Entered, accord ing to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by Abbey & 
 Abbot, In tbc Clerk s Ofllco of the District Court of the United States, 
 for tbc Southern District of New York. 
 
 HTKKKOTYI KI) AM) I KI.NTKI) BY 
 t. HOMKK.V. 13 SPRf(U KTRKET, N. \.
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT. 
 
 2090708
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 MAY DREAMS . . .... 9 
 
 SHIPS AT SEA . . 15 
 
 LEAH .19 
 
 QUEEN AZORE ....... 22 
 
 OX THE RONDOUT 26 
 
 THE SUNSET LAXD ...... 30 
 
 VANDERLYN 36 
 
 TWO MAPLES ... ... 40 
 
 THE PALISADES ....... 43 
 
 DREAMLAND ....... 51 
 
 BURNS 57 
 
 THE CATSKILLS 62 
 
 AMONG THE FLOWERS 69 
 
 ISAURE 74 
 
 OCTOBER RAIN ....... 77 
 
 MEADOW MIST ....... 81 
 
 MY PALACE .... 34
 
 VI CONTESTS. 
 
 AT THE WATERFALL .... 89 
 
 MY HARP . . 93 
 
 TO THE SOUTH WIND ...... 06 
 
 WAITING 100 
 
 AGLAIA ........ 103 
 
 ON THE LAKE . . . . . . .107 
 
 SEPTEMBER TO APRIL 112 
 
 JUNE MEMORIES . . . . 114 
 
 RETURNED FROM WAR ...... 118 
 
 LADY LISLE ... .... 120 
 
 LEGEND OF THE KAATERSK1LL .... 123 
 
 THE RIVER-SIDE ....... 127 
 
 DORA ........ 130 
 
 A CAVE ECHO .... .135 
 
 CLEON AT OROPOS . . 140
 
 MAY DREAMS.
 
 MAY DREAMS. 
 
 May ! robed in your gown of flowers, 
 Nun-like, gaze from your balmy cell, 
 Under your crown of asphodel, 
 
 And sentinel all the summer hours ; 
 
 Rising among your daisy bowers, 
 Like Venus from her cradled shell ! 
 
 May 1 your cheeks are sunset skies, 
 Which the lips of the verge shall press, 
 And the amber clouds caress 
 Drifting along in the light which lies 
 Over your soul-lit, jasmine eyes, 
 In all its golden tenderness !
 
 1(1 MAY DUE A MS. 
 
 O May ! you seem a silver sea, 
 Glassing an earthly, ether dome ; 
 For the songs of the robins come, 
 Like the dashing of waves to me, 
 Whose waters the sunlight seems to be, 
 And the lilies, the downy foam. 
 
 May ! fountain of dulcet days, 
 And nature s vernal blossoming 
 Of woodland haunts, where pansies cling 
 With blue-bells, round untrodden ways, 
 From your dreamy, crystalline rays 
 Riseth the fairy sylph of Spring! 
 
 O May ! you seem a tinted shell, 
 Upon a tropical, flowret shore 
 Dashed by the waves of zephyrs o er 
 A conch, wherein the sink and swell 
 Of soundless symphonies, float and dwell, 
 Heard in the heart forcvermore.
 
 MAY DREAMS. 11 
 
 Down sinuous paths I tread, and turn 
 By dells where insects, in their flight, 
 Seem like stars in a silver night ; 
 Where flowers are but the words I learn, 
 Through means which we cannot discern, 
 Set to the music of the light. 
 
 Here, alone, I can once more be 
 
 One with the hills, the rocks and trees, 
 And wrap my being up in these, 
 
 In a mystic eternity ; 
 
 Feeling more than I know or see, 
 Lost in immortal fantasies. 
 
 Here in a realm of wordless dreams 
 That inner life which knows and thinks ; 
 My thirsty spirit comes and drinks 
 
 The petal dew of golden streams ; 
 
 Where death is less than what it seems, 
 And life is subtler than the Sphinx.
 
 12 MAY DREAMS. 
 
 I wander through the sylvan vales, 
 Lush with the richness of the day, 
 Where each crocus, in pied array, 
 
 Over the leaves of grass prevails ; 
 
 Like boats on a dark green sea, whose sails 
 Float in the balmy breath of May. 
 
 Here the marigold, dipped in sheen, 
 In nooks of quiet, ripe and rare, 
 Swayeth its beauties fresh and fair, 
 
 Above the dewy bank of green ; 
 
 And seems a fairy palace, seen 
 Lit up, and drifting in the air. 
 
 Thoughts of the loved and lost arise, 
 The shadow presence comes again, 
 I feel once more my balm of pain, 
 
 I see the moonlight of dear eyes ; 
 
 And all that in the past I prize, 
 
 Falls on mv dreams like lender rain.
 
 MAY DREAMS. 13 
 
 I see the tulips in the glade, 
 
 Filled with the incense of the day, 
 Like tiny censers swing and sway 
 
 
 
 Before an altar formed of shade ; 
 Where crickets, in the grass arrayed, 
 Shall pipe the matin mass of May. 
 
 I see the mountains rimmed with gold, 
 The verdant meadows veined with rills ; 
 And aura, which the light distills, 
 
 Float far along the distant wold, 
 
 And o er the waterfall, unrolled 
 
 Like some bright banner gainst the hills. 
 
 But vain were all of these to me, 
 Had I no golden memories here : 
 In other eyes these scenes were dear ; 
 
 The purling stream, the emerald lea, 
 
 Recall some cherished phantasy, 
 
 And joys departed, re-appenr. 
 2
 
 14 MAY DREAMS. 
 
 And so, in forest lawns and lanes, 
 
 Where mid the friths of fern I stray, 
 I dream the saddened hours away ; 
 But yet some mourning fancy reigns, 
 And to the vernal view complains, 
 0, would that life might be all May ! 
 
 The years like birds of passage go 
 To that eternal clime, the past ; 
 And May s immortal lot is cast 
 Upon their flight o er all below, 
 Like sunlight on a field of snow, 
 
 Or some sweet rose-leaf on the blast. 
 
 The hours their joys and sorrows bring, 
 Bright Summer makes the hills sublime, 
 Ripe Autumn bears its frosty rime, 
 
 And Winter crowns the north wind king ; 
 
 But May is but a crystal spring, 
 
 > 
 That empties in the tide of time.
 
 If) 
 
 SHIPS AT SEA. 
 
 HAVE yon stood upon the coast 
 
 Of the sea? 
 Looking out upon the host, 
 
 On the sea, 
 
 Of the ships, which, here and there, 
 Seem like cloudlets in the air, 
 Yet bring 1 burdens rich and rare 
 
 O er the sea? 
 
 How the evanescent light 
 Paints the sails !
 
 Hi SHIPS AT SEA. 
 
 Casting back a lustre brig-lit, 
 
 From the sails, 
 
 Till it shi miners high and low, 
 And it pictures in its glow, 
 Shadows, in the deep below, 
 
 Of the sails ! 
 
 How the ships go sailing round 
 
 O er the sea ! 
 Till the destined coast is found 
 
 O er the sea ! 
 
 Yet when bitter storms arise 
 Eyelids drooping o er the skies 
 Many a ship dismantled lies 
 
 On the sea. 
 
 So upon the sea of life 
 
 There are wrecks 
 
 Surging wildly in the strife 
 Human wrecks ! 
 
 Shattered by the furious waves,
 
 SHIPS AT SEA. 
 
 Where the storm of passion raves, 
 Whelming, in its yawning graves, 
 Helpless wrecks. 
 
 Poets thoughts are ships at sea, 
 
 In his brain 
 Sailing wildly o er the sea 
 
 Of his brain ; 
 And the argosies come in 
 To the harbor of his pen, 
 With the fire, Promethean, 
 
 Of the brain. 
 
 Many are the ships at sea, 
 
 In the mind 
 Drifting round upon the sea 
 
 Of the mind 
 
 Ships of Love and Hate and Fear 
 Ships of Sorrow, dark and drear, 
 Sailing mid the tempests sear 
 
 Of the mind. 
 2*
 
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 20 LEAH. 
 
 And waft them, lotus-like, away 
 But, Leah, where art them ? 
 
 The moon will press her dimpled cheek 
 
 Against the bosom of the sky, 
 And, as we dreamed once, seem to speak 
 
 To silver clouds which drift them by. 
 Like men before the upraised Host, 
 
 The wavy grass again will bow 
 Before the breeze it loveth most 
 But, Leah, where art thou? 
 
 Again the cloak-like clouds will fall, 
 
 And wrap them round the mountain s base, 
 
 Leaving their peaks, so gaunt and tall, 
 Like islands in the sea of space 
 
 That ether sea, whose phantom waves 
 
 Dash heaven s shores as thoughts, a brow 
 
 Where beauty never sinks in graves 
 But, Leah, where art thou ?
 
 LEAH. 21 
 
 And so I sit and muse, and dream 
 
 On fancies shimmering bright and free ; 
 
 For each one is a crystal stream 
 
 Which ever tends its course to thee 
 
 To thec, loved Leah. In my heart 
 There is a void which echoes now, 
 
 Till that sad question seems its part 
 Dear Leah, where art thou? 
 
 And now the days will come and go 
 Like shadows on a mountain stream : 
 
 And I will bow me down in woe, 
 
 And mourn thee, bright, departed dream. 
 
 The Summer-time will come again, 
 
 And flowers will cling them round her brow, 
 
 Like memory-pictures round the brain 
 But, Leah, where art thou ?
 
 QUEEN AZORE. 
 
 MY loved and beautiful bride, Azore, 
 Stooped to drink at the wayside spring, 
 
 When, riding up from the crescent shore, 
 Garbed as a hunter, came the King. 
 
 He begged, with a smile, to quaff the bowl, 
 But still his heart to her eyes would cling 
 
 Those sea-blue boundaries of her soul. 
 
 A cry went out o er the land for war 
 
 You who have heard it know how it thrills ! 
 
 I dreamed that this was my rising star, 
 So in the breath of the daffodils,
 
 QUEEN AZORE. 23 
 
 Which sails the blowing tamarisks o er 
 
 To the impervious haze of hills, 
 I bade adieu to my bride Azore. 
 
 Pointing to cliffs in the wilderness, 
 I said, ere weeping I turned away : 
 
 Lo ! the years their saddened lips shall press 
 And leave their traces in slow decay 
 
 On these, but not on my love for thee. 
 
 Then the clouds loomed up across the day, 
 
 Like bergs of ice from the Northern Sea. 
 
 So, for the rights and the hopes of man, 
 Mid serried rank, and weary, and sore, 
 
 I marched far north with the army s van, 
 To pitch our tents on an alien shore. 
 
 Thon, with iron lips and flaming breath, 
 The booming shock of the battle ran 
 
 Along the lines, from the gorge of death.
 
 24 QUEEN AZORE. 
 
 Then it chanced that men unfurled my fame, 
 Like a rare gonfalon to the air ; 
 
 And oft while I dreamed, a vision came 
 And rose o er the bastion s scaling stair, 
 
 And the grim guns on the parapet o er . 
 A sweet, vague vision, white-robed and fair : 
 
 My fair and lovable bride Azore. 
 
 I closed my eyes in a blissful gloom, 
 
 While sated with rose blows down the gale : 
 
 A voice is borne on the rich perfume, 
 Up from the platanes of the vale. 
 
 As I seek for her who calls aloud, 
 Above the rneshcs of fragrant bloom, 
 
 In cornice of darkness hangs a cloud. 
 
 - 
 
 So, with a nameless feeling of loss, 
 
 I took the way for my home once more, 
 
 When peace, like a great, white Albatross, 
 Passed over the realm from nhoro to shorr
 
 QUEEN AZORE. 25 
 
 The King gave honors that might be seen 
 
 Gave me the hand of the bride Azore : 
 My bride no more, but Azore the Queen 1 
 
 Tis the same old story o er again, 
 
 Of broken vows and a blighted trust 
 
 Of two hearts severed in wrong and pain 
 I murmur ! yet all God s ways are just. 
 
 For a watchful sense this record keeps 
 My love for the Queen is trailed in dust, 
 
 But honor sits in her heart and weeps.
 
 ON THE RONDOUT. 
 
 BRIGHTLY each glowing moonbeam falls 
 
 Upon thy cheek, beauteous stream ! 
 While Naiads, from their wat ry halls, 
 
 Come up to drink the midnight dream ; 
 And, peeping forth their sparkling eyes 
 
 Glist ning like amethystine dew 
 They cause the tiny swells which rise, 
 
 To seem like stars reflected through. 
 
 As in this drifting bark I sit, 
 
 And float me slowly down the tide 
 
 <r 
 
 Watching the shadows, as they Hit 
 From off the shores on either side
 
 ON THE RONDOUT. 27 
 
 I picture, in ray fancy free, 
 
 An old, old story o er again ; 
 But rustling zephyrs, wafting me, 
 
 Bear off the mem ry from my brain. 
 
 High loom the hills on either side, 
 
 As floating past their feet I go, 
 With nothing, save the breeze, to guide 
 
 My tiny shallop mid the flow 
 Of rolling waters, coursing on 
 
 To swell the billows of the sea ; 
 But now those waters, hushed and calm, 
 
 Seem sleeping in tranquility. 
 
 Tis so with many a human heart, 
 Which often throbs so low and still, 
 
 That from its light, exterior part, 
 It seems to flow rnloosed from will ; 
 
 But ah ! beneath that shadowy gauze, 
 Wild thoughts and passions often roll,
 
 28 ONTHERONDOUT. 
 
 Which know no bound ries, save the laws 
 That sway the ocean of the soul. 
 
 And now, as past the hills I drift, 
 
 And gaze upon their frontlets high 
 Which seem like genii, as they lift 
 
 Their frowning shapes against the sky 
 I picture to myself the thought 
 
 That I am floating down life s stream ; 
 While all the hills seem sorrows, brought 
 
 To mar the beauty of its dream. 
 
 And slowly now I drift, and gaze 
 
 Upon the rocky, moonlit shore, 
 Where Indian maids in other days, 
 
 Oft sat and dreamed their weird thoughts 
 
 o er ; 
 Or leaned, perchance, their bronzed brows, 
 
 Each on her warrior lover s breast 
 Pledging, in accents low, the vows 
 
 Which they alone could know the best.
 
 ON THE KONDOUT. 29 
 
 And still I flow adown thy cheek 
 
 Like some lost tear, beauteous stream ! 
 As fancy strives in vain to seek 
 
 A tide more lovely than ye seem. 
 stream! when in my boyhood s days 
 
 I saw my portrayed face in thee, 
 There came no cloud to dim my gaze, 
 
 But all was sweet simplicity. 
 
 But now the face which looketh down 
 
 Is traced with many a line of care, 
 And sorrows which we cannot drown 
 
 Have penned their names out plainly there. 
 Now fading fast is every dream, 
 
 But would, N God ! my life had been 
 For me, as calm as this loved stream 
 
 I d mourn no days departed then. 
 
 3*
 
 30 
 
 THE SUNSET LAND. 
 
 OUT in a beautiful laud I kuo\v, 
 
 Over a golden sea of mist, 
 Whose waves arise like drifts of snow, 
 
 Dashing on shores of amethyst : 
 Out in this dreamy land of mine, 
 
 Oft I wander alone, and stand 
 On the brow of my Apennine, 
 
 Gazing down on the Sunset Lund. 
 
 Only in dreams I wander there 
 
 Only when sleep has kissed my eyes- 
 Then I seem but a tiling of air, 
 
 Floating beyond the chaliced skies
 
 THE SUNSET LAND. 31 
 
 Then I gather my robe of cloud 
 
 Closer about me, as I stand 
 Crowned and kingly, amid the crowd, 
 
 Gazing down on the Sunset Land. 
 
 Only there would I love to dwell 
 
 There, neath arbors of linden trees, 
 Pranked with tints of the asphodel, 
 
 .Round the sleeping anemones. 
 Now I can only grieve and pine, 
 
 Walking with measured tread the strand 
 A shore of pearl and coralline 
 
 Gazing down on the Sunset Land. 
 
 There the beautiful day-girl kneels, 
 Washing the hills with tears of dew 
 
 Drying them with her hair, which steals 
 Softly over the ether blue : 
 
 Tresses of Sunset ! oft you re bound 
 By the hills with a silken band,
 
 32 THE SUNSET LAND. 
 
 Gyving the azure cope around, 
 In the beautiful Sunset Land. 
 
 Only there would I love to dwell- 
 There in a land of ceaseless June, 
 
 Where I could tread each fairy dell, 
 Plucking the fruit and wild festoon. 
 
 There, where the bright, ethereal days 
 Float like banners, dreamily fanned 
 
 Down to the past, on lambent rays 
 There, in the beautiful Sunset Land. 
 
 Only there would I love to dwell, 
 
 Where, echoing back from shore to shore, 
 The strains of ivory conchs would swell 
 
 From wonderful isles of madrepore. 
 And cloudlets flecking the glowing skies, 
 
 Seem but as footprints, on a strand 
 Bathed in billows of crimson dyes, 
 
 In the beautiful Sunset Laud.
 
 THE SUNSET LAND. 33 
 
 As I stand on the Apennine, 
 
 Gazing down on the land I know, 
 Oft I sec, 7 neath a trellised vine, 
 
 Angels floating the dim below. 
 And one, whose face I oft have seen, 
 
 Beckons me with her slender hand 
 Fallen, yet beautiful Magdalen ! 
 
 Waft me down to the Sunset Land. 
 
 On me now, as in days of yore, 
 
 Rest your eyes of violet dusk ; 
 When soft sea breezes, on the shore, 
 
 Breathing aromas richer than musk. 
 Blew your ringlets over my face, 
 
 And the wavering verdure fanned 
 Magdalen fallen redeemed at last, 
 
 In this beautiful Sunset Land ! 
 
 So I dream of the land I know, 
 Where the limning sunset rays,
 
 34 THE SUNSET LAND. 
 
 Paint the mist in the dim below, 
 
 With porphyry, pearl and chrysoprase. 
 
 On the brow of the Apennine, 
 Oft as amid the crowd I stand, 
 
 Off from the shore of coralline, 
 Fades the beautiful Sunset Land. 
 
 So my joys in my dream of life, 
 
 Have faded out from a rocky shore, 
 And from this shadowy gyre of strife, 
 
 Have gone from me forevermore. 
 Soon I shall follow them o er a sea 
 
 O er a ruby and agate strand- 
 Out to the dream revealed to me, 
 
 In the beautiful Sunset Land. 
 
 There, in that dreamy, dim unknown 
 Floating beyond the purple skies 
 
 1 shall gather the wild festoon, 
 
 When another sleep has kissed my eyes.
 
 THE SUNSET LAND. 35 
 
 And in the golden, shimmering sheen, 
 On a sapphire and jasper strand, 
 
 I shall wander with Magdalen, 
 In the beautiful Sunset Land.
 
 36 
 
 VANDERLYN. 
 
 OBIIT MDCCCLII. 
 
 No tomb inscribed with storied praise, 
 
 In thoughts which breathe a dreamy 
 
 charm, 
 Nor monument, we need upraise 
 
 To keep his memory ever warm. 
 His deeds are not resolved to dust 
 
 They know no bitter ban of doom 
 They live, and still forever must, 
 
 Though ages yield their gleam and gloom. 
 
 Now brightly, through the mist of time, 
 Those works appear, of brain and heart,
 
 VANDEULYN. 37 
 
 And glow in cycles more sublime, 
 Around the dreamy brow of Art : 
 
 Or, like those pictures grand and old, 
 Whose halos light the path of fame, 
 
 They twine, in lambent rays of gold, 
 An aureola round his name. 
 
 Oh ! evermore that name shall be 
 
 An astral in the cave of mind, 
 To light, where hid in mystery, 
 
 The treasures of deep thought are shrined ; 
 While, like some foamy edge of cloud, 
 
 Whose finger points the unknown sea, 
 His deeds float o er the sky of years, 
 
 Arid point to immortality. 
 
 He walked the verdant meads among, 
 And saw the yeoman bind the sheaves 
 
 He wandered where the robin sung, 
 
 While forests wept their tears of leaves;
 
 48 VANDEKLYN. 
 
 And over all he saw a gleara, 
 
 Like opal bathed in rubric dyes ; 
 
 Then like an iris o er his dream 
 Beheld the Beautiful arise. 
 
 He drank the bitter cup that all 
 
 Must quaff, who love this dreamy power- 
 He saw its dark-winged shadows fall, 
 
 And limned them on each fleeting hour ; 
 While through the dimly pictured whole, 
 
 The golden germ of thought was shrined. 
 Which saw, deep hidden in the soul, 
 
 The mystery of the Artist mind. 
 
 He rhymed the melody of Art, 
 
 With mythic dreams of sea and wood ; 
 
 And mid the ruins of his heart, 
 Like Marius at Carthage, stood. 
 
 But now, upon her swelling breast 
 Fair (Jenins bows her beauteous IK :nl
 
 VANDERLYN. 30 
 
 And mourns, with hands together pressed 
 The Raphael of the age is dead. 
 
 Vanderlyn ! for thee no more 
 
 Shall gneiss-ribbed hills, or heights unsought, 
 Or sea-lips, pressing on the shore, 
 
 E er swell thy monologue of thought. 
 But through that arch divinely grand, 
 
 Where peals the clarion voice of fame, 
 Resounding over sea and land, 
 
 Shall echo, evermore, thy name.
 
 40 
 
 TWO MAPLES. 
 
 THE stream hath its tinkling voices. 
 And the glebe its songs of seas ; 
 
 Hut the grandest of Nature s music 
 Floats in the harps of trees. 
 
 Two vernal harps are these Maples, 
 
 Whose melody sways and swings 
 The leaves are the mystical fingers, 
 And the boughs are the golden strings. 
 
 Oft when the calm of the twilight, 
 In a twilight of fancy weaves, 
 
 I have wrapt myself in their music, 
 As they are wrapt in leaves ;
 
 TWO MAPLES. 41 
 
 And drinking from unseen goblets, 
 
 Have found a calin surcease 
 From daily endeavor and longing, 
 
 In the crystal draughts of peace. 
 
 Or have looked through the leafy lattice, 
 Arid gazed on the starry scroll, 
 
 As often some wordless feeling 
 Looks up to the sky of the soul ! 
 
 In fervent noons, when the sunshine 
 
 Fetters the languorous shade, 
 Each baudrol leaf seems a cloudlet 
 
 Swung over a fairy glade. 
 
 While here, neath the spreading branches, 
 
 I read from the bards sublime, 
 Whose songs are like glittering banners 
 
 Hung on the Avails of Time : 
 4*
 
 42 TWO MAPLES. 
 
 And a dreamy feeling of sadness, 
 Comes over my thoughts again, 
 
 For I see in those grand old poems, 
 The woven threads of pain. 
 
 Oft when the crimson of autumn, 
 Is crushed on the lips of leaves, 
 
 The purples and golds of fancies 
 The weary day relieves ; 
 
 And the blushing cheeks of these Maples, 
 
 Like silent clouds appear, 
 That are floating a long horizon, 
 
 In the sunset of the year. 
 
 You have smiled on me your blessings, 
 And taught me your lessons long, 
 
 But in return, Maples, 
 I can give you only a song 1
 
 THE PALISADES. 
 
 THE forehead of the Hudson stands, 
 
 Crowned with its shaggy locks of pines ; 
 And sloping from the- wave-washed sands, 
 
 The shore, the rocky brow confines. 
 The river wrapt in silence sleeps, 
 
 Swept by the eyelids of the trees ; 
 While o er the darkly towering steeps, 
 
 The clouds seem anchored argosies. 
 
 Long have those pillared rocks reposed, 
 Like some vast falchion in its sheath, 
 
 Mute, with their secrets undisclosed, 
 
 O er that dark stream which rolls beneath.
 
 44 THE PALISADES. 
 
 They sp eak a language more sublime 
 Than words can yield or fancy cast 
 
 The unknown whisper of all time 
 The voiceless echo of the past. 
 
 Long have these silent Palisades 
 
 Seemed phantoms stalking on the shore, 
 To haunt the longing which pervades 
 
 The dreamer s soul for mystic lore ; 
 But still they yield not up reply, 
 
 They give not us the ecstatic bliss 
 We cannot quaff the meaning high, 
 
 Of nature s great Acropolis. 
 
 But he whose nobler thoughts confess, 
 The power o ermastcring of the soul, 
 
 Who revels in the deep excess, 
 Where fancy s mists of glory roll, 
 
 Sees in this colonnade of hills, 
 " A rhyme in nature s glad acclaim
 
 THE PALISADES. 45 
 
 A meaning and a song, which thrills 
 Along its dark colossal frame. 
 
 He feels the aspiring hills impart 
 
 A passion none can e er express, 
 Which steals dream-mantled from the heart, 
 
 In awe twin-soul with happiness : 
 As though some mystery of the past, 
 
 Which through the lapse of years concealed, 
 With all its promptings, now at last, 
 
 By some wierd seer was unrevealed. 
 
 Ah, like these looming Palisades 
 
 This altar, whereon kneels the sky, 
 Arising mid the deepening shades, 
 
 In all its vague immensity 
 O ever like this, while are wrought 
 
 The clouds of dreams which crown the whole. 
 May rise the Palisades of thought, 
 
 From out the river of the soul.
 
 46 THE PALISADES. 
 
 Like water dripping in a cave, 
 
 Too oft our thoughts in golden rain, 
 Fall in our cave-like hearts, and save 
 
 Their pathway, naught is found again. 
 speed the time in broadening streams, 
 
 When like these hills which prop the skies, 
 In every soul, majestic dreams 
 
 Of innate beauty shall arise. 
 
 Long have these silent Palisades, 
 
 When twilights purple dun, has hurled 
 Its dappled mantle down the glades, 
 
 Seemed shadows of a giant world ! 
 Ah, in our dreams these hills are wrought, 
 
 In many a gyre of flight sublime, 
 To pure, immortal harps of thought, 
 
 Hung on the willow trees of time. 
 
 towering, castellated hills! 
 
 You fill the heart with Uolv calm,
 
 THE PALISADES. 47 
 
 And breathe, like banks of daffodils, 
 Ambrosial moments, dripping balm! 
 
 While round thy couch in endless charms 
 The sunset curtains fall aside ; 
 
 river 1 in thy liquid arms, 
 Is clasped thy peerless, cloud-veiled bride. 
 
 Long have these silent Palisades, 
 
 Against the midnight s starry breast, 
 Wrapped in their clinging robe of shades, 
 
 Reposed in dark, eternal rest. 
 And where the silver moonlight falls, 
 
 Before those stately ramparts driven, 
 Tlie grim, majestic citadels, 
 
 Seem like the battlements of heaven. 
 
 moonlight in the Palisades! 
 
 The sloping shore the fane-like steep, 
 And river glistening down the glades, 
 
 Are clasped by lambent arms in sleep.
 
 48 THE PALISADES. 
 
 The round moon seems a fount of light, 
 Whose waters rise in crystal rills, 
 
 Tinkling with silence, o er the bright 
 The silver gardens of the hills. 
 
 Amid the emerald-mottled glades, 
 
 Where nights fair Peri s glance has gleamed. 
 Oft have these silent Palisades, 
 
 Like some rock-worded idyl seemed. 
 And now beneath, meandering by, 
 
 The dark tide seeks its goal afar, 
 And seems a river paved with sky, 
 
 Whose every wave upheaves a star. 
 
 Like some old cloister, dark and grand, 
 Whose beauties with its age increase, 
 
 Seem these immortal hills, which stand, 
 Bathe i in the litanies of peace! 
 
 Long have they, dreamy Palisades, 
 By naught save variant breezes trod.
 
 THE PALISADES. 49 
 
 Ascended from the sloping glades, 
 Like incense rising up to God. 
 
 thus, in many a silent mind, 
 
 Vague heights of deeper feeling rise, 
 With golden longings intertwined, 
 
 Which this life never satisfies. 
 But ever shall this incense loom, 
 
 Where dreams their amber waters roll ; 
 And hearts in cycles mid the gloom, 
 
 Shall swing like censers in the soul. 
 
 Ah, still these ridgy Palisades, 
 
 Which Sphinx-like, rear their brows of stor t 
 Survive the myriad decades 
 
 Of ages, down the dim past flown. 
 But yet the hoarded years must bow, 
 
 And pass like waves upon a sea, 
 Before these towering hills, which now 
 
 Are in their own eternity. 
 6
 
 50 THE PALISADES. 
 
 The wordless Pyramids, upon 
 
 The desert, kneeling down to pray, 
 And the dead, pathetic Parthenon, 
 
 Must with the future pass away ; 
 But these, the eternal God-made hills, 
 
 Whose strong foundations stand secure 
 Where iron decay no use fulfills, 
 
 0, these shall evermore endure ! 
 
 And I, like years, shall pass away ; 
 
 But if my dust rest mid the glades, 
 From whence shall spring from fulsome clay. 
 
 A violet in the Palisades ; 
 Then unto life shall I have borne, 
 
 A type of that I worshiped well- 
 Then not in vain, shall I have worn 
 
 For nature, my frail Scallop-shell.
 
 51 
 
 DREAMLAND. 
 
 EIDOLON is the king, 
 
 Hear his starry gittern ring 
 
 How its golden cadence seems 
 
 Like the sound of bells in dreams. 
 
 Hark! the voice comes wand ring back, 
 
 Round the brazen Zodiac 
 
 Dashing like the waves of seas, 
 
 O er the silver Hebrides. 
 
 Borne on angel-winged delight, 
 
 Come the voices of the night
 
 52 DREAMLAND. 
 
 Voices from the land of dreams. 
 Ultimate that Aiden gleams, 
 Like the worlds of thought which roll, 
 Through the heavens of the soul. 
 
 O er the river of the night, 
 Is an amber bridge of light ; 
 Silently it seems to stand, 
 Leading to a silent land 
 Leading from the midnight shore, 
 To the dim forevermore. 
 As the moon-rise on the sea, 
 Leaves a path of mystery, 
 Pendant o er the wat ry hush, 
 Like the morning s primal blush, 
 Dashed upon the cheek of night ; 
 So this filmy bridge of light, 
 O er a waveless, unknown deep, 
 Stretcheth from the shores of sleep-
 
 DREAMLAND. 53 
 
 From dank tarns and fetid streams, 
 To the sylphid land of dreams. 
 
 Peering wildly into night, 
 Gaze I from the bridge of thought : 
 Beautiful transmuted light, 
 In mosaic fancies wrought. 
 Where that bridge doth rest on sleep, 
 Dreams their ceaseless vigils keep 
 Dreams perchance of infant years. 
 Here the bony ghoul appears, 
 And with inessential hand, 
 Pointeth to the distant land 
 To the Morning Land of Dreams. 
 Here the fire-eyed python gleams. 
 Saurians, through the murky brake, 
 Wander with the slimy snake. 
 Here the cicale wings, and sees 
 All the tops of upas trees 
 
 Rise like billows in the breeze. 
 *
 
 54 DREAMLAND. 
 
 Effete, haunted, dark and deep, 
 Is the silent land of sleep. 
 
 Slowly o er the bridge I tend- 
 Now no livid clouds impend, 
 From the dim perennial morn. 
 On the concave s verge are born, 
 Jasper splendors, bearing thence, 
 Swathed in gold magnificence, 
 O er the caverns of the night, 
 Gleamy, dewy drops of light. 
 Now an oval glow on high, 
 Presses gainst the scroll of sky, 
 Like the signet ring of God. 
 Hills of thought and dreams, untrod, 
 Rise before the startled view. 
 Golden glories glow anew. 
 Trembling on the bridge I stand, 
 Gazing o er the Morning Land.
 
 DREAMLAND. 55 
 
 Music oars along the breeze, 
 Like the sounds of streams and trees, 
 Woven into melodies. 
 Rich aromas fill the air ; 
 And the dreamy everywhere, 
 Seems, amid the lucent shoals, 
 Heaven for the flowrets souls. 
 Here immortal beauties dwell. 
 Here ten thousand sunsets fell, 
 Which before the mythic sun, 
 Rose and melted into one. 
 
 In this halcyon land of bliss, 
 Stands a vast Metropolis. 
 Grandly gleam the argent fanes, 
 From the far, diurnal plains. 
 Minaret and turret high, 
 Tower against the topaz sky, 
 Over wall and bubbling dome. 
 Here no ghost or sullen gnome,
 
 56 DUE A ML AND. 
 
 Ever from Erebus comes. 
 Here forever over us, 
 Float the multitudinous 
 Thoughts and fancies of our lives, 
 Here the balmy distance gyves, 
 With embroideries of hills, 
 All the gleam of molten rills. 
 Here the day is never done 
 Tis the Eldorado vast, 
 Of the future and the past 
 Tis an everlasting sun.
 
 BURNS. 
 
 ON BEING PRESENTED WITH A LEAF FROM THE 
 BRIGS OF AYR. 
 
 A NAME seems graven on this leaf, 
 
 To which our memory fondly turns 
 A name that brings a balm to grief 
 The name of Robert Burns. 
 
 Each leaf is vocal with his praise, 
 
 Round Scotland s storied Brigs of Ayr 
 home of song! "the banks and braes 
 bonnie Doon" are there.
 
 58 BURNS. 
 
 And there, like morning s blush which played 
 
 
 On cheeks of mountains vast and tall, 
 
 His peerless Highland Mary strayed 
 Around Montgomery s wall. 
 
 And there the Cotter still at eve, 
 
 Oft bows before his humble shrine ; 
 And still his rustic songs receive, 
 The crown of Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 There Logan rolls its silver tide 
 
 There winds the wooded Cragie-burn 
 There "Evan mingles with the Clyde," 
 And there is Dumfries urn. 
 
 All cling around the poet s name, 
 
 Like wreaths about the sculptured bust ; 
 And grow immortal with his fame, 
 Which moulders not to dust.
 
 BURNS. 59 
 
 Wo only know his noble deeds 
 
 The good by fur out-stripped the ill 
 His pride o er-mastering, sowed the seeds 
 That triumphed over will. 
 
 He saw*along the dreamy skies, 
 And over every path he trod, 
 An Unknown Sentiment arise, 
 And knew that it was God. 
 
 To him the fields new beauties wore, 
 
 New rays round Woman s pathway twined ; 
 While in his open heart he bore 
 A love for all mankind. 
 
 There have been nobler themes than his, 
 
 Arid grander strains of that high art, 
 Which but the creed of nature is 
 The mirror of the heart.
 
 60 BURNS. 
 
 But ah! few over touched the strings 
 
 He woke where depths of feeling roll 
 Where round our every fancy clings 
 The rhythm of the soul. 
 
 How " Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled " 
 
 Brings deep emotions to the tongue ! 
 What memories start the tears unshed, 
 When Devons song is sung! 
 
 His is no idle breath of fame : 
 
 And more than Highland hearts shall raise 
 Round the great glory of his name, 
 The meed of noble praise. 
 
 O er Scotland s sacred hills and streams, 
 
 0,er Summer dell and balmy plain, 
 Which float our memory haunted dreams, 
 Flis songs arc lienrd ag.-nn.
 
 UUBNS. 61 
 
 And e en the Mountain Daisies rear 
 Ambrosial praise in flowery urns, 
 And write on every hillside here, 
 The name of Robert Burns.
 
 62 
 
 THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 THE mountains overhung with gold, 
 
 In piled luxuriance rim the view, 
 And seem in many an azure fold, 
 
 Like shadows in a lake of blue. 
 They float through wavy gloom and glare, 
 
 They hang like banners bright and free, 
 And tremble in the depths of air, 
 
 Along the shoreless, sunset sea. 
 
 O, in the Indian-summer haze, 
 
 They seem some long, dim reach of mist, 
 Along the river s liquid ways, 
 
 Lit up with pearl and amethyst.
 
 THE CATSKILLS. 63 
 
 Or, swathed in ambient glow and green, 
 When golden glories crown the skies, 
 
 They seem beneath the daedal sheen, 
 The silent gates of Paradise. 
 
 mountains, home of cliff and pine ; 
 
 Warriors of cloud-hosts drifting byl 
 The distance paints, in light divine, 
 
 Your curving peaks against the sky 
 The distance, ripe with glories swung 
 
 O er vapors in a shower of gold, 
 Seems like some fadeless garden, hung 
 
 In bright carnations o er the world. 
 
 All, in the conscious twilight hush, 
 
 When shadows drink the dells of light, 
 
 The mountains, in the flickering flush, 
 Seem pathless bridges o er the night. 
 
 Aye me! 0, symbols of a dream, 
 
 Your peaks, like death, are hung between
 
 64 THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 The dawns which shall bo and which seem, 
 And part the dim unseen and seen. 
 
 hills, I know your glades and dells, 
 And all your crystal pools, that lie 
 
 Between the bordering asphodels, 
 Each image-paven with a sky. 
 
 1 know the rifts of clouds that sail 
 
 The waveless sea of sky, and fall 
 Where most your rugged peaks prevail, 
 Like banners round a castle wall. 
 
 O hills, the distance robes anew, 
 
 Your forms which rise in azure dun, 
 And folds around your hazy blue 
 
 The golden raiment of the sun. 
 0, thus each noble thought and deed, 
 
 Rising from error s realm of night, 
 Shall stand, from all her bondage freed, 
 
 Clad in immortal robes of light.
 
 THE CATSKILLS. 65 
 
 The earth is but a censer, swung 
 
 Before the lurid throne of day ; 
 And mist, about the mountains hung, 
 
 Is balmy incense fumed away. 
 The streamlets, in the vale below, 
 
 Diverge beside an emerald shore, 
 And choose new courses in their flow, 
 
 Like lives that part and meet no more. 
 
 The boscage o er the quiet dells, 
 
 Inwoven with its ivy woof, 
 Neath which eternal twilight dwells, 
 
 Seems like a fairy palace roof. 
 A brooklet s waters rippling past, 
 
 The vine-shaped hillside twine along, 
 And change to silver lakes at last, 
 
 Like some bright fancy changed to song. 
 
 mountains, in the summer dawns, 
 
 When lips of light and dew have met, 
 6*
 
 66 THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 I gather in your pathless lawns 
 The wind-flower and the violet. 
 
 And, dreaming dreams within a dream, 
 I know the daisies growing high, 
 
 To you of azure robed in gleam, 
 Are what the stars are to the sky. 
 
 hills, I know the chasm wide, 
 
 And copse wherein comes sparkling up 
 The waters of a tiny tide 
 A fay within a lily s cup. 
 
 1 know your varied forms which rise, 
 
 In wavy slopes, whose trackless way 
 Mounts upward to the summer skies, 
 And seems like dreamland seen by day. 
 
 * 
 
 And I, when years have passed, shall come 
 Like some worn pilgrim to a shrine, 
 
 And view once more the mountain home 
 Of beetling peak and towering pine;
 
 THE CATSKILLS, 67 
 
 And see the hills, impearled with dew, 
 Which all the pansy nooks infold, 
 
 Again arise along the view 
 
 A moveless pageant robed in gold. 
 
 Then shall the streamlet in the dell, 
 In whose clear lymph the shade is cast 
 
 Of many a floweret s crimson bell, 
 Be but a memory of the past. 
 
 Then shall I, in the balmy glade 
 
 Which dwells o erarched with boughs and 
 sky, 
 
 Tread where in vanished hours I strayed, 
 
 And wake once more the days gone by. 
 
 But I shall go to rest and when 
 This fleeting dream of life is o er, 
 
 Still to the changing race of men 
 These hills shall stand forevermore.
 
 68 THE CATSKILLS. 
 
 Still shall the mountains which arise, 
 Though wo may be no more, alas ! 
 
 Loom upward to the trackless skies, 
 And mock the ages as they pass.
 
 09 
 
 AMONG THE FLOWERS. 
 
 IN royal dawns, alone I tread 
 
 By pebbled brook, and shining strand, 
 By vernal meadow, lone woodland, 
 
 Where queenly flowerets, from a bed 
 Of dewy glory, rise to greet 
 The morn with golden-sandaled feet ; 
 
 And, with the day-sea overhead, 
 I watch the ships of shimmer meet. 
 
 Ah, rich with cinnamon and palm, 
 My dreams go out to eastern rooms 
 To orange groves, whose ceaseless blooms, 
 
 Are swaying in eternal balm ;
 
 70 AMONG THE FLOWERS. 
 
 t 
 
 But yet the daisies that I see, 
 Bring back my truant dreams to me : 
 An island in a lake of calm, 
 
 Is every petaled brilliancy. 
 
 Each pansy is a pure delight, 
 
 Torn from some heart, and given form ; 
 
 And beckons on the dewy morn, 
 Swayed in the shadow-breath of night. 
 
 And here, beneath the coppice shade, 
 
 A hushed, acacia lake is laid, 
 Whose waves of petals, capped with light, 
 
 Throb up the shore-like everglade. 
 
 With saddened thoughts, I wander by 
 A sloping glen, whose ways I know 
 Are strown with wreaths of jasper glow 
 
 An aisled cathedral, broad and high, 
 Where, like an organ s trembling word, 
 The melodies of every bird,
 
 AMONG THE FLOWERS. 71 
 
 In golden notes float up the sky 
 Sweet rapture, not from me deferred. 
 
 Ah me, when I shall be no more, 
 
 I crave that here my couch be made, 
 Beneath the turf, where sheen and shade 
 
 Shall surge the bright, dew-paven shore 
 Where dawn, the gauzy breath of day, 
 Shall light this overbraided way, 
 
 And sail its sea of flowerets o er, 
 As zephyrs sail the sea of May. 
 
 Here shall each robin seem a rose, 
 
 Which gathers life from fields of air ; 
 
 With gloom for streamlets ever fair, 
 And dreamy dells that woo repose, 
 
 Beside the hills a kingly throng ; 
 
 While warbled strains shall float along, 
 Where light with beauty overflows, 
 
 And be but fragrance changed to song.
 
 72 AMONG THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Here shall the pale narcissus, hung 
 
 Where lilac-blooms perfume its bowers, 
 Be but the ray less dawn of flowers, 
 
 In varied shades of opal, swung 
 Above a tiny, bluebell hill ; 
 Whose valley lieth deep and still, 
 
 The emerald skies of leaves among, 
 Which verge the crystal of the rill. 
 
 I crave that here my couch be made, 
 For here is nature s reign supreme ; 
 And here the morning-tinted stream. 
 
 Which eddies^ through the osier glade, 
 Is like a memory that I know 
 
 t 
 
 A sainted memory, pure as snow 
 Upon the breasts of wild-flowers laid, 
 Which blossomed where the violets blow. 
 
 The fruit is springing from the seeds 
 I know what, goal my dreams have won
 
 AMONG THE FLOWERS. 73 
 
 And pride, which bows itself to none, 
 Grew o er my hidden griefs, like weeds. 
 
 Errors are titled truths the hours 
 
 Quaffed from the chalice, Time, are ours 
 Alone, with that dim path, which leads 
 
 To quiet rest beneath the flowers.
 
 74 
 
 ISAURE. 
 
 AT the tryst near the broken stile, 
 Holding her hand in mine, I said, 
 Not in the dells of shade I tread, 
 
 Not in the full-blown daisy s smile, 
 
 Not in the twilight calm and gray, 
 
 I see the beauty that I adore ; 
 But in the summer of your eyes, 
 Where the billows of soul arise, 
 
 Gleaming upon their tender shore, 
 
 I clasp the dreams of endless May. 
 
 Beauty dwelleth in soul alone 
 
 As fruit and frondage, spice and palm, 
 Dwell but in fervent isles of balm 
 
 Yours to me is the central throne : 
 Lesser glorieb bow down to thcc ;
 
 ISAURE. 75 
 
 Here the lake, like a silver vail, 
 Ripples between the fallow meads, 
 Islanded oft with drooping reeds 
 
 But this is of the ships that sail, 
 Brightly, out to a beautiful sea. 
 
 Your soul is the beautiful sea, 
 
 With coral isles of golden dreams, 
 
 And many a mystic thought which seems 
 
 Like some shadowy cave to me, 
 
 Leading down from a pearly vale. 
 
 Here the moon, in a downy cloud, 
 Seems like a bee in an asphodel, 
 Whose foamy petals sink and swell 
 
 Before each languid zephyr bowed, 
 
 Trembling beneath its ornate mail. 
 
 And here the mellow lips of light 
 
 Kiss the sweet foreheads of the leaves, 
 While some melodious night-bird weaves
 
 76 ISAURK. 
 
 % 
 
 Its song along its trackless flight, 
 
 Like life a swallow-flight of time : 
 But dreams were naught were thou riot here 
 They are the rivers of the sea 
 The sapphire paths that lead to thee, 
 Through lawny lands I hold most dear, 
 By thy soul-beauty made sublime. 
 
 Isaure, as some cape of cloud 
 
 Grows brighter with the birth of day, 
 
 So all my fancies grow to May, 
 Before thy purer presence bowed, 
 
 Which seems a ceaseless dawn to me ; 
 And our lone hearts still float in dreams, 
 
 Like leaves in odors rustling fair, 
 
 Which drift along the rosy air, 
 Like sprays of woodbine, down the streams 
 That widen to the summer sea.
 
 77 
 
 OCTOBER RAIN. 
 
 OCTOBER skies are pale and sere ; 
 
 The ashen clouds are grim and chill- 
 Like ghostly mourners at a bier, 
 
 They kneel upon the distant hill. 
 Like leaves their freight goes hastening by ; 
 
 The cold wind shouts in dizzy pain : 
 We know that as the moments fly, 
 
 The month is dying in the rain. 
 
 But through a tattered woof of cloud, 
 
 The sunlight slants a living glow, 
 Which, sparkling round the misty shroud, 
 
 Lights up the grainless fields below. 
 
 7*
 
 78 OCTOBER RAIX. 
 
 The dead leaves launched in gusts go by ; 
 
 But ah! in ruby drops divine, 
 The upturned goblet of the sky, 
 
 Pours forth the rain like golden wine. 
 
 The dahlia, last of all her race, 
 
 Puts out her lips to quaff the bliss, 
 As some clear lake with tender grace 
 
 Receives the moonlight s silver kiss. 
 The vernal crucible of hills, 
 
 Wherein the gold of May was laid, 
 Is rimmed with wild flowers round the rills, 
 
 In pearly drops of rain arrayed. 
 
 The mountains in the dewy breath, 
 Against a breast of dark cloud lie, 
 
 Which bends above them, as in death, 
 The weeping mistress of the sky! 
 
 While here the sunlight s crimson bars, 
 Begem the fields in amber crowds ;
 
 OCTOBEU RAIN. 79 
 
 The starlight is the soul of stars ; 
 And 0, the rain is soul of clouds. 
 
 The bright red berries gleaming, cling 
 
 Above green dells of fairy birth, 
 And seem like twinkling stars that swing 
 
 Above the emerald hills of earth. 
 I see them through the mist and rain 
 
 The mountains and the cloud} 7 sky ; 
 But dream the dead past o er again 
 
 We are alone, my soul and I. 
 
 It whispers me in vague surmise, 
 
 Some subtle meaning to impart, 
 That from the mind s o er-arching skies, 
 
 The cold rain falleth on the heart. 
 Our memories like the wind sweep by ; 
 
 But ah! we weep them not in vain- 
 Nor those who in their last sleep lie ; 
 
 For tears are but October Rain.
 
 80 OCTOBER RAIN. 
 
 As through some window stained with gold, 
 
 Which lights the weary, kneeling crowd, 
 In some cathedral, grand and old, 
 
 I see the sunlight through the cloud. 
 And now to tell that Spring was here, 
 
 Alone the luscious fruits remain, 
 Which droop from branches crisp and sere, 
 
 Adorned with drops of golden rain. 
 
 My life has been a rainy day, 
 
 In which some sapphire sunlight shone ; 
 
 But that too soon has passed away, 
 
 And left me to the storm alone. 
 It matters not each cloud foretells 
 
 Some brighter hours will come again, 
 And memory seems a harp, which swells 
 
 With strains of sad, October Rain.
 
 81 
 
 MEADOW MIST. 
 
 THROUGH fields of sparry grass and grain, 
 
 When dawns their misty garments bring, 
 I walk and pluck the flowers again 
 
 The joyous syllables of Spring. 
 Now are the regal daisy bowers, 
 
 By skies of folded vapor kissed ; 
 Creation weeps in golden showers, 
 
 But smileth through her tears in mist. 
 
 The forest, in the distance, seems 
 A. land where balmy winds abound, 
 
 Which float like music heard in dreams, 
 That dies upon the breast of sound ;
 
 82 MEADOW MIST. 
 
 The jasper rivers of the sun, 
 
 The lotus sprays of mist drift o er, 
 
 And, mottled with vermilion dun, 
 Are stranded on this meadow shore. 
 
 As some clear moon hangs o er a lake, 
 
 Glassed in its waters deep and cool, 
 A silver lily near the brake, 
 
 Is pictured in an elfin pool- 
 So in a leaf- waved lake of dew, 
 
 By shores of endless morning kissed, 
 The vapor s image wavers through, 
 
 And seems like moonlight fumed in mist. 
 
 Upon a laurel shore remains 
 
 The daisy, like a sounding shell ; 
 
 While here, the blue-eyed gentian reigns, 
 Queen floweret of a palace dell. 
 
 Yet over all the meadows fair, 
 The wavy sheens of vapor lie ;
 
 MEADOW MIST. 83 
 
 And seem like locks of amber hair, 
 Swept down the forehead of the sky. 
 
 And so I pass, when breaks the day, 
 
 Along the meads with glory rife, 
 And dream the lucent morn away, 
 
 As I have dreamed the morn of life. 
 Not all in gold and amethyst, 
 
 Are even summer days enshrined : 
 My heart hath had its share of mist 
 
 The sadness of a darkened mind. 
 
 All things find type in life or death: 
 
 The landscape of the past I see ; 
 While in the thought, this skyey breath, 
 
 Becomes the mist of memory. 
 And dreaming, down by mere and shoal, 
 
 I know all truth some sadness yields 
 As sorrow falls upon the soul, 
 
 So vapor falleth on the fields.
 
 84 
 
 MY PALACE. 
 
 IN thoughts dominions, halo-crowned, 
 
 I saw a Palace broad and high : 
 No streams of liquid moonlight round 
 
 No pansies formed of azure sky. 
 But all of crystal glare and shade, 
 
 And snowy dells of sheen were there, 
 Irnpearling with its glowing glade, 
 
 My royal Palace in the air ! 
 
 The shadowy-penciled vales and hills, 
 Of space and depth and dazzling height, 
 
 Lie lucent in the blazoned rills, 
 Which empty in u bay of light.
 
 MY PALACE. 85 
 
 I see above a mount, whose dun 
 
 Seems shade and glory mingled there ; 
 
 The amber-crowned king-seraph, sun, 
 With pinion winged in golden air! 
 
 And ah, this mountain evermore, 
 
 White-robed with snow, in its high place, 
 Hath seemed upon the mighty shore, 
 
 A billow from the sea of space. 
 Above the wave-mount s icy leas 
 
 Before the endless sunset skies, 
 With jacinth architrave and frieze 
 
 I see my royal Palace rise. 
 
 While up the battlemented wall, 
 The silken banners flaunt and flare, 
 
 O er sapphire tower and turret tall 
 Bright vapors on the fane of air. 
 
 Turkois, agate and chrysoprase, 
 
 Are irieed round the open door ; 
 
 8
 
 86 MY PALACE. 
 
 Through which with songs of other days, 
 The winged Hours pass forevermore. 
 
 
 
 The rooms within are fair to see, 
 
 By tender gales of odor fanned, 
 Greek-lined with niche and filigree, 
 
 And hung with woofs of Samarcand. 
 The pink-hued radiance crushed to shape, 
 
 We call the rose, is vased around; 
 While from some far off mountain cape, 
 
 The zephyrs wake the sylph of sound. 
 
 And she in whose dear eyes and mien 
 
 I see the halo from her heart, 
 Of all my Palace is the queen, 
 
 And of its beauty forms a part. 
 She, languorous with musk and bloom, 
 
 Reclines where tinkling fountains pour, 
 Or wander* through the damasked room, 
 
 Along the velvet-tutted floor,
 
 MY PALACE. 87 
 
 
 
 Her fancies are a flower, whose green. 
 
 Dark stem of thought, the bulb thought meets; 
 And she before the conscious sheen, 
 
 Is queen-bee in a dell of sweets. 
 She rests on cushions wrought with sprays, 
 
 And revels in the sunset beams : 
 The golden circle of her days, 
 
 Is made ideal in her dreams. 
 
 The hours are mists which float away : 
 
 She views where floods of ruby run, 
 The cloud-tinged opal of the day, 
 
 Red-hearted with the lambent sun. 
 But when she sleeps, alas, I see 
 
 The vague ghosts clothed in shade go by ; 
 And beckoning shadowy hands to me, 
 
 They pass the sleeper with a sigh. 
 
 Palace on the hills of air! 
 
 I see each tower and turret shine
 
 88 MY PALACE. 
 
 And glitter, with its vestal glare 
 Of chrysolite and almandine. 
 
 But ah, beneath the gleaming fane, 
 Unseen, and lost to human eyes, 
 
 Dead forms in vaulted tombs remain, 
 From which the flitting ghosts arise. 
 
 The soul s the Palace of the dream, 
 
 In jasper walls of fancy wrought, 
 Before the sad past s sunset gleam, 
 
 Upon the lumined hills of thought. 
 And oft the shadowy memories start, 
 
 And tremble in the mystic air, 
 Arising from the vaulted heart 
 
 The ghosts of dead hopes buried there.
 
 AT THE WATERFALL. 
 
 THE shore-lips of this odorous vale 
 By liquid cadence fringed with calm, 
 
 Which woos through fields the scented gale- 
 Are parted in the dells of balm, 
 And tremble with a worldless psalm, 
 
 Whose strains above the hush prevail. 
 
 The murmur of the Waterfall 
 
 The hum of lily-shrouded bee, 
 And throstle s honey-throated call, 
 
 Change all the air to melody; 
 
 While wave-like in the mystic sea, 
 
 Arise the mountains vague and tall. 
 8*
 
 90 AT THE WATERFALL. 
 
 And now beside the endless pour 
 
 Where nature s life-blood, from her heart 
 
 Of throbbing emerald, runneth o er 
 I watch the ripples, as they start 
 Toward the brink, and there depart ; 
 
 life ! thy type forevermore. 
 
 1 see the crystal falls array 
 
 The leaves like seraphim, with wings 
 Of dewy lace, from whorls of spray ; 
 And know the cataract now swings, 
 A curtain, held with sunbeam rings, 
 Across the temple of the day. 
 
 And where upon the moss-crowned height. 
 
 The watery vesture of the dell, - 
 Sweeps down and mingles with the light, 
 
 The sapphires of an iris dwell, 
 
 And seem an arch of asphodel, 
 Where some king glow-worm passeth, bright.
 
 AT THE WATERFALL. 91 
 
 So o er each heart doth rise elate, 
 The rainbow of some fond desire ; 
 
 And we, frail buffeters of fate, 
 Toward the dream alone aspire, 
 But find that as we struggle higher, 
 
 Tis nobler to be good than great. 
 
 But here beneath the dash and roar, 
 
 Where eddies circle in a bay, 
 White-breasted lilies near the shore, 
 
 Waste their pure snow upon the spray ; 
 
 The passion of whose lips, arrays 
 Each flower with gems of madrepore. 
 
 
 
 And here the amorous arms of sheen, 
 
 Clasp their sweet presence round a cress, 
 
 Which sinks into them, rich with greon, 
 And faints of its dear happiness : 
 While like some moonlight s silver tress, 
 
 The sunlit Waterfall is seen.
 
 92 AT THE WATERFALL. 
 
 In swirls the downy mists exhale, 
 Like fragrance from a dying rose, 
 
 And o er the pearly falls prevail, 
 
 To meet the balmy breath that blows 
 The wild flowers from their soft repose, 
 
 To tremble in the tender gale. 
 
 O haste the years which still remain, 
 When like these vapors which arise, 
 
 And float in orient o er the plain 
 Beneath the azure of the skies, 
 This life in robes of royal dyes, 
 
 Shall to some greater good attain. 
 
 Lo, nature is for one and all ; 
 
 Her language whispers in a leaf 
 The stars the sun a mountain tall 
 
 The flowers or in a ripened sheaf ; 
 
 And a whole tome of true belief, 
 Dwells even in a Waterfall.
 
 J3 
 
 MY HARP. 
 
 A silence like a silver chain, 
 
 Still o er my cherished harp is cast. 
 I seek the urn of time again 
 
 Which holds the ashes of the past. 
 One chord is severed on my lyre, 
 
 With fairy utterance once rife 
 One chord which woke a pure desire, 
 
 Is broken on the lyre of life. 
 
 A gentle hand which long ago 
 Was folded on a pulseless breast, 
 
 Freed the bird music, wild and slow, 
 That fluttered o er this harp for rest.
 
 94 MY HARP. 
 
 But through the sad past, dim and far, 
 A face shines out from wreath and curl, 
 
 And bends above me like a star 
 Gleam-winged Astarte clad in pearl. 
 
 The mystic odor of her eyes 
 
 Oft fanned my soul with honey balm, 
 As neath the great harp of the skies, 
 
 We drifted o er a lake of calm. 
 We sailed across the night, and she 
 
 Woke from her lyre its strains divine ; 
 And bending with her lips o er me 
 
 Their purple cadence fell on mine. 
 
 She called all flowers the petaled notes 
 Of lost strains in a perfume choir, 
 
 Whose sound in rarest savor floats ; 
 
 And thought the fields, the emerald lyre. 
 
 Each tendril with its calyx blows, 
 To her, sweet rapture would impart:
 
 MY HARP. 95 
 
 Perchance the soul of some dead rose, 
 Held fragrant converse with her heart. 
 
 The sunset is a jacinth lyre 
 
 With chords of ruby rays of light, 
 Whose melody, in strains of fire, 
 
 Dies on the twilight breast of night : 
 And she whose being caused the years 
 
 In wildering sweetness to depart, 
 Now like a silent harp appears, 
 
 But is the sunset of my heart.
 
 96 
 
 TO THE SOUTH WIND. 
 
 FROM bowery islands come, South ! 
 
 Where dark myrrh-thickets, crowned with 
 dew, 
 
 In musky hollows bow to you, 
 
 And touch some flower of misty blue, 
 To hear from out its petal mouth : 
 
 sweetest breeze that ever blew ! 
 
 Delicious balm 1 with southern night 
 
 Tint the blown grape and paint the bloom ; 
 And for the clover-buds make room, 
 Which sway in ceaseless grief and gloom, 
 
 And weep dew-tears of lost delight, 
 Above Borne pansy s simple tomb.
 
 TO THE SOUTH WIND. 97 
 
 The soft, white arms of each pale rose, 
 Woo thee I know to peaceful rest ; 
 Near sedgy banks, the hawthorn s breast, 
 Tempts thy parched lips to nectar blessed, 
 
 Like lilies which, white-winged, arose 
 And passed into the silent west. 
 
 The moss-rose, neath her hood of green, 
 
 Blushing, doth often meet thee here. 
 
 Beside the limit of the mere, 
 
 Where jets the flag, whose blades appear, 
 Swayed o er the lymph with shade between, 
 
 Like waving plumes above a bier. 
 
 A cloudy shallop floateth by- 
 Borne o er the summer sea of space, 
 To drift thee, with its sails of lace, 
 To this, gale ! thy resting place ; 
 
 But in the palace of the sky, 
 
 The bright cloud seems a lighted vase. 
 9
 
 98 TO THE SOUTH WIND. 
 
 Sweet dove! beneath thy perfume wings, 
 
 Dost bring no message from thy clime? 
 
 No dear words of thy tender prime ? 
 
 Does she, who in that younger time, 
 I loved, alas ! now dwell where clings 
 
 Her cloud-land to the hills sublime ? 
 
 Perchance she lives! If so, increase 
 
 Her wavering grace her life employ 
 Let no marred hope her hope destroy. 
 Nor the sad past her dreams annoy ; 
 
 Her golden bowl be rimmed with peace, 
 And beaded with white bells of joy. 
 
 The griffins at the marble stair, 
 
 Had scarce a stonier heart than she 
 Her love the sweeter mystery : 
 Oft wandering by the placid sea, 
 
 From odor clouds in carmine air, 
 
 She showered her roe-bud lips on inc..
 
 TO THE SOUTH WIND. 90 
 
 Dear rain ! unknown to darkened days 
 
 Which rippled in the past, and swam 
 
 Like watery circles into calm ; 
 
 This zephyr, with its robe of balm, 
 Recalls thee, as adown these ways, 
 
 I dream of sandal and of palm. 
 
 In copses here uncoil the ferns, 
 
 To couch, South ! thy limbs in ease, 
 Where, mid the hum of mites and bees, 
 Thy life shall change to one with these : 
 
 Ah ! e en the bolder yarrow learns, 
 
 Where fraught with honey comes thebree/e. 
 
 Sweet breath ! half memory, half bairn, 
 Thou wanderest from a dell yet dear, 
 Where souls of withered roses near. 
 Hung sadly o er the vernal bier, 
 
 Till some bird woke the fragrant calm. 
 And fanned the perfume to mo here.
 
 100 
 
 WAITING. 
 
 SENTINEL trees whose spears are stars, 
 
 Guard the lawn and its pebbled way ; 
 And through the boughs, like emerald bars, 
 
 The moon pours down its silver day. 
 The grange seems cut against the sky, 
 
 Lights in the windows glow and gleam ; 
 I fear you care but little, that I 
 
 Am waiting for you, Marian Dreem 
 
 Sadly I watch the fragrant flame 
 
 Of flowers, which seem like burning ships, 
 And, breathing now thy honeydew name, 
 
 Silk-belted bees hum round my lips.
 
 WATTING. 101 
 
 The orange blooms seem dead and cold, 
 Withered and dead with dripping dew : 
 
 Is love forgot, or love grown old? 
 Marian sweet, I shall question you. 
 
 I meet you first in a vale of calms, 
 
 Of listless deeps and fluted gloom, 
 A valley brimmed with a thousand balms, 
 
 Where luscious dusk was rich perfume. 
 And where the flushed day reared its throne 
 
 On flaccid billows of crimson shine, 
 The sky by an Odin-breath was blown 
 
 To a bubble of purple wine. 
 
 There the sweet, south zephyr faints in heat, 
 By the dear, parched mouth of Summer 
 kissed ; 
 
 And where the clouds of porphyry meet, 
 They seem a city shaped in mist 
 
 A city of some embodied bliss 
 
 Built in the future, seen through thought 
 9*
 
 l()li WAITING. 
 
 If other dreams are fair as this, 
 
 Marian sweet, must ours be naught? 
 
 Well, you can make me pale with a look, 
 Or say in kisses you re still my own ; 
 
 Standing here by the naze-crowned brook, 
 I m yet at our wonted tryst alone. 
 
 Waiting and watching, I fear the worst- 
 Waiting and watching, echoes the stream, 
 
 But I, though you make my life accursed, 
 Sadly shall love you, Marian Dreem. 
 
 Then I shall have my gifts again, 
 
 Soul print letters, necklace and ring ; 
 But you never shall know the pain 
 
 That even their poor presence will bring. 
 But all my doubts are frail as air, 
 
 I hear a step in the dell beneath ; 
 The orange blossoms seem fresh and fair 
 
 I see them twined in a bridal wreath.
 
 103 
 
 AGLAIA. 
 
 UNLOOSE your hair from its russet braids ; 
 Let it descend like silken dew, 
 Neath the skies of your eyes of blue, 
 
 And mingle down, with gathering shades, 
 
 Over your shoulders of pearly white. 
 I hear the fount s incanting fall 
 In billow-cadence from the hall, 
 
 And a distant gittern s symphonies. 
 
 All things murmur a hushed delight, 
 Sweet mystery of mysteries! 
 
 Starlight floats round thee like a vail 
 Each tress seems sunshine in repose 
 Here the rubv flame of a rose
 
 104 AGLAIA. 
 
 Kisses thy breast to an amorous gale, 
 And burns with a passionate soul ! 
 I gaze from oriels tinted red 
 This silver cresset, naptha-fed, 
 
 Floods the room with malachite seas. 
 Filled to the brim is the golden bowl, 
 Fair mystery of mysteries ! 
 
 Come out into the night, sweet dream! 
 
 To vernal silence by the lake. 
 
 Where moonlight falleth flake by flake, 
 And Avhite flowers forever seem, 
 On the lips of the liquid gloom, 
 
 A lily-Venice rich and rare. 
 
 Come down the lane where, cowled in air, 
 
 All the whispering linden trees 
 Count their chaplets in beads of bloom, 
 Loved mystery of mysteries ! 
 
 Come, flashing with diamonds and lace, 
 To boskv dells where, overhead,
 
 AGLAIA. 105 
 
 A single circle of silver thread, 
 Arches above the young moon s face, 
 And seems a dome the far-off sign 
 Of the glimmering city of stars. 
 Come where no baser fancy mars 
 
 The higher life of reveries. 
 Come, my beautiful ! mine, still mine, 
 Fair mystery of mysteries ! 
 
 Here, in this elfin nook, we rest- 
 Yon breathe an influence vague and strange, 
 To balmful Edens of sense ; and change 
 
 Like clouds along the purple west. 
 
 Here a daisy upon the shore, 
 Like a radiant soul doth seem, 
 Waiting to cross the Stygian stream. 
 With fragrant spirits such as these, 
 
 You hold communion evermore, 
 Sweet mystery of mysteries 1
 
 100 AT, LAI A. 
 
 Thou wast a bird whose regal notes, 
 
 Though changed to voice, are still the same. 
 
 Thy warm, rich beauty soothes, aflame- 
 Ecstatic sweetness ever floats, 
 Where er its eastern spell is cast. 
 
 If hopes were strong as fairy ships, 
 
 I d waste my being on thy lips, 
 
 Here, sailing life s midsummer seas 
 And mingle with thee and the past, 
 Dear mystery of mysteries!
 
 107 
 
 ON THE LAKE. 
 
 THE glassy stillness of the mere, 
 
 In samite tapestries of shade, 
 Dents the hushed coves : while pale and clear, 
 
 A bridge of moonlight spans the glade. 
 A starry cestus zones o erhead ; 
 
 Blue Lyra, harp of Israfel, 
 
 Lights the pure peace : in balm doth dwell 
 Antares, flashing snow and red. 
 
 I launch my boat upon the lake, 
 
 And drift along the liquid dark, 
 To watch in brier or woven brake, 
 
 The lire-fly sail his vermeil bark.
 
 108 ON THE LAKE. 
 
 Some night-bird drips a note through night, 
 To surge the dusky silence o er ; 
 Where daisies yield upon the shore, 
 
 Their melody of gold and white. 
 
 An angel laves a pool of thought, 
 
 And makes a cherished memory whole ; 
 A brain-mist falls, with silver fraught, 
 
 And eyes peer out which type a soul. 
 While, bound with pearls in wavy gloom, 
 
 The hair floats down : a spangled dream ; 
 
 And cheeks joy-fervent, ever seem 
 Flushed like some sweet pomegranate bloom. 
 
 No sound is heard : the jasper dew, 
 
 Torn from the tissue of a cloud, 
 Floods a meek pansy s eyes of blue, 
 
 Which o er a Trail wind-flower is bowed. 
 The violet odor seems to say, 
 
 In spicy tones to sadness moved :
 
 ON THE LAKE. 109 
 
 Ah me ! to love and not be loved, 
 Sets starlight in the breast for day. 
 
 In respite from a painless death, 
 
 This spray of mint no more shall stir, 
 Nor wrap the incense of its breath, 
 
 Around the spiky lavender. 
 A tuberose seems a mimic May, 
 
 And with caught sunlight forms a part. 
 
 Saying : There dwells in every heart, 
 A hidden idol draped away 
 
 The sun is idol of the flowers. 
 
 I drift along the tepid June, 
 And read afar from placid bowers, 
 
 The mystic missal of the moon. 
 I float the lake and watch the dells, 
 
 Obedient to the variant tide, 
 
 Where dim and ghostly shadows glide 
 
 Along the brink, like sentinels. 
 10
 
 110 OX THE LAKE. 
 
 Earth is the altar of the night, 
 Whose jeweled ephod is the sky, 
 
 And flowers the offering to light, 
 
 For whose dear sake they live to die. 
 
 All valley-bo wered from the breeze, 
 The lake is strange to wave or whorl, 
 And seemeth like a liquid pearl, 
 
 Amid the tresses of the trees. 
 
 Ah, many a life is like this mere, 
 Rich with an innate mystery, 
 
 And dark and rare, but calm and clear, 
 And purer than the common sea. 
 
 Such lives that, striving after truth, 
 Before dear nature s sceptered throne 
 Of beauty bow, such alone, 
 
 Have glimpses of immortal youth ! 
 
 Where myrtle-blossoms fleck the green 
 Of thymy banks, I see the light
 
 OX THE LAKE. Ill 
 
 Edge the still lake with lily sheen, 
 
 Like beaded clouds which fringe the night. 
 
 And dew-drops sparkle in each glome, 
 By purple bays in maple glens, 
 While o er the depths and in the fens, 
 
 The glow-worms dash their diamond foam. 
 
 Here odors, tinged with dusk, arise 
 From nard and cassia, frail and thin, 
 
 And mingle neath the leafy skies, 
 Like sounds of lute and mandolin. 
 
 r 
 
 It always by such balmy shore, 
 
 And with no ruder breezes pressed, 
 Life s waters might serenely rest, 
 
 How sweet to live for evermore !
 
 112 
 
 SEPTEMBER TO APRIL. 
 
 You arc a white vein in a shell 
 
 A dew-drop hid in the breast of a rose 
 A leaf that sinks in a brook as it flows 
 
 A fay in a lily s silver bell, 
 
 Or a dell by a river, in green repose. 
 
 I am robed in russet and gold ; 
 
 I dwell in crofts, and a fall which pours 
 White lilies of spray upon its shores. 
 
 I am dying mid wealth untold ; 
 
 The breeze is the splash of the golden oars! 
 
 Green fields babble in flowers to you ; 
 You are morning-star of the years 
 The Nereid which spring-barked appears.
 
 .SEPTEMBER TO APRIL. 113 
 
 Roses are sweetest in the dew, 
 And you in silvery, silken tears. 
 
 The snow is a vail twixt thee and me ; 
 
 It keepeth thy lips from mine alway. 
 
 You and 1 are clouds of a day, 
 Which, drifting over the crimson sea, 
 
 In pearls of white perfume waste away. 
 
 The diamond-smile of odorous stars, 
 Hangeth thy skies with joy for thee. 
 You, in the sunset of time, shall be 
 
 One of the radiant jasper bars, 
 And a bead on a mystic rosary. 
 
 Oh, my beautiful ! we but swing, 
 Like fragrant censers, up and down. 
 You paint the green and I the brown. 
 
 You are the gem in the zone of Spring, 
 
 And I the Autumn s golden crown. 
 10*
 
 Ill 
 
 JUNE MEMORIES. 
 
 ONLY some memories of June : 
 
 What time the fish leap in the firth, 
 The fanged-bug haunts the leafy girth, 
 
 And locusts pour their drowsy tune 
 
 When plovers pipe along the brink 
 By silver shores in pearly shine, 
 
 Where gorgeous insects come to drink 
 From cups of tulips, brimmed with wine. 
 
 Then rich moss-roses star the plats, 
 And in dim dawns, on dewy boughs, 
 The joyous brown-thrush trills his vows 
 
 In alder clumps and willow flats.
 
 JUNE MEMORIES. 115 
 
 Then near the growths of mistletoe, 
 
 Where cuckoos chant their love-sweet cry. 
 
 Dear bands of violets I know, 
 In odor dreams, go up the sky. 
 
 Some say, the morn of memory 
 
 Is ever dropping tender dew ; 
 
 I know not if the thought be true, 
 But yet, some sadness falls on me. 
 For few can look on vanished days, 
 
 However bright their suns have set, 
 And say : I see but cause to praise, 
 
 And find no reasons for regret. 
 
 Like shade on pinks at heated noon, 
 Where cooling breezes seldom blew, 
 The past casts down its healing dew, 
 
 And makes my dream a peaceful June. 
 
 As swings a sparrow on a spray, 
 
 The memory sways, nor errant, flies,
 
 116 JUNE MEMORIES. 
 
 While on the verge, and far away, 
 The almonds of Avilion rise. 
 
 I see the twilight glooming down ; 
 
 And Hesper, in the azure sky, 
 
 Seems like a blue-bell s amber eye, 
 Or like a blue-bell s golden crown. 
 Then, soon from depths of purple-black, 
 
 Orion glimmers forth with Mars, 
 And all the Pleiads, flashing back, 
 
 Are gold grapes, clustered mid the stars. 
 
 A trailer s leaflet holds with care 
 
 A crimson berry on its gloom, 
 
 And seems a beryl urn, whoso plume 
 Of spiced flame wavers in the air. 
 Then comes a day with cloud-vailed face, 
 
 Whose mists robe white the mountains high, 
 But leave their peaks to swing in space 
 
 The hanging gardens of the sky.
 
 JUNE MEMORIES. 117 
 
 I see June on the moor and wold : 
 
 The martins eddy round the limes ; 
 
 And like a dream of fairer climes, 
 Arises each marsh-marigold. 
 The month doth whisper from the grass 
 
 It floats the day and its decline. 
 My heart seems but a slanted glass, 
 
 Filled to the brim with June, like wine. 
 
 Ah sweet, when first the rose in tears 
 
 Of dew, burst open to the sun! 
 
 But soon its petals one by one, 
 Had fallen in the stream of years ; 
 And all its song-bird s tender tune 
 
 Had fled its flowerets ceased to grow; 
 For life, alas ! has but one June 
 
 October beckons, and I go.
 
 RETURNED FROM WAR. 
 
 SHROUDED by his country s flag, 
 And in martial garments dressed, 
 
 Came the soldier to his home, 
 With his sword upon his breast. 
 
 Stepping to the muffled drum, 
 Pass the guard on either side : 
 
 All the people as they come, 
 Whisper how the warrior died. 
 
 Of his deeds, what words can tell ? 
 
 But in buttle, mid the van, 
 Cheering on the fight, he fell 
 
 For the common cause of man.
 
 RETURNED FROM WAR. 119 
 
 He shall lead the charge no more 
 
 Scale the rampart to the gun ; 
 For they bear him gently home, 
 
 To his wife and little one. 
 
 She, who through her bridal vail, 
 
 Looked and called him dearest, best ! 
 
 Bends above him in her tears, 
 With her head upon his breast. 
 
 She has sorrow for her part : 
 
 Grief alone to her is sent, 
 Blighting all her summer heart, 
 
 And the roses of content. 
 
 What if victory crowned the day ? 
 
 She will heed you not nor stir : 
 He has fallen in the fray : 
 
 He was all the world to her.
 
 120 
 
 LADY LISLE. 
 
 THE Lady Lisle is fair and good ; 
 
 ITer grace, like spikenard spilt ; her ways, 
 Surmounting all the pride of blood : 
 
 She holds her peace unless to praise ; 
 All love her perfect womanhood. 
 
 The landscape-painter from afar, 
 Unconscious, in his toil immersed, 
 
 Is dearer than all others are ; 
 She sees and loves him from the first; 
 
 His face shines on her like a star. 
 
 She leaves her house at golden dawn ; 
 
 Her gardener s makes her dwelling place : 
 She whispers that her wealth is gone ; 
 
 She lays aside her pearls and lace, 
 And puts a simple kirtle on.
 
 LADY LISLE. l 2l 
 
 T \vas June when kindly nature smiled 
 
 A queen of roses was the day : 
 The painter half the morn beguiled, 
 
 To meet her in the village way, 
 But knew her as the gardener s child. 
 
 He quaffed delight with half a fear ; 
 
 He scorned the dross of ignorant wealth ; 
 So, in the rose-month of the year, 
 
 He Avooed her for her dower of health, 
 And for her goodness, held her dear. 
 
 He gave a sketch of peace, which shed 
 
 A brighter halo on his name ; 
 Peace rested in the blue o erhead 
 
 Peace on the lake and hill the same ; 
 And peace within his breast, he said. 
 
 She praised his work true work of Art ; 
 
 And praise from such sweet Mips was bliss. 
 11
 
 122 LADY LISLE. 
 
 I love, he said ; and for her part, 
 She gave him with a loving kiss, 
 
 ^** 
 
 Her trust, the warder of her heart. 
 
 When dusk had twined, with ruby shine, 
 The star-flowers in the hair of night, 
 
 He spoke of tilt and royal line, 
 
 And mentioned with subdued delight, 
 
 His vine-clad cottage on the Rhine. 
 
 ,* 
 The bridal dawn in many a smile 
 
 Was wreathed, that blushed forth into day 
 She said, while in the chapel aisle, 
 
 The gardener s child has passed away 
 She was, and is, the Lady Lisle. 
 
 He saw her jewels shade and shine ; 
 
 And proudly stood he up and said, 
 Though Lady Lisle, you still are mine, 
 
 And shall be, after we are wed, 
 The Countess Aura on the Rhine.
 
 LEGEND OF THti KAATERSKILL. 
 
 LIKE a stone with an inscription, 
 
 Gainst the sepulchre of night, 
 With its halo of tradition, 
 
 Garden Rock is garnished bright. 
 Here the Manitou or Spirit 
 
 Reared the palace of the dawn, 
 When the r.tars, the sleeping beauties, 
 
 Trembled ere the dark was gone. 
 FTore he gave the valleys plenty, 
 
 To the seaboard far away ; 
 ITore he breathed his wrath in tempests, 
 
 Here he smiled his love in day. 
 
 At the base, dank, turbid waters 
 Filled the hollow in a lake ;
 
 124 LEGEND OF THK KA ATEUSK I 1, 
 
 And beside each tiger-lily 
 
 Lay a lizard or a snake. 
 Far around the sloping margin, 
 
 Flowers in wild luxuriance grew : 
 Hyacinths of snow and azure, 
 
 Roses swathed in crimson dew. 
 Then at times some flashing robin 
 
 Through the woodland sailed along, 
 Seeming like a bark with banners 
 
 Floating down a tide of song. 
 
 So the Indians loved the precinct, 
 
 With a sacred awe and fear; 
 And the bravest of the hunters, 
 
 Never dared to enter here. 
 Till one autumn dusk, when Nature 
 
 Mild in all her aspect lay, 
 One who clambered up the mountain, 
 
 Passed within the haunted way. 
 Here a mystic sense stole o er him, 
 
 lie had never known before,
 
 LEGEND OF THE KAATERSKILL. 125 
 
 As he watched the broad pond-lilies, 
 Like white sails afar from shore. 
 
 Here the lark to sleep was nestled. 
 
 First to wake at ruddy gleam ; 
 And the presence of the poppies 
 
 Wrought each sorrow in a dream. 
 To the Indian, all the twilight 
 
 Bridged a feeling vague and deep ; 
 While his soul in thoughts of beauty, 
 
 Charmed with silence, seemed to sleep. 
 l>ut he saw, o er moss and lichen, 
 
 Every tulip s fiery crest, 
 And they seemed like travelers murmuring : 
 
 Alabama. Here we rest. 
 
 Lost and prostrate now, the hunter 
 
 Changing to a spring did seem ; 
 Then adown the mountain s bosom, 
 
 Like a ringlet fell a stream! 
 
 Eadcin semper; for the noblest 
 11*
 
 126 LEGEND OF THE KAATERSKILL 
 
 Who to greatest heights attain, 
 Find the pleasure-pain of knowledge 
 
 But are dashed to earth again. 
 They have found the fount a Mara, 
 
 Still receding in the ken ; 
 But their thoughts, in living waters, 
 
 Wander through the hearts of men. 
 
 So the streamlet down the valley, 
 
 Laughed in ripples in the sun, 
 Purling o er the distant reaches, 
 
 When the day had just begun. 
 While, in spiral whirls, the bittern 
 
 Sailed its lonely way along, 
 Drinking in the scents of roses, 
 
 Where they bourgeon in a throng. 
 And the Indian s deathless spirit, 
 
 Wrapped in golden languors still, 
 Whispers bliss in every murmur 
 
 Of the crystal Kaaterskill.
 
 127 
 
 THE RIVER-SIDE. 
 
 I TAKE the path where none intrude 
 A sparry line by thorp and sted 
 
 And in a wave-lipped solitude, 
 Tinct with flushed spring-time overhead, 
 
 I watch the hills whose feet are shores : 
 In crystal calms their shadow lies, 
 
 Which seem like marble palace floors, 
 
 Roofed with the arras of the skies. 
 
 
 
 The silken buds are on each tree : 
 
 Dear birds their pent-up rapture sin<* : 
 
 While flowery banners wave to me, 
 And petal bells sweet welcome riiur.
 
 128 THE RIVER-SIDK. 
 
 Tlie Spring breaks through the fading rime ; 
 
 Once more she robes these banks for you, 
 "With glories of a fairer clime, 
 
 Oh, River, sister of the dew ! 
 
 Oh, River, sister of the sea, 
 
 Flow down, and all thy being pour 
 Into thy brother s arms, to be 
 
 A tvpe of time for evermore. 
 For each year leads to greater ends : 
 
 The future dawns with brighter smiles. 
 And fate, a veering shallop, tends 
 
 To summer seas and jasper isles. 
 
 To dare is half what tis to do 
 So, ever daring for the right, 
 
 Keeping some noble aim in view, 
 
 Let each strive onward with his might. 
 
 Then social ills will soon assuage- 
 Then life will not be dead at heart,
 
 THE III V Ell- SIDE. 129 
 
 But time soon bring th Elysian ago 
 When Use shall take the hand of Art. 
 
 Oh, River! mother of the rain, 
 
 Along your brink spiced flowers abound, 
 And here a lily blooms again 
 
 An ivory lyre, with fragrant sound. 
 Ah! even a bud with perfume breath, 
 
 Is with a holy lesson rife ; 
 For life is but the germ of death, 
 
 And death, the bud of higher life. 
 
 And so I dream with calm delight, 
 
 And watch the River sparkle by, 
 Till, like a ripened autumn, night 
 
 lias strown, with golden leaves, the sky. 
 Xow, though I go, I know whene er 
 
 I see bright waters glide and gleam, 
 I ll fancy once again I hear 
 
 Thy silver dash of waves, oh stream !
 
 130 
 
 DORA. 
 
 Now for the first in six long years, I stood 
 
 Beside my cousin, Dora, at the Hall 
 
 A gray old grange which mocked the errant 
 
 years ; 
 
 Its features English, as my uncle s were 
 The dear God give him peace, for he is dead. 
 Dora the- woman, statelier than the girl, 
 Shook hands, and placed her husband s fast 
 
 in mine, 
 Saying to him : 
 
 "Oh, Vivian! though he once 
 Made stalking shadows of three weary 
 
 years, 
 Forgive, forgive my cousin for my sake."
 
 DOHA. 131 
 
 Strange words: and when I asked the sense, 
 They both threw out a hundred butterflies 
 Of questions of the time since last we met, 
 Which flew for answer round and round my 
 
 ears ; 
 
 And Dora set her child upon my knee, 
 Which had its mother s eyes and golden hair. 
 
 Soon after, Vivian thus : " At times, I write 
 To quell the waking dream that life oft seems;" 
 So, to explain the vague words of his wife, 
 He read a poem, three years old that day 
 Written on visiting the quaint, old Hall, 
 After my uncle s death, with Dora gone : 
 
 At the angle of the path, 
 Plays the fountain in the air : 
 
 S \vans are in a crystal bath ; 
 Roses in the sweet parterre.
 
 132 DOHA. 
 
 In the glamour and the shine, 
 Drowse the peacocks on the wall, 
 
 Where the sprays of eglantine, 
 O er the marble Daphne fall. 
 
 Memory clingeth to the scene, 
 And the lily-clouded cope : 
 
 On the past she seems to lean 
 That her anchor, she a Hope. 
 
 For across a silent sea, 
 
 Flashes gleam along the shore 
 Dreams of one who is to me, 
 
 Queen of days that are no more. 
 
 Mere close-linked at eve, we saw 
 Branchy shadows braid the walk ; 
 
 And with civic strife and law 
 Mingled in discursive talk. 
 
 She had dreamy, harebell eyes, 
 Sunning oVr a fault less lim-
 
 DORA. 133 
 
 Soul-deeps for her low replies, 
 And a form of perfect grace. 
 
 When the night hung balanced near, 
 Oft we took this dusky lawn ; 
 
 And the starry circle here, 
 
 Seemed the wedding-ring of dawn. 
 
 When at eve we lingered late, 
 Ere she sought her calm repose, 
 
 Pressed I, at the garden gate, 
 Lips as sensuous as a rose. 
 
 Oh, the fancies which I reared 1 
 Built the future broad and fair 
 
 Never once a flaw appeared 
 In my castle in the air 1 
 
 So, like leaves upon a stream, 
 All the happy days went by 
 Then another came between, 
 
 And we parted she and I. 
 12
 
 134 DOHA. 
 
 [lore he read to her of May- 
 Whispered blithely in her ear : 
 
 Here she walked the pebbled way- 
 Sang the songs I loved to hear. 
 
 Though we smile at all love care, 
 Oft its memories ne er depart ; 
 
 So my castle in the air 
 
 Is in ruins round my heart. 
 
 This was a prophet s palimpsest, from whence 
 I drew the meaning of my cousin s words, 
 Which circled them but late a G-yges ring. 
 Now 1 remembered how six years ago, 
 I read and walked with Dora in the lawn, 
 WhenVivian, maddened by some jealous dread. 
 Had left her rashly, thinking me her choice. 
 So looking up, and comprehending all, 
 I saw their glances meet as lips.
 
 A C A V ]; E C II O. 
 
 I COME o er sandhill and o er wave, 
 
 A whisper of the giant deep, 
 To echo down this granite cave, 
 
 And find herein a charmed sleep. 
 I break the silence far around. 
 
 Which woos with weird Circean sway, 
 Though but the frightened shadow-sound, 
 
 Of.-ome sea-murmur passed away. 
 1 sigh through glooms of stalactite 
 
 Circinal ferns 1 tremble by, 
 Till, set with light, the happy night 
 
 Rolls star-capped billows up the sky. 
 
 ] faint in savors of the spring: 
 
 The cinque-drops i ? the cowslips breast, 
 And larks which "tirra lirra" sing.
 
 1:{G A CAVE ECHO. 
 
 All, all do tempt mo back to rest. 
 I touched the silver coifs of waves, 
 
 And on the shore the fronded moss, 
 But here in gleamy, garnet caves, 
 
 Lo! all my gain doth end with loss. 
 I fly athwart the rocks, and flee 
 
 In jasper grottos dashed with stain, 
 Till unto me, the moon-led sea 
 
 Puts out its white spray-arms again. 
 
 A sweet mermaiden broke my rest, 
 
 Down where the coral halls are found ; 
 She pressed me to her heaving breast, 
 
 And called me fairest rose of sound ; 
 I stole away the while she slept 
 
 I kissed her lips and stole away ; 
 She did not dream that; while she slept, 
 
 Her rose would go to seek the May. 
 The downy foam, in folded mist,
 
 A c A VI-; EC* no. l;)7 
 
 Lay on her bosom, snow on snow ; 
 She little 1 wist that as 1 kissed 
 1 saw the crimson beads below. 
 
 1 sailed the wrought, asbestos floor, 
 
 Beneath the ceiling diamond-starred, 
 And all the easlle wandered o er, 
 
 Apast the drowsy merman guard. 
 I saw the mimic- donjon-keep: 
 
 A rain of restless splendor gloom : 
 The spiky coral blushing deep ; 
 
 And scallop censers burn perfume. 
 A dragon s gorge a fountain poured, 
 
 While white as snow-drop broke the spray ; 
 And when it lowered, a chanson soared, 
 
 And died in echoes far away. 
 
 Elna, my Elna, as the wind 
 Sways the sweet blossom pendant from a rock, 
 
 So all mv heart doth swav before thy soul. 
 1-2*
 
 138 A CAVE ECHO. 
 
 Elna, my Elna, as at dawn 
 The songs of unknown birds rise from the copse, 
 So nameless feelings rise before thine eyes. 
 
 The vine-fringed river spoke of thee : 
 The caves in lonely dimness asked of thee : 
 All things worship thee, Elna, my Elna. 
 
 0, I have loved thee more than life! 
 And as the glimmering stars are lost in morn, 
 So am I lost in thee, Elna, my Elna. 
 
 But naught the amber castle kept, 
 
 Was half so dear as mermaid mine ; 
 I could but watch her as she slept 
 
 Upon the damasked berylline. 
 The finny half below her waist, 
 
 In golden scales flashed up a charm ; 
 And o er her floating hair was placed, 
 
 Tiara-sweet, a snowy arm.
 
 A CAVE ECHO. 139 
 
 Crowned with a ruby star, she seemed 
 
 Like twilight mingling day and dusk ; 
 And while she dreamed, the urn-lamp 
 
 gleamed 
 
 Through porphyry chambers rich with 
 musk. 
 
 I kissed the mermaid once again 
 
 I passed where meads of sea-grass wave ; 
 And, sighing as I left the main, 
 
 I came to sleep within this cave. 
 Like joyous days which flit along 
 
 Those happy moments life doth crown, 
 Each echo seems a step of song, 
 
 To depths of silence leading down. 
 My inessential being wanes ; 
 
 I falter as I murmur through 
 These dusky lanes of onyx stains 
 
 I faint I die a long adieu.
 
 110 
 
 OLE OX AT HOP OS. 
 
 CLEON the poet, famed throughout all Greece, 
 Mused o er his tablets, in the palace hall. 
 And high the clear voice of a timbrel rose. 
 Delirious with rapture, half of pain. 
 Here Rhodope in marble, crowned with bays, 
 Supine, beside u pyramid of shade, 
 Swooned with white peace. And from his 
 
 carven niche, 
 
 Poising a flame-barbed spear, a warrior leaned 
 And battled with the shadows. Then to this. 
 Or of such import, shaped the restless thought .
 
 CLEON AT OROPOS. 141 
 
 My epos on those leaves of gold, 
 
 Through which some depthless mean 
 ings gleam, 
 Mid wordy petals fold on fold, 
 
 Is crude beside my perfect dream. 
 For quick desire outstrips our deeds ; 
 
 And these but keep the ashes wholo 
 
 Of some strange passion of the soul, 
 E en as a grate doth hold its gleeds. 
 
 But here is that which time may crown: 
 
 Here burns the silver lamp of youth ; 
 And great Minerva wanders down 
 
 To prove that progress is a truth. 
 Here runs what idol-toil has gained 
 
 To give this golden age its place ; 
 
 And here, eternity and space 
 Seem two vast circles, unexplained.
 
 1 [ 2 rLMOX AT O HOP OS 
 
 Here Venn?!, fanned with wooing gales. 
 
 Which from her bright foam-palace flee, 
 Guiding her diamond pinnace, sails 
 
 Along the calm, blue evening sea. 
 Nor hangs the suave drupe afar ; 
 
 Nor is the drused cliff hastened by : 
 
 While sprent with glory looms the sky, 
 Scooped from some giant, sapphire star. 
 
 But men may say: Perforce he strives 
 To light a torch of fame with straws. 
 
 Not so; but down our tidal lives, 
 To point from wide effect to cause : 
 
 To make truth better understood : 
 To throne fair freedom higher still : 
 To show the broad results of will. 
 
 And prove that wrong must tend to got ;d. 
 
 My words are weak: they do not hold 
 The wine of thought I wished to pour :
 
 CLEON AT OR 01 OS. 14IJ 
 
 It may be some are overbold ; 
 
 Well, they are mine, nor less, nor more. 
 JJut lull Iruition comes with time; 
 
 For art shall cross the unknown sea, 
 
 Precursor of the great To-J3e, 
 And belt the world i rom clime to clime. 
 
 T II E E N D.
 
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