine the doorway. 
 
 Sure, one would think, by the glances they throw, 
 We had slid down from the mountains of Norway, 
 
 And had forgotten to shake off the snow. 
 
 They will permit us to enter, however ; 
 
 Usher us into her splendid saloon. 
 There we sit waiting and waiting forever, 
 
 As one would watch for the rise of the moon. 
 
 T is n t, we know, her great day for receiving ; 
 
 Still she s at home, and a little unbends. 
 While she is dressing, perhaps she is weaving 
 
 Some speech that will suit her " American friends." 
 
 G 
 
98 MARION DALE. 
 
 Smiling you meet us, but not quite sincerely. 
 
 Low-voiced you greet us, but this is the ton. 
 This, we must feel it, is courtesy merely, 
 
 Not the glad welcome of days that are gone. 
 
 We are in England, the land where they freeze one, 
 When they ve a mind to, with fashion and form. 
 
 Yet, if you choose, you can thoroughly please one. 
 Currents run through you, still youthful and warm. 
 
 So one would think at least, seeing you moving 
 Radiant and gay at the Countess s fete. 
 
 Was all that babble so very improving ? 
 
 Where was the charm, that you lingered so late ? 
 
 Ah ! well enough, as you dance on in joyance ; 
 
 Still well enough, at your dinners and calls. 
 Fashion and riches will mask much annoyance. 
 
 Moat on, fair lady, whatever befalls. 
 
 Yet, Lady Marion, for hours and for hours 
 You are alone with your husband and lord. 
 
 There is a skeleton hid in yon flowers, 
 There is a spectre at bed and at board. 
 
MARION DALE. 99 
 
 Needs no confessing to tell there is acting 
 
 Somewhere about you a tragedy grim. 
 All your bright rays have a sullen refracting ; 
 
 Everywhere looms up the image of him, 
 
 Him whom you love not ; there is no concealing. 
 
 How could you love him apart from his gold ? 
 Nothing now left but your firefly wheeling, 
 
 Flashing one moment, then pallid and cold. 
 
 Yet you ve accepted the life that he offers ; 
 
 Sunk to his level, not raised him to yours. 
 All your fair flowers have their roots in his coffers. 
 
 Empty the gold-dust and then what endures ? 
 
 So then we leave you. Your world is not ours. 
 
 Alice and I will not trouble you more. 
 Not like your spring is the scent of these flowers 
 
 Down the broad stairway. Quick, open the door ! 
 
 Here in the free air we 11 pray for you, lady, 
 You who are changed to us, gone from us, lost. 
 
 Soon the Atlantic will part us, already 
 
 Parted by gulfs that can never be crossed. 
 
VEILS. 
 
 ONCE we called each other friends. 
 
 T was no formal greeting 
 When we clasped each other s hands ; 
 
 Soul with soul came meeting. 
 Long ago I loved your books, 
 
 (They first drew me to you) ; 
 Loved you better than you thought ; 
 
 Ere I saw you knew you. 
 Other friends now come between, 
 
 Other love outstrips me. 
 Can my light be then so dull 
 
 That they all eclipse me ? 
 Often have I longed for you ; 
 
 Often have I wondered 
 Why we two, whose thoughts were one, 
 
 Ever should be sundered. 
 
VEILS. 101 
 
 There are those who cling fo you ; 
 
 As their lamp and fuel, 
 Or who wear you on their fr outjs , ; 
 
 Like a glittering jewel ; 
 Those who think to gild their rust 
 
 With your fame s reflection, 
 Vainly dreaming that they stand 
 
 In your best affection ; 
 Happy if they can be seen 
 
 With you closely talking, 
 Proud, if arm in arm with you 
 
 In the street, they re walking. 
 Though they press so near, and live 
 
 In your smiles and glances, 
 Never are they so near as one 
 
 Linked with all your fancies, 
 One who reads the Poet s thought 
 
 Through his pages gleaming, 
 Following him from depth to depth 
 
 In his subtlest dreaming ; 
 And who feels in firm accord 
 
 Listener and singer, 
 Vibrating beneath your touch 
 
 Bell-chimes to the ringer. 
 
102 VEILS. 
 
 Yet I never said bow much 
 All your poems moved me. 
 
 Love, I p-aid, must answer love, 
 For I thought you loved me. 
 
 Time and space and circumstance 
 
 Barred me from your presence. 
 Then behind your veils you seemed 
 
 Some dim phosphorescence. 
 Half-transparent window-shades 
 
 Told where you were sitting, 
 And your astral lamp, half blurred, 
 
 Threw your shadow flitting 
 Up against the curtain-folds. 
 
 "There," I said, " his place is." 
 Soon carne other silhouettes, 
 
 But all stranger-faces. 
 Said I : "He is feasting there 
 
 Friends for this night only. 
 When the guests are gone, he 11 come 
 
 Where I m waiting lonely ; 
 Waiting, leaning at the door, 
 
 While his intonations 
 Rise and fall for other ears. 
 
 So I wait with patience. 
 
VEILS. 
 
 For that voice I know so well, 
 
 With those merry fellows, 
 Talks for them, but sings for me : 
 
 Can I then be jealous ? 
 When the festal lights are out, 
 
 And heaven s stars are shining, 
 He will clasp me by the hand. 
 
 Arm in arm entwining, 
 We will pace his garden-walks, 
 
 Of the past discoursing. 
 All his heart will open, free 
 
 From convention s forcing. 
 As old friends who feel no cloud 
 
 Overcast their greeting, 
 Such shall be our cordial grasp, 
 
 Such our joyous meeting. 
 Ah, the pleasant dream is o er ! 
 
 Now his guests are going, 
 He but stands upon the step ; 
 
 And a wind is blowing 
 Somewhat chill between his words, 
 
 Which to me are sorrow. 
 For he saith, " T is very late ; 
 Can you come to-morrow ? 
 
 103 
 
104 VEILS. 
 
 All, to-morrow, dreary word ! 
 
 When we feel "Now only." 
 And the bolt slides in the door, 
 
 And the night is lonely. 
 And not e en these parting guests 
 
 Deign a conversation. 
 Theirs the warm adieu of love, 
 
 Mine its desolation. 
 
 " Were we far from fashion s forms, 
 
 In some desert gloomy, 
 You might learn to know me then ; 
 
 For you never knew me ! 
 Time and space will now build up 
 
 The old wall between us. 
 Can the sculptor warm to life 
 
 His cold marble Venus ? 
 Pate has given one world to you, 
 
 And to me another. 
 We can never cross her bars, 
 
 Though you were my brother. 
 On your hearth, the fires will glow, 
 
 I shall see the ashes ; 
 All that I shall know of you 
 
 Will be distant flashes. 
 
VEILS. 
 
 I will read your books again ; 
 
 They at least will lead me 
 Into walks where we may meet, 
 
 Though you do not need me. 
 I will fancy you the same 
 
 As in that bright weather 
 Ere this cold estrangement came, 
 
 You and I together. 
 You and I will speak in dreams 
 
 Loves not unrequited, 
 As we met ten years ago, 
 
 Happy and united." 
 
 ROME, 1859. 
 
 105 
 
THE SPIEIT OF THE AGE, 
 
 A WONDROUS light is filling the air, 
 And rimming the clouds of the old despair ; 
 And hopeful eyes look up to see 
 Truth s mighty electricity, 
 Auroral shimmerings swift and bright, 
 That wave and flash in the silent night, 
 Magnetic billows travelling fast, 
 And flooding all the spaces vast 
 From dim horizon to faithest cope 
 Of heaven, in streams of gathering hope. 
 Silent they mount and spread apace, 
 And the watchers see old Europe s face 
 Lit with expression new and strange, 
 The prophecy of coining change. 
 
 Meantime, while thousands, wrapt in dreams, 
 Sleep heedless of the electric gleams, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 107 
 
 Or ply their wonted work and strife, 
 Or plot tlieir pitiful games of life ; 
 While the emperor bows in his formal halls, 
 And the clerk whirls on at the masking balls ; 
 While the lawyer sits at his dreary files, 
 And the. banker fingers his glittering piles, 
 And the priest kneels down at his lighted shrine, 
 And the fop flits by with his mistress fine, 
 The diplomat works at his telegraph wires : 
 His back is turned to the heavenly fires. 
 Over him flows the magnetic tide, 
 And the candles are dimmed by the glow outside. 
 Mysterious forces overawe, 
 Absorb, suspend the usual law. 
 The needle stood northward an hour ago ; 
 Now it veers like a weathercock to and fro. 
 The message he sends flies not as once ; 
 The unwilling wires yield no response. 
 Those iron veins that pulsed but late 
 From a tyrant s will to a people s fate, 
 Flowing and ebbing with feverish strength, 
 Are seized by a Power whose breadth and length, 
 Whose height and depth, defy all gauge 
 Save the great spirit of the age. 
 The mute machine is moved by a law 
 5* 
 
108 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 
 
 That knows no accident or flaw, 
 And the iron thrills to a different chime 
 Than that which rang in the dead old time. 
 For Heaven is taking the matter in hand, 
 And baffling the tricks of the tyrant band. 
 The sky above and the earth beneath 
 Heave with a supermundane breath. 
 Half-truths, for centuries kept and prized, 
 By higher truths are polarized. 
 Like gamesters on a railroad train, 
 Careless of stoppage, sun or rain, 
 We juggle, plot, combine, arrange, 
 And are swept along by the rapid change. 
 And some who from their windows mark 
 The unwonted lights that flood the dark, 
 Little by little, in slow surprise 
 Lift into space their sleepy eyes ; 
 Little by little are made aware 
 That a spirit of power is passing there, 
 ! That a spirit is passing, strong and free, 
 The soul of the nineteenth century. 
 
 PARIS, February, I860. 
 
ATALANTA. 
 
 WE read in classic legends old 
 Of one who, fair and overbold, 
 Distanced all runners, till outrun by gold. 
 
 Supple in limb, and fair in face, 
 
 She passed the swiftest in the race, 
 
 Till on one luckless day she lost her place. 
 
 There came to her a cunning fellow, 
 
 His pockets stuffed with apples mellow, 
 
 Pure gold they were, of California!! yellow. 
 
 Doffing his hat, " Fair dame," said he, 
 " They say thou art the fastest she 
 That ^ver ran a rig. Wilt run with me ? 
 
 " I know the law prescribed," he said : 
 
 " If you should beat, I lose my head ; 
 
 But if you are beaten, you and I must wed." 
 
110 AT AL ANT A. 
 
 Away his hat he swiftly twirls. 
 The fleetest of all swift-limbed girls 
 Tosses her head with all its sunny curls. 
 
 Then, One two three ! Away they fly. 
 
 Together for a while they ply 
 
 Their agile feet. Then soon she passes by. 
 
 But will she win ? A ball of gold 
 
 Hippomenes has deftly rolled 
 
 Along the course. She stoops. Her apron s fold 
 
 Contains the prize. Another ball 
 
 Of dazzling value he lets fall, 
 
 And yet a third. She stops to gather all. 
 
 So Atalanta lost her race 
 
 And single blessedness, to chase 
 
 Three rolling lumps of metal, bright but base. 
 
 Now list, Columbia, to my moral. 
 
 Thou runnest well. Don t stop to quarrel 
 
 About thy baser wealth. Prefer a laurel. 
 
 The fleetest in the race are lost, 
 
 If in their gold alone they boast. 
 
 Be wiser thou, and count the entire cost. 
 
ATALANTA. Ill 
 
 The nations feel thee great. All eyes 
 Watch thy swift motions with surprise, 
 And hail thee herald of unclouded skies. 
 
 Be great in soul, as great in power ; 
 
 Be rich in minds, Heaven s richest dower ; 
 
 So of all nations thou shalt be the flower. 
 
AL HASSAN S SECEET, 
 
 I OU may tell me that the priests of Egypt, 
 
 Muttering charms and raising magic terrors, 
 
 Breathed it through him in their tombs and caverns, 
 
 Stamped it on him with the seal of silence 
 
 And the dread of excommunication. 
 
 You may say he heard it on the river, 
 
 In the Nile froth by the low shore lapping 
 
 In and out among the reeds and rushes ; 
 
 In the moaning of the lurid sand-storm ; 
 
 In a noon-dream mid the rustling palm-tufts, 
 
 Whispered by the sun-scorched leaves above him. 
 
 I, who know so well the Sheik Al Hassan, 
 
 I, the poet Yefid, can assure you 
 
 Sheik Al Hassan is no vision-seer ; 
 
 Pears no priests, but laughs at all their juggles ; 
 
 In the desert never met a Geni ; 
 
 Worships in the mosque no power but Allah. 
 
M 
 
 AL HASSAN S SECRET. 113 
 
 Yet Al Hassan has one awful secret, 
 Known to him alone of all his people, 
 Some strange word forbidden to be uttered ; 
 For, if spoken, all the established order 
 Built upon the solid past would tremble, 
 Pass, perchance, in chaos and confusion, 
 And another law control the nations. 
 What this potent word may be I know not. 
 How it came to him he never told me. 
 I his bosom friend have never heard it ; 
 In my deepest thoughts I cannot guess it, 
 Though long silent days we ride together. 
 
 But one night I ever shall remember. 
 After toiling through the powdery desert, 
 We were resting in the grove of Kamah. 
 Clear as noonday shone the wondrous moonlight. 
 In our tent we slept, but woke together. 
 Overhead one feathery palm-tree rustled ; 
 On the white tent lay its shortened shadow, 
 And the shadow s waving fringes trembled 
 On the tent-roof, darkening all one corner. 
 Grouped around the weary camels slumbered, 
 And the turbaned slaves. A fountain gurgled, 
 Hid in darkness, while its tiny streamlet 
 
 n 
 
114 AL HASSAN S SECRET. 
 
 Trickled silvery sparkles o er the pebbles. 
 On the grass lay shadow-blots fantastic, 
 Mixed with moon-gold rounded into circles. 
 
 In that moonlight there we woke together, 
 Suddenly, as if a voice had called us ; 
 Broad awake, as if a spirit passed us. 
 Something whispered that the air was haunted 
 With a presence vaguely brooding o er us, 
 Pressing close, until the nerves all tingled 
 Tense and trembling, as a wind-harp shivers 
 In the coming breeze of autumn evenings, 
 Ere the first wild minor chords are wakened. 
 So I lay and stared upon the whiteness 
 Of the ghostly tent, and on the shadows 
 On the tent-floor creeping like black fingers ; 
 Till at length Al Hassan broke the silence. 
 
 " Could I tell to thee, O son of music, 
 
 Could I tell the secret of my bosom, 
 
 Ah, what pain, what pain would here be softened ! 
 
 What a light o er weary days would brighten ! 
 
 Could I only shape it in some fashion, 
 
 Temper the fierce light to misty softness, 
 
AL HASSAN S SECRET. 115 
 
 Dwarf the giant s supermundane stature, 
 
 As the fisherman enclosed the Geni 
 
 In the box he carried on his shoulders, 
 
 It would flush the desert of my bosom 
 
 "With a sudden burst of flowers and fountains." 
 
 Was I waking then, or was I dreaming, 
 
 Or enchanted ? " Know," he said, " O Yefid, 
 
 Good and evil in this word are mingled. 
 
 Like the angel of the summer lightning, 
 
 Cloud-winged, scowling o er the mountain cedars, 
 
 Darting bolts of death, yet breathing freshness ; 
 
 So the truth if truth it be I harbor 
 
 In my burdened breast a double message 
 
 On its wings would bear unto my people. 
 
 Some must take the good and some the evil 
 
 Dropped from either wing of this strange angel. 
 
 " Yet could I, the prophet s weakest servant, 
 
 Seize that faith which, means to ends subjecting, 
 
 Seeing in the madly shattered systems 
 
 But the opening of the eternal order ; 
 
 Faith of prophets and of wonder-workers, 
 
 In whose white light dazzling and o erwhelming, 
 
116 AL HASSAN S SECRET. 
 
 Death is but a spot we hardly notice, 
 And destruction but the broom that sweeping 
 Clears the spaces for God s mighty building, 
 Then I might perhaps forsake my desert ; 
 Bear my smothered torch among the cities ; 
 Stand and see the mighty visitation, 
 The veiled messenger of good and evil 
 Shaking dew and fire from either pinion ; 
 Watch the firebrand kindling in their houses 
 Till they walked by light of conflagrations ; 
 Hear the trumpets of divine destroyers 
 Blaring through the market and the palace ; 
 Had I only faith ; and yet I tremble, 
 Scarce even daring to myself to whisper 
 What would soon rebound in shocks of thunder ; 
 So unlike the language of the present, 
 So profane perhaps, so wild, that madmen 
 Might essay to mumble it, half dreaming, 
 While the sane ones passed them with a shudder. 
 I, alas, am all too weak and faithless 
 For a mission of so huge a burden. 
 I am not a sage to explain its meaning, 
 Nor a saint to avouch its truth unflinching, 
 Eeady for the fate of God s great martyrs. 
 Though a voice cries, " Speak," I falter, tremble, 
 
AL HASSAN S SECRET. 117 
 
 Turn away, and carry through the desert 
 
 Strange, dumb pain that crowds my heart to bursting." 
 
 So Al Hassan from his couch half risen 
 
 Toured his sad speech, while the palm-tree s shadow 
 
 Crept upon him, and the tent grew darker. 
 
 Then I said : " Tell me alone the secret, 
 Only me, the strange wild word, not fearing ; 
 So thou drawest the arrow from thy bosom, 
 While I heal the wound with love s own balsam. 
 In the desert here no traitor listens ; 
 Let us share the mystery and the sorrow." 
 " Never, O my Yefid ! " was his answer. 
 " No ; too well I love thee, dearest poet, 
 With a heedless hand to blight our friendship. 
 Better bear alone the* fated burden, 
 Than for one brief moment s consolation 
 Turn my friend into my bitter foeman." 
 
 Then upon his couch Al Hassan turned him, 
 Sighed a deep, long sigh, and watched the moonlight 
 Pave the tent-floor with its golden patches. 
 
118 AL HASSAN S SECRET. 
 
 I am wondering still, and dare not question 
 Wliat the fatal word is. Word of Heaven 
 May it not be so ? if such the ending 
 In the birth-throes of a new creation. 
 I am wondering still, but cannot guess it ; 
 While Al Hassan rides upon his camel 
 Over the desert, like a statue haunted. 
 
MY OLD PALETTE. 
 
 MANY a year has fled away 
 
 Since this old palette was new, 
 As may be seen by the spots of green 
 
 And yellow and red and blue. 
 
 Many a picture was painted from this, 
 
 "While many were only dreamed ; 
 And shadow and light like the black and white 
 
 Across my life have streamed. 
 
 Accept, my friend, this plain old board 
 
 All plastered and imbrowned, 
 Where the pleasure and strife of a painter s life 
 
 Have left a mosaic ground. 
 
 The color that went to the picture s soul 
 
 Has left but its body behind ; 
 Yet strive to trace on its cloudy face 
 Some gleam of the artist s mind. 
 
120 MY OLD PALETTE. 
 
 And think of the friend upon whose thumb 
 This brown old tablet hung, 
 
 And the baffled aim, where visions came 
 Unpainted and unsung. 
 
 Mine be the records all obscure 
 
 Upon the surface blent ; 
 Be yours the love that seeks to prove 
 
 My deed by my intent. 
 
 1866. 
 
THE BOBOLINKS. 
 
 WHEN Nature had made all her birds, 
 With no more cares to think on, 
 
 She gave a rippling laugh, and out 
 There flew a Bobolinkon. 
 
 She laughed again ; out flew a mate : 
 
 A breeze of Eden bore them 
 Across the fields of Paradise, 
 
 The sunrise reddening o er them. 
 
 Incarnate sport and holiday, 
 
 They flew and sang forever ; 
 Their souls through June were all in tune, 
 
 Their wings were weary never. 
 
 Their tribe, still drunk with air and light, 
 
 And perfume of the meadow, 
 Go reeling up and down the sky, 
 
 In sunshine and in shadow. 
 6 
 
THE BOBOLINKS. 
 
 One springs from out the dew- wet grass ; 
 
 Another follows after ; 
 The morn is thrilling with their songs 
 
 And peals of fairy laughter. 
 
 Prom out the marshes and the brook, 
 They set the tall reeds swinging, 
 
 And meet, and frolic in the air, 
 Half prattling and half singing. 
 
 When morning winds sweep meadow-lands 
 
 In green and russet billows, 
 And toss the lonely elm-tree s boughs, 
 
 And silver all the willows, 
 
 I see you buffeting the breeze, 
 
 Or with its motion swaying, 
 Your notes half drowned against the wind, 
 
 Or down the current playing. 
 
 When far away o er grassy flats, 
 Where the thick wood commences, 
 
 The white-sleeved mowers look like specks 
 Beyond the zigzag fences, 
 
THE BOBOLINKS. 123 
 
 And noon is hot, and barn-roofs gleam 
 
 White in the pale blue distance, 
 I hear the saury minstrels still 
 
 In chattering persistence. 
 
 When Eve her domes of opal fire 
 
 Piles round the blue horizon, 
 Or thunder rolls from bill to bill 
 
 A Kyrie Eleison, 
 
 Still merriest of the merry birds, 
 
 Your sparkle is unfading ; 
 Pied harlequins of June, no end 
 
 Of song and masquerading. 
 
 What cadences of bubbling mirth, 
 
 Too quick for bar and rhythm ! 
 What ecstasies, too full to keep 
 
 Coherent measure with them ! 
 
 O could I share, without champagne 
 
 Or muscadel, your frolic, 
 The glad delirium of your joy, 
 
 Your fun un-apostolic, 
 
124 THE BOBOLINKS. 
 
 Your drunken jargon through the fields, 
 
 Your bobolinkish gabble, 
 Your fine Anacreontic glee, 
 
 Your tipsy reveller s babble ! 
 
 Nay, let me not profane such joy 
 
 "With similes of folly ; 
 No wine of earth could waken songs 
 
 So delicately jolly ! 
 
 O boundless self-contentment, voiced 
 In flying air-born bubbles ! 
 
 O joy that mocks our sad unrest, 
 
 And drowns our earth-born troubles ! 
 
 Hope springs with you : I dread no more 
 Despondency and dulness ; 
 
 For Good Supreme can never fail, 
 That gives such perfect fulness. 
 
 The life that floods the happy fields 
 With song and light and color 
 
 Will shape our lives to richer states, 
 And heap our measures fuller. 
 
 1866. 
 
CRETE. 
 
 SpERANZA, Speranza! we felt through the night-time 
 The thrill of thy voice and the joy of thy lyre ; 
 
 Heard thee far off singing sweet of the bright time 
 Prophets foretold in their large heart s desire. 
 
 Strains floated by in the sad waning moonlight, 
 While we stood calling thy name from afar. 
 
 Come to thy summer bowers, queen of high noonlight, 
 Pull-armed and splendid, our souls morning-star ! 
 
 Come as thou earnest when Italy panted 
 
 And leapt to her feet, o er her dukes and her kings. 
 
 Come, like the new life America planted 
 
 To blossom and yield through her ages of springs. 
 
 Come to the spirits benighted, unlettered, 
 Unbarring the portals of science and love. 
 
 Come to the bodies enslaved, tasked and fettered ; 
 Build up the freedom no tyrant can move. 
 
126 CRETE. 
 
 0, they are grappling for life, just for breathing ; 
 
 Hoping naught, asking naught, only to stand ; 
 Only to stand with their arms inter wreathing, 
 
 Brotherlike, bound to their own fatherland. 
 
 Faintly they hear thee. " Speranza, Speranza ! " 
 They call in the gloom. Are the echoes all dead? 
 
 Comes there no voice from Mount Ida in answer ? 
 Shines there no star in the pale morning-red ? 
 
 Must the fierce ranks of the Ottoman Nero 
 Trample their life out with barbarous feet ? 
 
 Is there no god, no Olympian hero, 
 
 Left on thy mountains, O desolate Crete ? 
 
 O shame on the nations who sent the Crusaders 
 To wrest from the Turk the dead stones of a tomb, 
 
 Yet give a live race to the savage invaders, 
 And lift not a finger to lighten its gloom ! 
 
 And shame to proud France, who has opened with greeting 
 To the red-handed tyrant her welcoming doors ; 
 
 And shame to old England, that welcome repeating, 
 That brings the crowned butcher a guest to her shores ! 
 
CRETE. 127 
 
 Ah, well ! Heaven wills that the selfish should blunder. 
 
 The tyiunts are deaf, but the people know well 
 How God in the heavens sits holding the thunder 
 
 That strikes to its centre the kingdom of hell. 
 
 For sooner or later no seer can foreknow it 
 Falls the swift bolt, and the thrones are ablaze. 
 
 Time yet shall re-echo the lay of the poet, 
 And Greece shall live over her happiest days. 
 
J. E. L. 
 
 ON HIS FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, FEB. 22, 18C9. 
 
 AT fifty years, how many frosty polls 
 
 We see, whose wintry solitude begins ; 
 How many faces hard as Chaldee scrolls, 
 
 Crowfeet on parchment skins. 
 
 At fifty, Time has picked our thickest locks ; 
 
 Polished the outer, dulled the inner head ; 
 Fi rlied golden dreams from many a knowledge-box, 
 
 And left dry facts instead. 
 
 Old beaux, not Cupid s, are at fifty bent, 
 
 With stooping shoulders and with shambling gait ; 
 
 Their sinew strings all slack, their arrows spent, 
 Their quivers desolate. 
 
 At fifty, scholars cease to dream, whose youth 
 
 Teemed with live thoughts, and generous hopes of man 
 
 All influx fresh, of beauty and of truth 
 Shut out as by a ban : 
 
J. R. L. 
 
 Cramped by a creed that bolts its windows down 
 Against the century s light and vital air, 
 
 Their dogmas shaped by some provincial town, 
 Their very gains a snare ; 
 
 Life s best aroma gone, when years should claim 
 The boon of calmest thought and widest scope : 
 
 The ring without the gem ; a faded name ; 
 An epitaph on hope. 
 
 Not so the friend whose buoyant step we greet 
 Rounding his hale half-century to-day, 
 
 Freslf as when earlier splendors lured his feet 
 Along the enchanted way, 
 
 When o er the land lulled to unhealthy rest 
 He blew his trumpet tones or trilled his song, 
 
 Or winged his earnest arrow with a jest 
 Against the shield of wrong. 
 
 The truths we scorned so long and learned so late, 
 Burnt on the nation s heart by war s hot fire, 
 
 Long since he taught. We know now how to rate 
 His grave prophetic lyre. 
 
 G* i 
 
130 j. R. L . 
 
 Nor less his gayer moods, when wit and joke 
 Ban flashing down his chords in humor terse 
 
 And quaint, the talk of homely Yankee folk 
 Woven in sparkling- verse. 
 
 His sweet enveloping fun, that wrapped the pill 
 Of pungent satire, through his wise discourse 
 
 Runs fresh as ever. Drugs that heal, not kill, 
 Are his ; we know their source. 
 
 He from the first wrought through his varied rhyme 
 For truth, for fatherland, for freedom s cause, 
 
 As now, through riper learning, in a time * 
 Of better men and laws. 
 
 Grander than ever now his lyrics ring ; 
 
 His humor with a richer flavor fraught ; 
 Sweeter the willows through his idyls sing; 
 
 His best his latest thought. 
 
 Here under his ancestral elms we meet 
 In fireside talk ; and in his social lights, 
 
 Unmindful how the poet s winged feet 
 Have trod the lonely heights, 
 
J. R. L. 131 
 
 Forget the midnight lamp, the busy brain, 
 
 The converse with the treasures of his shelves, 
 
 And how the unconscious echo of his strain 
 Makes music in ourselves. 
 
 We greet him here, still young in wit and song, 
 His hair unbleached, his eye undimmed, his frame 
 
 Robust ; a scholar ripe, a teacher strong, 
 
 t 
 A bard the ages claim. 
 
 We pledge the generous heart, the exuberant soul, 
 No grave professor s mask can change or hide. 
 
 One toast, " The friend we love," shall sum the whole, 
 Were all that s said, denied. 
 
 For he needs not our homage or our praise : 
 He lives in us ; and all who know his worth. 
 
 Flatter him not with formal wreath of bays 
 Grown in your Cambridge earth ; 
 
 But crown him with the iris of his soul, 
 
 Caught from the sunshine of his life and name. 
 
 Onr reflex of his light the aureole 
 That makes our love his fame. 
 
SEA SHADOWS. 
 
 r old the poets sang of thee, O Sea, 
 And peopled thee with nymphs and tritons quaint, 
 And fell asleep beside thy murmuring Avaves, 
 Or rocking on thy bosom, and forgot 
 The tiger heart that crouched and laid in wait 
 In seeming slumber. Thy great glooms I sing, 
 Shadows of chaos and wild passion s deeps, 
 And desolations of the unmeasured wastes. 
 
 O smooth, false friend, who lured us out too far 
 Prom land and home, into the realm of storms, 
 Of storms and winter ; or in tropic gulfs 
 Split our brave ships with thunderbolts ; or washed 
 In drowning death a hundred beating hearts 
 With one sweep of thine arm ; or day by day 
 Held us in trances of long sickening calm, 
 Booted in weary plains of molten glass, 
 
SEA SHADOWS. 133 
 
 Dumb with despair and famine and the dread 
 Of p:-st and fiery death, with none to help, 
 The burning eye of heaven that rolled and glared 
 At noon, an eye of awful maniac light, 
 Our only witness in the unmeasured leagues 
 And bottomless abysses ! Thou, O Sea, 
 Hidest in thy blue bosom, and within 
 Thy gleaming bars of sand and weed-clad stones, 
 All haunting fears and mysteries of death, 
 All auguries of chaos and despair. 
 
 In thee, O melancholy mother Sea, 
 
 Lurk all the vast and direful ocean-shapes, 
 
 The black leviathan, the ravening shark, 
 
 The huge sea-snake by mariners beheld, 
 
 The krakens and chimeras strong as death, 
 
 With elephantine tentacles and jaws 
 
 Of slow and sure destruction, and cold eyes 
 
 That fathoms down stare up and mark their prey. 
 
 Thou art the nurse of that swift cuttle-fish, 
 
 Gigantic fleshy spider of grim caves 
 
 Neath cliifs precipitous, where sucks the tide 
 
 In snaky coils of light and dark and death, 
 
 Leagues off from land, the terror of a dream ! 
 
 Thine are the shadowy waifs of shapeless growths, 
 
134 SEA SHADOWS. 
 
 IL.lf plant, half fish, fantastic jelly forms 
 
 ]}y moonlight drifting past old ships becalmed 
 
 In summer nights, while near the Teneriffe 
 
 The loose sails flap like thunder through the dreams 
 
 Of sleeping sailors. Thine the gleaming teeth 
 
 Of white reefs snarling as the ships drive down 
 
 Through blackening skies. And thine the calmer glooms 
 
 Of sad sea-beaches and their lapping waves ; 
 
 The rocks half buried in the slippery heaps 
 
 Of soaking sea- weed, when the tide is low ; 
 
 And, wriggling in the moonlight and the sand, 
 
 The small wet monsters crawling in and out 
 
 The hollows and the ooze ; the skull-eyed rocks 
 
 With hanging tufts of yellow ocean hair 
 
 Combed by the salt winds, decked with dead old shells, 
 
 Tricked with the sad waste leavings of the storm, 
 
 And washed with treacherous kisses of the surf 
 
 That froths and sighs all night beneath the moon. 
 
 To tliee I come, and scorn thy flattering kiss, 
 
 And have small faith in thy smooth surface charms. 
 
 Thou fawnest like a spaniel at my feet. 
 
 I s?.e the wild beast in thy changeful eyes, 
 
 And trust tliee not. Rather for me the safe 
 
 Green hills and valleys of firm earth, the joy 
 
SEA SHADOWS. 135 
 
 Of woods and pastures and the thousand homes 
 Lit up at evening with home-stars of love, 
 And musical with loving human hearts. 
 
 A truer type of power than thee I find 
 
 In the great morn of Science that hath lit 
 
 Thy shadows, and the skill that treads thee down 
 
 Into a highway for man s daily steps, 
 
 And the world s multitudinous fleets. Three gods 
 
 Chiefly I praise, and not thy Neptune old, 
 
 Magnet and Vapor and the Electric Fire, 
 
 Whose forces tame thy spasms, so man thy lord 
 
 May plunge across the roaring water-chasms, 
 
 And bridge the measureless, aud come and go 
 
 And talk at ease across the world. 
 
 Thou too, 
 
 O changeful element that bore our ship 
 Of state upon thy breast ! We looked abroad 
 To thy horizon level, long, and blue 
 W r ith summer skies. We recked not of the storm, 
 We dreamed not of the four-years hurricane 
 Raging in battle-fires, aud skies of blood, 
 And mountain waves that swept the young and brave 
 To sudden death or long-drawn agonies ; 
 Nor saw the sunken reefs beneath the blue, 
 
136 SEA SHADOWS. 
 
 Nor the dire monsters of thy deeps, nor half 
 The hidden horrors of thy treacherous calms : 
 But trusted thee and sailed upon thy waves, 
 Till thy brute force turned on us, hideous, grim, 
 Forcing the struggle wherein wisdom rose 
 Triumphant. Thee too shall man s science t:une, 
 Lighting the pathway o er thy perilous deeps, 
 And travel forth and back across thy wastes, 
 And wed the sundered lands of North and South 
 Into one continent of flower and fruit ; 
 Taking away the blight of all the past, 
 And the blind chaos of Humanity. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN PATH, 
 
 FAR, far above 
 
 This easy slope I gained, a mountain shines 
 And darkens skyward with its crags and pines ; 
 
 And upward slowly I move, 
 
 Because I know 
 
 There is no level where I can pause, and say, 
 " This is sure gain." It is too steep a way 
 
 For mortal foot to go. 
 
 There is no end 
 
 Of things to learn, and books to cram the brain 
 They who know all, still hunger to attain. 
 
 "What boots it that they spend 
 
 Long toiling years 
 To gain horizons dim and limitless ? 
 The higher up, the more the soul s distress 
 
 In alien atmospheres. 
 
138 THE MOUNTAIN PATH. 
 
 All is the same. 
 
 What profit hath the scholar more than I ? 
 Let bookworms crawl. Better to leap or fly 
 
 With some small earnest aim. 
 
 What is the good 
 
 Of heaping pile on pile of musty lore ? 
 Nor paper promises, nor uncoined ore 
 
 Can buy the spirit s food. 
 
 Even the flame 
 
 Of morning burning o er yon cedar heights 
 Is dull, unless an inward morn delights. 
 
 All sunshine is the same. 
 
 Our skill and wit 
 
 Snare us in useless labor and routine. 
 The more we search, the more retires unseen 
 
 Nature the Infinite. 
 
 The same in all. 
 
 And telescope and microscope but teach 
 One mystery, far above, below our reach. 
 
 There is no great or small, 
 
THE MOUNTAIN PATH. 139 
 
 No grand or mean ; 
 
 No end, and no beginning. For we float 
 In Being, and learn all our creeds by rote, 
 
 Nor see through Heaven s screen. 
 
 This, mainly this, 
 
 We cling to, hope that as we upward climb, 
 Some essence of the juices of the time, 
 
 Some light we cannot miss, 
 
 Gives toil its worth ; 
 
 Secretes and feeds and builds up strong and fair 
 The young recipient being with food and air 
 
 Of mingled heaven and earth. 
 
 Only what creeps 
 
 As sap from trunk to tree, from branch to flower, 
 Tills with the quiet plenitude of power 
 
 The oak s unconscious deeps ; 
 
 While south-winds sift, 
 
 Rain falls and sunlight sparkles through the leaves, 
 And the gnarled regent of the woods receives 
 
 The heaven s benignant gift. 
 
140 THE MOUNTAIN PATH. 
 
 What the soul needs, 
 
 It takes to itself, aromas, sounds, and sights, 
 Beliefs and hopes ; finds star-tracks through the nights, 
 
 And miracles in weeds ; 
 
 Grows unawares 
 
 To greatness, through small help and accidents, 
 Puzzling the pedagogue Eoutine, whose tents 
 
 It leaves for manlier cares. 
 
 And by the light 
 
 Of some great law that shines on passing facts, 
 Some nobler purpose blending with our acts, 
 
 We read our tasks aright ; 
 
 And gain the trust 
 
 That knowledge is best wealth. So shall the ends 
 Crown the beginnings. He who wisely spends, 
 
 Gathers the stars as dust. 
 
 1868. 
 
BIED LANGUAGE. 
 
 ONE day in the bluest of summer weather, 
 Sketching under a whispering oak, 
 
 I heard five bobolinks laughing together 
 Over some ornithological joke. 
 
 What the fun was I could n t discover. 
 
 Language of birds is a riddle on earth. 
 What could they find in white weed and clover 
 
 To split their sides with such musical mirth ? 
 
 Was it some prank of the prodigal summer, 
 Face in the cloud or voice in the breeze, 
 
 Querulous catbird, woodpecker drummer, 
 Cawing of crows high over the trees ? 
 
 Was it some chipmunk s chatter, or weasel 
 Under the stone-wall stealthy and sly ? 
 
 Or was the joke about me at my easel, 
 Trying to catch the tints of the sky ? 
 
142 BIRD LANGUAGE. 
 
 Still they flew tipsily, shaking all over, 
 Bubbling with jollity, brimful of glee, 
 
 While I sat listening deep in the clover, 
 Wondering what their jargon could be. 
 
 T was but the voice of a morning the brightest 
 That ever dawned over yon shadowy hills ; 
 
 T was but the song of all joy that is lightest, - 
 Sunshine breaking in laughter and trills. 
 
 Vain to conjecture the words they are singing ; 
 
 Only by tones can we follow the tune 
 In the full heart of the summer fields ringing, 
 
 Ringing the rhythmical gladness of June ! 
 
THE CHANGING YEAK, 
 
 All, fleeting year that wilt not pause a day 
 To leave a picture of thy changeful moods ! 
 
 Glories scarce shown and seen, and snatched away, 
 Of sunsets, flushing roses, fields and woods. 
 
 Tho early blossoms leave the rugged thorn ; 
 
 The purple lilacs wither in the lanes ; 
 The violets breath, sweet for one April morn, 
 
 Is stifled in dead leaves and drowning rains. 
 
 The chrome-gold dandelion stars of spring 
 Burn out in ashy globes ere June is passed. 
 
 Too soon the hidden thrushes cease to sing, 
 
 Too soon the summer leaves hear autumn s blast. 
 
 And ere we know, the locust s long-drawn trill 
 Swells in the August noon, and nights grow cool, 
 
 And see-saw katydids foretell the chill 
 Of leafless forest and of icy pool. 
 
144 THE CHANGING YEAR. 
 
 And flaunting golden-rods, and cardinal flowers, 
 And drooping golden helmets skirt the streams, 
 
 And sighing winds give warning, and the hours 
 Of sunshine waste in cloudy twilight gleams. 
 
 Yet paint thy pictures, Time, and sing thy songs ! 
 
 Thy pictures fade, thy songs die on the air. 
 Thou canst not take what to the soul belongs, 
 
 Beauty s immortal essence everywhere. 
 
 The summer goes, brown autumn treads behind, 
 White winter scowls afar upon my rhyme. 
 
 I feel a Presence that is unconfined ; 
 
 I hear a Voice whose music fills all time. 
 
SOFT, BROWN, SMILING EYES, 
 
 SONG. 
 
 I. 
 
 SOFT, brown, smiling eyes, 
 
 Looking back through years, 
 Smiling through the mist of time, 
 
 Filling mine with tears, 
 On this sunny morn, 
 
 While the grape-blooms swing 
 In the scented air of June, 
 
 "Why these memories bring ? 
 
 ii. 
 
 Silky rippling curls, 
 
 Tresses long ago 
 Laid beneath the shaded sod 
 
 Where the violets blow, 
 Why across the blue 
 
 Of the peerless day 
 Do ye droop to meet my own, 
 
 Now all turned to gray ? 
 7 
 
146 SOFT, BROWN, SMILING EYES. 
 
 III. 
 Voice whose tender tones 
 
 Break in sudden mirth, 
 Heard far back in boyhood s spring, 
 
 Silent now on earth, 
 Why so sweet and clear, 
 
 While the bird and bee 
 Fill the balmy summer air, 
 
 Come your tones to me ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sweet, ah, sweeter far 
 
 Than yon thrush s trill, 
 Sadder, sweeter than the wind, 
 
 Woods, or murmuring rill, 
 Spirit words and songs 
 
 O er my senses creep. 
 Do I breathe the air of dreams ? 
 
 Do I wake or sleep ? 
 
THE DEEAM OF PILATE S WIPE. 
 
 " When Pilate was set down on the judgment-seat, his wife sent unto him, 
 saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man : for I have suffered 
 many things this day in a dream because of him." Matthew xxvii. 19. 
 
 1 KXOW my lord would laugh my dream to scorn. 
 He dreams no dreams ; or else sees truth and dream 
 The same. Why should I tell him ? What a night ! 
 If I should speak its visions, I believe 
 The very augurs would declare me mad ; 
 And these fanatic Jews themselves would say 
 No prophet of their sacred books e er saw 
 In fasting trance so weird a world. 
 
 Methought 
 
 I stood before the Temple gates. A vast 
 And wondrous moonlight flooded the huge pile, 
 Whose pillars gleamed with stately white and gold. 
 And on the steps one stood, and stretched his arms, 
 And called, " Come unto me, come unto me, 
 All ye who labor and are heavy laden, 
 
148 THE DREAM OF PILATE S WIFE. 
 
 And I will give you rest ! " Sweet was that voice, 
 
 And plaintive, with an undertone of strength, 
 
 That thrilled the soul with strange unrest and love. 
 
 Nor less did love burn in his earnest eyes. 
 
 But all the people hurried by, and scoffed, 
 
 Or laughed. None came to him. None took his hand. 
 
 Yet still he stood there, like some eloquent 
 
 Grand statue of our Eoman Pantheon 
 
 But different. Jove and Apollo thus 
 
 Never were fashioned by the sculptor s hand. 
 
 But my dream changed. The golden moonlight paled 
 
 Under a flying scud of mist, and all 
 
 Grew black behind the Temple. Muttering moans 
 
 Of thunder growled afar o er Olivet. 
 
 The monumental cypresses beyond 
 
 The walls grew blacker, and the olive-trees 
 
 Tossed like gray phantoms, their huge twisted trunks 
 
 Moaning and shivering. A great wind arose 
 
 And bore a blare of trumpets from the west, 
 
 "Wailing along the sky. Then shadowy shapes, 
 
 That seemed the semblance of an army, passed, 
 
 Tumultuous, crowding all their serried force 
 
 With chariots and with flying standards on 
 
 Into one solid thunder-cloud, whence rolled 
 
THE DREAM OF PILATE S WIFE. 149 
 
 Swift balls of fire and crashing thunder-peals, 
 
 Till the whole Temple rocked. But in the pause 
 
 Between the peals I heard upon the steps 
 
 That voice still plaintive as a wind-harp s tone. 
 
 " Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! " it cried ; 
 
 " Thou that dost stone the prophets, thou whose hand 
 
 N als to the bitter and the shameful cross 
 
 The bringers of good tidings, ah, how oft 
 
 Would I have gathered tliee unto my heart, 
 
 As the hen gathereth her young ! But ye 
 
 Would not. Behold your hour has come ! " 
 
 And then, 
 
 The changes of my dream swept me along 
 Through streets I never saw, through low-arched doors, 
 Through cramped and tortuous caves, up marble steps, 
 Through royal halls that opened vistas long, 
 Past golden thrones, where kings and emperors 
 Sat mute and dead ; past endless hurrying crowds, 
 Past gleaming files of grim centurions, 
 On, till I reached a bleak and windy hill. 
 And some one whispered, " Golgotha ! " There hung 
 The youth whom they accuse to-day, upon 
 The lloman gibbet. Low his head \vas bowed 
 In agonizing death. But slowly his form 
 Grew luminous, and luminous the cross, 
 
150 THE DREAM OF PILATE S WIFE. 
 
 And the great light increased till all the place 
 
 Was morning sunshine. And, behold, the crowd 
 
 Around all vanished in the blaze. Behold, 
 
 The pale kings crumbled on their shadowy thrones. 
 
 The iron legions blew away like smoke. 
 
 Yea, the great Temple and the city walls 
 
 And all the people faded into air. 
 
 But that strange cross, with him who hung thereon, 
 
 Grew to a blinding sun. 
 
 Then a voice spoke, 
 
 " The heavenly kingdom cometh upon earth. 
 The truth not mine, but God s and man s the truth 
 Man s soul is born to inherit as the air 
 And sunshine, comes not to destroy, but comes 
 Creating all things new, till the whole earth 
 Is saturated with the love of God, 
 And all mankind are one great family." 
 Then, far away, along the horizon s verge 
 I saw a city shining ; half on earth 
 It seemed, and half in air. " Berhaps," I thought, 
 " This is great Rome, and I shall find the house 
 I lived in when a girl, and shield myself 
 In its cool courts from this intense strange light." 
 And then I hurried on, o er rugged rocks, 
 O er windy plains, down valleys dim and damp, 
 
THE DllEAM OF PILATE S WIFE. 151 
 
 That held the- twilight all day long ; till all 
 
 Grew dark about me, groping through the gloom. 
 
 Then, suddenly, a yawning precipice 
 
 Ended my flight, and giddy on its verge 
 
 I sank, and slid down, down, clutching the air, 
 
 Shot through with dizzy horror, while pale forms 
 
 Of nameless terror at the bottom stood 
 
 And stretched long arms to grasp me, when I woke. 
 
 I woke, drenched with great drops of agony ; 
 
 And lay awake, counting the weird, wan hours 
 
 Of murky dawn. I will not tell my dream 
 
 To Pilate, only that I dreamed of Him, 
 
 The wondrous teacher, suffering much in dreams. 
 
 I trust my lord will bear no part to-day 
 
 In this unhallowed trial. Else I fear 
 
 Some hidden curse will light upon our house. 
 
 Siu-h visions cannot be false auguries. 
 
 1SG ; J. 
 
THE DISPUTE OF THE SEVEN DAYS, 
 
 UNCE on a time the days of the week 
 Quarrelled and made bad weather. 
 
 The point was which of the seven was best ; 
 So they all disputed together. 
 
 And Monday said, " I wash the clothes " ; 
 
 And Tuesday said, " I air em " ; 
 And "Wednesday said, " I iron the shirts "; 
 
 And Thursday said, " I wear cm." 
 
 And Friday, " I m the day for fish " ; 
 
 And Saturday, " Children love me " ; 
 And Sunday, " I am the Sabbath day, 
 
 I in sure there are none above me." 
 
 O :e said, " I am the fittest for work " ; 
 
 And one, " I am fittest for leisure." 
 Another, " I m best for prayer and praise " 
 
 And another, " I in best for pleasure." 
 
THE DISPUTE OF THE SEVEN DAYS. 153 
 
 Arguing thus, they flapped their wings, 
 
 And puffed up every feather ; 
 They blew and rained and snowed arid hailed : 
 
 There never was seen such weather. 
 
 Old Father Time was passing by, 
 
 And heard the hurly-burly. 
 Said he, " Here s something going wrong ; 
 
 It s well I was up so early. 
 
 " These children of mine have lost their wits 
 
 And seem to be all non compos. 
 I never knew them to gabble thus. 
 
 Hollo there ! stop that rumpus ! 
 
 " I should think you a flock of angry geese, 
 To hear your screaming and bawling. 
 
 Indeed, it would seem by the way it snows, 
 Goose -feathers are certainly falling. 
 
 " You, Sunday, sir, with your starched cravat, 
 Black coat, and church-veneering, 
 
 Tell me the cause of this angry spat ; 
 Speak loud, I am hard of hearing. 
 
 7* 
 
154 THE DISPUTE OF THE SEVEN DAYS. 
 
 "You are the foremost talker here; 
 
 The wisest sure you should be. 
 I little thought such a deuce of a row 
 
 As you are all making, could be." 
 
 Then Sunday said, " Good Father Time, 
 
 The case is clear as noonday ; 
 For ever since the world was made, 
 
 The Lord s day has been Sunday. 
 
 " The church - Here Monday started up : 
 " The folks are glad when you leave em ; 
 
 They all want me to give em their work, 
 
 And the pleasures of which you bereave em." 
 
 But Tuesday said, " I finish your chores, 
 And do them as fine as a fiddle." 
 
 And Wednesday, " I am the best of you all 
 Because I stand in the middle." 
 
 And Thursday, Friday, Saturday, each 
 Said things that I can t remember. 
 
 And so they might have argued their case 
 From March until December. 
 
THE DISPUTE OF THE SEVEN DAYS. 155 
 
 But Father Tcmpus cut them short : 
 
 " My children, why this pother ? 
 There is no best, there is no worst ; 
 
 One day s just like another. 
 
 " To God s great eye all shine alike 
 
 As in their primal beauty. 
 That day is best whose deeds are best ; 
 
 That worst that fails in duty. 
 
 " Where Justice lights the passing hours, 
 
 Where Love is wise and tender, 
 There beams the radiance of the skies, 
 
 There shines a day of splendor." 
 
A THEUSH IN A GILDED CAGE. 
 
 W AS this the singer I had heard so long, 
 But never till this evening, face to face ? 
 
 And were they his, those tones so unlike song, 
 Those words conventional and commonplace ? 
 
 Those echoes of the usual social chat 
 
 That filled with noise confused the crowded hall 
 That smiling face, black coat, and white cravat ; 
 
 Those fashionable manners, was this all ? 
 
 He glanced at freedmen, operas, politics, 
 And other common topics of the day ; 
 
 But not one brilliant image did he mix 
 With all the prosy things he had to say. 
 
 At least I hoped that one I long had known, 
 In the inspired books that built his fame, 
 
 Would breathe some word, some sympathetic tone, 
 Fresh from the ideal region whence he came. 
 
A THRUSH IN A GILDED CAGE. 157 
 
 Arid so I leave the well-dressed, "buzzing crowd, 
 And vent my spleen alone here by my fire ; 
 
 Mourning the fading of my golden cloud, 
 The disappointment of my life s desire. 
 
 Simple enthusiast ! why do you require 
 A budding rose for every thorny stalk ? 
 
 Why must we poets always bear the lyre 
 And sing, when fashion forces us to talk ? 
 
 Only at moments comes the muse s light. 
 
 Alone, like shy wood-thrushes, warble we. 
 Catch us in traps like this dull crowd to-night, 
 
 We are but plain, brown-feathered birds, you see ! 
 
IJNDEK THE SKYLIGHT, 
 
 1 HAVE no office with staring sign 
 Down in the noise of the crowded mart. 
 
 A window square to the sky is mine 
 In an humble loft, where all apart 
 I live, with my friends and books and art. 
 
 No currents of gold from Wall Street come 
 To breed the fever of loss and gain ; 
 
 But the golden sunlight warms my home, 
 Or on my skylight patters the rain, 
 As I paint or sing my castles in Spain. 
 
 No checks that smile for a day, and melt, 
 The postman brings to my humble door ; 
 
 But letters from friends whose love is felt 
 To be richer than all the golden store 
 Of the millionnaire whose soul is poor. 
 
UNDER THE SKYLIGHT. 159 
 
 Gold is good, but tis not the best. 
 True love s bank, can it ever break ? 
 
 What if it should ? The sun in the west 
 Sinks and rises again, to make 
 A long, long banquet of Give and Take. 
 
 Time is passing, but time is renewed. 
 Life runs over with wealth untold. 
 
 Age grows younger in all that is good, 
 
 Reaping the fields where Youth stood cold 
 
 In the dfear bare furrows, and dreamed of gold. 
 
 What if the light of our matin-prime 
 
 Pales in the storm with a struggling beam ; 
 
 One ripe day of life s latter time 
 Is worth a hundred of fitful gleam, 
 Is worth long years of an aimless dream. 
 
 misty land of uncertain youth, 
 
 Low-lying swamps of fear and doubt ! 
 
 We have left you below for the heights of truth. 
 We have found through the fogs a pathway out. 
 Below us the youths and maidens shout, 
 
 Wandering, careless, through roads unknown, 
 Wrapped in the soft, Avarm, vapory air. 
 
160 UNDER THE SKYLIGHT. 
 
 Here in the clear, still upper zone 
 We see how wide is life, how fair, 
 While age s light gilds age s care. 
 
 What if the snow-wreath crown our heads ? 
 
 We gain the electric strength of frost. 
 We are treading the path each mortal treads. 
 
 We are nearing the spring. We have counted the cost. 
 
 We trust, ay, know we shall not be lost. 
 
I IN THEE, AND THOU IN MR. 
 
 1 AM but clay in thy hands, but Thou art the all-loving 
 artist. 
 
 Passive I lie in thy sight, yet in my selfhood I strive 
 So to embody the life and the love thou ever impartest, 
 
 That in my sphere of the finite I may be truly alive. 
 
 Knowing thou needest this form, as I thy divine inspiration, 
 Knowing thou shapest the clay with a vision and pur 
 pose divine, 
 So would I answer each touch of thy hand in its loving 
 
 creation, 
 
 That in my conscious life thy power and beauty may 
 shine, 
 
 Reflecting the noble intent thou hast in forming thy 
 
 creatures ; 
 
 Waking from sense into life of the soul, and the image 
 of thee \ 
 
 K 
 
162 I IN THEE, AND THOU IN ME. 
 
 Working with thee in thy work to model humanity s 
 
 features 
 
 Into the likeness of God, myself from myself I would 
 free. 
 
 
 One with all human existence, no one above or below me ; 
 
 Lit by thy wisdom and love, as roses are steeped in 
 
 the morn ; 
 Growing from clay to a statue, from statue to flesh, till 
 
 thou know me 
 
 Wrought into manhood celestial, and in thine image 
 re-born. 
 
 So in thy love will I trust, bringing me sooner or later 
 Past the dark screen that divides these shows of the 
 finite from thee. 
 
 Thine, thine only, this warm dear life, O loving Creator ! 
 Thine the invisible future, born of the present, must be. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 ODE READ AT THE CELEBRATION OF HER BIRTHDAY BY THE 
 NEW ENGLAND WOMEN S CLUB, BOSTON, MAY 23, 1870. 
 
 I. 
 
 LlF.E S rearward vistas slowly close behind, 
 And evermore recede, the glare and shade 
 Blending in neutral tints far down the glade 
 
 Where youth stepped unconfined, 
 Or bounded upwards, light and undismayed, 
 Or struggled through the underbrush and thorns, 
 Baffled and mad to hear the winding horns 
 So far away triumphant on the heights 
 Where some found truth, some error s foggy breath, 
 
 And some fame s evanescent lights, 
 Or desolate old age, or crown of early death. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Dim in the distance fade 
 The sunshine and the shade ; 
 
164 ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 And many a light that blazed and shone, 
 
 Into the horizon s mist has gone. 
 
 One record rises from our past, 
 
 That shall forever last ; 
 
 A name our age can never 
 
 From its remembrance sever. 
 
 We bear it in our hearts to-day, 
 
 Fresh as the perfume of the May. 
 It vibrates in the air, a rich, full-chorded strain 
 
 Touched with weird minor moods of pain, 
 The music of a life revealed to few, 
 Till to the age Death gave the fame long due, 
 And made the unfinished symphony a part 
 Of the great growing century s mind and heart. 
 
 in. 
 But jvhen I strive the music to rehearse, 
 
 How feebly rings my verse ! 
 And why intone this melody of rhyme 
 For one, the noblest woman of her time, 
 Whose soul, a pure and radiant chrysolite, 
 Dims the superfluous arts our social forms invite ? 
 
 Yet she whose ear so well could understand 
 The singer s meaning, though unskilled the hand 
 
ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 1G5 
 
 That swept the imperfect chords 
 
 Kesponsive to his words, 
 
 Would not disdain the slenderest song he brings, 
 Nor slight the impulse of the earnest strings. 
 
 So, while we gather here, 
 Fain would I bring some offering sincere 
 
 Though small, a flower or two, 
 Pale amaranth, wild rose, or harebell blue, 
 Or throw at least a chaplet on her bier. 
 
 IV. 
 
 While others stood aloof and smiled in scorn 
 
 Of one to new and noble effort born ; 
 
 Or from tame rounds of fashion and of wealth 
 
 Turned, glancing back by stealth, 
 And wondered, then but slowly, faintly praised 
 The exuberant soul that dared to flash and soar 
 Beyond the petty bounds 
 Of their trim garden grounds, 
 
 She with wise intuition raised 
 
 Her image of ideal womanhood, 
 
 The incarnate True and Fair and Good, 
 Set in a light but seldom seen before. 
 While with the early watchers in the dawn 
 Of intellectual faith her hopeful eyes, 
 
166 ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 Patiently waiting, from the crowd withdrawn, 
 
 She saw a newer morning rise 
 And flame from cloud to cloud, and climb 
 Across the dreary tracts of time. 
 The garnered wisdom of the past she drew 
 Into her life, as flowers the sun and dew ; 
 Yet valued all her varied lore 
 But as the avenue and door 
 That opened to the Primal Beam 
 And sense of Truth supreme. 
 
 
 
 And so beyond her earlier bounds she grew, 
 
 All the quaint essences from study gained 
 
 Fused in a human fellowship anew ; 
 While that too conscious life, in younger years o erstraincd, 
 
 Of long, deep, lonely introversion born, 
 
 Distilled like dews of morn, 
 And dropped on high and low the blessing it contained. 
 
 Her glowing pen through many a thoughtful page 
 
 Discoursed in subtle questions of the age, 
 
 Or glanced in lighter mood at themes less grave, 
 
 The brilliant glitter of a summer wave. 
 
 Her sweet persuasive voice we still can hear 
 
 Huling her charmed circle like a queen ; 
 
 While wit and fancy sparkled ever clear 
 
ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 1C7 
 
 Her graver moods between. 
 
 The pure perennial heat 
 Of youth s ideal love forever glowed 
 Through all her thoughts and words, and overflowed 
 
 The listeners round her seat. 
 
 So, like some fine-strung golden harp, 
 Tuned by many a twist and warp 
 Of discipline and patient toil, 
 And oft disheartening recoil, 
 Attuned to highest and to humblest use, 
 All her large heroic nature 
 Grew to its harmonious stature. 
 Nor any allotted service did refuse, 
 While those around her but half understood 
 
 How wise she was, how good, 
 How nobly self-denying, as she tasked 
 Heart, mind, and strength for truth, nor nobler office asked. 
 
 v. 
 
 Nor honor less, nor praise 
 To her whose later days 
 
 Were pledged to lift wronged Justice to her seat. 
 And though Home s new-lit torch 
 l)U \v backward, but to scorch 
 
168 ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 The "hand that held it, dropping at her feet; 
 Quenched in the patriots blood, riot incomplete 
 Her task, though all the heroic strains she sang 
 To chronicle a struggling nation s pang 
 
 The records of the strife 
 
 That agonized its life 
 
 Were strewn upon the wind like withered flowers, 
 And gulfed in roaring floods, Italia s loss, and ours ! 
 
 Alas ! how could we with our lamp of hope 
 Eead thy perplexed and darkened horoscope ? 
 How could we know, when Destiny s great loom 
 Thy life s most precious threads inwove 
 With all love s rich embroidery of love, 
 That its bright tissue held the shade 
 Of death across the golden braid, 
 The inevitable woof of death and tragic doom ! 
 When ties were sweetest, dearest ; 
 When love, when hope, were nearest ; 
 When eyes grew bright to greet thee ; 
 When arms were stretched to meet thee ; 
 When all thy life was flowering 
 
 As in a garden home, 
 The storm beyond was lowering, 
 The cud of all was come ! 
 
ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 109 
 
 I seem to hear 
 
 The grand, sweet music of that earnest life, 
 Grander and sweeter in its later strife, 
 Stop, suddenly drowned amid the tempest drear. 
 
 I hear that harp whose strings, 
 
 Whose delicate, thoughtful strings should well have played 
 Some hopeful melody of woods and springs ; 
 
 Some high heroic march 
 
 Beneath a Roman arch ; 
 
 Some lofty strain that made 
 
 The soul Hush to its sharing 
 
 The soldier s toil and daring, 
 Swept, like a wind-harp to wild agony 
 
 By bitter winds of destiny ; 
 
 Then, musical no more, 
 Dead, mute, and shattered on the lonely shore ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Had fote accorded with love s passionate prayer ; 
 Had she lived on with us, with us grown old, 
 Through war, through peace, through present toil and care, 
 Through future progress ; could she now behold 
 The triumph of the land, 
 Standing where now we stand, 
 8 
 
170 ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 The nation saved from brute Eebellion s strife, 
 And pledged to live a newer, healtliier life ; 
 Had she but seen our wider range, 
 The splendor of our coming lights, 
 Her vision and her strength grown with her change 
 
 Prom lonely days and nights, 
 To all that woman needs to make complete 
 
 In wifehood and maternal ties 
 The ripened mind and heart, a union sweet, 
 Tender and strong and wise. 
 
 But ah ! Fate suffered not, 
 
 Nor stayed her hasting feet. 
 
 No record but a blot, 
 
 A cherished leaf or two 
 
 Of tender love arid true, 
 No other relic sad and sweet 
 
 The cruel sea gave back 
 
 From out the storm and wrack, 
 
 From out the billows wild. 
 
 Only one little child 
 
 The weeping sailors bore 
 
 And buried on that shore, 
 All that the ocean left of thine and thee, 
 O friend, whom we again shall never see ! 
 
ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 171 
 
 VII. 
 
 Where now, where, 
 
 spirit pure, where walk those shining feet ? 
 "Whither, in groves beyond the treacherous seas, 
 Beyond our sense of time, divinely, dimly fair, 
 Brighter than gardens of Hesperides, 
 Whither dost thou move on, complete 
 And beauteous, ringed around 
 In mystery profound, 
 By gracious companies who share 
 That strange, supernal air ! 
 Or art thou sleeping dreamless, knowing naught 
 
 Of good or ill, of life or death ? 
 Or art thou but a breeze of Heaven s breath, 
 
 A portion of all life, inwrought 
 In the eternal essence ? All in vain, 
 Tangled in misty webs of time, 
 Out on the undiscovered clime 
 Our clouded eyes we strain. 
 We cannot pierce the veil. 
 As the proud eagles fail 
 Upon their upward track, 
 And flutter gasping back 
 From the thin empyrean, so with wing 
 Baffled and humbled, we but guess 
 
172 ODE TO MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. 
 
 All we shall gain, by all the soul s distress, 
 All we shall be, by our poor worthiness. 
 
 And so we write and sing 
 Our dreams of time and space, and call them heaven. 
 
 We only know that all is for the best ; 
 To God we leave the rest. 
 
 So, reverent beneath the mystery 
 
 Of life and death, we yield 
 Back to the great Unknown the spirit given 
 A few brief years to blossom in our field. 
 
 Nor shall time s all-devouring sea 
 
 Despoil this brightest century 
 Of all thou hast been, and shalt ever be. 
 
 The age shall guard thy fame, 
 
 And reverence thy name. 
 There is no cloud on them. There is no death for thee ! 
 
IAPIS, 
 
 " Phocbo ante alios dilectus, lapis 
 lasides : acri quondam cui captus arnore 
 Ipse suas artes, sua munera, laetus Apollo 
 Augurium, citlmramque , dabat, celcresque sagittas. 
 Ille, ut deposit! profcrret fata parentis, 
 Scire potestates lierbarum, iisumque nicdendi, 
 Maluit, et mutas agitare inglorius artes." 
 
 VIRGIL, JEne id, B. XII. 
 
 IN Troas, on Mount Ida s sloping side, 
 
 There lived a shepherd youth whom Phoebus loved, 
 
 lapis, old lasius son, his name. 
 
 His father, feeble, aged, many a month 
 
 Had kept his couch, or basking in the sun 
 
 Sat, mid the mossy rocks that faced the south, 
 
 Before his cottage door. Long had his son, 
 
 His sole attendant, striven to bring back 
 
 His father s failing strength ; but they were poor, 
 
 And in all arts medicinal unskilled. 
 
 Yet all was done that filial love and care, 
 
 Unschooled in lore of herbs and cures, could do. 
 
174 IAPIS. 
 
 On Ida s slopes, one night, the stifled winds 
 
 Of summer had all fainted in the heats 
 
 That pressed upon the bosoms of the hills, 
 
 But rose again, with crashing bursts of storm, 
 
 And sweeping rains, that drenched the piny clefts ; 
 
 And through the incumbent night in blazing spasms 
 
 Flashed far and fast the thunderbolts of Jove ; 
 
 A beautiful and blinding light, that all 
 
 The landscape, and the distant towers of Troy, 
 
 And the gray sea away by Tenedos 
 
 Seemed dashed with sudden shocks of moonlight mixed 
 
 With chaos and the black of Erebus. 
 
 lapis and lasius sat beneath 
 
 Their humble roof, and from the casement gazed 
 
 Upon the sky, with long-suspended breath 
 
 Between the ominous intervals of fire 
 
 And thunder, till at length lapis spoke. 
 
 " Father, it is the anger of the gods, 
 
 On us perchance ; perchance on Priam s walls 
 
 Some overwhelming doom must fall erelong." 
 
 But old lasius answered : " Nay, not so. 
 
 My strength ebbs back, as if a weight of years 
 
 Rolled from my shoulders. Though I am no seer, 
 
 I feel the presence of the Olympian will, 
 
IAPIS. 175 
 
 Masking benignity in portents fierce, 
 To work some issue, all unknown, yet bright 
 Tor thce, for me, and for the Trojan realm. 
 Lo, now the thunder rolls away ; the rain 
 Has ceased ; and only down the mountain gorge 
 The torrents leap in tumbling cataracts. 
 The clouds have parted, and the sleepy storm 
 Flutters his dying fire-wings far away, 
 Quivering through domes and pinnacles of cloud, 
 Where on the horizon ride the tossing ships, 
 Black-masted, heaving with the ocean s swell. 
 I too would rest. Sleep falls, as not for months, 
 Upon my weary eyes. Thou too, my son, 
 More hopefully go seek thy couch. Some good 
 The gods design, else why this wondrous calm ? " 
 
 At dawn of day lapis woke. His sire 
 
 Already was awake, a peaceful smile 
 
 Upon his lips. " A happy dream I ve had," 
 
 He said, " a dream of radiant morn and youth. 
 
 Golden Apollo mingled with my trance, 
 
 And lit with splendor each fantastic shape 
 
 That flitted through its changes. Nay, not now, 
 
 I w r ill not tell it now, some day, some morn, 
 
 When thou, poor shepherd boy, shalt need no more 
 
170 IAPIS. 
 
 Thy mountain goats, thy staff, and humble garb, 
 And sorry penance and routine of care, 
 Linked to the fortunes of thy tottering sire. 
 Apollo, lo, Apollo loves thee, boy ! 
 Go forth this morn, this very morn, and build 
 An altar to the god in yonder grove. 
 With hallowed rites and willing sacrifice 
 Pray to the god of wisdom and of light." 
 
 Then forth into the ambrosial air of morn 
 
 lapis went, much pondering in his mind 
 
 What dream it may have been that cheered his sire. 
 
 It was a morning that seemed all distilled 
 
 Of amber, gold and gems, and dewy scents 
 
 From fields and woods, the rhyme of heaven with earth. 
 
 Pale in the pearly west the white moon hung 
 
 Like an inverted silver cup drained dry, 
 
 After some midnight banquet of the gods 
 
 Withdrawn into the blue, with all their stars. 
 
 Beyond the windows to the east uprose 
 
 A grove of cedars, dark against the dawn. 
 
 Beneath the shadows of the antique boughs 
 
 The spicy odors of the night still lay 
 
 Entangled in the embraces of the dew. 
 
 And o er the cedars flamed the rose and gold 
 
IAPIS. 177 
 
 Of braided clouds fantastically curled, 
 Dappled and flecked and streaked with opal tints ; 
 And all the east was ringing with the choirs 
 Of rapturous birds. So far away it seemed 
 From storms and sorrows and all earthly cares, 
 As though t were but a step from Ida s top 
 Into the Olympian calm of deathless gods. 
 
 Then down the eastern slope lapis stepped, 
 
 Till the dense cedars, opening, half disclosed, 
 
 Through branches interlaced, the imperial morn 
 
 That burned from amber-gray to crimson-gold, 
 
 The coming presence of the god of light. 
 
 Then, as lapis thought to grasp his bow 
 
 And arrows, and to slay a tawny wolf, 
 
 As offered victim at Apollo s shrine, 
 
 (So had the youth been taught by custom old) 
 
 Sudden uprose the sun ; and in the sun 
 
 A face, whose beauty thrilled him with strange awe. 
 
 And whether he were sleeping or awake, 
 
 H; knew not ; yet these words into his soul 
 
 Passed, with the rapture of the rising sun : 
 
 " lapis, not from thee do I require 
 
 The death of aught, though t were a prowling wolf 
 
 About thy shcepfold. Sacrifice to me 
 
178 IAPIS. 
 
 Is naught, when true devotion such as thine 
 
 I know, and know thy depths of love untold. 
 
 Pair youth, long, long have I from heights serene 
 
 Yearned for communion with the soul enshrined 
 
 Within thy mortal frame. Now have I come 
 
 To offer thee the gifts a god alone 
 
 Can give. Lo, here thou liv st a shepherd s life, 
 
 Obscure, inglorious, far from men and towns, 
 
 Par from the toils and fame of mighty men 
 
 Whose words shake kingdoms, or whose daring hands 
 
 O erthrow the embattled masonry of time ; 
 
 Or who, with wisdom half allied to us, 
 
 Invert the future ; or who sweep the lyre, 
 
 And chant the strains that live from age to age, 
 
 Our favorites, yet no dearer to our soul 
 
 Than thou. These, for the love I beaiyO youth, 
 
 These gifts, Apollo s gifts, if thou but choose, 
 
 Are thine, thou consecrate alone to me ! " 
 
 With head bowed down and with a faltering tongue, 
 
 As one o erburdened with a weight of love 
 
 He not deserves, or one who cannot gauge 
 
 With customary measuring-wand the depths 
 
 Of knowledge hidden, hidden yet desired, 
 
 And though desired, so hard to be attained ; 
 
IAPIS. 179 
 
 Not all contented with his present lot, 
 
 Yet fearing somewhat the steep, slippery heights 
 
 Trod by the shining heroes of his dreams, 
 
 lapis thus replied : " thou who rul st 
 
 The sun, the day, the march of year on year ! 
 
 Fount of lighl, whom with my simple vows 
 In rustic fashion every morn I adore ! 
 
 1 am unworthy to accept such gifts. 
 
 I know not what they are, I can but guess 
 Their grandeur ; seek some fitter man than me." 
 
 He paused. Again the golden Presence spoke : 
 
 " To plead in senates, to enchain the crowd 
 
 With words of magic eloquence, to know 
 
 The impenetrable future, to ensnare 
 
 The secrets of all depths and heights of power, 
 
 To wing the arrow from the sounding bow 
 
 With fatal aim, to know the muse divine, 
 
 And thrill the world with poesy and song, 
 
 Think well, these gifts are thine, if thou but choose ; 
 
 For I do love thee better than thou know st." 
 
 So radiant was the sun-god s smile, as thus 
 He spoke, so winning were his tones, so near . 
 He seemed to come, it was as though some friend 
 
180 IAPIS. 
 
 Of half-remembered form, met in a dream, 
 Held speech with him in sympathetic tones. 
 
 Then said lapis, for he had pondered long-, 
 
 And thought upon his hoary-headed sire, 
 
 " O great Apollo, thou hast left unnamed 
 
 One gift of thine, one power that I would prize 
 
 O er all the rest that thou hast offered me. 
 
 I have a father, suffering, bent with age, 
 
 And he is dear to me, as I to him. 
 
 Grant, if it be thy will, most mighty one, 
 
 Grant me the knowledge of these herbs that grow 
 
 About my feet and in the mountain-clefts, 
 
 To know their essence, and extract the cures 
 
 That lurk within their leaves and flowers and roots, 
 
 And how and when with art medicinal 
 
 To use so T may make e en poison serve 
 
 The ends of restoration every plant 
 
 That suns itself beneath thy sovereign eye. 
 
 Thus to my failing sire shall I bring back 
 
 His youth and health, and so rejoice with him. 
 
 Thus too shall I amid our cities serve 
 
 My countrymen, should Avar or fell disease 
 
 Besiege their walls, and know life s noblest use, 
 
 To help my fellow-men." 
 
IAPTS. 181 
 
 Then Phoebus smiled 
 With light so radiantly sweet, the youth 
 Saw how each little flower and mountain weed 
 Turned to the sun-god ; while such fragrance filled 
 The morn, as never save in heaven is known, 
 When all the gods are at their ambrosial feasts. 
 
 And so lapis knew his prayer was heard, 
 
 And joyful to his hut returned, and told 
 
 All to his sire. " Lo now," lasius said, 
 
 " My dream comes true ; but other than I dreamed. 
 
 Riches, arid power, and hidden lore, and skill 
 
 In augury and archery and the lute 
 
 And poet s pen, all these my fancy found 
 
 For thee in vision, but no power to know 
 
 The virtues of the commonest weed that grows, 
 
 To use the seeming useless, and so heal 
 
 And save from pain and death thy fellow-men. 
 
 For what would it avail, though thou shouldst stand 
 
 A trained familiar at the awful doors 
 
 Of life and death and miracle and fate, 
 
 Knowing the things that God alone should know ? 
 
 Or what to wing the viewless shaft of death, 
 
 Destroying, where thy hand should save and bless ? 
 
 Or say that thou shouldst own the higher gifts 
 
182 IAPIS. 
 
 Of eloquence and poesy and song ? 
 
 Better than poet s dreams and singer s tones, 
 
 The task to win the secrets wrapped and hid 
 
 In Nature s mute and unresponsive breast, 
 
 Whose powers unlocked by thought shall lift the race 
 
 Of man to endless happiness and strength. 
 
 Who toils for fame and power may slip and fall 
 
 And crumble to a puff of worthless dust ; 
 
 Who lives to help his kind, how mean soe er 
 
 His lot may be, deserves, not love alone 
 
 Of all the immortals, but a fellowship 
 
 With them shall win, that honors Jove himself." 
 
THE WORKSHOP AND THE BRONZE. 
 
 1 HE heavjng bellows pants no more, 
 
 The fiery forge is cold and still, 
 Wide open stands the furnace door, 
 The ashes on the hearth are chill ; 
 The noise, the labor, and the heat are o er. 
 
 The pale light of the waning day 
 
 Through dim and smoky windows falls, 
 
 And gleams with melancholy gray 
 
 On scattered tools and blackened walls ; 
 The weary workmen all have gone away. 
 
 But on a pedestal, behold, 
 
 There stands a statue of a man, 
 
 A bronze as perfect-pure as gold, 
 
 Completion of the artist s plan, 
 Shaped in the heat, consummate from the mould. 
 
184 THE WORKSHOP AND THE BRONZE. 
 
 tliou through toil and furnace-fires 
 
 Purged of the dross that marred thy youth, 
 
 And moulded to divine desires 
 
 By master-hands of love and truth, 
 Till all thy being to the Best aspires, 
 
 Thy earthly house that saw thy prime 
 Alive with busy thought and hand 
 
 May empty lie. But thou sublime 
 
 Shalt in thy soul s fair image stand, 
 And smile at fate and all the change of time. 
 
THE EVENING PKIMEOSE, 
 
 W HAT are you looking at ? " tlie farmer said ; 
 " That s nothing but a yellow flowering weed." 
 We turned, and saw our neighbor s grizzled head 
 Above the fence, but took of him no heed. 
 
 There stood the simple man, and wondered much 
 At us, who wondered at the twilight flowers 
 
 Bursting to life, as if a spirit s touch 
 
 Awoke their slumbering souls to answer ours. 
 
 " It grows all o er the island, wild," said he ; 
 
 " There are plenty in my field : I root em out. 
 But, for my life, it puzzles me to see 
 
 What you make such a wonderment about." 
 
 The good man turned and to his supper went ; 
 While, kneeling on the grass with mute delight 
 
186 THE EVENING PRIMROSE. 
 
 Or whispered words, around the plant we bent, 
 To watch the opening buds that love the night. 
 
 Slowly the rosy dusk of eve departed, 
 
 And one by one the pale stars bloomed on high ; 
 
 And one by one each folded calyx started, 
 And bared its golden petals to the sky. 
 
 One throb from star to flower seemed pulsing through 
 The night, one living spirit blending all 
 
 In beauty and in mystery ever new, 
 
 One harmony divine through great and small. 
 
 E en our plain neighbor, as he sips his tea, 
 I doubt not, through his window feels the sky 
 
 Of evening bring a sweet and tender plea 
 That links him even to dreamers such as I. 
 
 So through the symbol-alphabet that glows 
 Through all creation, higher still and higher 
 
 The spirit builds its faith, and ever grows 
 Beyond the rude form of its first desire. 
 
 O boundless Beauty and Beneficence ! 
 
 O deathless Soul that breathest in the weeds 
 
THE EVENING PRIMROSE. 187 
 
 And in a starlit sky ! e en through the rents 
 Of accident thou serv st all human needs ; 
 
 Nor stoopest idly to our petty cares ; 
 
 Nor knowest great or small, since folded in 
 By universal Love, all being shares 
 
 The life that ever shall be or hath been. 
 
 October 10, 1872. 
 
IN A ClIUECH. 
 
 i. 
 
 1 HE organ breathed in harmonies so sweet, 
 
 That Paradise, with sons of light and air, 
 And daughters of the morn, seemed floating round : 
 
 Kich modulations, vaulting fugues that bear 
 The heart a captive ; as when Ganymede 
 
 Borne by Jove s eagle to the Olympian feast, 
 Sees the earth fade, and all the sky becomes 
 
 Before his gaze one wide auroral east. 
 
 II. 
 
 The sunshine, flashing through the flying cloud, 
 
 Struck on the many-tinted window-panes, 
 And dashed a chord of colors on the wall, 
 
 Now strong, now fading like the dying strains, 
 A prismy gush of hues that slid oblique 
 
 Down the gray columns, like a glowing truth 
 Whose white light tinted in a poet s brain 
 
 Breaks in a thousand rhymes of love and youth. 
 
IN A CHURCH. 189 
 
 III. 
 The hour was framed for silent thought arid prayer, 
 
 The place should seem a heavenly shepherd s fold. 
 We waited for a voice that might sustain 
 
 Our spirits flight, nor let the air grow cold 
 About our wings, but bear us higher still, 
 
 Till touched by faith and love and wisdom pure, 
 We felt the power that lifted man to God, 
 
 The central truths no dogmas could obscure. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And yet the priest, discordant mid accords, / 
 
 With waste of words, half truth, half error mixed, 
 Thin homilies and theologic prayers, 
 
 He only jarred the music, spread betwixt 
 Nature and God a cloud that dimmed the sun, 
 
 And made the inspiring church a vaulted tomb ; / 
 And not till once again we trod the street 
 
 Vanished that shadow of imagined doom. 
 
DECEMBER. 
 
 JM more the scarlet maples flash and burn 
 Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain ; 
 
 The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern 
 In the bleak woods lie withered once again. 
 
 The trees stand bare, and bare each stony scar 
 Upon the cliffs ; half frozen glide the rills ; 
 
 The steel-blue river like a scimitar 
 
 Lies cold and curve d between the dusky hills. 
 
 Over the upland farm I take my walk, 
 
 And miss the flaunting flocks of golden-rod ; 
 
 Each autumn flower a dry and leafless stalk, 
 Each mossy field a track of frozen sod. 
 
 I hear no more the robin s summer song 
 
 Through the gray network of the wintry woods ; 
 
 Only the cawing crows that all day long 
 Clamor about the windy solitudes. 
 
DECEMBER. 191 
 
 Like agate stones upon earth s frozen breast, 
 The little pools of ice lie round and still ; 
 
 "While sullen clouds shut downward east and west 
 In marble ridges stretched from hill to hill. 
 
 Come once again, southern wind, once more 
 Come with thy wet wings flapping at my pane ; 
 
 Ere snow-drifts pile their mounds about my door, 
 One parting dream of summer bring again. 
 
 Ah, no ! I hear the windows rattle fast ; 
 
 I see the first flakes of the gathering snow, 
 That dance and whirl before the northern blast. 
 
 No countermand the march of days can know. 
 
 December drops no weak, relenting tear, 
 By our fond summer sympathies ensnared ; 
 
 Nor from the perfect circle of the year 
 Can even winter s crystal gems be spared. 
 
 1872. 
 
A CHINESE STOEY. 
 
 JN ONE are so wise as they who make pretence 
 To know what fate conceals from mortal sense. 
 This moral from a tale of Ho-hang-ho 
 Might have been drawn a thousand years ago, 
 Long ere the days of spectacles and lenses, 
 When men were left to their unaided senses. 
 
 Two young short-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching, 
 
 Over their chopsticks idly chattering, 
 
 Fell to disputing which could see the best. 
 
 At last they agreed to put it to the test. 
 
 Said Chang, " A marble tablet, so I hear, 
 
 Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near, 
 
 With an inscription on it. Let us go 
 
 And read it (since you boast your optics so), 
 
 Standing together at a certain place 
 
 In front, where we the letters just may trace. 
 
A CHINESE STORY. 193 
 
 Then he who quickest reads the inscription there 
 The palm for keenest eyes henceforth shall bear." 
 
 "Agreed," said Ching; " and let us try it soon. 
 Suppose we say to-morrow afternoon." 
 " Nay, not so soon," said Chang ; " I m bound to go 
 To-morrow a day s ride from Ho-hang-ho, 
 And sha n t be ready till the following day. 
 At ten A. M. on Thursday, let us say." 
 
 So t was arranged. But Ching was wide awake. 
 Time by the forelock he resolved to take ; 
 And to the temple went at once, and read 
 Upon the tablet, " To the illustrious Dead, 
 The chief of Mandarins, the great Goh-Bang." 
 Scarce had he gone, when stealthily came Chang, 
 Who read the same ; but, peering closer, he 
 Spied in a corner what Ching failed to see, 
 The words, " This tablet is erected here 
 By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear." 
 
 So, on the appointed day both innocent 
 As babes, of course these honest fellows went 
 And took their distant station. And Ching said, 
 " I can read plainly, To the illustrious Dead, 
 The chief of Mandarins, the great Goh-Bang. " 
 " And is that all that you can spell ? " said Chang. 
 
194 A CHINESE STORY. 
 
 "I see what you have read, but furthermore, 
 In smaller letters, toward the temple door, 
 Quite plain, This tablet is erected here 
 By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear. " 
 
 " My sharp-eyed friend, there are no such words ! " said 
 
 Ching. 
 
 " They re there," said Chang, " if I see anything, 
 As clear as daylight ! " " Patent eyes, indeed, 
 You have ! " cried Ching. " Do you think I cannot 
 
 read ? " 
 
 "Not at this distance, as I can," Chang said ; 
 " If what you say you saw is all you read." 
 
 In fine, they quarrelled, and their wrath increased ; 
 Till Chang said, " Let us leave it to the priest. 
 Lo, here he comes to meet us." " It is well," 
 Said honest Ching; "no falsehood he will tell." 
 
 The good man heard their artless story through, 
 And said, " I think, dear sirs, there must be few 
 Blest with such wondrous eyes as those you wear. 
 There s no such tablet or inscription there. 
 There was one, it is true ; t was moved away 
 And placed icithin the temple yesterday." 
 
A SONG OF HOME. 
 
 i. 
 
 HERE we are once more together 
 
 Where we parted long ago : 
 Father, mother, sisters, brothers ; 
 
 Hearts and faces all aglow. 
 Rain is on the roof above us, 
 
 But no cloud can chill our joys 
 Round the old familiar table, 
 
 As we sat when girls and boys. 
 
 What care we for wind and rain ? 
 We are all at home again. 
 
 II. 
 
 Here still hang the dear old pictures, 
 And the old books we used to share ; 
 
 Here s the old arm-chair in the corner, 
 And the old clock upon the stair ; 
 
196 A SONG OP HOME. 
 
 There the roses at the window 
 Tossing up against the pane, 
 And the old pear-tree in the garden, 
 And the lilacs in the lane. 
 
 What care we for wind and rain ? 
 We are all at home again. 
 
 in. 
 
 O, the weary days we ve wandered 
 
 Vanish in the fireside s glow ; 
 And the happy hours of childhood 
 
 Glimmer back from long ago. 
 Storms may beat upon our dwelling. 
 
 Light the lamps of love and home. 
 We are all once more together, 
 
 Never, never more to roam. 
 
 What care we for wind and rain ? 
 We are all at home again. 
 
A SPBING-GBOWL. 
 
 WOULD you think it ? Spring is come. 
 Winter s paid his passage home ; 
 Packed his ice-box, gone half-way 
 To the Arctic Pole, they say. 
 But I know the old ruffian still 
 Skulks about from hill to hill, 
 Where his freezing footprints cling, 
 Though t is Spring ? 
 
 n. 
 
 Heed not what the poets sing 
 In their rhymes about the Spring. 
 Spring was once a potent queen, 
 Eobed in blossoms and in green. 
 That, I think, was long ago. 
 Is she buried in the snow, 
 Deaf to all our carolling, 
 
 Poor old Spring ? 
 
198 A SPRING-GROWL. 
 
 HI. 
 
 Windows rattling in the night ; 
 Shutters that you thought were tight 
 Slamming back against the wall ; 
 Ghosts of burglars in the hall ; 
 Eoaring winds and groaning trees ; 
 Chimneys shuddering in the breeze ; 
 Doleful dumps in everything, 
 Such is Spring. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sunshine trying hard awhile 
 On the bare brown fields to smile ; 
 Frozen ruts and slippery walks ; 
 Gray old crops of last year s stalks ; 
 Shivering hens and moping cows ; 
 Curdled sap in leafless boughs 
 Nipped by Winter s icy sting, 
 Such is Spring. 
 
 v. 
 
 Yet the other day I heard 
 Something that I thought a bird. 
 He was brave to come so soon ; 
 But his pipes were out of tune, 
 
A SPRING-GROWL. 199 
 
 And he chirped as if each note 
 Came from flannels round his throat, 
 And he had no heart to sing, 
 Ah, poor thing ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 If there comes a little thaw, 
 Still the air is chill and raw. 
 Here and there a patch of snow, 
 Dirtier than the ground below, 
 Dribbles down a marshy flood ; 
 Ankle-deep you stick in mud 
 In the meadows, while you sing, 
 " This is Spring." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Are there violets in the sod, 
 Crocuses beneath the clod ? 
 When will Boreas give us peace ? 
 Or has Winter signed a lease 
 For another month of frost, 
 Leaving Spring to pay the cost ? 
 For it seems he still is king, 
 
 Though tis Spring. 
 
 STATEX ISLAND, March 26, 1873. 
 
WAITING BY THE SEA. 
 
 ALONE upon the windy hills 
 I stand and face the open sea, 
 
 And drink the southern breeze which fills 
 The sails that bring my love to me. 
 
 IV r out the shores and woodlands reach, 
 Till lost in mists of pearly gray, 
 
 Or crossed by lines of yellow beach, 
 And flashing breakers far away. 
 
 Alone upon the windy slopes 
 I watch the long blue level wall 
 
 Of ocean, where my winged hopes 
 Like fluttering sea-birds fly and call. 
 
AVA1TING BY THE SEA. 201 
 
 happy pilot-boats that dance 
 Across the sparkling miles of sea ! 
 
 greet her, should ye hail by chance 
 The ship that bears my love to me ! 
 
 And does she lean upon the deck 
 
 And strain her eyes till land appears, 
 
 As I to catch the white-winged speck 
 That clears away my gathering fears ? 
 
 By long low beach and wooded crag 
 The crowded sails go glimmering past ; 
 
 But none that bear the well-known flag 
 And pennon streaming from the mast. 
 
 ocean, wrinkling in the sun ! 
 
 O breeze that blowest from the sea ! 
 Waft into port, ere day is done, 
 My love, my life, again to me ! 
 
 She comes, she comes ! I see the sails 
 Like rounded sea-shells full and white. 
 
 1 hear the booming gun that hails 
 
 The coming of my heart s delight. 
 
202 WAITING BY THE SEA. 
 
 I hear the sailors distant song ; 
 
 They crowd the deck in bustling glee ; 
 And there is one amid the throng 
 
 Who waves a rosy scarf to me. 
 
 The sun has set ; the air is still ; 
 
 The twilight reddens o er the sea ; 
 The full moon rises o er the hill ; 
 
 Eut joy like sunrise shines for me. 
 
 1873. 
 
SHELLING PEAS, 
 
 A PASTORAL. 
 
 JN 0, Tom, you may banter as much as you please ; 
 
 But it s all the result of the shelliu them peas. 
 
 "Why, I had n t the slightest idea, do you know, 
 
 That so serious a matter would out of it grow. 
 
 I tell you what, Tom, I do feel kind o scared. 
 
 I dreamed it, I hoped it, but never once dared 
 
 To breathe it to her. And besides, I must say 
 
 I always half fancied she fancied Jim Wray. 
 
 So I felt kind o stuffy and proud, and took care 
 
 To be out o the way when that feller was there 
 
 A danglin around ; for thinks I, if it s him 
 
 That Katy likes best, what s the use lookin grim 
 
 At Katy or Jim, for it s all up with me ; 
 
 And I d better jest let em alone, do you see ? 
 
 But you would n t have thought it ; that girl never keered 
 
 The snap of a pea-pod for Jim s bushy beard. 
 
 Well, here s how it was. I was takin some berries 
 
204 SHELLING PEAS. 
 
 Across near her garden, to leave at Aunt Mary s ; 
 
 When, jest as I come to the old elhmi-tree, 
 
 All alone in the shade, that June morriin , was she 
 
 Shellin peas setting there on a garden settee. 
 
 I swan, she was handsomer n ever I seen, 
 
 Like a rose all alone in a moss-work o green. 
 
 Well, there was n t no use ; so, says I, I 11 jest linger 
 
 And gaze at her here, hid behind a syringa. 
 
 But she heard me a movin , and looked a "bit frightem d. 
 
 So I come and stood near her. I fancied she brightened 
 
 And seemed sort o pleased. So I hoped she was well ; 
 
 And would she allow me to help her to shell? 
 
 For she sot with a monstrous big dish full of peas 
 
 Jest fresh from the vines, which she held on her knees. 
 
 " May I help you, Miss Katy ? " says I. " As you please, 
 
 Mr. Baxter," says she. " But you re busy, I guess " 
 
 Glancin down at my berries, and then at her dress. 
 
 " Not the least. There s no hurry. It ain t very late ; 
 
 And I d rather be here, and Aunt Mary can wait." 
 
 So I sot down beside her ; an as nobody seen us, 
 
 I jest took the dish, and I held it between us. 
 
 And I thought to myself I must make an endeavor 
 
 To know which she likes, Jim or me, now or never ! 
 
 But I could n t say nothin . We sot there and held 
 
 That green pile between us. She shelled, and I shelled ; 
 
SHELLING TEAS. 205 
 
 And pop went the pods ; and I could n t help thinkin 
 Of popping- the question. A kind of a sinkin 
 Come over my spirits ; till at lust I got out, 
 " Mister Wray s an admirer of yours, I ve no doubt 
 You see him quite often." " Well, sometimes. But why 
 And what if I did ? " " 0, well, nothiu ," says I. 
 " Some folks says you re goin to marry him, though." 
 " Who says so ? " says she ; and she flared up like tow 
 When you throw in a match. " Well, some folks that [ 
 
 know." 
 
 " T ain t true, sir," says she. And she snapped a big pod, 
 Till the peas, right and left, flew all over the sod. 
 Then I looked in her eyes, but she only looked down 
 With a blush that she tried to chase oft with a frown. 
 " Then it s somebody else you like better," says I. 
 " No, it ain t though," says she ; and I thought she 
 
 would cry. 
 
 Then I tried to say somethin ; it stuck in my throat, 
 And all my idees were upset and afloat. 
 But I said i knew somebody d loved her so long 
 Though he never had told her with feelin s so strong 
 lie was ready to die at her feet, if she chosed, 
 If she only could love him ! I hardly supposed 
 That she cared for him much, though. And so, Tom, 
 
 and so, 
 
206 SHELLING PEAS. 
 
 For I thought that I saw how the matter would go, 
 
 With my heart all a jumpin with rapture, I found 
 
 I had taken her hand, and my arm was around 
 
 Her waist ere I knew it, and she with her head 
 
 On my shoulder, but no, I won t tell what she said. 
 
 The birds sang above us ; our secret was theirs ; 
 
 The leaves whispered soft in the wandering airs. 
 
 I tell you the world was a new world to me. 
 
 I can talk of these things like a book now, you see. 
 
 But the peas ? Ah, the peas in the pods were a mess 
 
 Rather bigger than those that we shelled, you may guess. 
 
 It s risky to set with a girl shellin peas. 
 
 You may tease me now, Tom, just as much as you please. 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 feO, he is gone, the shadow of a name ! 
 Long since we saw the dull, expiring flame 
 Flare in its socket. What he was and did 
 From Europe and the world cannot be hid ; 
 The crowned adventurer, who set his heel 
 Upon a people, and with clamps of steel, 
 Called law and order, fastened deep and broad 
 A throne sustained by perjury, force, and fraud. 
 
 Look back a few short years, and ask what gain, 
 What boon, to Europe was Napoleon s reign. 
 " He fought for Italy," you say. T is true. 
 But then he always held himself in view, 
 Himself first, France s strength and glory next. 
 Austria must needs be humbled ; England vexed, 
 Left playing second, with her eyes askance, 
 Droning a surly moral bass, while France 
 
208 LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 Led on the battle orchestra. Her name 
 
 Must glow anew with the old chivalric flame ; 
 
 And he the man of destiny the head 
 
 Of the new movement. So his armies bled 
 
 In Lombardy. He, with his brave Zonaves, 
 
 Would do no thing, and least this thing, by halves. 
 
 All went like clock-work. France was ever great 
 
 In system. But, unluckily, the gate 
 
 That led to Venice was too strongly barred. 
 
 Yes, as you say, it was a trifle hard 
 
 For the orchestral leader to plunge o er 
 
 Those quadrilateral bars through smoke and gore ; 
 
 To see his brave men those swift living notes 
 
 In his heroic symphony their coats* 
 
 Stained deep in Solferino s dust and blood, 
 
 Marshalled again to serve as naught but food 
 
 For powder, faces gashed and burnt and blurred 
 
 By bayonet, ball, and fever. So the word 
 
 Was given to change the programme ; for the war 
 
 Was swelling to a size too great by far, 
 
 Involving interests which were not " France." 
 
 Further he would not, could not now advance, 
 
 Though Freedom stood dismayed. A treaty straight 
 
 Was signed, before the act should be too late : 
 
 Sardinia keeping all that she had won ; 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON. 209 
 
 But Venice, pining for the air and sun, 
 
 And stretched upon her Austrian dungeon-floor, 
 
 Must needs be left bound closer than before. 
 
 Hard, when her prison was about to ope, 
 
 To bolt it in her face, to kill her hope ! 
 
 But France, and Europe, and that blessed fiction, 
 
 " Balance of power," had wrought more cool conviction. 
 
 So Villafranca s treaty closed the lid 
 
 Of the Pandora-box, and Hope was left ; 
 
 And what the lion failed in, the fox did. 
 
 For Francis Joseph must have been bereft 
 
 Of brains, to be outwitted there and then, 
 
 His sails struck windless by a stroke o the pen ; 
 
 His long-famed cunning all outdone and shamed, 
 
 That he consented to a treaty framed 
 
 Purposely vague, to favor Italy, 
 
 Leaving an open door he did not see. 
 
 " Bring the Dukes back," forsooth ; but nothing said, 
 
 Should the good people choose to rule instead. 
 
 This credit then he takes, Napoleon 
 
 Suffered the Revolution to move on ; 
 
 He could not interfere to keep the kings 
 
 When the unfettered countries spread their wings. 
 
 Prudently stood aside, when down the slope 
 
210 LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 The great machine rolled, freighted with the hope 
 
 Of nations who with shouts of joy beheld 
 
 (By nature s law of gravity impelled) 
 
 The car of state, so long a stranded thing 
 
 On lonely heights, the plaything of a king, 
 
 Now move on common roads where brethren meet 
 
 In friendly intercourse and converse sweet. 
 
 But never with a finger- tip did he 
 
 E er thrust aside superfluous tyranny. 
 
 Enough for him that kings were kings ; this fact 
 
 Pledged him to keep their right divine intact. 
 
 Magician though he was, he raised a ghost 
 He could not lay, and made this fault a boast ; 
 Built up a throne veneered and varnished well 
 With democratic gloss, a glittering shell 
 That feared the people s touch, and ill could bear 
 The slightest breeze of Freedom s common air; 
 While he who filched the empire, like a thief, 
 Proclaimed himself the nation s chosen chief. 
 
 Imperial author, writing special pleas 
 For liberal tyranny and a conquered peace, 
 Himself his only judge, he from their nooks 
 Drove out the critic rats that gnawed his books. 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON. 211 
 
 Long-armed policeman, smothering Freedom s fires ; 
 Spider-like sitting in a web of wires 
 Netting all Europe from his central ring ; 
 Throttling the editorial gnats whose sting 
 Or buzz protests against the bands that wind 
 The despot s cobwebs round the free-born mind ; 
 Yet loudly boasting that his power relies 
 Upon the votes of his dear tangled flies. 
 
 How long he sat, this Caesar of the stage, 
 This bold, pretending patron of the age ! 
 Muzzled the press, yet bade the people think ; 
 Knelt to the Pope, but gave the crowd a wink ; 
 Now capped a Cardinal, now endowed a school ; 
 Permitted suffrage, under iron rule ; 
 Gave wings to trade, but clogged all daring thought, 
 Counting all counsel but his own as naught ; 
 Put new wine in old bottles, best in worst, 
 And clamped them round with iron, lest they burst ; 
 Forced two extremes to marry, last with first ; 
 "VVed light to darkness, and misnamed the brood 
 Born of the union, France s highest good. 
 
 Professing friendship for our western main, 
 He hoped to split our continent in twain ; 
 
212 LOUIS NAPOLEON. 
 
 And while our back is turned to grasp our foe, 
 Drives in an Austrian wedge at Mexico ; 
 Finds he has bungled sadly, and would fain 
 Withdraw poor Maximilian again. 
 Would like to recall his ^forces too from Borne, 
 But fears the hubbub of his priests at home. 
 So, pledged to God and Mammon, he prolongs 
 The strife with chaos, smiles on rights and wrongs ; 
 The Pope s non possumus most blandly hears, 
 And leaves poor Eome in misery and in tears ; 
 Prates loud of nations rights, and ten times o er 
 Opens and shuts a people s prison-door. 
 
 Now, time brings round its retributions strange. 
 O er Europe s face there sweeps a mighty change. 
 Now Germany compact and bristling stands 
 Guarding her blue Rhine from the invader s hands. 
 Now Venice sets her sea-pearl in the ring 
 Worn by young Italy s victorious king. 
 Now Eome, e en Eome, must add her eternal fame 
 To a throne upborne by Garibaldi s name ; 
 Unguarded by her Gallic sentinel, 
 She loosely holds the keys of heaven and hell ; 
 Her Pope, whose thunders rattled west and east, 
 Changed by a pen-scrawl to a harmless priest. 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON. 213 
 
 And lie, the mighty Emperor, whose word 
 
 Held Europe spell-bound, in war s thunders heard 
 
 A voice that overruled his subtile tricks, 
 
 His blunders and his shuffling politics, 
 
 His sham democracy, his hard decrees, 
 
 His double-dealings and diplomacies. 
 
 These brought their sure results, ambition checked, 
 
 A tarnished splendor, and an empire wrecked, 
 
 And that distrust through every heart that crept, 
 
 At rights withheld and promises unkept ; 
 
 While downward sank his star, unmourned of all 
 
 Who hail the nation s rise, the usurper s fall ; 
 
 Till death has swept away the last frail chance 
 
 That cheered the friends of tyranny in France. 
 
BY THE SHOEE OF THE EIVEE. 
 
 1 HEOUGH the gray willows the bleak winds are raving 
 Here on the shore with its driftwood and sands. 
 
 Over the river the lilies are waving, 
 
 Bathed in the sunshine of Orient lands. 
 Over the river, the wide, dark river, 
 Spring-time and summer are blooming forever. 
 
 Here all alone on the rocks I am sitting, 
 
 Sitting and waiting, my comrades all gone, 
 
 Shadows of mystery drearily flitting 
 
 Over the surf with its sorrowful moan, 
 Over the river, the strange, cold river. 
 Ah, must I wait for the boatman forever ? 
 
 Wife and children and friends were around me ; 
 Labor and rest were as wings to my soul ; 
 
BY THE SHORE OF THE RIVER. 215 
 
 Honor and love were the laurels that crowned me ; 
 Little I recked how the dark waters roll. 
 But the deep river, the gray misty river, 
 All that I lived for has taken forever. 
 
 Silently came a "black boat o er the billows ; 
 
 Stealthily grated the keel on the sand ; 
 Rustling footsteps were heard through the willows ; 
 
 There the dark boatman stood Avaving his hand, 
 
 Whispering, " I come, from the shadowy river ; 
 
 She who is dearest must leave thee forever ! " 
 
 Suns that were brightest and skies that were bluest 
 Darkened and paled in the message he bore. . 
 
 Year after year went the fondest, the truest, 
 
 Following that beckoning hand to the shore. 
 Down to the river, the cold, grim river, 
 Over whose waters they vanished forever. 
 
 Yet not in visions of grief have I wandered ; 
 
 Still have I toiled, though my ardors have flown. 
 Labor is manhood ; and life is but squandered 
 
 Dreaming vague dreams of the future alone. 
 
 Yet from the tides of the mystical river 
 
 Voices of spirits are whispering ever. 
 
216 BY THE SHORE OF THE RIVER. 
 
 Lonely arid old, in the dusk I am waiting, 
 
 Till the dark boatman with soft muffled oar 
 
 Glides o er the waves, and I hear the keel grating, 
 See the dim beckoning hand on the shore, 
 Wafting me over the welcoming river 
 To gardens and homes that are shining forever ! 
 
THE AMERICAN PANTHEON. 
 
 W HEN Rufus Griswold built his Pantheon wide, 
 And set a hundred poets round its walls, 
 
 Did he believe their statues would abide 
 The tests of time upon their pedestals ? 
 
 A hundred poets ! Some in Parian stone, 
 Perchance ; and some in brittle plaster cast ; 
 
 And some mere busts, whose names are hardly known 
 Dii minores of a voiceless past. 
 
 Time was when many there so neatly niched 
 Held each within his court a sovereign sway ; 
 
 Each in his turn his little world enriched, 
 The ephemeral poet-laureate of his day. 
 
 Ah, what is fame ? Star after star goes out, 
 Lost Pleiads Jn the firmament of truth ; 
 
 Our kings discrowned ere died the distant shout 
 That hailed the coronation of their youth. 
 10 
 
218 THE AMERICAN PANTHEON. 
 
 Few are the world s great singers. Far apart, 
 Thrilling with love, yet wrapped in solitude, 
 
 They sit communing with the common heart 
 That binds the race in human brotherhood. 
 
 A wind of heaven o er their musing breathes, 
 And wakes them into verse, as April turns 
 
 The frozen sods to violets, and unsheathes 
 The forest flowers amid the leaves and ferns. 
 
 And we who dare not wear the immortal crown 
 And singing robes, at least may hear and dream, 
 
 While strains from prophet lips come floating down ; 
 Inspired by them to sing some humbler theme. 
 
 Nay, nothing can be lost whose living stems 
 Hooted in truth sprang up to beauty s flower. 
 
 The spangles of the stage may flout the gems 
 On queenly breasts, but only for an hour. 
 
 The fashion of the time may claim its own ; 
 
 The soul whose vision custom cannot bar, 
 The heart that trusts its natural pulse, alone 
 
 Can hope to light the ages, like a star. 
 
THE AMERICAN PANTHEON. 219 
 
 O, not for fame the poet of to-day 
 
 Should hunger. Though the world his music scorn, 
 The after-world may hear, as mountains gray 
 
 Echo from depths unseen the Alpine horn. 
 
 So while around this Pantheon wide I stray, 
 Where poets from Freneau to Fay are set, 
 
 1 doubt not each in turn has sung some lay 
 The world will not be willing to forget. 
 
 For who in barren rhyme and rhythm could spend 
 The costly hours the muse alone should claim, 
 
 Did not some finer thought, some nobler end, 
 Breathe ardors sweeter than poetic fame ? 
 
IN THE FOEEST OF FONTAINEBLEAU, 
 
 1 HE lights and shadows of long ago 
 In the grand old Forest of Fontainebleau 
 Go with me still wherever I go. 
 
 I range my pictures around my room, 
 Won from the forest s light and gloom ; 
 Not yet shall they sink to an auction s doom. 
 
 They wake me again to the painter s moods ; 
 They take me back to the wonderful woods, 
 The wild, dream-haunted solitudes. 
 
 They come as Memory waves her wand ; 
 And I think of the days when with busy hand 
 I painted alone in the forest grand. 
 
 I see the old gnarled oak-trees spread 
 Their boughs and foliage over my head. 
 About the mossy rocks I tread. 
 
IN THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU. 221 
 
 Under the beeches of Fontainebleau, 
 In the green dim dells of the Bas-Breau, 
 Mid ferns and laurel-tufts I go ; 
 
 Or up on the hills, while the woods beneath 
 Circle me round like a giant-wreath, 
 Plunge knee-deep in the purple heath ; 
 
 Then down to a patch of furzy sand, 
 Where the white umbrella and easel stand, 
 And the rocks lie picturesque and grand. 
 
 The mellow autumn with fold on fold 
 Has dressed the woods with a bronzy gold, 
 And scarlet scarfs of a wealth untold. 
 
 The tall gray spotted beeches rise 
 
 And seem to touch the unclouded skies, 
 
 And round their tops with clamorous cries 
 
 The rooks are wheeling to aud fro ; 
 
 And down on the brown leaf-matting below 
 
 The lights and the shadows come and go. 
 
222 IN THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU. 
 
 calm, deep days, when labor moved 
 With wings of joy to the tasks beloved, 
 And art its own best guerdon proved ! 
 
 For such it was, when long ago 
 
 1 sat in my leafy studio 
 
 In the dear old Forest of Fontainebleau. 
 
A DAY OF MEMOEIES, 
 
 is the road, up through the corn and clover; 
 And yonder, the first turning, is the lane. 
 And that s the house ; they ve painted it all over, 
 So white, I scarce should know the old place again. 
 
 Yet the same dear old house. How well I know it ! 
 
 Though changed, and with another face, like me. 
 T was here love taught me first to be a poet, 
 
 Or think I was, the rhyming flowed so free. 
 
 Still round the porch the honeysuckles clamber, 
 But thicker grown, where hand in hand we stood, 
 
 And watched the crimson clouds and sky of amber 
 Grow gray and dusk beyond the distant wood. 
 
 That was her window. There I serenaded 
 Once in the moonlight of a night in June. 
 
 The verses were my own ; I sang unaided, 
 Save by my light guitar, my summer tune. 
 
A DAY OF MEMORIES. 
 
 All, what warm sonnets did my muse then scatter 
 Like wild and golden fruitage from a tree ; 
 
 And knew that naught I wrote or sang could flatter 
 One who outshone all pearls of poesy ! 
 
 And she was won ; and we were pledged forever ; 
 
 And yet were parted, why, I hardly know. 
 Some fate, but dimly seen, befell to sever 
 
 Two who seemed one so many years ago. 
 
 The dear old place ! the landscape still unaltered, 
 The stream below, the cedar-trees above ; 
 
 The same stone-wall and lilacs where I faltered 
 The first words, strange and sweet, of boyish love. 
 
 Here, up the lane, the broad elms still are growing, 
 Each bough unscarred, but larger than of yore. 
 
 Yet yonder, where that stranger now is mowing, 
 I see they ve felled my favorite sycamore. 
 
 How could they do it ! In its shade we parted ; 
 
 Or was it wrecked by storm, or lightning blaze ? 
 Like those who kissed their last there, broken-hearted, 
 
 At least they thought so, in those tender days. 
 
A DAY OF MEMORIES. 225 
 
 And yonder was a stately beech-tree, slanting 
 
 Across the stream. There once 1 carved her name. 
 
 T is gone, and flags and water-weeds are flaunting 
 Along the brookside, changed, yet still the same. 
 
 That parting was like death. But youth s elastic ; 
 
 And hers recovered ; so did mine at last. 
 The world is wide, and human hearts too plastic 
 
 To harden in an unrelenting past. 
 
 And far apart her path and mine diverging, 
 
 Each with its separate cares and hopes and dreams, 
 
 Long since was stilled young love s tumultuous surging, 
 Long since new ties have dimmed those early gleams. 
 
 And yet, though wounds will heal, the scars forever 
 
 Cling to the flesh that quivered once, now still ; 
 And there are times when boyhood s pain and fever 
 wake aain with momentar thrill. 
 
 So, while I roam about these well-known places, 
 Haunted by visions all so sadly sweet, 
 
 Those tender tones of old, those mystic graces, 
 Seem to prelude the flying of her feet. 
 
 10* o 
 
226 A DAY OF MEMORIES. 
 
 Those voices come no more but in my dreaming, 
 Too vague to take a shape in uttered words. 
 
 Those footsteps in a world remote are gleaming, 
 Mine only when I touch the poet s chords. 
 
THE GUEST. 
 
 1 HOU slialt go alone and sad. 
 
 Men will deem thy raptures vain, 
 And thy products poor and bad, 
 
 And thy progress change, not gain. 
 
 When thou meet st another man, 
 Thou from him and he from thee 
 
 Shall be shut as by a ban, 
 Save in words of courtesy. 
 
 Symbols thou shalt deem uncouth 
 To his creed are dear and fair ; 
 
 What to thee is trust and truth 
 Seems to him but empty air. 
 
 Thou and he are veiled about 
 By two webs of time and space, 
 
 Spun from films of faith and doubt, 
 Warped and woofed across each face. 
 
228 THE GUEST. 
 
 Only on the central ground 
 Paved by character and deeds 
 
 Shall the interchange be found 
 Spirit touching spirit needs. 
 
 If thou strivest much to love 
 What the multitude delights, 
 
 Thy unwilling guest shall prove 
 Darkener of thy own true lights. 
 
 In thy home-spun garb and place, 
 In the castle of thy thought, 
 
 Heed not every stranger face 
 Peering in, to tell thee naught. 
 
 But when flits a spirit nigh, 
 Howsoever mean his state, 
 
 If kindred light illumes his eye, 
 See that he passes not thy gate. 
 
 Him thou shalt house, and entertain, 
 
 Till thou hast made his love thy gain. 
 
OCTOBER, 
 
 1 IIROUGH golden gates of leaves, through columns gray 
 
 Of elms and maples old, whose boughs enlace 
 
 In bright cathedral arches overhead, 
 
 Emvreathed with scarlet vines ; through bosky tufts 
 
 Of underbrush, and willows still so green 
 
 Along the hidden brooks, they seem to hold 
 
 The summer snared, nor heed the threatening frost, 
 
 The calm October days pass one by one, 
 
 Smiling in rosy sunsets, ere they flit 
 
 Forever from the earth. How silently 
 
 They march, timed to the crickets ceaseless chirp 
 
 Through the still noon, while tall flowers mark their path, 
 
 Blue succory, purple asters, golden-rod, 
 
 Wild yellow stars, and lonely cardinal-flowers 
 
 Whose crimson petals light the sluggish streams. 
 
 A clear and wholesome spirit in the air 
 
 Touches the earth and all earth s greenest robes 
 
230 OCTOBER. 
 
 With change so gradual we can feel no loss 
 Of life, but only mellower, richer hues, 
 With music more pathetic, as the wind 
 Harps through the woods, and red and yellow leaves 
 Flutter to earth, and whirl in huddled heaps. 
 So may our little lives, their sap withdrawn, 
 After their long, still summers, tossed, perchance, 
 At times, by thunder-gusts or drenched in rains 
 Of tears, pass peacefully, complete in years 
 And in that wisdom years alone can bring ; 
 And, having well fulfilled their allotted work, 
 Sink to their rest, or to their life beyond ! 
 
 1872. 
 
TO A HALF-FEIEND, 
 
 HOW well I know the secret spell to turn 
 Your best good-will to me, 
 
 The delicate untruth could I but learn 
 Of well-bred flattery. 
 
 Just to o erstep the plain sincerity 
 Of friend to friend, no more ; 
 
 Only to hint, " Your truth is truth to me, 
 No higher and no lower " ; 
 
 Seeming to prize your quality and gift, 
 Though not on praise intent, 
 
 But on the current of our talk to drift 
 Into a smooth assent; 
 
232 TO A HALF-FRIEND. 
 
 To accept without demur or differing eyes 
 The half-truth of your thought, 
 
 And hide my protest in a compromise 
 By dumb good-nature taught ; 
 
 To linger on your chosen plot of ground, 
 
 As if I too would choose it ; 
 To know a richer realm lies all around 
 
 Your fence, and yet refuse it ; 
 
 To fear to disagree, though what you say 
 
 Savors of sect and clan ; 
 My fortress of conviction to betray 
 
 And yield life s cherished plan ; 
 
 To slight the solemn conscience pressing down 
 
 Upon my private faith ; 
 To wear the decorous fashion of the town ; 
 
 To hear some shadowy wraith, 
 
 Instead of what I know to be myself, 
 
 Utter opinions squared 
 To social rules, a poor, unreal elf 
 
 Consenting to be snared, 
 
TO A HALF-FRIEND. 
 
 233 
 
 And playing out a graceful pantomime 
 
 Where earnest words are naught, 
 
 To catch the easy plaudits of the time, 
 
 But hide my dearest thought ; 
 
 Thus might I win you soon to be my friend, 
 
 Now half a friend at best. 
 Yet none would say I nattered. I but send 
 
 Some fractious thoughts to rest. 
 
MUSIC, 
 
 READ AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE HARVARD MUSICAL 
 ASSOCIATION, BOSTON, JANUARY 28, 1874. 
 
 W HEN " Music, Heavenly Maid," was very young, 
 
 She did not sing as poets say she sung. 
 
 Unlike the mermaids of the fairy tales, 
 
 She paid but slight attention to her scales. 
 
 Besides, poor thing ! she had no instruments 
 
 But such as rude barbaric art invents. 
 
 There were no Steinways then, no Chickerings, 
 
 No spinnets, harpsichords, or metal strings ; 
 
 No hundred-handed orchestras, no schools 
 
 To corset her in contrapuntal rules. 
 
 Some rude half-octave of a shepherd s song, 
 
 Some childish strumming all the summer long 
 
 On sinews stretched across a tortoise-shell, 
 
 Such as they say Apollo loved so well ; 
 
 Some squeaking flageolet or scrannel pipe, 
 
 Some lyre poetic of the banjo type, 
 
 Such were the means she summoned to her aid, 
 
 Prized as divine ; on these she sang or played. 
 
MUSIC. 235 
 
 Music was then an infant, while she saw 
 
 Her sister arts full grown. Greece stood in awe 
 
 Before the Phidian Jove. Apelles drew 
 
 And Zeuxis painted. Marble temples " grew 
 
 As grows the grass " ; and never saw the sun 
 
 A statelier vision than the Parthenon. 
 
 But she, the Muse who in these latter days 
 
 Lifts us and floats us in the golden haze 
 
 Of melodies and harmonies divine, 
 
 And steeps our souls and senses in such wine 
 
 As never Ganymede nor Hebe poured 
 
 For gods, when quaffing at the Olympian board, 
 
 She, Heavenly Maid, must ply her music thin, 
 
 And sit and thrum her tinkling mandolin, 
 
 Chant her rude staves, and only prophesy 
 
 Her far-off days of immortality. 
 
 E en so poor Cinderella, when she cowered 
 Beside her hearth, and saw her sisters, dowered 
 With grace and wealth, go forth to accomplish all 
 Their haughty triumphs at the Prince s ball, 
 While she in russet gown sat mournfully 
 Singing her " Once a king there chanced to be, * 
 Yet knows her prince will come ; her splendid days 
 Are all foreshadoAved in her dreaming gaze. 
 
236 MUSIC. 
 
 Then, as the years and centuries rolled on, 
 Like Santa-Clauses they have come and gone, 
 Bringing all means of utterance to the Muse. 
 No penny-trumpets, such as children use, 
 No barbarous Indian drums, no twanging lutes, 
 No buzzing Jews-harps, no Pandean flutes, 
 Were stuffed into her stockings, though they hung 
 On Time s great chimney, as when she was young ; 
 But every rare and costly instrument 
 That skill can fabricate or art invent, 
 Pianos, organs, viols, horns, trombones, 
 Hautboys, and clarinets with reedy tones, 
 Boehm-flutes and cornets, bugles, harps, bassoons, 
 Huge double-basses, kettle-drum half-moons, 
 And every queer contrivance made for tunes. 
 
 Through these the master-spirits round her throng, 
 
 And Europe rings with instruments and song. 
 
 Through these she breathes her wondrous symphonies, 
 
 Enchanting airs, and choral litanies. 
 
 Through these she speaks the word that never dies, 
 
 The universal language of the skies. 
 
 Around her gather those who held their art 
 
 To be of life the dearest, noblest part. 
 
 Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart are there ; 
 
MUSIC. 237 
 
 Beethoven, chief of all. The southern air 
 Is ringing with Rossini s birdlike notes ; 
 About the north more earnest music floats, 
 Where Weber, Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, 
 And long processions of the lords of Tone 
 All come to attend her. Like a queen enthroned 
 She sits and rules the realms she long has owned, 
 And sways the willing sense, the aspiring soul, 
 Where thousands bow before her sweet control. 
 
 Ah ! greater than all words of mine can say, 
 The heights, the depths, the glories, of that sway. 
 No mortal tongue can bring authentic speech 
 Of that enchanted world beyond its reach ; 
 No tongue but hers, when, lifted on the waves 
 Of Tone and Harmony, beyond the graves 
 Of all we lose, we drift entranced away 
 Out of the discords of the common day ; 
 And she, the immortal goddess, on her breast 
 Lulls us to visions of a sweet unrest, 
 Smiles at the tyrannies of time and space, 
 And folds us in a mother s fond embrace, 
 Till, sailing on upon that mystic sea, 
 We feel that Life is Immortality. 
 
COMPENSATION, 
 
 lEARS wash away the atoms in the eye 
 
 That smarted for a day ; 
 Eain-clouds that spoiled the splendors of the sky 
 
 The fields with flowers array. 
 
 No chamber of pain but has some hidden door 
 
 That promises release ; 
 No solitude so drear but yields its store 
 
 Of thought and inward peace. 
 
 No night so wild but brings the constant sun 
 
 With love and power untold ; 
 No time so dark but through its woof there run 
 
 Some blessed threads of gold. 
 
COMPENSATION. 239 
 
 And through the long and storm-tost centuries burn 
 
 In changing calm and strife 
 The Pharos-lights of truth, where er we turn, 
 
 The unquenched lamps of life. 
 
 Love supreme ! Providence divine ! 
 
 What self-adjusting springs 
 Of law and life, what even scales, are thine, 
 
 What sure-returning wings 
 
 Of hopes and joys that flit like birds away, 
 
 When chilling Autumn blows, 
 But come again, long ere the buds of May 
 
 Their rosy lips unclose ! 
 
 What wondrous play of mood and accident 
 Through shifting days and years ; 
 
 What fresh returns of vigor overspent 
 In feverish dreams and fears ! 
 
 What wholesome air of conscience and of thought 
 
 When doubts and forms oppress ; 
 What vistas opening to the gates we sought 
 
 Beyond the wilderness ; 
 
210 COMPENSATION. 
 
 Beyond the narrow cells where self-involved, 
 
 *Likc chrysalids, we wait 
 The unknown births, the mysteries unsolved 
 
 Of death and change and fate ! 
 
 Light divine ! we need no fuller test 
 
 That all is ordered well ; 
 We know enough to trust that all is best 
 
 Where Love and Wisdom dwell. 
 
 1874. 
 
A BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS, 
 
 IHE warring hosts of Winter and of Spring 
 
 Are hurtling o er the plains. 
 All night I heard their battle-clarions ring, 
 
 And jar the window-panes. 
 
 The arrowy sleet is rattling on the glass ; 
 
 The sky a vault of stone ; 
 The untimely snows besiege the sprouting grass ; 
 
 The elm-trees toss and moan. 
 
 Their swelling buds curl backward as they swing ; 
 
 The crocus in its sheath 
 Listens, a watchful sentinel, till Spring 
 
 Shall melt the snow s last wreath. 
 
 11 p 
 
242 A BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS. 
 
 The saddened robins flit through leafless trees, 
 
 And chirp with tuneless voice, 
 And wait the conquering sun, the unbinding breeze; 
 
 They cannot yet rejoice. 
 
 Slowly the victor Spring her foe outflanks, 
 
 And countermines his snows ; 
 Then, unawares, along the grassy banks 
 Her ambushed violets throws. 
 
 Soon she will mask with buds of fragrant white 
 
 Her arsenals of thorns, 
 And lift her rose-bush banners to the light 
 
 Of soul-entrancing morns. 
 
 Along the fields her fairy troops shall hide, 
 
 And conquer by their grace, 
 And shake their flowery crests, and far and wide 
 f The surly frosts displace ; 
 
 Till all the woods are ringing with the glee 
 
 And prophecy of change 
 That melts the past and sets the present free 
 
 Through Summer s perfect range. 
 
A BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS. 243 
 
 O flagging spring of Honor and of Truth, 
 
 Shalt thou not victor be, 
 And bring again the faith the nation s youth 
 
 Made one with Liberty ? 
 
 Shall the new birth America has known 
 
 Amid her battle-throes 
 Prove a nipped blossom, blighted ere t is blown, 
 
 Or a perennial rose ? 
 
 April 21, 1874. 
 
MEMOEIAL HALL. 
 
 AMID the elms that interlace 
 
 Bound Harvard s grounds their branches tall, 
 We greet no walls of statelier grace 
 
 Than thine, our proud Memorial Hall ! 
 
 Through arching boughs and roofs of green 
 Whose dappled lights and shadows lie 
 
 Along the turf and road, is seen 
 Thy noble form against the sky. 
 
 And miles away, on fields and streams, 
 Or where the woods the hilltop crown, 
 
 The monumental temple gleams, 
 
 A landmark to each neighboring town. 
 
 Nor this alone ; New England knows 
 
 A deeper meaning in the pride 
 Whose stately architecture shows 
 
 How Harvard s children fought and died. 
 
MEMORIAL HALL. 245 
 
 Therefore this hallowed pile recalls 
 
 The heroes, young and true and brave, 
 
 Who gave their memories to these walls, 
 Their lives to fill the soldier s grave. 
 
 The farmer, as he drives his team 
 
 To market in the morn, afar 
 Beholds the golden sunrise gleam 
 
 Upon thee, like a glistening star. 
 
 And gazing, he remembers well 
 
 Why stands yon tower so fair and tall. 
 
 ///* sons perhaps in battle fell ; 
 
 For him, too, shines Memorial Hall. 
 
 And sometimes as the student glides 
 Along the winding Charles, and sees 
 
 Across the flats thy glowing sides 
 Above the elms and willow-trees, 
 
 Upon his oar he 11 turn and pause, 
 
 Remembering the heroic aims 
 Of those who linked their country s cause 
 
 In deathless glory with their names. 
 
246 MEMORIAL HALL. 
 
 And as against the moonlit sky 
 
 The shadowy mass looms overhead, 
 
 Well may we linger with a sigh 
 Beneath the tablets of the dead. 
 
 The snow-drifts on thy roof shall wreathe 
 Their crowns of virgin white for them ; 
 
 The whispering winds of summer breathe 
 At morn and eve their requiem. 
 
 For them the Cambridge bells shall chime 
 Across the noises of the town ; 
 
 The cannon s peal recall their time 
 Of stern resolve and brief renown. 
 
 Concord and Lexington shall still, 
 Like deep to deep, to Harvard call ; 
 
 The tall gray shaft on Bunker Hill 
 Speak greetings to Memorial Hall. 
 
 O, never may the land forget 
 Her loyal sons who died that we 
 
 Might live, remembering still our debt, 
 The costly price of Liberty ! 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., April, 1874. 
 
DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 . "We are such stuff 
 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 LET me be still, lie still and dream again, 
 And bind the severed links of the golden chain 
 That glimmered through my morning sleep, but snapped 
 When at my door you rapped. 
 
 Breakfast ? and half past eight ? What s that to me ? 
 What s daylight ? What are muffins, toast and tea ? 
 " Market, and raining hard, and bills to pay," 
 I think I heard you say. 
 
 Ah, yes, this is no dream. I must suppose 
 There are such things. This is a world of prose. 
 But I was far away. How real it seemed ! 
 And yet I only dreamed. 
 
248 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 I was a welcome and a happy guest 
 In a brave palace. Upward from the west 
 Long shadows of the lingering afternoon 
 In a long day of June 
 
 Lay on a lawn. The palace windows burned 
 In the red sunset, as I downward turned, 
 A group of youths and maidens at my side, 
 Down to a river wide, 
 
 Upon whose waves the western sky lay red. 
 A barge awaited us ; and overhead 
 Streamed rosy wreaths of cloud. We sped along, 
 With joyous talk and song. 
 
 Away, away into a land of light, 
 Where it was neither morn nor noon nor night, 
 But dream-light only ; and a city stood 
 Beyond a tropic wood. 
 
 And in the pathway to that happy place 
 All was incessant change of time and space, 
 With sudden, sweet surprises, as we went 
 In measureless content. 
 
DREAM-LIFE. 249 
 
 And friends, the absent and the dead, were there ; 
 And some we never saw, yet seemed to wear 
 The mingled traits of those we used to know, 
 "Went passing to and fro 
 
 Through festive halls, through gardens strange and rare ; 
 And all were young, and all were happy there. 
 How could you wake me from a dream of bliss 
 To such a place as this ? 
 
 T was hard to leave that life for one so mean, 
 For prose and duty and the old routine 
 Of work. Yet now that I am up and dressed, 
 I know that this is best. 
 
 The lordly soul is master of its own. 
 The fair insanities of dreams are flown, 
 They were but moonlight flashes, broken gleams 
 Along its flowing streams. 
 
 Another light now shames the tinsel dress 
 Of drifting fancies wild and rudderless, 
 Nor can the night s dull jesters now impose 
 In Reason s borrowed clothes. 
 11* 
 
250 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 And as I plod along, I know that life 
 Is but the stuff from which with toil and strife 
 We weave our robe of thought and creed, and tinge 
 "With dreams its outer fringe. 
 
 Work, work, while daylight lasts, and let the night 
 Spin its thin webs of visionary light, 
 The rainbow hues that span the cataract 
 
 Of life and living fact ! 
 
 1874. 
 
THE CENTUEY AND THE NATION. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE Pni BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF HARVARD 
 COLLEGE, JUNE 25, 1874. 
 
 I. 
 
 AS when we unbar the windows of the night, 
 And the great morning from her orient founts 
 Of silent fire, with wave on wave of light 
 And color, floods the earth and sky, and mounts 
 Through heights of pearly space, nor heeds, nor counts 
 Her triumphs, as she inundates the strands 
 Of continents, with joy and life on seas and lands ; 
 
 IT. 
 
 So shines our century, as the years unfold 
 The events and thoughts that claim the poet s lyre; 
 Not to lament a vanished age of gold, 
 But rather greet the time, whose "broad sun-fire 
 Warms into life the world s supreme desire 
 Traced through the misty hollows of the night, * 
 Half hid, but patient still to take the advancing light. 
 
252 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 III. 
 
 Still art thou young, thou latest, loveliest age,. 
 Thou fairest, healthiest daughter born of Time ! 
 Might I but measure with my narrow gauge 
 Some fragment of thy height, fain would my rhyme 
 Stray through thy sunlit mountain-paths, and climb 
 To see the falsehoods of the centuries gone 
 Troop to their graves like ghosts, while thou exultest on ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 O, broad and warm o er hill and seagirt isle, 
 Thy morning splendors still illume the sky ! 
 The hoary cliffs, the pines and cedars, smile 
 With rosy flushes. Happy valleys lie 
 Long-shadowed. Domes and steeples catch thine eye, 
 And smoke upcurls, and windows flash afar 
 O er dew-wet meadow-farms, each town a golden star. 
 
 v. 
 
 Thou shinest over fields of waving grain, 
 And open barns, and tottering harvest-carts ; 
 O er long-drawn iron track and flying train ; 
 O er roar of steamers and of crowded marts ; 
 O er clear-lit halls of sciences and arts ; 
 Where factory-maidens tend the whirling spool ; 
 Or where small voices hum in the hushed village school. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 253 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thy presence breathes, an influence calm and pure, 
 Here, where these interlacing elms surround 
 The walls our fathers founded to insure 
 The culture of the States ; a hallowed ground, 
 Through whose green academic shades resound 
 The echoing footsteps of two hundred years ; 
 And memory linked with hope instructs, inspires, and 
 cheers. 
 
 VII. 
 
 By school and printing-press and message- wire ; 
 By ringing anvil and by furnace-blast ; 
 By dragon steeds of iron, winged with fire ; 
 By flying ocean-shuttles weaving fast 
 The old and new, the present and the past ; 
 By strong telluric force ; by skill and art, 
 The world responds to thee, through brain and throb 
 bing heart. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The strength of all the past is thine ; the blood 
 Of countless years thy intellectual light ; 
 The races of the world thy tidal flood. 
 Thou rollest on with ceaseless waves of bright, 
 
 Resistless influence, turning wrong to right, 
 
 
 Error to truth, treason to loyal faith, 
 
 Despair to winged hope, creating life from death. 
 
254 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 IX. 
 
 We scarce may count the triumphs thou hast won, 
 So wide the treasury where thy wealth is stored. 
 And though thy years have more than half-way run 
 In time s great sandglass, what thou yet dost hoard 
 For future use, who knows ? What unexplored 
 And unimagined powers shall yet be born ; 
 What glorious sons of light, what daughters of the morn ! 
 
 x. 
 
 Thine are the years when Man asserts his claims, 
 The birthright ages have so long denied, 
 The primogeniture of rights and aims 
 That vitalize the races ; thine the tide 
 That floats Humanity s tost bark o er wide 
 And dreary seas, full-sailed, with -wealth untold 
 Of long-imprisoned hopes, 0, richer far than gold ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 And thine the central throne whence Science turns 
 To test, with sceptre of eternal law, 
 Through space, through spirit, every ray that burns 
 In stars and star-like souls ; and finds no flaw, 
 No discord, as with joy and reverent awe 
 Crowning their toil, her patient servants climb 
 The illumined peaks to read the unfolding scrolls of time. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 255 
 
 XII. 
 
 We turn to gaze with wonder at the ghosts 
 Whose glamour filled the ages that have flown : 
 The sway of priests and kings ; the embattled hosts 
 That burned a blooming land, or built a throne ; 
 The terrors of a church that sought to own 
 The souls it crushed ; the inhuman laws that sealed 
 The founts of love, and stained a nation s virgin shield ; 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The unmanly morals of a shameless stage ; 
 The pomp of servile courts ; the robber s fame ; 
 All false ideals of a faithless age ; 
 All pride of birth that mocked the people s claim ; 
 All superstitions, in whose withering flame 
 The faithful saint, the daring thinker gave 
 Their memories to all time, their bodies to the grave. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And yet all centuries that have leafed and flowered 
 Have dropped for us their foliage and their seed ; 
 Each age, by all the ancestral ages dowered, 
 Must reap the wholesome grain, the poisonous weed, 
 Heir to the bloom and blight alike decreed, 
 Twin-born, the alternate play of will and fate, 
 That weaves the mystic web of all our mortal state. 
 
256 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 XV. 
 
 How shall we build with those time-crusted stones, 
 Dropped from the ruined arches of the past ? 
 How gather up the Old World s discordant tones 
 In symphonies of hope ? Or how recast 
 The creeds of darker centuries, and at last, 
 With faith as strong, develop, not invent, 
 A fresher heart and soul for our vast Continent ? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The task is still before us, well begun 
 By souls whose fame is our delight and pride. 
 How our strong pioneers have toiled, and won 
 A hemisphere from chaos ; how defied 
 The imperial thunderbolts that far and wide 
 Strewed other worlds with wrecks, but harmless fell, 
 Quenched hissing on our seas, let History proudly tell. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Our century bends to them with thanks and praise ; 
 Nor less to those forefathers sad and stern, 
 Who left the poisoned air and godless ways 
 Of courts corrupt, in fresher lands to earn 
 The right to think. What though we sometimes turn, 
 In newer lights, their acrid saintliness 
 To jest, they sowed the grain whose harvest we possess. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 257 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Theirs was the rough and bitter rind which wrapped 
 The priceless kernel planted on our shore. 
 The perishable shell, once all too apt 
 To style itself divine, survives no more. 
 The germ that in its stony nut it bore 
 Has sent abroad a thousand thriving shoots, 
 And filled our fields with trees, our homes with whole 
 some fruits. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 What though no Grecian and no Gothic thought 
 Of beauty grew to column, dome, or spire ; 
 No artist s hand on stone or canvas wrought 
 Their heroes, saints, or nymphs ; no lyric fire, 
 No music panting with divine desire, 
 In their plain Saxon lives expression found, 
 They guarded the deep springs whose rills enrich our ground. 
 
 xx. 
 
 Within their theologic crypts they fed 
 The sacred fire that centuries have preserved ; 
 The sanctities of home ; the wholesome dread 
 Of lawless force ; the trust that never swerved 
 In Providence divine ; the faith that nerved 
 Their souls to found in freedom, knowledge, right, 
 A Commonwealth beyond the priest s or tyrant s blight; 
 
258 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 That common conscience which to-day divides 
 The right and wrong, and scorns to compromise 
 Twixt Lucifer and God, which so decides 
 For even-weighted justice, that no lies 
 Of false, fair-spoken sophists can surprise 
 Its steady vision and its honest aim, 
 Or tempt to pluck the fruit that breeds a nation s shame ; 
 
 XXII. 
 
 That fearless love of truth which scorns the bait 
 Of party, sect, or clan ; the open eye 
 And judgment, that can well afford to wait 
 The verdict of the future, can descry 
 Storms in the treacherous softness of the sky, 
 And through the windy watches of a night 
 Of tempest, note the path of sure-returning light ; 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 That sweet humanity which feels that all 
 Who bear the name of woman and of man 
 Are one, that none can languish, none can fall, 
 But somehow all must suffer from a ban 
 That darkens o er the universal plan, 
 Yet strong as fate to oppose all force insane, 
 When mad rebellion roars to rend the state in twain ; 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 259 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Such were the fruits whose seeds those Pilgrims brought 
 From far, o er leagues of stormy winter brine. 
 And, as that ship which bore the Argonaut 
 Was set among the stars, and held divine, 
 So shall our classic Mayflower bloom and shine 
 Above a new-found Continent, with hope 
 That dims its earlier dream and clouded horoscope. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 For dark and chill, America, the years 
 That saw thee clinging like a drifting waif 
 To rocks and barren shores, thy hopes and fears 
 Rising and sinking like thy tides, till, safe 
 And self-reliant, vainly did they chafe 
 Against thee, though thy doors beyond the sea 
 Were shut against their child and deaf to freedom s plea. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Young Titan of the West ! thy cradle swung 
 In storms. The wild winds were thy lullabies. 
 The cold contempt of kings around thee clung, 
 And gilded courtiers mocked thy infant cries ; 
 Till, stronger grown, thee as their lawful prize 
 When they had roughly grasped, too late they learned 
 To fear the freeborn strength their parliaments had spurned. 
 
260 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 But thou, for all their curses, gavest back 
 From battle-fields and councils, and the birth 
 Of free emprise, a light that cheered the black 
 Despair of millions whom both heaven and earth 
 Dowered with a blight ; and on the sand and dearth 
 Of distant nations shed reviving dew, 
 And stirred the Old World s heart with longings strange 
 and new. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Nor this alone. The refuge thou hast been 
 For all the oppressed, a home for all who pined. 
 For them thy *unwalled towns, thy prairies green, 
 Thy woods and streams; a charter unconfined; 
 The freedom of the fresh, untrammelled mind ; 
 All that can raise the vile and cheer the poor 
 Is theirs who come to seek a dwelling on thy shore. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Thou knew st Columbia s youth, Mother Age, 
 The struggling youth of her, thy youngest child, 
 Fated to brave the ready-handed rage 
 Of tyranny, till peace and plenty smiled. 
 Thine eyes beheld o er lakes and forests wild 
 Her liberal sway, her culture broad and free, 
 Grow with her growing strength, till sea was linked to sea. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 2G1 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Thou knew st the unsifted errors of that youth, 
 Each blind, misguided impulse, crude and strong ; 
 Each lapse from grand, ideal heights of truth 
 And justice. Thou hast known the long, 
 Dishonorable reign of force and wrong ; 
 The struggles of the manhood of the time 
 Against the serpent-folds of compromise and crime ; 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Against that curse of bondage, in the mesh 
 Of whose unhallowed network rich and poor 
 Alike were snared ; that cancer in the flesh 
 The blood of countless hearts alone could cure, 
 The costly price of all that could insure 
 Freedom and strength and honor to the state, 
 The duty scorned so long, the lesson learned so late. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 The inhuman codes that chained the slave, and drowned 
 The prayers of freemen lifted in his cause ; 
 The people s mad delusions, cheered and crowned ; 
 The mob s brute anarchy, the tiger claws 
 That tore to shreds the wise ancestral laws, 
 Shall they not lie entombed where none may dare 
 Infect with their decay the nation s purer air? 
 
262 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 For tliee, our Country, may the advancing age 
 Evolve a destiny more nobly vast 
 Than ever stained with blood the antique page 
 In blurred and lurid records of the past. 
 For thou the keys of treasure-chambers hast, 
 From older lands and darker times concealed ; 
 Their past shall yield thee tools, thy future is thy field. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 So, like a master bending o er the strings 
 Of some grand instrument not yet in tune, 
 And tempering every chord until it rings 
 Harmonious as the woods and waves in June, 
 Or as the obedient tides beneath the moon, 
 So bends the Century o er this Western land, 
 And wooes its hidden soul with skilled and loving hand ; 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 And, blending with its forces, hath unsealed 
 The invisible currents of diviner powers. 
 Here Science spreads her wealth, a boundless field ; 
 Art, Learning, Culture, climb to fruits and flowers. 
 Time makes a thousand opening vistas ours ; 
 A thousand varied triumphs of the soul 
 Glow on the nation s path, and gild the historic scroll. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 263 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Behind us, like a thunder-storm o erpast, 
 The clouds of battle fade. Peace smiles again : 
 The Northern winds have blown their trumpet-blast ; 
 The Southern homes are answering to the strain 
 In other tones than those when death and pain 
 Shrieked their dread harvest-song of war, and reaped 
 The ghastly fields where sheaves of life in blood were 
 heaped. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 We stood amid the wrecks of fated schemes. 
 We stumbled over falsehood s shattered stones. 
 Mid ruined columns and mid smoking beams 
 We toiled with firmer faith, and hope that owns 
 A future in whose miracles the tones 
 Amphion waked to build his fabled walls 
 Ring with the Century s march where er its footstep falls. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Yet good and evil from the older lands, 
 Mixed with our own, like mingled dross and gold, 
 Half shaped and half refined, are in our hands. 
 We wait the patient fingers that shall mould 
 The mass to strength and grace as yet untold 
 Amid the annals of republics past, 
 The states that rose like suns to set in storms at last. 
 
264 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 xxxix. 
 
 As once the sculptor on his statue wrought, 
 . Till form to beauty grew, from marble still 
 To breathing flesh, affection, motion, thought, 
 So thou, Mother- Age, shalt thou not fill 
 The measure of thy prophecies, until 
 The nation s unresponsive life shall warm 
 And glow beneath thy touch, beyond the sensuous form ; 
 
 XL. 
 
 Until the lands that stretch from east to west 
 Shall know the presence of a power beyond 
 All bribes or party -limits, unexpressed, 
 Yet felt, to which all noble souls respond, 
 The touch and pressure of the girdling bond 
 Of conscience, that no flaw or stain degrade 
 The strong, symmetric limbs in youth and grace arrayed? 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Thy future, O my Country, none may know ; 
 Yet all the looms of Time are weaving swift 
 Thy destined warp and woof. Above, below, 
 The viewless threads forever change and shift, 
 The noiseless shuttles fly. The overdrift 
 Of fate moves on like air around the globe, 
 And blends the hues of storm and sunshine in tliv robe. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 265 
 
 XLII. 
 
 T is thine to guard the wisdom that of old 
 Gave Rome her strength and Greece her art and grace ; 
 The wealth that dims all treasuries of gold, 
 All glare of camps and courts ; whose lights displace 
 Imperial pomp and splendor, and efface 
 The blazoned memories of the kings whose fame 
 Is but a puff of dust returning whence it came. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 The time may come, or is it but a hope 
 Of poets and enthusiasts born to dream, 
 But never prophesy, save when they ope 
 Their mouths Cassandra-like, while visions gleam 
 On sleeping worlds, pale arctic lights that stream 
 And point their ghostly fingers to the pole, 
 Where shine the central constellations of the soul, 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 A better time, perchance not ours to see, 
 Or see as some mirage in desert sands, 
 When, like the mighty Californian tree 
 By centuries matured, the nation stands 
 Close-grained and knit in nature s vital bands, 
 Each State a spreading branch of evergreen, 
 Close to the mother-trunk that towers aloft between ; 
 12 
 
266 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Perchance some future not so far away, 
 When all we earned in war in peace we keep ; 
 When wealth and power shall dull no finer ray 
 Of holier orbs ; when deep shall answer deep, 
 Not as when once the nation from her sleep 
 Of cheating dreams woke to the battle s clang, 
 But souls to souls, as when the stars of morning sang. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Then shall the scholar and the teacher know 
 How fruitless learning is, which sows its seeds 
 On hearts where no deep sympathies can grow, 
 Caught from the prophet-souls, in words and deeds, 
 That from beneath the. strata of dead creeds 
 Spring to the surface of the age, the true 
 And universal faith, though old, forever new. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Then party camps shall cease to be a mart 
 Where politicians ply their sordid trade ; 
 Then lowly worth and skill shall bear their part 
 In offices and councils ; then, unswayed 
 By thirst for spoils, the honest man shall aid 
 The state without the enforcement of a rod 
 To sell his five-born vote, to cringe to a leader s nod. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 2G7 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Then in the nation s capitol no blush 
 Of shame shall tinge the brows of those who plight 
 The nation s word to truth ; no bribe shall hush 
 The voice of reason, and no conscience slight 
 The everlasting statute-book of right : 
 But they who for the people stand shall speak 
 The people s wiser moods, nor selfish guerdons seek. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Then he who rules shall serve the country s cause, 
 Nor bow his knightly crest when factions roar, 
 Nor waver in the breath of fitful flaAvs 
 Blown by his friends or foes ; sound to the core 
 His heart of hearts, though oft with travail sore 
 Perplexed and worn, still faithful at his post, 
 Waiting the grand results, though counting all the cost. 
 
 L. 
 
 Two such we knew, when mad rebellion gashed 
 The nation s limbs. One, helmsman on the bark 
 Of state, when thunders roared and lightnings flashed, 
 Steered us to port, himself the assassin s mark ; 
 The other, in whose breast no less the spark 
 Of honor shone, your Bay State raised to bless, 
 To govern, and to guide through years of anxious stress. 
 
268 THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Another too, late fallen, who in the van 
 For years amid contending forces stood 
 A fearless champion of the rights of man ; 
 Who dared and suffered, as he stemmed the flood, 
 By storms assailed, by flattering ripples wooed ; 
 The statesman, scholar, sage. Let Harvard claim 
 His youth, your State his birth, the land his manhood s 
 
 fame. 
 
 LII. 
 
 The great, the good, the living and the dead, 
 Who wrought their earnest lives into the grain 
 And texture of the age ; the hearts that bled ; 
 The brains that toiled for truth, not power or gain, 
 These are the saviors of the race. In vain 
 The historian writes, in vain the poet sings, 
 Who knows not, as they pass, the time s anointed kings ! 
 
 LIU. 
 
 Like glowing pictures in some missal old 
 Whose dulled and yellowed leaves in dust were laid, 
 The illumined pages start to life. Behold 
 The noble men and women who have made 
 The light of memories that can never fade ; 
 The aroma of all history, the bloom 
 And spice of time, though dead, still fragrant i;i the 
 tomb. 
 
THE CENTURY AND THE NATION. 269 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Such is the life the nation craves. For such 
 No toil, no aspiration can we waste. 
 O land of hope and promise ! let no touch 
 Of that Promethean fire whose flame effaced 
 The gods of darkness pass unfelt, no taste 
 Of baser glory lure thee from the streams 
 AYhose crystal springs are hid in thy prophetic dreams. 
 
 LV. 
 
 And as along thy darkening ocean strand 
 Thy Pharos-towers their punctual stars illume 
 At eventide ; and ships from every land 
 Shun, toiling through the waves, the sailor s doom, 
 So turn thy living lamps upon the gloom 
 Of storm-tost nations, that thy constant rays 
 May bless the world, and prove thy crowning fame and 
 praise ! 
 
THE LAY OF THEYM; OR, THE HAMMEE EECOVEEED, 
 
 A VERSIFICATION FROM THE OLD NORSE EDDA OF S^MUND 
 THE LEARNED. 
 
 W ROTH was Vingthor when awaking he his mighty 
 
 hammer missed, 
 Felt about him, shook his beard, and smote his forehead 
 
 with his fist. 
 " Hear, O Loki, what I tell thee, known to none above, 
 
 below; 
 
 Stolen is the ^Esir hammer. Swift to Freyia let ns go." 
 To the dwelling of fair Freyia straight they flew as swift 
 
 as wind. 
 " Lend thy feather-dress, Freyia ; I my hammer fain 
 
 would find." 
 
 " Though t were woven gold or silver, I would lend it," 
 Freyia said. 
 
 Then with whistling plumage Loki over plains and moun- 
 * 
 
 tains sped. 
 
THE LAY OF THRYM. 271 
 
 Flew beyond the ^Esirs dwellings, till lie came to Jotun- 
 
 lands. 
 On a mound sat Thrym, the Lord of Thursar, plaiting 
 
 golden bands, 
 Plaiting collars for his greyhounds, smoothing down his 
 
 horses manes. 
 " Why to Jotunheim alone, Loki, com st thou o er the 
 
 plains ? " 
 
 % 
 
 "Hast thou hidden Vingthor s hammer? Ill betide 
 
 thee if thou hast ! " 
 " I have hidden Vingthor s hammer, in the earth full 
 
 many a rast ; 
 None shall get it thence again, though he should labor 
 
 all his life, 
 Till he brings to me fair Freyia for my own and wedded 
 
 wife." 
 Then with whistling plumage Loki flew beyond the 
 
 Jotunland 
 Till within the ^Esirs courts he saw the mighty Vingthor 
 
 stand. 
 
 " Thou hast labored ; hast thou prospered ? Tell thy 
 
 tidings from the air ; 
 They who sit are often false, although their speech be 
 
 smooth and fair." 
 
272 THE LAY OF THRYM. 
 
 " I have labored, I have prospered. Thiym thy hammer 
 
 took, king. 
 None shall get it thence save he who Freyia for his wife 
 
 will bring." 
 
 Forth to Ereyia then they flew, and first of all these 
 
 words they said : 
 " Put thy bridal raiment on, Freyia ; thou with Thrym 
 
 must wed. 
 Ride with us to Jotunheim. The Thursar s lord shall be 
 
 thy spouse." 
 Then did Freyia chafe with anger, and she knit her 
 
 queenly brows, 
 And the ^Esirs palace trembled as she paced it through 
 
 and through, 
 And the famed Brisinga necklace from her neck in shivers 
 
 flew. 
 
 " I should be the frailest woman and the basest of my 
 time, 
 
 If with thee, in bridal raiment, I should ride to Jotun 
 heim I " 
 
 Straightway then in council gathered all the MSIT to 
 
 debate 
 How Hlorridi s hidden hammer they should rescue from 
 
 its fate. 
 
THE LAY OF THRYM. 273 
 
 Heimdall, then, of ^sir brightest, thus amid the gods 
 
 did speak : 
 " Let Thor dress in bridal raiment, with the necklace on 
 
 his neck ; 
 By his side the keys shall jingle, round his knees a gown 
 
 be spread, 
 Jewels sparkle on his breast, a golden coif upon his head." 
 
 Then outspoke the mighty Vingthor, " Shall a woman s 
 
 part be mine ? 
 For the gods will smile to see me robed in bridal raiment 
 
 fine." 
 
 Then spake Loki, " Mighty Tlior, such words do not 
 
 become thee well : 
 If thy hammer thou shalt lose, in Asgard will the Jotuns 
 
 dwell." 
 
 So in bridal robes they dressed him ; like a maiden he 
 
 was led. 
 By his side the keys did jingle, round his knees a gown 
 
 was spread, 
 Jewels sparkled on his breast, a golden coif upon his 
 
 12 
 
THE LAY OF THRYM. 
 
 Then said ^Loki, " I will aid thee, as thy servant for a 
 
 time, 
 And we two will ride together till we come to Jotun- 
 
 heirn." 
 
 Swift the goats were caught and harnessed ; swift and far 
 
 their feet did rim. 
 Rocks were shivered, earth ablaze. To Jotunheim rode 
 
 Odin s son. 
 
 Thrym, the Lord of Thursar, shouted : " Up now, every 
 
 Jotun s son ; 
 Freyia for my wife they bring me, Niord s maid from 
 
 Noatun. 
 Hither bring the gold-horned cattle, oxen black, the 
 
 Jotun s pride. 
 Treasures I have many ; only needed Freyia for my bride." 
 
 In the evening came the Jotuns. Beer for them was 
 brought in pails. 
 
 Thor alone devoured an ox, and salmons eight with bones 
 and scales. 
 
 All the sweetmeats women fancy disappeared with won 
 drous speed, 
 
 While he quenched his thirst by drinking three huge 
 horns of foaming mead. 
 
THE LAY OF THRYM. 275 
 
 Then said Thrym, the Lord of Thursar, " Never in my 
 
 life I saw 
 Maidens drink such draughts of mead, or brides with 
 
 such a hungry maw ! " 
 
 Said the crafty Loki, sitting as a handmaid all this time, 
 " Eight nights Freyia naught has eaten, longing so for 
 
 Jotunheim." 
 
 Neath her veil Thrym stooped to kiss her, but sprang 
 
 back along the hall ; 
 " Why are Freyia s eyes so piercing ? Sparks of fire my 
 
 heart appall ! " 
 
 Said the crafty Loki, sitting as a handmaid all the time, 
 " Eight nights Preyia has not slept, so eager she for 
 
 Jotunheim." 
 
 In then came the Jotun s sister ; for a bride-gift dared to 
 
 crave. 
 " Give me all thy ruddy rings, if thou my love wouldst 
 
 seek to have." 
 
 " Bring the hammer now ! " Thrym shouted. " Let us 
 
 consecrate the bride. 
 Lay Miollner on her knee ; naught can now our lives 
 
 divide." 
 
276 THE LAY OF THRYM. 
 
 In his breast then laughed Hlorridi, when his hammer he 
 
 beheld. 
 Up he rose and slew the Jotuns, all the Jo tun race he 
 
 felled; 
 Felled the Jotun s aged sister, who a bride-gift sought to 
 
 gain, 
 She, instead of golden rings, by Vingthor s hammer-stroke 
 
 was slain. 
 So got Odin s son his hammer from the Jotuns back 
 
 again. 
 
MICHAEL ANGELO BUONABOTTI. 
 
 READ AT A CELEBRATION OF THE FOUR HUNDREDTH ANNIVER 
 SARY OF HIS BIRTH, BY THE NEW ENGLAND WOMEN S CLUB, 
 BOSTON, MARCH 6, 1875. 
 
 I HIS is the rugged face 
 Of him who won a place 
 
 Above all kings and lords; 
 Whose various skill and power 
 Left Italy a dower 
 No numbers can compute, no tongue translate in words. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Patient to train and school 
 His genius to the rule 
 
 Art s sternest laws required ; 
 Yet, by no custom chained, 
 His daring hand disdained 
 The academic forms bv tamer souls admired. 
 
278 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 
 
 III. 
 
 In his interior light 
 Awoke those shapes of might, 
 
 Once known, that never die ; 
 Forms of Titanic birth, 
 The elder brood of earth, 
 That fill the mind more grandly than they charm the eye. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yet when the master chose, 
 Ideal graces rose 
 
 Like flowers on gnarled boughs ; 
 For he was nursed and fed 
 At Beauty s fountain-head, 
 And to the goddess pledged his earliest, warmest vows. 
 
 v. 
 
 Entranced in thoughts whose vast 
 Imaginations passed 
 
 Into his facile hand, 
 By adverse fate unfoiled, 
 Through long, long years he toiled ; 
 Undimmed the eyes that saw, unworn the brain that 
 planned. 
 
MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 279 
 
 VI. 
 
 A soul the Church s bars, 
 The State s disastrous wars 
 Kept closer to his youth. 
 Though rough the winds and sharp, 
 They could not bend or warp 
 His soul s ideal forms of beauty and of truth. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Like some cathedral spire 
 That takes the earliest fire 
 
 Of morn, he towered sublime 
 O er names and fames of mark 
 Whose lights to his were dark ; 
 Facing the east, he caught a glow beyond his time. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Whether he drew, or sung, 
 Or wrought in stone, or hung 
 
 The Pantheon in the air ; 
 Whether he gave to Eome 
 Her Sistine walls or dome, 
 Or laid the ponderous beams, or lightly wound the stair ; 
 
280 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Whether he planned defence 
 On Tuscan battlements, 
 
 Fired with the patriot s zeal, 
 Where San Miniato s glow 
 Smiled down upon the foe, 
 
 Till Treason won the gates that mocked the invader s 
 steel ; 
 
 x. 
 
 Whether in lonely nights 
 With Poesy s delights 
 
 He cheered his solitude ; 
 In sculptured sonnets wrought 
 His firm and graceful thought, 
 Like marble altars in some dark and mystic wood, 
 
 XI. 
 
 Still, proudly poised, he stepped 
 The Avay his vision swept, 
 
 And scorned the narrower view. 
 He touched with glory all 
 That pope or cardinal, 
 With lower aims than his, allotted him to do. 
 
MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 281 
 
 XII. 
 
 A heaven of larger zone 
 
 Not theirs, but his was thrown 
 
 O er old and wonted themes. 
 The fires within his soul 
 Shone like an aureole 
 Around the prophets old and sibyls of his dreams. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Thus self-contained and bold, 
 His glowing thoughts he told 
 
 On canvas or on stone, 
 He needed not to seek 
 His themes from Jew or Greek ; 
 His soul enlarged their forms, his style was all his own. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Ennobled by his hand, 
 Florence and Rome shall stand 
 Stamped with the signet-ring 
 He wore, where kings obeyed 
 The laws the artists made. 
 Art was his world, and he was Art s anointed king. 
 
282 MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 
 
 So stood this Angelo 
 Four hundred years ago ; 
 
 So grandly still he stands, 
 Mid lesser worlds of Art, 
 Colossal and apart, 
 Like Memnon breathing songs across the desert sands. 
 
ON RE-READING TENNYSON S PRINCESS. 
 
 IF at this moment, in his distant isle 
 
 And home, shut in by trees and ivied walls, 
 Where, hidden like the fountains of the Nile, 
 
 He dreams among his palms and waterfalls, 
 If there he knew how one beneath the pines 
 
 Of Transatlantic lands, to him unknpwn, 
 Followed with glowing throb the poet s lines 
 
 From page to page o er all the waves of tone, 
 And read with stirring pulse and moistened eyes, 
 
 And fancy in delighted tumult caught 
 Mid fairy splendors, visionary skies, 
 
 And wild JEolian melodies of thought, 
 Should then this stranger tell him all he felt, 
 
 In speech, or letter burdened with his praise, 
 Think you that proud, sequestered soul would melt 
 
 To answer from behind his British bays ? 
 Nay, might he not his gates more closely bar 
 
284 ON RE-READING TENNYSON S PRINCESS. 
 
 Against the intrusion, as of one that sought 
 With alien touch to unsphere the poet s star, 
 And dwarf with diagrams his orbed thought ? 
 
 So have I whistled to a woodland thrush 
 
 That charmed the silence of a forest green : 
 Sudden the liquid cadence ceased to gush ; 
 
 Deep in the leafy gloom he hid unseen. 
 And so the poet sings, nor can unmask 
 
 With gloss of random talk his secret runes. 
 Hope not. the English nightingale will task 
 
 His tongue beneath the old, unbidden tunes. 
 Nor seek to snare the aroma of the rose 
 
 That fills the garden with its mystic scents ; 
 Nor, when the enchanted stream of music flows, 
 
 Press a prose comment from the instruments. 
 Enough that one who prompts the melody 
 
 Of younger bards and lords it in their style 
 Should sing unanswered, where alone and free 
 
 He dreams amid his fountains of the Nile. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
THE HIGHER LAW. 
 
 MAN was not made for forms, but forms for man. 
 
 And there are times when law itself must bend 
 
 To that clear spirit always in the van, 
 
 Outspeeding human justice. In the end 
 
 Potentates, not humanity, must fall. 
 
 Water will find its level, fire will burn, 
 
 The winds must blow around the earthly ball, 
 
 The earthly ball by day and night must turn ; 
 
 Freedom is typed in every element. 
 
 Man must be free, if not through law, why then 
 
 Above the law, until its force be spent, 
 
 And justice brings a better. But, O, when, 
 
 Father of Light, when shall the reckoning come 
 
 To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb ? 
 
 1850. 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 THERE are dark spots on yonder mountain-side, 
 
 So black that they seem fixed and rooted there : 
 
 But they will not, believe me, long abide ; 
 
 The clouds that cast them vanish into air. 
 
 So are there mountain minds who sometimes dare 
 
 Lift to the world their seeming blemishes, 
 
 Shadows of circumstance. Do not compare 
 
 These with the vices the eye daily sees, 
 
 Blighting the bloom of spirits tamely hedged 
 
 In the unwholesome swamps that sleep below, 
 
 Where the malaria of accepted lies 
 
 Thins the dull blood to meagre virtues pledged. 
 
 Better endure the clouds that come and go, 
 
 Than court the infected shades where freedom dies. 
 
SHAKESPEARE, 
 
 IT needs no bow o erstrained to wing the shaft 
 
 Of wit and wisdom. When great poets sing, 
 
 Into the night new constellations spring, 
 
 With music in the air that dulls the craft 
 
 Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed, 
 
 The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled, 
 
 Voiceless to scholars tongues no muse had filled 
 
 With melody divine. Athirst, men quaffed 
 
 His airy, electric words like heavenly wine. 
 
 The mountain summits of that Orient land 
 
 Outsoar the level of our praises fine. 
 
 All others lie around like hills of sand, 
 
 With here and there a green isle or a palm, 
 
 That whispers pleasantly when days are calm. 
 
 1:5 
 
THE GAEDEN, 
 
 NAUGHT know we but the heart of summer here. 
 
 On the tree-shadowed velvet lawn I lie, 
 
 And dream up through the close leaves to the sky, 
 
 And weave Arcadian visions in a sphere 
 
 Of peace. The steaming heat broods all around, 
 
 But only lends a quiet to the hours. 
 
 The aromatic life of countless flowers, 
 
 The singing of a hundred birds, the sound 
 
 Of rustling leaves, go pulsing through the green 
 
 Of opening vistas in the garden walks. 
 
 Dear Summer, on thy balmy breast I lean, 
 
 And care not how the moralist toils or talks ; 
 
 Repose and Beauty preach a gospel too, 
 
 Deep as that sterner creed the Apostles knew. 
 
THE GARDEN (CONTINUED). 
 
 Is there no praise of God amid the bowers 
 
 Of summer idleness ? Still must we toil 
 
 And think, and tease the conscience, and so soil 
 
 With over-careful fingering the flowers 
 
 That blow within the garden of the heart ? 
 
 Still must we be machines for grinding out 
 
 Thin prayers and moralisms ? Much I doubt, 
 
 Pale priest of a thorn-girded church, thy part 
 
 Is small in this wide breathing universe. 
 
 Least can I find thy title and thy worth 
 
 Here, where with myriad chords the musical earth 
 
 Is rhyming to the enraptured poet s verse. 
 
 Better thy cowl befits thy cloister s gloom ; 
 
 Its shadow blots the garden and its bloom. 
 
 1852. 
 
TO G. W. C. 
 
 GiORGiONE MIO ! In your brilliant books, 
 Spiced through with odors from the balmy East, 
 And musical as winds and woodland brooks, 
 Pages for fragrance as for solid feast, 
 You have touched sweetly on a few bright days 
 Under the blue dome of Italia s sky, 
 When side by side we drank the golden haze 
 Whose wondrous light from us can never die ; 
 And sweetly, covertly, you twined my name 
 In the rich wreath you flung before the world. 
 Dear Friend ! for you I fain would do the same ; 
 And when this small bouquet that I have twirled 
 Upon the stage where you are gathering fame, 
 Catches your eye, you 11 know from whom it came. 
 
 1853. 
 
TO W. W. S, 
 
 I DID not think to sail with you, dear friend, 
 
 Over the waters of this charmed bay, 
 
 And bring you to my summer home, to spend 
 
 Together such a sweet and sunny day. 
 
 As we sped on, a shadowy fear there lay 
 
 Half o er my hope, that accident might scrawl 
 
 The new-turned leaf in this fair book of May. 
 
 But thanks to the kind powers, I tasted all 
 
 For which I longed ; and in these grape-vine bowers 
 
 Upon the ten-ace by the sea, I felt 
 
 All harmonies of nature blend with ours, 
 
 And in the fleeting moments calmly melt, 
 
 While yon blue waves and purple mountain stood 
 
 Wrapt in the soft light of our genial mood. 
 
 SOREEXTO, ITALY, May, 1848. 
 
TO W. W. S, 
 
 So many years have passed, so far away 
 
 You seem, since arm in arm and eye to eye 
 
 We talked together, while the great blue sky 
 
 Of Rome smiled over us day after day, 
 
 Or on the flower-starred villa grounds we lay 
 
 Beneath the pines, while poesy and art 
 
 And mirth lent us one common mind and heart. 
 
 So long ago ! while we are growing gray, 
 
 And neither knows the life the other leads, 
 
 Shut in our separate spheres of thought and change. 
 
 Friend of my youth, how oft my spirit needs 
 
 The old, responsive voice ! Silence is strange, 
 
 That so conspires with Time. O, let us break 
 
 The spell, and speak, at, least for old love s sake ! 
 
 NEW YORK, April 9, 1870. 
 
TO 0. B. F, 
 
 To you, rejected by the church which most 
 Vaunts its own outgrowth from the older creeds,. 
 Yet, jealous of God s boundless Pentecost, 
 Disowns all plants from its own flying seeds, 
 And props its stalk on formulas and texts, 
 Close shut from blowing winds of freer thought, 
 To you, friend, we turn, who, leaving sects 
 And rites outworn, have ever bravely sought 
 To find and lead the way to ampler heights 
 Of vision and of faith. Your voice we hear, 
 Rich with the earnest eloquence of truth ; 
 And, following where its cheering tone invites, 
 The fogs of doubt disperse, the sky is clear, 
 And the wide prospect smiles with hope and youth. 
 
TO 0, B. P. (CONTINUED). 
 
 ALONE you stand, a herald of the morn 
 Of reason, faith, and large humanity, 
 Auroral airs of earth and heaven born, 
 Blown from the east across time s chano-eful sea. 
 
 O 
 
 One day the world will know you, ranked with those 
 Who foremost in the nation s honor stand, 
 The poet seers, who, as the century grows, 
 Give it a shape, with heart and brain and hand 
 Pledged to the truth. I only say what all 
 Will know, when clearer lamps are lit than noAV 
 In Christendom s dim crypts stand flickering low ; 
 And fain to you would bring some coronal 
 Worthier than this small wreath of song I weave : 
 The fuller praise the riper times will give. 
 
 1870. 
 
YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 WHEN young, I slighted art, yet sighed for fame ; 
 
 Dashed into careless rhyme, and toyed with thought. 
 
 When art and thoughts with age and wisdom came, 
 
 I laid aside the verse that youth had wrought. 
 
 These fruits, I said, were green, that from my bough, 
 
 When windy fancies swept, so lightly fell; 
 
 A mellower autumn sun is shining now, 
 
 That shames the cruder crop once loved so well. 
 
 Yet when it chanced some tender hearts had found 
 
 A sweeter flavor in the juiceless things 
 
 That lay in heaps neglected on the ground, 
 
 Than in the fruits the ripening season brings, 
 
 I thought, Must life retrace its pilgrimage, 
 
 And youth sing songs for youth, arid age for age ? 
 
 1874. 
 
POEMS OF THE WAR, 
 
THE BUEIAL OF THE FLAG, 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, 1861. 
 
 0, WHO are these that troop along, and whither do they 
 
 go? 
 Why move they thus with measured tread, while funeral 
 
 trumpets blow ? 
 Why gather round that open grave in mockery of woe ? 
 
 They stand together on the brink, they shovel in the 
 
 clod; 
 But what is that they bury deep ? Why trample they the 
 
 sod? 
 Why hurry they so fast away, without a prayer to God ? 
 
 It was no corpse of friend or foe. I see a flag uprollcd ; 
 The golden stars, the gleaming stripes, are gathered fold 
 
 on fold, 
 And lowered into the hollow grave, to rot beneath the 
 
 mould. 
 
302 THE BURIAL OF THE FLAG. 
 
 Then up they hoisted all around, on towers and hills and 
 crags, 
 
 The emblems of their traitorous schemes, their base dis 
 union flags. 
 
 That very night there blew a wind that tore them all to 
 rags ! 
 
 And one that flaunted bravest by the storm was swept 
 
 away, 
 And hurled upon the grave in which our country s banner 
 
 la y 
 
 Where, soaked with rain and stained with mud, they found 
 it the next day. 
 
 From out the North a power comes forth, a patient 
 
 power too long, 
 The spirit of the great, free air, a tempest swift and 
 
 strong ; 
 The living burial of our flag, it will not brook that wrong. 
 
 The stars of heaven shall gild her still ; her stripes like 
 rainbows gleam ; 
 
 Her billowy folds like surging clouds o er North and 
 South shall stream. 
 
 She is not dead, she lifts her head, she takes the morn 
 ing s beam ! 
 
THE BURIAL OF THE FLAG. 303 
 
 The banner of the unsevered States, though buried in 
 the dust, 
 
 She is not dead; she springs to life; her cause, like 
 truth s, is just ; 
 
 She leads the van, her meteor flame directs the thunder- 
 gust ! 
 
 That storm of lightning, wind, and rain shall sweep the 
 
 country clean, 
 Till sweet airs breathe, and bright suns shine the cloudy 
 
 rifts between, 
 And all the vales shall bloom anew, and all the hills be 
 
 green ! 
 
 June 4, 1861. 
 
THE EOSE OF DEATH, 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE WAR. 
 
 I. 
 
 OHE told me of a rose 
 In a Southern field that grows ; 
 But my love, my love, she little knows 
 
 The flower that I may bring. 
 In the heart of the perilous storm, 
 By the roads where our foemen swarm, 
 In the fields of death it blossoms warm ; 
 But on I march, and sing 
 the red, red rose, 
 She little knows 
 The flower that I may bring ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 " For I am Northern born : 
 She, only yestermorn 
 I saw on her lips her Southern scorn. 
 Coldly she saw me fling 
 
THE ROSE OF DEATH. 
 
 My student s cap away ; 
 Coldly she heard me say, 
 In the Union ranks I march to-day ! 
 And here I march, and sing ; 
 
 the red, red rose, 
 
 She little knows 
 
 Thejlower that I may bring ! 
 
 in. 
 
 " Ah, it were sweet to know, 
 When face to face with the foe, 
 That a loving heart did with me go, 
 Like the kiss of a talisman ring, 
 Praying that death might spare 
 The life of her lover there, 
 In the cannon s smoke and the trumpet s blare. 
 No matter. I march, and sing 
 tlie red, red rose, 
 She little knows 
 Thejlower that I may bring ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Her love, have I lost it all, 
 Because at my country s call 
 I said, * T were better in battle to fall 
 Than see this treason cling ! 
 
306 THE ROSE OF DEATH. 
 
 Her friends are my foemen now, 
 Traitor is writ on each brow. 
 On, comrades ! I have made a vow, 
 And I breathe it as I sing 
 
 the red, red rose, 
 
 Site little knows 
 
 The fewer that I may bring ! " 
 
 v. 
 
 Deep in the battle there 
 
 His breast to the guns is bare, 
 
 Where flame and smoke befoul the air, 
 
 Swords clash and rifles ring. 
 " She loves," he cried, " but the brave 
 Who fight for the chains of the slave. 
 What then ? I can fill a patriot s grave, 
 Though she may jest, and sing 
 the red, red rose, 
 He thinks that he knows 
 The flower lie home will bring ! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 All terror the soldier scorns, 
 Mid the cannon and clanging horns ; 
 From the bristling fields of the bayonet thorns 
 A rose on his breast he will briiiff. 
 
THE ROSE OF DEATH. 307 
 
 What is it ? A death-shot red 
 To his fearless heart has sped ; 
 With his face to the fire, he reels, he is dead ! 
 And the soldiers who bear him sing 
 
 the blood-red rose ! 
 
 She little knoics 
 
 The flower that home we bring ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ah, sad were the streets the morn 
 When that brave form was borne, 
 Wrapped in the Union banner, torn 
 
 Like a wounded eagle s wing. 
 At her window the maiden stood, 
 Changed from her angry mood ; 
 And she saw on her lover s breast the blood ; 
 And the death-march seemed to sing 
 
 the blood-red rose 
 
 From our country s foes 
 
 Is the only flower we bring ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 She rushed to the bier with a cry. 
 " O God ! " she said, " it was I 
 Who sent him, without one kiss, to die 
 In the flush of his morn of spring ! 
 
308 THE ROSE OF DEATH. 
 
 Too late, this pang at my breast ! 
 
 Ah, let me at least go rest 
 
 In the grave where you bear the dearest, best ! 
 And the pitying winds shall sing 
 Here Love s red rose 
 Met Death s, at the close 
 Of tJteir lives, in eternal spring ! " 
 
NOVEMBEE STH, 1864, 
 
 JOY to our reunited States! one struggle more lias 
 
 passed. 
 A load is lifted from our hearts. The traitors stand 
 
 aghast. 
 The Nation writes its record clear ; our land is saved at 
 
 last! 
 
 Calmly mid armed conspirators this day a work is done, 
 Amid the thunder of the war one bloodless field is won, 
 That on the page of history glows in letters like the sun. 
 
 One effort of the people towards the source of primal light; 
 One forward leap across the gulf from chaos and from 
 
 night ; 
 One stride along the century to union based on right ! 
 
310 NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 
 
 We see the rainbow span the gloom. We hear the deep- 
 toned bell 
 
 That strikes the nation s hour of noon, toll slavery s 
 funeral-knell. 
 
 Rebellion totters to its doom. The watchman cries, 
 "All s well." 
 
 Not as a party s triumph-shout rings out this people s 
 voice. 
 
 When Life and Death are in the scales, who wavers in 
 his choice ? 
 
 O flower of nations, blighted now no more, rejoice, re 
 joice ! 
 
 O morning-glory of the earth ! thy garden in the west 
 Is wet once more with falling dews of peace and love and 
 
 rest. 
 Thou liftest up thy drooping head. All, all is for the 
 
 best! 
 
 Thy petals are the sister States. Though scorched by 
 
 battle s fire, 
 Not one shall wither in the blast, now hot with foemcn s 
 
 ire ; 
 But fairer yet thy leaves shall rise, and broader still and 
 
 higher. 
 
NOVEMBER 8m, 1864. 311 
 
 No stain upon thy radiant disk, thy colors all re-blent, 
 Washed in the thunder-storm of war, to thee that storm 
 
 has lent 
 Strength for the future that o erpays the blood thy roots 
 
 have spent. 
 
 My country, in this hour of hope, 0, send to those who 
 
 bear 
 The burden of the war to-day our help, our strength, our 
 
 prayer ; 
 Our greeting of the coming day, our farewell to despair ! 
 
 O soldiers of a thousand fields ! brothers strong and 
 
 6 
 
 young ! 
 
 Brave hearts who breast the battery fires, heroes un 
 known, unsung, 
 Long galaxies of starlike lives and deaths above us hung ! 
 
 What record of the historian s pen, what poet s loftiest 
 
 lays, 
 What parallel from out the grand and stern old Roman 
 
 days, 
 What sculptured monument those lives, those deaths, can 
 
 overpraise ! 
 
312 NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 
 
 We slumber calmly in our beds, and by our firesides read 
 The story of your battles grim. We see you march and 
 
 bleed; 
 Prom hospital and prison hear your cries of pain and 
 
 need. 
 
 Ye march that we may rest, our land free from the slave- 
 lord s rod ; 
 
 Ye fall, that juster laws may flower from out your blood 
 stained sod ; 
 
 Ye die, that we may live a life more true to man and God. 
 
 Through drenching rains and scorching fires we see you 
 
 fighting still, 
 
 No rest by day, no sleep by night, no joy your cup to fill, 
 While we step calmly to the polls to vote the nation s will. 
 
 A little sprinkling of the rain while standing in the 
 
 queue, 
 
 We wait our turn amid the crowd to see our ballot through, 
 Then homeward wend, and thank our stars we ve served 
 
 our country too. 
 
 A little round of speech-making mid captivated ears ; 
 A few intense mass-meetings, a few huzzas and cheers ; 
 Some sleepless nights, some busy days, some weeks of 
 hopes and fears ; 
 
NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 313 
 
 Such arc the battles that we fight here in our peaceful 
 
 North. 
 One hour of life in camp and field whole days of this 
 
 seems worth ; 
 Yet none the less is victory won. The nation s will goes 
 
 forth, 
 
 Once and forever forth, the arm is held that beat it 
 
 back; 
 Goes forth to unmask the traitor s plots, hunts on the 
 
 foeman s track; 
 Stands like the rock against the sea, the sun mid tempest s 
 
 wrack. 
 
 From east to west it thrills and rings, and tells this lesson 
 
 plain : 
 Self-government henceforth achieved, our seeming losses 
 
 gain; 
 War leads to peace, and yet no peace till slavery s life be 
 
 slain. 
 
 O strange and wondrous Providence, that sealed the peo 
 ple s eyes, 
 
 Lest all too soon these mighty truths within their creed 
 should rise ! 
 
 AVe fought amid the clouds at first, how slowly we grow 
 wise ! 
 
314 NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 
 
 Those truths we scorned four years ago now on our 
 
 banners glow, 
 Burnt in and branded on our souls, in battling with the 
 
 foe; 
 Ay, worn as amulets to shield our -fame where er we go. 
 
 We praise that stern fanatic, to death and triumph gone ; 
 That voice crying in the wilderness, rough herald of 
 
 the dawn. 
 Our John the Baptist is not dead ; his soul is marching 
 
 on ! 
 
 We cancel creeds of former days. Our timid codes are 
 
 null. 
 We leave our ancient council-fires to smoulder low and 
 
 dull. 
 We trust the nation s newer life will heap its measure full. 
 
 A breeze of morning sweeps the sky. Old errors one by 
 
 one 
 Are crowded back upon the south, a cloud-bank dark and 
 
 dun, 
 Or hang in air like floating mists beneath the rising sun. 
 
 But still the northern winds must blow ; yes, still war s 
 bitter blast 
 
NOVEMBER 8xn, 1864. 315 
 
 Must purify that poisoned air, till, force by right surpassed, 
 Each groaning bondsman breaks his chains, and all are 
 free at last. 
 
 No half-truth now ! Our feet are set upon a higher 
 
 ground ; 
 No more mid dawn s uncertain shades, by old delusions 
 
 bound ; 
 The sun that shone on peaks alone now fills the vales 
 
 around. 
 
 O trumpet voices of the press ! O bards by visions 
 
 stirred ! 
 
 O leaders of the people s will ! O preachers of the Word ! 
 Yours be the freest, truest tones the nation yet has heard ! 
 
 Sound the keynote the age demands, Humanity s great 
 
 prayer ; 
 
 A sigh for peace, but not a lull of foul and stagnant air, 
 A sleep on a volcano s brink, a stillness of despair : 
 
 No, not that helpless apathy, that torpor of the life 
 Drunk with the chloroform of lies, the amputator s knife 
 Ready by one fell cut to end the giant nation s strife. 
 
316 NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 
 
 bleeding land ! thy North and South forever have 
 
 been wed. 
 No quack shall drug thy cup, though bitter be the draught 
 
 and red ; 
 No knife shall touch thy limbs. I see, I see thee lift thy 
 
 head ; 
 
 1 see thee smile with sad, stern eyes, triumphant o er thy 
 
 woes ; 
 Strength that o ertops the surgeon s skill through all thy 
 
 members flows ; 
 Thou standcst as thou stoodst of old, a terror to thy foes. 
 
 I have no prophet s sight or speech, and yet I see thy 
 
 form 
 Looming above the battle-smoke, unscathed amid the 
 
 storm ; 
 Around thy head the skies are blue, the sunshine still 
 
 and warm. 
 
 Peaceful and wise I see thee sit, earth s youngest, fairest 
 
 queen ; 
 War s blackened wastes by freemen tilled, all waving gold 
 
 and green ; 
 From North to South, from sea to sea, no slave or tyrant 
 
 seen ; 
 
NOVEMBER STH, 1864. 317 
 
 Redeemed and strong forever. On field and hill and 
 
 town, 
 All prophet dreams shall be fulfilled in wisdom and 
 
 renown ; 
 Thy newer life shall now begin, thy sun no more go 
 
 down ! 
 
SONNETS FOR THE TIMES. 
 
 APIUL, 18C5. 
 
I. 
 
 THE DARK TOWER, 
 
 "CuiLDE ROLAND to the Dark Tower came."* What 
 
 then ? 
 
 The poet paints a mystery weird and dark, 
 Full of foreboding. Bones and corpses stark, 
 On blighted moorland and in rotting fen, 
 Under the knight s adventurous feet protrude. 
 Voices like gusts of wind, warning and taunt, 
 Stun his bewildered ears. The sunset slant 
 Shows the Black Tower against a sky of blood. 
 The hills like gloomy giants watch to see 
 His fall, as others fell. He dauntless blows 
 His horn, and fights, and tells the tale. So he 
 Who our grim tower of slavery overthrows 
 Shall well inspire our future minstrel s strain, 
 True son of knighthood, Roland come again. 
 
 * Sec Browning s poem. 
 14* u 
 
II. 
 
 DELIVERANCE, 
 
 FOR never was a darker dungeon built 
 By king or pope in the old, wicked time, 
 The lurid centuries when the lords of crime 
 "Walked shameless in their robes of chartered guilt; 
 Churchman and statesman vying which coidd dye 
 With reddest ink of blood the historic page. 
 They played their part. But our illumined age 
 Brooks not the insult, and flings back the lie, 
 When slave lords fight against the eternal tides, 
 When truth is twisted from its straight intent, 
 And freedom blighted in its loveliest spring. 
 The mask where hatred smiles and treachery hides 
 Is torn away at last. The war-clouds bring 
 Deliverance from our long imprisonment. 
 
III. 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 BRAVE men, far-sighted seers ! who on the rim 
 Of your high battlements looked clearly forth 
 Over the fog that stretched from south to north, 
 And called with, warning voices down the dim 
 Blind valleys, " Men are children all of Him 
 Who made us all," our cause for pride is slight, 
 That now so late we see the eternal Right 
 Shining like wings of heavenly seraphim. 
 True prophets, who discerned the cloud of war 
 Rise from the mist of long, delusive peace, 
 Pardon the eyes that could not pierce so far. 
 Long since the people s fears and doubtings cease ; 
 Our hands no longer in the darkness grope : 
 We share with you your toil, your faith, your hope. 
 
IY. 
 
 THE DAWN OF PEACE, 
 
 FOUR years of war have driven afar the dream 
 Of union based on hollow compromise. 
 We wake to see the auroral splendors stream 
 Across the battle smoke from opening skies. 
 The demon, shrieking, tears us as he flies 
 Exorcised from our wrenched and bleeding frame. 
 costly ransom ! dearly purchased prize ! 
 Eelease too long delayed ! from sin and shame, 
 From evil compacts and from brutal laws, 
 Whose iron network all the land encaged. 
 Force never triumphed in a juster cause, 
 Nor bloody war was e er so justly waged. 
 Henceforth our banner greets a cloudless morn. 
 Peace dawns at last. The nation is re-born ! 
 
V. 
 
 THE DEATH-BLOW. 
 
 BUT yesterday the exulting nation s shout 
 Swelled on the breeze of victory through our streets : 
 But yesterday our gay flags flaunted out 
 Like flowers the south-wind wooes from their retreats,- 
 Flowers of the Union, blue and white and red, 
 Blooming on balcony and spire and mast, 
 Telling us that war s wintry storm had fled, 
 And spring was more than spring to us at last. 
 To-day, the nation s heart lies crushed and weak ; 
 Drooping and draped in black our banners stand. 
 Too stunned to cry revenge, we scarce may speak 
 The grief that chokes all utterance through the land. 
 God is in all. With tears our eyes are dim, 
 Yet strive through darkness to look up to Him ! 
 
YI. 
 
 THE MAETYE, 
 
 No, not in vain lie died, not all in vain, 
 Our good, great President. This people s hands 
 Are linked together in one mighty chain, 
 Knit tighter now in triple woven bands, 
 To crush the fiends in human mask, whose might 
 We suffer, O, too long ! No league or truce 
 Save men with men. The devils we must fight 
 "With fire. God wills it in this deed. This use 
 We draw from the most impious murder done 
 Since Calvary. Eise, then, O countrymen ! 
 Scatter these marsh-light hopes of union won 
 Through pardoning clemency. Strike, strike again ! 
 Draw closer round the foe a girdling flame ! 
 We are stabbed whene er we spare. Strike, in God s 
 name ! 
 
VII. 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 As on some stately ship, with land in view, 
 The last sea-swell beneath her gliding keel, 
 Sudden, like God s hand clad in blinding steel, 
 A thunder-bolt falls crashing from the blue, 
 Shattering the mast, a sulphurous cloud rolls through 
 The sails and rigging, while with quivering lips 
 The sailors see the deck all strewn with chips 
 And shreds and splinters, yet make all ado 
 To mend their loss, and still the ship sails on : 
 So, reeling from the shock, our Ship of State 
 Repairs the chasm left by the fall of him 
 Who stood her mainmast : onward we have gone ; 
 Sound at the core, though tossed by storms but late, 
 Nearing our port, we cross the shadows dim. 
 
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