PART VI.

THE MEMORY OF LOVE ASSOCIATES ITS CONSOLATIONS WITH ITS HOPES.

Now the eastern hill-top fadeth From the arid wastes forlorn, And the only tree that shadeth Has the scant leaves of the thorn.

Not a home to smile before me, Not a voice to cheer is heard; Hush! the thorn-leaves tremble o'er me,-- Hark, the carol of a bird!

Unto air what charm is given? Angel, as a link to thee, Midway between earth and heaven Hangs the delicate melody!

How it teacheth while it chideth, Is the pathway so forlorn? Mercy over man presideth, And--the bird sings from the thorn.

Floating on, the music leads me, As the pausing-place I leave, And the gentle wing precedes me Through the lulled airs of eve.

Stay, O last of all the number, Bathing happy plumes in light, Till the deafness of the slumber, Till the blindness of the night.

Only for the vault to leave thee, Only with my life to lose; Let my closing eyes perceive thee, Fold thy wings amid the yews.

MIND AND SOUL.

Hark! the awe-whisperd'd prayer, "God spare my mind!" Dust unto dust, the mortal to the clod; But the high place, the altar that has shrined Thine image,--spare, O God!

Thought, the grand link from human life to Thee, The humble reed that by the Shadowy River Responds in music to the melody Of spheres that hymn for ever,--

The order of the mystic world within, The airy girth of all things near and far; Sense, though of sorrow,--memory, though of sin,-- Gleams through the dungeon bar,--

Vouchsafe me to the last!--Though none may mark The solemn pang, nor soothe the parting breath, Still let me seek for God amid the dark, And face, unblinded, Death!

Whence is this fine distinction twixt the twain Rays of the Maker in the lamp of clay Spirit and Mind?--strike the material brain, And soul seems hurl'd away.

Touch but a nerve, and Brutus is a slave; A nerve, and Plato drivels! Was it mind, Or soul, that taught the wise one in the cave, The freeman in the wind?

If mind--O Soul! what is thy task on earth? If soul! O wherefore can a touch destroy, Or lock in Lethe's Acherontian dearth, The Immortal's grief and joy?

Hark, how a child can babble of the cells Wherein, beneath the perishable brow, Fancy invents, and Memory chronicles, And Reason asks--as now:

Mapp'd are the known dominions of the thought, But who shall find the palace of the soul? Along what channels shall the source be sought, The well-spring of the whole?

Look round, vain questioner,--all space survey, Where'er thou lookest, lo, how clear is Mind! The laws that part the darkness from the day, And the sweet Pleiads bind,

The thought, the will, the art, the elaborate power Of the Great Cause from whence the All began, Gaze on the star, or bend above the flower, Still speak of Mind to man.

But the arch soul of soul--from which the law Is but the shadow, who on earth can see? What guess cleaves upward through the deeps of awe, Unspeakable, to thee?

As in Creation lives the Father Soul, So lives the soul He breathed amidst the clay; Round it the thoughts on starry axles roll, Life flows and ebbs away.

If chaos smote the universe again, And new Chaldeans shudder'd to explore Amidst the maddening elements in vain The harmonious Mind of yore,

Would not God live the same?--the Unseen Spirit, Whether that life or wills or wrecks Creation?-- So lives, distinct, the god-spark we inherit, When Mind is desolation.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

From Heaven what fancy stole The dream of some good spirit, aye at hand, The seraph whispering to the exile soul Tales of its native land?

Who to the cradle gave The unseen watcher by the mother's side, Born with the birth, companion to the grave, The holy angel-guide?

Is it a fable?--"No," I hear LOVE answer from the sunlit air, "Still where _my_ presence gilds the darkness--know Life's angel-guide is there?"

Is it a fable?--Hark, FAITH hymns from deeps beyond the palest star, "_I_ am the pilot to thy wandering bark, Thy guide to shores afar."

Is it a fable?--sweet From wave, from air, from every forest tree, The murmur spoke, "Each thing thine eyes can greet An angel-guide can be.

"From myriads take thy choice, In all that lives a guide to God is given; Ever thou hear'st some angel guardian's voice When Nature speaks of Heaven!"

THE LOVE OF MATURER YEARS.

Nay, soother, do not dream thine art Can altar Nature's stern decree; Or give me back the younger heart, Whose tablets had been clear to thee.

Why seek, fair child, to pierce the dark That wraps the giant wrecks of old? Thou wert not with me in the ark, When o'er my life the deluge roll'd.

To thee, reclining by the verge, The careless waves in music flow To me the ripple sighs the dirge Of my lost native world below.

Her tranquil arch as Iris builds Above the Anio's torrent roar, Thy life is in the life it gilds, Born of the wave it trembles o'er.

For thee a glory leaves the skies If from thy side a step depart; Thy sunlight beams from human eyes, Thy world is in one human heart.

And in the woman's simple creed Since first the helpmate's task began, Thou ask'st what more than love should need The stern insatiate soul of Man.

No more, while youth with vernal gale Breathes o'er the brief Arcadia still;-- But when the Wanderer quits the vale, But when the footstep scales the hill,

But when with awe the wide expanse, The Pilgrim's earnest eyes explore, How shrinks the land of sweet Romance, A speck--it was the world before!

And, hark, the Dorian fifes succeed The pastoral reeds of Arcady: Lo, where the Spartan meets the Mede, Near Tempe lies--Thermopyle!

Each onward step in hardy life, Each scene that memory halts to scan, Demands the toil, records the strife,-- And love but once is all to man.

Weep'st thou, fair infant, wherefore weep? Long ages since the Persian sung "The zephyr to the rose should keep, And youth should only love the young."

Ay, lift those chiding eyes of thine; The trite, ungenerous moral scorn! The diamond's home is in the mine, The violet's birth beneath the thorn;

There, purer light the diamond gives Than when to baubles shaped the ray; There, safe at least the violet lives From hands that clasp--to cast away.

Bloom still beside the mournful heart, Light still the caves denied the star; Oh Eve, with Eden pleased to part, Since Eden needs no comforter!

My soft Arcadian, from thy bower I hear thy music on the hill; And bless the note for many an hour When I too--am Arcadian still.

Whene'er the face of Heaven appears, As kind as once it smiled on me, I'll steal adown the mount of years, And come--a youth once more, to thee.

From bitter grief and iron wrong When Memory sets her captive free, When joy is in the skylark's song, My blithesome steps shall bound to thee;

When Thought, the storm-bird, shrinks before The width of nature's clouded sea, A voice shall charm it home on shore, To share the halcyon's nest with thee:

Lo, how the faithful verse escapes The varying chime that laws decree, And, like my heart, attracted, shapes Each wandering fancy back--to _thee_.

THE EVERLASTING GRAVE-DIGGER.

Methought I stood amidst a burial-place And saw a phantom ply the sexton's trade, Pale o'er the charnel bow'd the phantom's face, Noiseless the phantom spade Gleam'd in the stars.

Wondering I ask'd, "Whose grave dost thou prepare?" The labouring ghost disdainful paused and said, "To dig the grave is Death my father's care, I disinter the dead Under the stars."

Therewith he cast a skull before my feet, A skull with worms encircled, and a crown, And mouldering shreds of Beauty's winding-sheet. Chilling and cheerless down Shimmer'd the stars.

"And of the Past," I sigh'd, "are these alone The things disburied? spare the dread repose, Or bring once more the monarch to his throne, To Beauty's cheek the rose." Cloud wrapt the stars,

While the pale sexton answer'd, "Fool, away! Thou ask'st of Memory that which Faith must give; Mine is the task to disinter the clay, Hers to bid life revive,"-- Cloud left the stars.

THE DISPUTE OE THE POETS.

An idyll scene of happy Sicily! Out from its sacred grove on grassy slopes Smiles a fair temple, vow'd to some sweet Power Of Nature deified. In broad degrees From flower-wreath'd porticos the shining stairs, Through tiers of Myrtle in Corinthian urns, Glide to the shimmer of an argent lake. Calm rest the swans upon the glassy wave, Save where the younger cygnets, newly-pair'd, Through floating brakes of water-lilies, sail Slowly in sunlight down to islets dim. But farther on, the lake subsides away Into the lapsing of a shadowy rill Melodious with the chime of falls as sweet As (heard by Pan in Arethusan glades) The silvery talk of meeting Naiades.

Where cool the sunbeam slants through ilex-boughs, The fane above them and the rill below, Two forms recline; nor, e'er in Arcady Did fairer Manhood win an Oread's love, Or lift diviner brows to earliest stars.

The one of brighter hues, and darker curls Clustering and purple as the fruit o' the vine, Seem'd like that Summer-Idol of rich life Whom sensuous Greece, inebriate with delight, From Orient myth and symbol-worship brought To blue Cithaeron blithe with bounding faun And wood-nymph wild,--Nature's young Lord, Iacchus! Bent o'er the sparkling brook, with careless hand From sedge or sward, he pluck'd or reed or flower, Casting away light wreaths on playful waves; While,--as the curious ripple murmur'd round Its odorous prey, and eddying whirl'd it on O'er pebbles glancing sheen to sunny falls,-- He laugh'd, as childhood laughs, in such frank glee The very leaves upon the ilex danced Joyous, as at some mirthful wind in May.

The other, though the younger, more serene, And to the casual gaze severer far, To that bright comrade-shape; by contrast seem'd As serious Morn, star-crown'd on Spartan hills, To Noon, when hyacinths flush through Enna's vales, Or murmurous winglets hum 'mid Indian palms. Such beauty his as the first Dorian bore From the far birthplace of Homeric men, Beyond the steeps of Boreal Thessaly, When to the swart Pelasgic Autocthon The blue-eyed Pallas came with lifted spear, And, her twin type of the fair-featured North. Phoebus, the archer with the golden hair. Bright was the one as Syrian Adon-ai, Charming the goddess born from roseate seas; And while the other, leaning on his lyre, Lifted the azure light of earnest eyes From flower and wave to the remotest hill On which the soft horizon melted down, Ev'n so methought had gazed Endymion, With looks estranged from the luxuriant day, To the far Latmos steep--where holy dreams Nightly renew'd the kisses of the Moon.

Entranced I stood, and held my breath to hear The words that seem'd to warm upon their lips, As if such contest as two Nightingales Wage, emulous in music, on the peace That surely dwelt between them, had anon Forced its mellifluous anger:--

Then I learn'd That the fair Two were orphans, rear'd to youth Song and the lyre, where ringdoves coo remote, And loitering bees cull sweets in Hyblan dells: And that their discord, as their union, grew Out of their rivalry in lyre and song. Therewith did each in the accustom'd war Of pastoral singers in Sicilian noons Strive for his Right--(O Memory aid me now!) In the sweet quarrel of alternate hymns.

ANTHIOS.

As the sunlight that plays on a stream, As the zephyr that rustles a leaf, On my soul comes the joy of the beam, And a zephyr can stir it to grief.

Whether pleasure or pain be decreed, My voice but in music is heard; By the sunny wave murmurs the reed; From the sighing leaf carols the bird.--

LYKEGENES.

Unto her hierarch Nature's voices come But through the labyrinthine cells of Thought, Not at the Porch, doth Isis hold her home, Not to the Tyro are her mysteries taught;

The secret dews of many a starry night Feed the vast ocean's stately ebb and flow; The leaf is restless where the branch is slight, Still are the boughs whose shades stretch far below.

ANTHIOS.

As the skylark that mounts With the dawn to the sun, As the flash from the founts Of the swift Helicon,

Song comes;--and I sing! Wouldst thou question me more? Ask the wave or the wing Why it sparkle or soar!

LYKEGENES.

Full be the soul if swift the inspiration! The corn-flower opens as the sheaves are rife; Song is the twin of golden Contemplation The harvest-flower of life.

The Cloud-compeller's bolt the eagle bears, But when the wings the strength divine have won, Full many a flight around the rock prepares The Aspirer towards the Sun;

Progressive heights to gradual effort given, Till, all the plumes in light supreme unfurl'd, It halts;--and knits unto the dome of heaven This pendant ball--the World.

ANTHIOS.

Hail, O hail, Pierides, Free Harmonia's zoneless daughters, Whom abrupt the Moenad sees By the marge of moonlit waters,

Weaving joy in choral measure To no law but your sweet pleasure; Wanton winds in loosen'd hair Lifting gold that gilds the air;

Say, beneath what starry skies Lurk the herbs that purge the eyes? On what hill-tops should we cull The moly of the Beautiful? What the charm the soul to capture In the cestus-belt of rapture, When the senses, trembling under, Glass the Shadow-land of Wonder, And no human hand is stealing O'er the music-scale of Feeling?

As ceased the question rose delicious winds Stirring the waves that kiss'd the tuneful reeds, And all the wealth of sweets in bells of flowers; So that, methought, out from all life, the Muse Murmur'd responses low, and echo'd "FEELING!"

LYKEGENES.

Divine Corycides, Whose chosen haunts are in mysterious cells, And alleys dim through gleaming laurel-trees Dusking the shrine of Delphian oracles,-- Under whose whispering shade Sits the lone Pythian Maid, Whose soul is as the glass of human things; While up from bubbling streams In mists arise the Dreams Pale with the future of tiara'd kings-- Say, what the charm which from ambrosial domes Draws the Immortal to Time's brazen towers, When on the soul the gentle Thunderer comes-- Comes but in golden showers? When, through the sealed portals of the sense, Fluent as air the Glory glides unsought; And the serene effulgent Influence Rains all the wealth of heaven upon the thought?

And as the questions ceased, fell every wind. The ilex-boughs droop'd heavy as the hush In which the prophet Doves brood weird and calm Amid Dodonian groves;--the broken light On crisped waves grew smooth; on earth, in heaven, The inexpressive majesty of Silence Pass'd as some Orient sovereign to his throne, When all the murmurs cease, and every brow Bends down in awe, and not a breath is heard. Yet spoke that stillness of the Eternal Mind That thinks, and, thinking, evermore creates; And Nature seem'd to answer Poesy From her deep heart, in thought re-echoing "THOUGHT."

ANTHIOS.

Thou, whose silver lute contended With the careless reed of Pan-- Thou whose wanton youth descended To the vales Arcadian, At whose coming heavenlier joy Lighteth even Jove's abode, Ever blooming as the boy Through thine ages as the god; Fair Apollo, if the singer Be like thee the gladness-bringer; If the nectar he distil Make the worn earth useful still; As thyself when thou wert driven To the Tempe from the heaven, As the infant over whom Saturn bends his brows of gloom, Roves he not the world a-maying, From his Idan halls exiled; Or with Time repose in playing As with Saturn's looks the child.

Therewith from far, where unseen hamlets lay In wooded valleys green, came mellowly Laughter and infant voices, borne perchance From the light hearts of happy Children, sporting Round some meek Mother's knee;--ev'n so, methought Did the familiar, human, innocent, gladness Through golden Childhood answer Song, "THE CHILD."

LYKEGENES.

Lord of lustrating streams, And altars pure, appalling secret Crime, Eternal Splendour, whose all-searching beams Illume with life the universe of Time, All our own fates thy shrine reveals to us; Thither comes Wisdom from the thrones of earth, The unraveller of the sphinx--blind Oedipus, Who knows not ev'n his birth! On whom, Apollo, does thy presence shine Through the clear daylight of translucent song? Only to him who serveth at the shrine, The priesthood can belong! After due and deep probation, Only dawns thy revelation Unto the devout beseecher Taught by thee to grow the teacher: Shall the bearer of thy bow Let the shafts at random go? If the altar be divine, Is the sacrifice a feast? Should our hands the garland twine For the reveller or the priest?

Therewith from out the temple on the hill Broke the rich swell of fifes and choral lyres, And the long melody of such large hymns, As to the conquest of the Python-slayer, Hallow'd thy lofty chant, Calliope! Thus from the penetralian aisles divine The solemn God replied to Song, "THE PRIEST."

ANTHIOS.

And who can bind in formal duty The Protean shapes of airy Beauty? Who tune the Teian's lyre of gold To priestly hymns in temples cold? Accept the playmate by thy side, Ordain'd to charm thee, not to guide. The stream reflects each curve on shore, And Song alike thy good and error; Let Wisdom be the monitor, But Song should be the mirror. To truth direct while Science goes With measured pace and sober eye; The simplest wild-flower more bestows Than Egypt's lore, on Poesy.

The Magian seer who counts the stars, Regrets the cloud that veils his skies; To me, the Greek, the clouds are cars From which bend down divinities!

Like cloud itself this common day Let Fancy make awhile the duller, Its iris in the cloud shall play, And weave thy world the pomp of colour.

He paused; as if in concord with the Song Seem'd to flash forth the universe of hues In the Sicilian summer: on the banks Crocus, and hyacinth, and anemone, Superb narcissus, Cytherea's rose, And woodbine lush, and lilies silver-starr'd; And delicate cloudlets blush'd in lucent skies; And yellowing sunbeams shot through purple waves; And still from bough to bough the wings of birds, And still from flower to flower the gorgeous dyes Of the gay insect-revellers wandering went-- And as I look'd I murmur'd, "Singer, yes, As COLOUR to the world, so song to life!"

LYKEGENES.

Conceal'd from Saturn's deathful frown The wild Curetes strove, By chant and cymbal clash, to drown The infant cries of Jove. But when, full-grown, the Thunder-king, Triumphant o'er the Titan's fall, And throned in Ida, look'd on all, And all subjected saw; Saw the sublime Uranian Ring, And every joyous living thing, Calm'd into love beneath his tranquil law;-- Then straight above, below, around, His voice was heard in every sound; The mountain peal'd it through the cave; The whirlwind to the answering wave; By loneliest stream, by deepest dell, It murmur'd in mysterious Pan; No less than in the golden shell From which the falls of music well O'er floors Olympian! For Jove in all that breathes must dwell, And speak through all to Man.

Singer, who asketh Hermes for his rod, To lead men's souls into Elysian bowers, To whose belief the alter'd earth is trod Still by Kronidian Powers, If through thy veins the purer tide hath been Pour'd from the nectar-streams in Hebe's urn, That thou mightst both without thee and within Feel the pervading Jove--wouldst thou return To the dark time of old, When Earth-born Force the Heir of Heaven controll'd, And with thy tinkling brass aspire To stifle Nature's music-choir, And drown the voice of God?

O Light, thou poetry of Heaven, That glid'st through hollow air thy way, That fill'st the starry founts of Even, And all the azure seas of Day; Give to my song thy glorious flow, That while it glads it may illume, Whether it gild the iris' bow, And part its rays amid the gloom; Or whether, one broad tranquil stream, It break in no fantastic dyes, But calmly weaving beam on beam, Make Heaven distinct to human eyes; A truth that floats serene and clear, 'Twixt Gods and men an atmosphere; Less seen itself than bringing all to sight, And to man's soul what to man's world is Light.

Then, as the Singer ceased, the western sun Halted a moment o'er the roseate hill Hush'd in pellucent air; and all the crests Of the still groves, and all the undulous curves Of far-off headlands stood distinctly soft Against the unfathomable purple skies, And linking in my thought the outward shows Of Beauty with the inward types sublime, By which through Beauty poets lead to Knowledge, And are the lamps of Nature, "Yes," I murmur'd, "Song is to soul what unto life is LIGHT!"

But gliding now behind the steeps it flush'd, The disk of day sunk gradual, gradual down, And in the homage of the old Religion To the departing Sun,--the rival two Ceased their dispute, and bent sweet serious brows In chorus with the cusps of bended flowers, Sighing their joint "Farewell, O golden Sun!" Now Hesper came, the gentle shepherd-star, Bright as when Moschus sung to it;--along The sacred grove, and through the Parian shafts Of the pale temple, shot the glistening rays, And trembled in the tremor of the wave:-- Then the fair rivals, as they silent rose, Turn'd each to each in brotherlike embrace; Lone amid starry solitude they stood, In equal beauty clasp'd,--and _both_ divine.[D]

[D] The reader will perceive that this poem is intended to illustrate a dispute which can never, perhaps, be critically solved--viz., whether the true business of the poet be to delight or to instruct;--and he will therefore be disposed to forgive me if he recognize certain thoughts or expressions freely borrowed from the various poets, who may be said to represent either side of the question. Among the moderns, SCHILLER especially has suggested ideas and illustrations on behalf of the more earnest creed professed by LYKEGENES--while GOETHE has been pressed to the aid of ANTHIOS. The Greek poets have here and there suggested a line on either side. After this general acknowledgment of obligation, it would be but pedantic to specify each special instance of imitative paraphrase or direct translation.

GANYMEDE.

"When Ganymede was caught up to Heaven, he let fall his pipe, on which he was playing to his sheep."--ALEXANDER ROSS, _Myst. Poet._

Upon the Phrygian hill He sate, and on his reed the shepherd play'd. Sunlight and calm: noon in the dreamy glade, Noon on the lulling rill.

He saw not, where on high The noiseless eagle of the Heavenly King Rested,--till rapt upon the rushing wing Into the golden sky.

When the bright Nectar Hall And the still brows of bended gods he saw, In the quick instinct both of shame and awe His hand the reed let fall.

Soul! that a thought divine Bears into heaven,--thy first ascent survey! What charm'd thee most on earth is cast away;-- To soar--is to resign!

MEMNON.

Where Morning first appears, Waking the rathe flowers in their Eastern bed, Aurora still with her ambrosial tears, Weeps for her Memnon dead.

Him the Hesperides Nursed on the marge of their enchanted shore, And still the smile that then the Mother wore Dimples the orient seas.

He died; and lo, the while The fire consumed his ashes, glorious things With joyous songs, and rainbow-tinted wings, Rose from the funeral pile.

He died; and yet became A music; and his Theban image broke Into sweet sounds that with each sunrise spoke The Mighty Mother's name.

O type, thy truth declare! Who is the Child of the Melodious Morn? Who bids the ashes earth receives--adorn With new-born choirs the air?

What can the Statue be That ever answers with enchanted voices Each rising sun that on its front rejoices? Speak!--"I AM POETRY!"

THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD.

Upon a barren steep, Above a stormy deep, I saw an Angel watching the wild sea; Earth was that barren steep, Time was that stormy deep, And the opposing shore--Eternity!

"Why dost thou watch the wave? Thy feet the waters lave, The tide engulfs thee if thou dost delay." "Unscathed I watch the wave, Time not the Angel's grave, I wait until the ocean ebbs away."

Hush'd on the Angel's breast I saw an Infant rest, Smiling upon the gloomy hell below. "What is the Infant press'd, O Angel, to thy breast?" "The child God gave me, in The Long Ago.

"Mine all upon the earth, The Angel's angel-birth, Smiling each terror from the howling wild." Never may I forget The dream that haunts me yet, OF PATIENCE NURSING HOPE--THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD

TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE.

Desolate tree! why are thy branches bare? What hast thou done To win strange winter from the summer air, Frost from the sun?

Thou wert not churlish in thy palmier year Unto the herd; Tenderly gav'st thou shelter to the deer, Home to the bird.

And ever once, the earliest of the grove, Thy smiles were gay, Opening thy blossoms with the haste of love To the young May.

Then did the bees, and all the insect wings Around thee gleam; Feaster and darling of the gilded things That dwell i' the beam.

Thy liberal course, poor prodigal, is sped; How lonely now! How bird and bee, light parasites, have fled The leafless bough!

"Tell me, sad tree, why are thy branches bare? What hast thou done To win strange winter from the summer air, Frost from the sun?"

"Never," replied that forest-hermit lone (Old truth and endless!) "Never for evil done, but fortune flown, Are we left friendless.

"Yet wholly, nor for winter nor for storm Doth Love depart! We are not all forsaken till the worm Creeps to the heart!

"Ah, nought without, within thee if decay, Can heal or hurt thee. Nor boots it, if thy heart itself betray, Who may desert thee!"

ON THE REPERUSAL OF LETTERS WRITTEN IN YOUTH.

Strange, as when vaguely through the autumn haze Loom the pale scenes last view'd in summer skies, Out from the mist the thoughts of sunny days And golden youth arise.

Were ye, in truth, my thoughts?--along the years Flies back the wondering and incredulous Mind, In the still archives of lost hopes and fears Your date and tale to find.

Gradual and slow, reweaving link to link, Epoch, and place, and image it recalls, And owns the thoughts it never more can think,-- Dim pictures in dim halls!

Dim pictures now; and once ye breathed and moved, And took your life as proudly from the sun As if immortals!--schemed, aspired, and loved, And sunk to rest;--sleep on!

On a past self the present self amazed Looks, and beholds no likeness!--Canst thou see In the pale features of the phantom raised One trace still true to thee?

'Twas said "The child is father to the man," By one whose world was but the shepherd's range. What seas beyond thy vale, Arcadian, Ebb and reflow with change!

In the great deeps of reason, heart, and soul, Through shine or storm still roll the tides unfailing; Each separate globule in the restless whole In daily airs exhaling.

Thus evermore, albeit to erring eyes, The same wild surface dash to shore the spray, That seeming oneness every moment dies, Drop after drop, away.

And stern indeed the prison of our doom If self from self had no divine escape; If each dead passion slept not in the tomb; If childhood, age could shape.

Happy the man in whom with every year New life is born, re-baptized in the past,-- In whom each change doth but as growth appear, The loveliest change the last!

Full many a sun shall vanish from the skies And still the aloe show but leaves of thorn; Leaf upon leaf, and thorn on thorn, arise, And lo--the flower is born!

THE DESIRE OF FAME.

WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF THIRTY.

I do confess that I have wish'd to give My land the gift of no ignoble name. And in that holier air have sought to live, Sunn'd with the hope of Fame.

Do I lament that I have seen the bays Denied my own, not worthier brows above,-- Foes quick to scoff, and friends afraid to praise,-- More active hate than love?

Do I lament that roseate youth has flown In the hard labour grudged its niggard meed, And cull from far and juster lands alone Few flowers from many a seed?

No! for whoever with an earnest soul Strives for some end from this low world afar, Still upward travels, though he miss the goal, And strays--but towards a star.

Better than fame is still the wish for fame, The constant training for a glorious strife: The athlete nurtured for the Olympian Game Gains strength at least for life.

The wish for Fame is faith in holy things That soothe the life, and shall outlive the tomb-- A reverent listening for some angel wings That cower above the gloom.

To gladden earth with beauty, or men's lives To serve with action, or their souls with truth,-- These are the ends for which the hope survives The ignobler thirsts of youth.

No, I lament not, though these leaves may fall From the sered branches on the desert plain, Mock'd by the idle winds that waft; and all Life's blooms, its last, in vain!

If vain for others, not in vain for me,-- Who builds an altar let him worship there; What needs the crowd? though lone the shrine may be, Not hallow'd less the prayer.

Eno' if haply in the after days, When by the altar sleeps the funeral stone, When gone the mists our human passions raise, And Truth is seen alone:

When causeless Hate can wound its prey no more, And fawns its late repentance o'er the dead, If gentle footsteps from some kindlier shore Pause by the narrow bed.

Or if yon children, whose young sounds of glee Float to mine ear the evening gales along, Recall some echo, in their years to be, Of not all-perish'd song!

Taking some spark to glad the hearth, or light The student lamp, from now neglected fires,-- And one sad memory in the sons requite What--I forgive the sires.

THE LOYALTY OF LOVE.

I love thee, I love thee; In vain I endeavour To fly from thine image; It haunts me for ever.

All things that rejoiced me Now weary and pall; I feel in thine absence Bereft of mine all.

My heart is the dial; Thy looks are the sun; I count but the moments Thou shinest upon.

Oh, royal, believe me, It is to control Two mighty dominions, The Heart and the Soul.

To know that thy whisper Each pang can beguile; And feel that creation Is lit by thy smile.

Yet every dominion Needs care to retain-- Dost thou know when thou pain'st me Or smile at the pain?

Alas! the heart-sickness, The doubt and the dread, When some word that we pine for Cold lips have not said!

When no pulses respond to The feelings we prove; And we tremble to question "If _this_ can be love;"

At moments comparing Thy heart with mine own, I mourn not my bondage, I sigh for thy throne.

For if thou forsake me, Too well I divine That no love could defend thee From sorrow like mine.

And this, O ungrateful, I most should deplore-- That the heart thou hadst broken Could shield thee no more!

A LAMENT.

I stand where I last stood with thee! Sorrow, O sorrow! There is not a leaf on the trysting-tree; There is not a joy on the earth to me; Sorrow, O sorrow! When shalt thou be once again what thou wert? Oh, the sweet yesterdays fled from the heart! Have they a morrow?-- Here we stood, ere we parted, so close side by side; Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide When, moment on moment, there rushes between The one and the other, a sea;-- Ah, never can fall from the days that have been A gleam on the years that shall be!

LOST AND AVENGED.

O God, give me rest from a thought! I cannot escape it nor brave; Dread ghost of a joy that I sought To harrow my soul from its grave!

Farewell to the smile of the sun, The cheerful Religion of Trust! I centred my future in One, And wake as it crumbles to dust!

Oh, blest are the tears that are shed For love that was true to the last. The future restores us the dead, The false we expel from the past.--

Yet all, when I summon my pride Thyself as I find thee to see, Again there descends to my side The angel I dreamt thee to be.

Again thou enchantest my ear; My soul hangs again on thy breath, And murmurs that melt in a tear Repeat "I am thine unto death!"

Again is the light of thine eyes The limpid reflection of Truth; Thy smile gives me back to the skies That lit the ideals of youth.

Oh, is it thyself that I mourn, Or is it that dream of my heart Which glides from the reach of my scorn, And soars from the clay that thou art?

Well, go--take this comfort with thee, (I know thou art vain of thy power,) Thou hast blighted existence for me, Thou hast left not a germ for the flower;

My star may escape the eclipse, The music that tuned it is o'er; The smile may return to my lips-- It fades from my heart evermore;

Yet dark on thy being will fall A shade from the wreck of my own, Long years shalt thou sigh over all Thou hast in a day overthrown.

For none shall exalt thee as I! Ah, none whom thy spells may control Shall deck thee in hues from the sky, And breathe in thy statue his soul.--

None build from the glories of song The brighter existence above, The realm which to poets belong, The throne they bestow where they love.

Let earth its chill colours regain, The moonlight depart from thy sea, Explore through creation in vain The fairy land vanish'd with me.

I take back the all I had given: Thy charm, with my folly is o'er; From the rank I assign'd thee in heaven Descend to thy level once more.

O grief!--whether here or above, Must my soul thus be sever'd from thine? Ah, mourn--though I had not thy love-- The sin that bereaves thee of mine.

THE TREASURES BY THE WAYSIDE.

A TALE FOR SORROW.

The sky was dull, the scene was wild, I wander'd up the mountain way; And with me went a joyous child, The man in thought, the child at play,

My heart was sad with many a grief; Mine eyes with former tears were dim; The child!--a stone, a flower, a leaf, Had each its fairy wealth to him!

From time to time, unto my side He bounded back to show the treasure; I was not hard enough to chide, Nor wise enough to share his pleasure.

We paused at last--the child began Again his sullen guide to tease; "They say you are a learned man-- So look, and tell me what are these?"

Aroused with pain, my listless eyes The various spoils scarce wander o'er; Than straight they hail a sage's prize In what seem'd infant toys before:

This herb was one the glorious Swede Had given a garden's wealth to find; That stone had harden'd round a weed The earliest deluge left behind.

Fit stores for science, Discontent Had pass'd unheeding on the wild; And Nature had her wonders lent As things of gladness to the child!

Thus, through the present, Sorrow goes, And sees its barren self alone; While healing in the leaflet grows, And Time blooms back within the stone.

O THOU, so prodigal of good, Whose wisdom with delight is clad; How clear should be to Gratitude The golden duty--to be glad!

ADDRESS TO THE SOUL IN DESPONDENCY.

No, Soul! not in vain thou hast striven, Unless thou abandon the strife; Forsworn to the banners of Heaven, If false in the battle of life.

Why--counting the gain or the loss-- The badge of the temple assume? March on! if thy sign be the Cross, Thy triumph must be at the Tomb.

Say, doth not the soldier rejoice If placed by his chief at the van? As spirit, submit to the choice The noble would welcome as man.

"Farewell to the splendour of light!" The Greek could exulting exclaim, Resign'd to the Hades of Night, To live in the air as A NAME.

Could he, for a future so vain, Every pang in the present control, Yet thou of a moment complain In thine infinite life as a soul?

Like thee, do not millions receive Their chalice embitter'd with gall? If good be creation--believe _That_ good which is common to all!

In evil itself, to the glance Of the wise, half the riddles are clear Were wisdom but perfect, perchance, The rest might in love disappear.

The thunder that scatters the pest May be but a type of the whole; And storms which have darken'd the breast May bring but its health to the soul.

Can earth, where the harrow is driven, The sheaf in the furrow foresee,-- Or thou guess the harvest of heaven Where iron has enter'd in thee?

* * * * *

CORN-FLOWERS.