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POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH HELEN WHITMAN. 
 
 Iiik./ ^ ^ 
 
 BOSTON : 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 1879. 
 
! 
 
 PS -312 
 
 Copyright, 1878, 
 By charlotte F. and MAUDE DAILEY 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY vii 
 
 POEMS ^ 
 
 A Still Day in Autumn 3 
 
 The Trailing Arbutus 6 
 
 MooNRiSE IN May 9 
 
 The Morning-Glory 12 
 
 Woodwalks IN Spring 15 
 
 On a Statue of David iS 
 
 A Night in August 21 
 
 To 23 
 
 Floralie • .24 
 
 Stanzas with a Bridal Ring ... 25 
 
 The Golden Ball 26 
 
 On Fannie's Charm Lamp .... 33 
 
 In April's Dim and Showery Nights . . 34 
 
 On a Magdalen by Carlo Dolce . . 3^ 
 
 Summer's Call to the Little Orphan . . 38 
 
 Lines Written in November ... 42 
 
 Evening on the Banks of the Moshassuck . 46 
 
 The Garden Sepulchre .... 49 
 
 A Day of the Indian Summer . • • 53 
 
 A November Landscape ..... 5^ 
 
 A Hollow of the Hills 59 
 
 To 63 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 Morning after a Storm 64 
 
 To E. O. S 66 
 
 She Blooms no more 67 
 
 The Past 69 
 
 The Raven 72 
 
 Remembered Music 75 
 
 Our Island of Dreams 76 
 
 The Last Flowers 78 
 
 Song 80 
 
 Withered Flowers 82 
 
 The Phantom Voice 83 
 
 Arcturus, Written in October ... 86 
 
 Resurgemus %•] 
 
 Sonnets. To . 1 90 
 
 II 91 
 
 III 92 
 
 IV 93 
 
 V 94 
 
 VI 95 
 
 Arcturus, Written in April ... 96 
 
 To the Morning-Star .... 99 
 
 HOURS OF LIFE loi 
 
 Morning 103 
 
 Noon ■ . . . . 109 
 
 Evening 125 
 
 ADDITIONAL POEMS 135 
 
 Sonnets to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. T. 137 
 
 11. 138 
 
 in. 139 
 
 To Perdita 140 
 
 A Pansy from the Grave of Keats . . 142 
 
 Apple Blooms 145 
 
 Night Wanes 147 
 
 Night and Storm ...... 149 
 
 Don Isle 151 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 Nightfall on the Seaconnet Shore . . 153 
 
 To Shirley 156 
 
 Proserpine to Pluto in Hades . . . 158 
 
 The Typhon 162 
 
 Christmas Eve 165 
 
 Santa Claus 167 
 
 Our Last Walk 170 
 
 Our Haunted Room 173 
 
 Memorial Hymn 176 
 
 A Bunch of Grapes 178 
 
 The Old Mirror 181 
 
 The Night Blooming Cereus . . . .184 
 
 A Pat of Butter 186 
 
 Epig^a 188 
 
 Science 190 
 
 To the Angel of Death 192 
 
 The Portrait 195 
 
 The Venus of Milo 198 
 
 In Memoriam 201 
 
 My Flowers 203 
 
 TRANSLATIONS . . ..... . . 205 
 
 The Garden Minster . H^V^^'^. . . 207 
 
 The Rout of the Children ./riLtfV'j . . 208 
 
 The Lost Church . . . . " . . . 214 
 
 Leonora .... J^^v--> . . 217 
 
 From Goethe's Faust . . - . . . . 228 
 
 To the Clouds . . . V . . . 230 
 
 The Dying Heroes 232 
 
 The Cottage 235 
 
 CINDERELLA AND THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 237 
 
 Cinderella 239 
 
 The Sleeping Beauty 249 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Nicholas Powers of three generations in 
 Rhode Island traced their descent from Nicholas 
 le Poer, whose castle of Don Isle was destroyed 
 by Cromwell. The heroic defense of this castle by 
 the baroness of Don Isle is the subject of a poem 
 in the present volume. Sarah Helen Power, daugh- 
 ter of the last Nicholas Power, was born in Provi- 
 dence, Rhode Island, January 19, 1803, and died 
 June 27, 1878. Marrying John W. Whitman, a 
 lawyer of Boston, in 1828, she was left a widow 
 by his death in 1833. Betrothed to Edgar Poe, in 
 1848, a few months before his death, the engage- 
 ment was broken, on the eve of marriage, by the in- 
 terference of friends. The early life of the poet 
 was shadowed by the long absence of her father, 
 and her later years were almost wholly devoted to 
 a sister, left her in sacred charge by her mother. 
 The poem, " In Memoriam," is the requiem of 
 this sister. This poem, Mrs. Whitman's last, has 
 all the intellectual vigor of youth, though written 
 
Viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 at the age of seventy-five. The freshness of her 
 spirit and the charm of her presence were not lost 
 in the vicissitudes of a Hfe of strange and roman- 
 tic experience. No one ever associated with her 
 the idea of age. She is represented as lying beau- 
 tiful as a bride in death, her brown hair scarcely 
 touched with gray. 
 
 The engraving in this book, from Thompson's 
 picture, shows her in the most brilliant period of 
 her life at thirty-five. The likeness is good after 
 the lapse of forty years. 
 
 Mrs. Whitman's poems, to an unusual degree, 
 illustrate the author's life. By her direction, the 
 poems relating to Edgar Poe in this volume have 
 been grouped together, though not placed under 
 a separate head. To this group belong "Re- 
 membered Music," " Our Island of Dreams," 
 "The last Flowers," "Song," "Withered Flowers," 
 "The Phantom Voice," "Arcturus in October," 
 
 " Resurgemus," the six " Sonnets To ," 
 
 "Arcturus in April," and also "The Portrait," 
 in the latter part of the volume. 
 
 In i860 Mrs. Whitman published the little book, 
 " Edgar Poe and his Critics," of which Curtis 
 wrote, in " Harper's Weekly : " " In reading the ex- 
 quisitely tender, subtle, sympathetic, and profound- 
 ly appreciative sketch of Edgar Poe, which has 
 just been issued under this title, it is impossible 
 not to remember the brave woman's arm, thrust 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 through the slide to serve as a bolt against the 
 enemy." .... " The author, with an inexpress- 
 ible grace, reserve, and tender, heroic charity, — 
 having a right which no other person has to speak, 
 — tells in a simple, transparent, and quiet strain, 
 what she thinks of his career and genius." .... 
 " In the delicate reticence of the book, — in its 
 tone of inward music, as if the singer were hum- 
 ming a melody beneath the song she sings, — there 
 is a pensive and peculiar charm. But it is not a 
 eulogy. It is a criticism which is profound by the 
 force of sympathy, and vigorous by its clear com- 
 prehension." 
 
 The present volume is the first collective pub- 
 lication of Mrs. Whitman's Poems. Twenty-five 
 years ago a small book, entitled "Hours of Life, 
 and other Poems, by Sarah Helen Whitman," was 
 printed in Providence, containing about one half 
 of the poems included in the present volume. The 
 edition was small, and the circulation limited. But 
 many of the poems had already become widely 
 popular, and the book received a welcome, such 
 as had been rarely accorded to any similar pub- 
 lication in this country, from the best judges of 
 English and American literature. 
 
 George William Curtis wrote in " Putnam's 
 Monthly : " " We have few collections of Ameri- 
 can verse so strongly individual as this; so per- 
 meated with that sincerity which instantly assures 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the reader that he is not enjoying the distillation, 
 through the poet, of another's experience, but 
 tastes, at first hand, the honey-dew which has not 
 fallen upon other pages. Such fresh and direct 
 inspiration from nature, compelling the singer to 
 express not only the sentiment inspired by the 
 landscape, but to describe the landscape itself, 
 with a success so remarkable that it is at once 
 song and picture, — such pure and holy and fem- 
 inine feeling for all changing aspects of nature and 
 the year, as if the singer's heart were a harp so 
 delicate that even chasing sun and shadow swept 
 it into music, and yet a feeling entirely untainted 
 with sentim.entality, — such profound and solem- 
 nized passion, breathing through every word, as if 
 the poet's life were consecrated to some sublime 
 sorrow, which was, in the truest sense, 'sancti- 
 fied,' — such affluence of extensive and rare cul- 
 tivation, everywhere indicated and nowhere ob- 
 truded, — are not often discovered in any volume 
 of poems, and never before in those of an Ameri- 
 can woman." 
 
 " In keen observation and delicate description 
 of nature Mrs. Whitman resembles Bryant, except 
 that there is a subtlety in her description as if it 
 was derived less from observation of the spectacle 
 and more from sympathy with the spirit. Hence 
 her landscape painting has a glow, a tone, that we 
 do not so deeply recognize in the other poet." 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 "The few translations from the French and Ger- 
 man are among the best in English literature, and 
 several of the sonnets addressed to an unknown S.^- 
 are only to be matched by the passionate and su- 
 perb Portuguese sonnets of Mrs. Browning." 
 
 George Ripley wrote in the New York "Tribune " 
 as follows : " The principal poem in this volume 
 [Hours of Life] is remarkable for the life-like 
 reality with which it weaves the recollections of a 
 profound and intense experience into the natural 
 materials of song. Here are all the usual elements 
 of poetry, — a passionate love of nature, an imag- 
 ination equally brilliant and plastic, a tempera- 
 ment keenly alive to all beautiful inspirations and 
 influences, a taste ripened and enriched by exqui- 
 site culture, and a facility and charm of expres- 
 sion, uniting spontaneous grace and freshness with 
 classical finish. But it is not these qualities that 
 form the peculiar distinction of the volume before 
 us. Rich as it is in characteristics that would es- 
 tablish an enviable poetical fame for any writer, 
 the vein of thought and sentiment which it opens 
 in its leading piece gives it a stamp of individual- 
 ity, as a revelation of the inner life, which well- 
 nigh eclipses the subordinate felicities of the vol- 
 ume." 
 
 " Every reader will be struck with the delicacy 
 of touch which Mrs. Whitman brings to the repre- 
 sentation of nature. She has looked on the uni- 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 verse not merely with the artist's eye, but in the 
 spirit of profound communion with its life, and 
 with the passionate longing to wrest from it the 
 solution of the ' eternal mystery.' " 
 
 It would be easy to multiply such tributes from 
 the Magazines and Reviews of that day. 
 
 The poems in this volume were selected and 
 partially revised for publication by Mrs. Whitman 
 in the last year of her life. It will be observed 
 that they contain occasional repetitions of senti- 
 ments, ideas, and favorite images, not only her 
 own, but those of other poets. Mrs. Whitman 
 regarded all true poetry as a contribution to the 
 common language of poets, and often drew from 
 this source without specially indicating it, except 
 where, from unfamiliarity, the cultivated reader 
 might fail to recognize the quotation. 
 
 Mrs. Whitman left the materials for a volume 
 of her prose writings, and correspondence, largely 
 autobiographical, to be published hereafter. This 
 will include her " Edgar Poe and his Critics," and 
 selections from her literary and personal corre- 
 spondence of fifty years. 
 
 Notwithstanding the seclusion of Mrs. Whit- 
 man's life, few women had more friends. To these, 
 everywhere, the present volume is inscribed. 
 
POEMS. 
 
* It caunot be luibound, my autumn sheaf : — 
 Then let it stand, a relic of the past, 
 Its mystery all its own, and it will last." 
 
POEMS. 
 
 A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN. 
 
 I LOVE to wander through the woodlands 
 hoary, 
 
 In the soft gloom of an autumnal day, 
 When Summer gathers up her robes of glory, 
 
 And, like a dream of beauty, glides away. 
 
 How through each loved, familiar path she 
 lingers. 
 
 Serenely smiling through the golden mist. 
 Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers, 
 
 Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst ; 
 
 Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining 
 To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering 
 halls ; 
 With hoary plumes the clematis entwining. 
 Where, o 'er the rock, her withered garland 
 falls. 
 
4 A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN: 
 
 Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands wan- 
 ing 
 Beneath dark clouds along the horizon 
 rolled, 
 Till the slant sunbeams, through their fringes 
 raining, 
 Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold. 
 
 The moist winds breathe of crisped leaves and 
 flowers. 
 
 In the damp hollows of the woodland sown, 
 Mingling the freshness of autumnal showers 
 
 With spicy airs from cedarn alleys blown. 
 
 Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow. 
 Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded 
 ground. 
 
 With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow, 
 The gentian nods, in dewy slumbers bound. 
 
 Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits 
 brooding, 
 Like a fond lover loath to say farewell ; 
 Or, with shut wings, through silken folds in- 
 truding, 
 Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to 
 tell. 
 
A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN. 5 
 
 The little birds upon the hill-side lonely- 
 Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray, 
 Silent as a sweet, wandering thought, that 
 only 
 Shows its bright wings and softly glides 
 away. 
 
 The scentless flowers, in the warm sunlight 
 dreaming, 
 Forget to breathe their fullness of delight ; 
 And through the tranced woods soft airs are 
 streaming, 
 Still as the dew-fall of the summer night. 
 
 So, in my heart, a sweet, unwonted feeling 
 Stirs, like the wind in ocean's hollow shell. 
 
 Through all its secret chambers sadly stealing, 
 Yet finds no words its mystic charm to tell. 
 
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 
 
 There 's a flower that grows by the greenwood 
 tree, 
 
 In its desolate beauty more dear to me 
 
 Than all that bask in the noontide beam 
 
 Through the long, bright summer by fount 
 and stream. 
 
 Like a pure hope nursed beneath sorrow's 
 wing, 
 
 Its timid buds from the cold moss spring ; 
 
 Their delicate hues like the pink sea-shell, 
 
 Or the shaded blush of the hyacinth's bell ; 
 
 Their breath more sweet than the faint per- 
 fume 
 
 That breathes from the bridal orange-bloom. 
 
 It is not found by the garden wall. 
 
 It wreathes no brow in the festal hall ; 
 
 But it dwells in the depths of the shadowy 
 wood, 
 
 And shines, like a star, in the solitude. 
 
 Never did numbers its name prolong, 
 
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 7 
 
 Ne'er hath it floated on wings of song ; 
 Bard and minstrel have passed it by, 
 And left it, in silence and shade, to die. 
 But with joy to its cradle the wild bees come, 
 And praise its beauty with drony hum ; 
 And children love, in the season of spring, 
 To watch for its earliest blossoming. 
 
 In the dewy morn of an April day, 
 
 When the traveler lingers along the way ; 
 
 When the sod is sprinkled with tender green 
 
 Where rivulets water the earth, unseen ; 
 
 When the floating fringe on the maple's crest 
 
 Rivals the tulip's crimson vest. 
 
 And the budding leaves of the birch-trees 
 
 throw 
 A trembling shade on the turf below ; 
 When my flower awakes from its dreamy rest, 
 And yields its lips to the sweet southwest. 
 Then, in those beautiful days of spring. 
 With hearts as light as the wild bird's wing. 
 Flinging their tasks and their toys aside. 
 Gay little groups through the wood-paths 
 
 glide. 
 Peeping and peering among the trees 
 As they scent its breath on the passing breeze, 
 Hunting about, among lichens gray 
 
8 THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 
 
 And the tangled mosses beside the way, 
 Till they catch the glance of its quiet eye, 
 Like light that breaks through a cloudy sky. 
 
 For me, sweet blossom, thy tendrils cling 
 Round my heart of hearts as in childhood's 
 
 spring ; 
 And thy breath, as it floats on the wandering 
 
 air. 
 Wakes all the music of memory there. 
 Thou recallest the time when, a fearless child, 
 I roved all day through the wood-walks wild. 
 Seeking thy blossoms by bank and brae. 
 Wherever the snow-drifts had melted away. 
 
 Now as I linger, mid crowds alone. 
 Haunted by echoes of music flown ; 
 When the shadows deepen around my way, 
 And the light of reason but leads astray ; 
 When affections, nurtured with fondest care 
 In the trusting heart, become traitors there ; 
 When, weary of all that the world bestows, 
 I turn to nature for calm repose, 
 How fain my spirit, in some far glen. 
 Would fold her wings mid thy flowers again ! 
 
MOONRISE IN MAY. 
 
 Long lights gleam o'er the western wold, 
 Kindling the brown moss into gold ; 
 The bright day fades into the blue 
 Of the far hollows, dim with dew ; 
 The breeze comes laden with perfume 
 From many an orchard white with bloom, 
 And all the mellow air is fraught 
 With beauty beyond Fancy's thought. 
 
 Outspread beneath me, breathing balm 
 Into the evening's golden calm, 
 Lie trellised gardens, thickly sown 
 With nodding lilacs, newly blown ; 
 Borders with hyacinthus plumed. 
 And beds with purple pansies gloomed ; 
 Cold snow-drops, jonquils pale and prim, 
 And flamy tulips, burning dim 
 In the cool twilight, till they fold 
 In sleep their oriflammes of gold. 
 
10 MOONRISE IN MAY. 
 
 With many a glimmering interchange 
 Of moss and flowers and terraced range, 
 The pleasant garden slopes away 
 Into the gloom of shadows gray, 
 Where, darkly green, the church-yard lies, 
 With all its silent memories : 
 There the first violets love to blow 
 About the head-stones, leaning low ; 
 There, from the golden willows, swing 
 The first green garlands of the spring ; 
 And the first bluebird builds her nest 
 By the old belfry's umbered crest. 
 
 Beyond, where groups of stately trees, 
 Waiting their vernal draperies. 
 Stand outlined on the evening sky. 
 The golden lakes of sunset lie ; 
 With many-colored isles of light. 
 Purple and pearl and chrysolite. 
 And realms of cloud-land, floating far 
 Beyond the horizon's dusky bar, — 
 Now fading from the lurid bloom 
 Of twilight to a silver gloom, 
 As the fair moon's ascending beam 
 Melts all things to a holy dream. 
 
 So fade the cloud-wreaths from my soul 
 Beneath thy solemn, soft control, 
 
MOONRISE IN MAY. II 
 
 Enchantress of the stormy seas, 
 Priestess of Night's high mysteries ! 
 Thy ray can pale the north light's plume, 
 And, where the throbbing stars illume 
 With their far-palpitating light 
 The holy cloisters of the night. 
 Thy presence can entrance their beams. 
 And lull them to diviner dreams. 
 To thee belong the silent spheres 
 Of memory, — the enchanted years 
 Of the dead Past, — the shrouded woes 
 That sleep in sculptural repose. 
 
 Thy solemn light doth interfuse 
 
 The magic world wherein I muse 
 
 With something too divinely fair 
 
 For earthly hope to harbor there ; 
 
 A faith that reconciles the will 
 
 Life's mystic sorrow to fulfill ; 
 
 A benison of love that falls 
 
 From the serene and silent halls 
 
 Of night, till through the lonely room 
 
 A heavenly odor seems to bloom. 
 
 And lilies of eternal peace 
 
 Glow through the moonlight's golden fleece. 
 
THE MORNING-GLORY. 
 
 When the peach ripens to a rosy bloom, 
 When purple grapes glow through the leafy 
 
 gloom 
 Of trellised vines, bright wonder, thou dost 
 
 come. 
 Cool as a star dropt from night's azure dome, 
 To light the early morning, that doth break 
 More softly beautiful for thy sweet sake. 
 
 Thy fleeting glory to my fancy seems 
 
 Like the strange flowers we gather in our 
 
 dreams ; 
 Hovering so lightly o'er the slender stem, 
 Wearing so meekly the proud diadem 
 Of penciled rays, that gave the name you bear 
 Unblamed amid the flowers, from year to year. 
 The tawny lily, flecked with jetty studs, 
 Pard-like, and dropping through long, pendent 
 
 buds, 
 
THE MORNING-GLORY. 1 3 
 
 Her purple anthers ; nor the poppy, bowed 
 In languid sleep, enfolding in a cloud 
 Of drowsy odors her too fervid heart, 
 Pierced by the day-god's barbed and burning 
 
 dart ; 
 Nor the swart sunflower, her dark brows en- 
 rolled 
 With their broad carcanets of living gold, — 
 A captive princess, following the car 
 Of her proud conqueror ; nor that sweet star, 
 The evening primrose, pallid with strange 
 
 dreams 
 Born of the wan moon's melancholy beams ; 
 Nor any flower that doth its tendrils twine 
 Around my memory, hath a charm like thine. 
 Child of the morning, passionless and fair 
 As some ethereal creature of the air. 
 Waiting not for the bright lord of the hours 
 To weary of thy bloom in sultry bowers ; 
 Nor like the summer rose, that one by one, 
 Yields her fair, fragrant petals to the sun, 
 Faint with the envenomed sweetness of his 
 
 smile, 
 That doth to lingering death her race beguile ; 
 But, as some spirit of the air doth fade 
 Into the light from its own essence rayed, 
 So, Glory of the morning, fair and cold. 
 
14 THE MORNING-GLORY. 
 
 Soon in thy circling halo dost thou fold 
 Thy virgin bloom, and from our vision hide 
 That form too fair, on earth, unsullied to 
 abide.^ 
 
 1849. 
 
 1 " The disk of the Convolvulus, after remaining expanded 
 for a few hours, gathers itself up within the five star-like 
 rays that intersect the corolla until it is entirely concealed 
 from sight." — St. Pierre. 
 
WOOD-WALKS IN SPRING. 
 
 "Pleasure sits in the flower cups, and breathes itself out in fragrance." 
 
 Rahel. 
 
 As the fabled stone into music woke 
 When the morning sun o'er the marble broke, 
 So wakes the heart from its stern repose, 
 As, o'er brow and bosom, the spring wind 
 
 blows ; 
 So it stirs and trembles, as each low sigh 
 Of the breezy south comes murmuring by, — 
 Murmuring by, like a voice of love. 
 Wooing us forth amid flowers to rove ; 
 Breathing of meadow-paths, thickly sown 
 With pearls, from the blossoming fruit-trees 
 
 blown, 
 And of banks that slope to the southern sky. 
 Where languid violets love to lie. 
 
 No foliage droops o'er the wood-path now. 
 No dark vines, swinging from bough to bough ; 
 But a trembling shadow of silvery green 
 Falls through the young leaf's tender screen, 
 
1 6 WOOD-WALKS IN SPRING. 
 
 Like the hue that borders the snow-drop's bell, 
 Or lines the lid of an Indian shell ; 
 And a fairy light, like the firefly's glow, 
 Flickers and fades on the grass below. 
 
 There the pale anemone lifts her eye, 
 To look at the clouds as they wander by ; 
 Or lurks in the shade of a palmy fern. 
 To gather fresh dews in her waxen urn. 
 Where the moss lies thick on the brown 
 
 earth's breast, 
 The shy little may-flower weaves her nest ; 
 But the south wind blows o'er the fragrant 
 
 loam, 
 And betrays the path to her woodland home. 
 
 Already the green-budding, birchen spray 
 Winnows the balm from the breath of May ; 
 And the aspen thrills to a low, sweet tone 
 From the reedy bugle of Faunus blown. 
 
 In the tangled coppice, the dwarf -oak weaves 
 Her fringe-like blossoms and crimson leaves ; 
 The sallows their delicate buds unfold 
 Into downy feathers bedropped with gpld ; 
 While, thick as stars in the midnight sky. 
 In the dark, wet meadows the cowslips lie. 
 
 A love-tint flushes the wind-flower's cheek. 
 Rich melodies gush from the violet's beak ; 
 On the rifts of the rock the wild columbines 
 grow, 
 
WOOD- WALKS IN- SPRING. I J 
 
 Their heavy honey-cups bending low, 
 As a heart which vague, sweet thoughts op- 
 press 
 Droops with its burden of happiness. 
 
 There the waters drip from their moss- 
 rimmed wells, 
 With a sound like the tinkling of silver bells, 
 Or fall, with a mellow and flute-like flow. 
 Through the channeled clefts of the rock be- 
 low. 
 Soft music gushes in every tone. 
 And perfume in every breeze is blown ; 
 The flower in fragrance, the bird in song, 
 The glittering wave as it glides along, — 
 All breathe the incense of boundless bliss, 
 The eloquent music of happiness. 
 Yet sad would the spring-time of Nature seem 
 To the soul that wanders 'mid life's dark 
 
 dream. 
 Its glory a meteor that sweeps the sky, 
 A blossom that floats on the storm-wind by, 
 If it woke no thought of that starry clime 
 Beyond the desolate seas of Time ; 
 If it nurtured no delicate flower, to blow 
 On the hills where the palm and the amaranth 
 grow. 
 
ON A STATUE OF DAVID.^ 
 
 Ay, this is he ! the bold and gentle boy — 
 That in lone pastures by the mountain's 
 side 
 Guarded his fold, and through the midnight 
 sky 
 Saw on the blast the God of battles ride ; 
 Beheld his bannered armies on the height, 
 And heard their clarion sound through all the 
 stormy night. 
 
 Though his fair locks lie all unshorn, and bare 
 
 To the bold toying of the mountain wind, 
 A conscious glory haunts the o'ershadowing 
 air. 
 And waits, with glittering coil, his brows to 
 bind, 
 While his proud temples bend superbly down, 
 As if they bore, e'en now, the burden of a 
 crown. 
 
 1 Suggested by a model executed by Thomas F. Hoppin, of 
 Providence. 
 
ON A STATUE OF DAVID. 19 
 
 Though a stern sorrow slumbers in his eyes, 
 As if his prophet glance foresaw the day 
 
 When the dark waters o'er his soul should rise, 
 And friends and lovers wander far away, 
 
 Yet the graced impress of that floral mouth 
 
 Breathes of love's golden dream and the vo- 
 luptuous south. 
 
 Peerless in beauty as the prophet star, 
 
 That in the dewy trances of the dawn. 
 Floats o'er the solitary hills afar, 
 
 And brings sweet tidings of the lingering 
 morn ; 
 Or, weary at the day-god's loitering wain, 
 Strikes on the harp of light a soft, prelusive 
 strain. 
 
 So his wild harp, with psaltery and shawm. 
 
 Awoke the nations in thick darkness furled. 
 While mystic winds from Gilead's groves of 
 
 balm 
 Wafted its sweet hosannas through the 
 
 world ; 
 So, when the day-spring from on high, he 
 
 sang, 
 With joy the ancient hills and lonely valleys 
 
 rang. 
 
20 ON A STATUE OF DAVID. 
 
 Ay, this is he ! — the minstrel, prophet, king, 
 Before whose arm princes and warriors sank ; 
 Who dwelt beneath Jehovah's mighty wing, 
 And from the " river of his pleasures '* 
 drank ; 
 Or, through the rent pavilions of the storm. 
 Beheld the cloud of fire that veiled his awful 
 form. 
 
 And now he stands as when in Elah's vale, 
 
 Where warriors set the battle in array. 
 He met the Titan in his ponderous mail. 
 Whose haughty challenge many a summer's 
 day 
 Rang through the border hills, while all the 
 
 host 
 Of faithless Israel heard, and trembled at his 
 boast ; 
 
 Till the slight stripling from the mountain fold 
 Stood, all unarmed, amid their sounding 
 shields. 
 And in his youth's first bloom, devoutly bold. 
 Dared the grim champion of a thousand 
 fields ; 
 So stands he now, as in Jehovah's might 
 Glorying, he met the foe and won the immor- 
 tal fight. 
 
A NIGHT IN AUGUST. 
 
 " And thenceforth all that once was fair 
 Grew fairer." 
 
 How softly comes the summer wind 
 
 At evening o'er the hill, 
 Forever murmuring of thee 
 
 When busy crowds are still ; 
 The way-side flowers seem to guess 
 And whisper of my happiness. 
 
 The jasmine twines her snowy stars 
 
 Into a fairer wreath ; 
 The lily lifts her proud tiars 
 
 More royally beneath ; 
 The show-drop with her fairy bells, 
 In silver time, the story tells. 
 
 Through all the dusk and dewy hours, 
 
 The banded stars above 
 Are singing, in their airy towers. 
 
 The melodies of love ; 
 
22 A NIGHT IN AUGUST. 
 
 And clouds of shadowy silver fly 
 
 All night, like doves, athwart the sky. 
 
 Fair Dian lulls the throbbing stars 
 
 Into Elysian dreams ; 
 And, rippling through my lattice bars, 
 
 Her brooding glory streams 
 Around me, like the golden shower 
 That rained through Danae's guarded tower. 
 
 And when the waning moon doth glide 
 
 Into the valleys gray ; 
 When, like the music of a dream. 
 
 The night-wind dies away ; 
 When all the way-side flowers have furled 
 Their wings, with morning dews impearled, 
 
 A low, bewildering melody 
 
 Seems murmuring in my ear, — 
 
 Tones such as in the twilight wood 
 The aspen thrills to hear. 
 
 When Faunus slumbers on the hill. 
 
 And all the entranced boughs are still. 
 
 August, 1848. 
 
TO . 
 
 Eva, thy beauty comes to me 
 
 To solace and to save ; 
 A marvel and a mystery, 
 
 A beacon o'er the wave, — 
 A star above the jasper sea, 
 
 A hope beyond the grave. 
 
 Oft, when thy harp-tones wild and sweet 
 
 The waves of passion move, 
 Methinks pale Sappho's songs I hear 
 
 Murmuring of Phaon's love, — 
 Pale Sappho's passion songs I hear 
 
 Lamenting her lost love. 
 
 But in those tender, thoughtful eyes. 
 
 That look so far away, 
 A pleading Pysche bids me rise 
 
 To realms of purer day, — 
 A Psyche soaring to the skies, 
 
 To realms of perfect day. 
 
FLORALIE. 
 
 All the star-flowers on the hill 
 Nod their sweet heads wearily ; 
 
 Through the sad September day, 
 To my lonely heart they say, 
 Floralie is far away. 
 
 All the little birds that sang 
 In the copse so cheerily. 
 
 Fluttering from spray to spray, 
 Seem in mournful notes to say, 
 Floralie is far away — far away. 
 
 All the morning-stars that look 
 Through the dawn so drearily. 
 
 Turning from the joyless day. 
 By their sadness seem to say, 
 Floralie is far away, — 
 Far away — far, far away. 
 
STANZAS WITH A BRIDAL RING. 
 
 The young moon hides her virgin heart 
 
 Within a ring of gold ; 
 So doth this httle cycle all 
 
 My bosom's love enfold, 
 And tell the tale that from my lips 
 
 Seems ever half untold ; 
 Like the rich legend of the East, 
 
 That weaves and interweaves 
 Its linked sweetness, or the rose 
 
 That hath a hundred leaves. 
 
 This little fairy talisman 
 Shall love's serene Elysium span ; 
 No hope shall pass its mystic round, 
 And all within be holy ground : 
 And here, as in the elfin ring 
 
 Where fairies dance by night, 
 The green oases of the heart 
 
 Shall keep their verdure bright, 
 And hope, within this magic round. 
 
 Still blossom in delight. 
 
THE GOLDEN BALL. 
 
 A TALE OF FAERIE. 
 
 "In olden dayes 
 All was the land fulfilled of Faerie — 
 The Elf Queen, with her jollie companie, 
 Danced full oft in many a grassy mede. 
 This was the old opinion, as I rede. — 
 I speak of many hundred years ago — 
 But now can no man see the Elv^s mo." 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 In the hushed and silken chamber 
 Of my childhood, Eleanore, 
 
 When the daylight's dying amber 
 Faded on the dusky floor ; 
 
 When the village bells were ringing 
 At the hour of evening prayer, 
 
 And the little birds were winging 
 Homeward through the dewy air, 
 
 Wooing me to twilight slumbers, 
 In that soft and balmy clime. 
 
 Often have I heard the numbers 
 Of the ancient fairy-rhyme, — 
 
THE GOLDEN BALL. 2/ 
 
 Listened to the mythic stories 
 
 Taught when fancy's charmed sway 
 
 Filled with visionary glories 
 All my childhood's golden day. 
 
 In the dull and drear December, 
 Sitting by the hearth-light's gleam, 
 
 Often do I still remember 
 Tales that haunt me like a dream, 
 
 Often I recall the story 
 
 Of the outcast child forlorn, 
 Doomed to roam in forest hoary. 
 
 From the step-dame's cruel scorn. 
 
 Long she wandered sad and lonely. 
 
 Till the daylight's dying bloom 
 Left one silver planet only 
 
 Trembling through the twilight gloom. 
 
 Orphaned in this world of sorrow, 
 Chased by savage beasts of prey ; 
 
 Doomed, from frantic fears, to borrow 
 Strength to bear her on her way. 
 
 Still she wandered, faint and weary, 
 Through the forest wild and wide, 
 
28 THE GOLDEN BALL. 
 
 Till her thoughts grew dark and dreary, 
 And her heart with terror died. 
 
 When a gracious fairy, wandering 
 Forth to greet the evening star, 
 
 Found her near a torrent, pondering 
 How to pass its watery bar. 
 
 Tenderly the gentle stranger 
 Led her to the foaming fall ; 
 
 There, to guide her feet from danger, 
 Down she flung a Golden Ball. 
 
 Shrined within its charmed hollow 
 
 Many a mystic virtue lay ; 
 Safely might her footsteps follow 
 
 Wheresoe'er it led the way. 
 
 Throbbed her heart with fear and wonder, 
 
 As the magic globe of gold 
 Onward through the rushing thunder 
 
 Of the stormy torrent rolled : 
 
 On where boundless forests, burning. 
 Scorched the air and scathed the sight. 
 
 From earth's livid features turning 
 Back the solemn pall of night : 
 
THE GOLDEN BALL. 
 
 29 
 
 Still on golden axis rolling, 
 
 Onward, onward, still it sped, — 
 
 Still the maid, her fears controlling, 
 Fleetly following as it fled : 
 
 While the raging waters bore her 
 
 Safely o'er their hollow way. 
 And the flame-lights flashing o'er her 
 
 Paled like stars at break of day, — 
 
 Paled before her virgin honor, 
 Paled before her love and truth ; 
 
 Savage natures, gazing on her, 
 Turned to pity and to ruth. 
 
 So she passed through flood and forest, — 
 Passed the ogre's yawning gate ; 
 
 And when danger threatened sorest 
 Calmly trod the path of fate. 
 
 Till the night that seemed so dreary 
 Grew more beautiful than day ; 
 
 And her little feet, so weary, 
 Glided gently on their way, — 
 
 Glided o'er the grassy meadows 
 
 Steeped in perfume, starred with dew, 
 
30 THE GOLDEN BALL. 
 
 Glided 'neath the forest shadows 
 
 Till the moonlight, slanting through, 
 
 Gleamed athwart a fountain sleeping 
 
 Calmly in its hollow cells, 
 Where were little fishes leaping 
 
 All about the lily-bells. 
 
 Soon the lilies seemed to shiver, 
 And a tremor shook the air — 
 
 Curdled all the sleeping river — 
 Woke the thunder in its lair ! 
 
 Lo ! a fish from out the water 
 
 Rising oped its rosy gills ; 
 'T was the gracious fairy's daughter, 
 
 And the air with music thrills, 
 
 As a sudden glory, bending 
 
 O'er the fountain's mystic gleam, 
 
 Changed her to a form transcending 
 Fantasy's divinest dream. 
 
 Water blooms, with olive twining, 
 Crowned a brow serenely sweet ; 
 
 Robes, like woven lilies shining, 
 Flowed in folds about her feet. 
 
THE GOLDEN BALL. 3 1 
 
 With a look of soft imploring, 
 
 Thus she spoke, in rippling tones, 
 
 Sweet as summer waters pouring 
 Over reeds and pebble-stones : 
 
 " Thou hast conquered, little stranger ! 
 All thy bitter trials past, 
 Safe, through sorrow and through danger. 
 Thou hast won the goal at last. 
 
 " Lift me from the silent water. 
 Let me on thy bosom lie ; 
 For I am a fairy's daughter 
 Thralled by cruel sorcery. 
 
 " Doomed beneath the wave forever, 
 Like the virgin Truth, to dwell, 
 Till a mortal hand shall sever, 
 Link by link, the charmed spell ; 
 
 " Till a faithful heart shall fold me 
 To its home of truth and love, — 
 So the ancient Fates have told me. 
 And the answering stars approve. 
 
 " Lift me, then, from out the river. 
 Now my charmed life doth cease ; 
 
32 THE GOLDEN BALL. 
 
 Henceforth I am thine forever ; 
 Guard me, for my name is Peace." 
 
 Thus, dear child, the mythic story 
 Chimes to truth's unerring strain, 
 
 As the moon, in softened glory. 
 Sings the day-star's sweet refrain. 
 
 Thus, though step-dame Nature chide thee, 
 And the snares of passion thrall. 
 
 Unto heavenly Peace shall guide thee 
 Faith's unerring Golden Ball. 
 
ON FANNIE'S CHARM LAMP. 
 
 Within this little fairy urn 
 
 No earthly naphthas blaze and burn ; 
 But spells of necromantic power 
 
 Lurk in the little silver flower : 
 It is the very lamp, I ween, 
 The wondrous lamp of Aladeen. 
 
 And he who did the gift impart 
 To the fair regent of his heart. 
 
 Through life his folly shall deplore, 
 Slave of the lamp for evermore ; 
 
 Slave to the lady and the queen 
 
 Who holds the lamp of Aladeen. 
 
IN APRIL'S DIM AND SHOWERY NIGHTS. 
 
 In April's dim and showery nights, 
 When music melts along the air, 
 
 And Memory wakens at the kiss 
 
 Of wandering perfumes, faint and rare ; 
 
 Sweet, spring-time perfumes, such as won 
 Proserpina from realms of gloom, 
 
 To bathe her bright locks in the sun. 
 Or bind them with the pansy's bloom ; 
 
 When light winds rift the fragrant bowers 
 Where orchards shed their floral wreath, 
 
 Strewing the turf with starry flowers. 
 And dropping pearls at every breath ; 
 
 When, all night long, the boughs are stirred 
 With fitful warblings from the nest. 
 
 And the heart flutters, like a bird. 
 With its sweet, passionless unrest ; 
 
APRIL NIGHTS. 35 
 
 Oh ! then, beloved, I think on thee, 
 And on that hfe, so strangely fair. 
 
 Ere yet one cloud of memory 
 
 Had gathered in hope's golden air. 
 
 I think on thee and thy lone grave 
 On the green hill-side, far away ; 
 
 I see the wilding flowers that wave 
 Around thee, as the night winds sway. 
 
 And still, though only clouds remain 
 On life's horizon, cold and drear, 
 
 The dream of youth returns again 
 With the sweet promise of the year. 
 
 April, 1848. 
 
ON A MAGDALEN BY CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 Though every line of that sweet, thoughtful 
 
 face 
 Seems touched by sorrow to a softer grace ; 
 Though o'er thy cheek's young bloom a blight 
 
 hath passed, 
 And dimmed its pensive beauty, — from thine 
 
 eye. 
 With the soft gloom of gathering tears o'er- 
 
 cast, 
 Doth love shine forth, o'er all, triumphantly ; 
 A light which shame nor sorrow could impair, 
 Unquenched, undimmed, through years of lone 
 
 despair. 
 
 O love, immortal love ! not all in vain 
 
 The young heart wastes beneath life's weary 
 
 chain, 
 Filled with thy bright ideal, — whose excess 
 Of beauty mocks our utter loneliness. 
 
ON A MAGDALEN BY CARLO DOLCE.. 37 
 
 The weary bark, long tossing on the shore, 
 Shall find its haven when the storm is o'er ; 
 The wandering bee its hive, the bird its nest, 
 And the lone heart of love in heaven its home 
 of rest. 
 
SUMMER'S CALL TO THE LITTLE 
 ORPHAN. 
 
 " Viens j'ai des fruits d'or, j'ai des roses ; 
 J'en reraplirai tes petits bras." 
 
 Victor Hugo. 
 
 The summer skies are darkly blue, 
 The days are still and bright, 
 
 And Evening trails her robes of gold 
 Through the dim halls of Night. 
 
 Then, when the little orphan wakes, 
 A low voice whispers, *' Come, 
 
 And all day wander at thy will 
 Beneath my azure dome. 
 
 '' Beneath my vaulted, azure dome, 
 Through all my flowery lands, 
 No higher than the lowly thatch 
 The royal palace stands. 
 
 " I'll fill thy little longing arms 
 
 With fruits and wilding flowers ; 
 
SUMMER'S CALL TO THE LITTLE ORPHAN. 39 
 
 I '11 tell thee tales of fairy-land 
 In the long twilight hours." 
 
 The orphan hears that wooing voice ; 
 
 Awhile he softly broods, — 
 Then hastens down the sunny slopes, 
 
 Into the twilight woods. 
 
 The waving branches murmur 
 
 Strange secrets in his ear, 
 But the nodding flowers welcome him, 
 
 And whisper, '* Never fear." 
 
 He sees the squirrel peeping 
 From the coverts cool and dim. 
 
 And the water-lilies sleeping 
 Along the fountain's brim. 
 
 He hears the wild bee humming 
 
 In the roses by the rill ; 
 He nestles in the hollow tree. 
 
 He clambers up the hill. 
 
 He weaves a little basket 
 From the willow as he goes. 
 
 And he heaps it up with blackberries. 
 And blueberries, and sloes. 
 
40 SUMMER'S CALL TO THE LITTLE ORPHAN. 
 
 The brook stays him, at the crossing, 
 
 In its waters cool and sweet, 
 And the pebbles leap around him, 
 
 And frolic at his feet. 
 
 Half fearfully, half joyfully, 
 
 He treads the forest dim. 
 Till he hears the wood-birds chaunting 
 
 Their holy, sylvan hymn. 
 
 Then, in the cool of eventide. 
 
 The Father's voice he hears, 
 As men heard it in the Eden 
 
 Of Earth's paradisal years. 
 
 The redbird furls her shining wing, 
 
 The squirrel seeks his lair ; 
 The flowers, folding up their leaves, 
 
 Incline their heads in prayer. 
 
 The orphan feels a brooding calm 
 
 O'er all his senses creep ; 
 And, by the little ground-bird's nest. 
 
 He lays him down to sleep. 
 
 The Moon comes gliding through the trees. 
 And softly stoops to spread 
 
SUMMER'S CALL TO THE LITTLE ORPHAN. 4 1 
 
 Her dainty silver kirtle 
 Upon his grassy bed. 
 
 The drowsy Night-wind murmuring 
 Its quaint old tunes the while ; 
 
 Till Morning wakes him with a song, 
 And greets him with a smile. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 Farewell the forest shade, the twilight grove, 
 The turfy path with fern and flowers inwove. 
 Where through long summer days I wandered 
 
 far. 
 Till warned of Evening by her folding star. 
 No more I linger by the fountain's play. 
 Where arching boughs shut out the sultry 
 
 ray, 
 Making at noontide hours a dewy gloom 
 O'er the moist marge, where weeds and wild 
 
 flowers bloom ; 
 Till, from the western sun, a glancing flood 
 Of arrowy radiance filled the twilight wood, 
 Glinting athwart each leafy, verdant fold, 
 And flecking all the turf with drops of gold. 
 
 Sweet sang the wild bird on the waving bough 
 Where cold November winds are wailing now ; 
 The chirp of insects on the sunny lea. 
 And the low, drowsy bugle of the bee. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 43 
 
 Are silent all ; closed is their vesper lay, 
 Borne by the breeze of Autumn far away. 
 Yet still the withered heath I love to rove, 
 The bare, brown meadow, and the leafless 
 
 grove ; 
 Still love to tread the bleak hill's rocky side. 
 Where nodding asters wave in purple pride, 
 Or, from its summit, listen to the flow 
 Of the dark waters, booming far below. 
 Still through the tangling, pathless copse I 
 
 stray, 
 Where sere and rustling leaves obstruct the 
 
 way, 
 To find the last, pale blossom of the year. 
 That strangely blooms when all is dark and 
 
 drear ; 
 The wild witch-hazel, fraught with mystic 
 
 power 
 To ban or bless, as sorcery rules the hour. 
 Then, homeward wending, through the dusky 
 
 vale. 
 Where winding rills their evening damps ex- 
 hale. 
 Pause by the dark pool, in whose sleeping wave 
 Pale Dian loves her golden locks to lave ; 
 As when she stole upon Endymion's rest. 
 And his young dreams with heavenly beauty 
 
 blest. 
 
44 LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 And thou, " stern ruler of the inverted year," 
 Cold, cheerless Winter, hath thy wild career 
 No sweet, peculiar pleasures for the heart. 
 That can ideal worth to rudest forms impart ? 
 When, through thy long, dark nights, cold 
 
 sleet and rain 
 Patter and plash against the frosty pane. 
 Warm curtained from the storm, I love to lie, 
 Wakeful, and listening to the lullaby 
 Of fitful winds, that as they rise and fall 
 Send hollow murmurs through the echoing hall. 
 
 Oft, by the blazing hearth at even-tide, 
 I love to see the fitful shadows glide. 
 In flickering motion, o'er the illumined wall. 
 Till slumber's honey-dew my senses thrall ; 
 Then, while in dreamy consciousness, I lie 
 'Twixt sleep and waking, fairy fantasy 
 Culls, from the golden past, a treasured store. 
 And weaves a dream so sweet, hope could not 
 
 ask for more. 
 In the cold splendor of a frosty night. 
 When blazing stars burn with intenser light 
 Through the blue vault of heaven ; when the 
 
 keen air 
 Sculptures in bolder lines the uplands bare ; 
 When sleeps the shrouded earth, in solemn 
 
 trance. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 45 
 
 Beneath the wan moon's melancholy glance ; 
 I love to mark earth's sister planets rise, 
 And in pale beauty tread the midnight skies ; 
 Where, like lone pilgrims, constant as the 
 
 night, 
 They fill their dark urns from the fount of Hght. 
 
 I love the Borealis flames that fly. 
 Fitful and wild, athwart the northern sky ; 
 The storied constellations, like a page 
 Fraught with the wonders of a former age. 
 Where monsters grim, gorgons, and hydras 
 
 rise. 
 And '' gods and heroes blaze along the skies." 
 
 Thus Nature's music, various as the hour, 
 Solemn or sweet, hath ever mystic power 
 Still to preserve the unperverted heart 
 Awake to love and beauty ; to impart 
 Treasures of thought and feeling, pure and 
 
 deep, 
 That aid the doubting soul its heavenward 
 
 course to keep. 
 
EVENING ON THE BANKS OF THE 
 MOSHASSUCK. 
 
 " Now to the sessions of sweet, silent thought, 
 I summon up remembrance of things past." 
 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
 
 Again September's golden day, 
 
 Serenely still, intensely bright, 
 Fades on the umbered hills away. 
 
 And melts into the coming night. 
 Again Moshassuck's silver tide 
 Reflects each green herb on its side. 
 Each tasseled wreath and tangling vine, 
 Whose tendrils o'er its margin twine. 
 
 And standing on its velvet shore, 
 
 Where yester-night, with thee, I stood, 
 I trace its devious course once more. 
 
 Far winding on, through vale and wood : 
 Now glimmering through yon golden mist, 
 By the last, glinting sunbeams kissed ; 
 Now lost, where lengthening shadows fall 
 From hazel copse and moss-fringed wall. 
 
EVENING ON THE MOSHASSUCK. 47 
 
 Near where yon rocks the stream inurn, 
 
 The lonely gentian blossoms still ; 
 Still wave the star-flower and the fern 
 
 O'er the soft outline of the hill ; 
 While, far aloft, where pine-trees throw 
 Their shade athwart the sunset glow, 
 Thin vapors cloud the illumined air, 
 And parting daylight lingers there. 
 
 But ah, no longer thou art near. 
 
 This varied loveliness to see ; 
 And I, though fondly lingering here. 
 
 To-night, can only think on thee. 
 The flowers thy gentle hand caressed 
 Still lie unwithered on my breast ; 
 And still thy footsteps print the shore, 
 Where thou and I may rove no more. 
 
 Again I hear the murmuring fall 
 Of water from some distant dell ; 
 
 The beetle's hum, the cricket's call. 
 And, far away, that evening bell. 
 
 Again, again, those sounds I hear ; 
 
 But oh, how desolate and drear 
 
 They seem to-night ! how like a knell 
 
 The music of that evening bell ! 
 
48 EVENING ON THE MOSHASSUCK. 
 
 Again the new moon in the west, 
 Scarce seen upon yon golden sky, 
 
 Hangs o'er the mountain's purple crest, 
 With one pale planet trembling nigh ; 
 
 And beautiful her pearly light 
 
 As when we blessed its beams last night ; 
 
 But thou art on the far blue sea, 
 
 And I can only think on thee. 
 
 Septetnber, 1839. 
 
THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE CONSECRATION OF THE CEMETERY AT SWAN 
 POINT, R. 1. 
 
 In the faith of Him who saw 
 
 The eternal morning rise, 
 Through the open gates of pearl, 
 
 On the hills of Paradise, — 
 
 Looking to the promised land, 
 Saw the verdant palms, that wave 
 
 In the calm and lustrous air, 
 
 Through the shadows of the grave ; 
 
 In his name whose deathless love, 
 
 With a glory all divine, 
 Filled the garden sepulchre 
 
 Far away in Palestine ; 
 
 We would consecrate a place 
 
 Where our loved ones may repose, 
 
 When the storms of life are past. 
 And the weary eyelids close ; 
 4 
 
50 THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 
 
 Fairer than a festal hall 
 
 Wreath the chambers of their rest, 
 Sacred to the tears that fall 
 
 O'er the slumbers of the blest, — 
 
 Sacred to the hopes that rise 
 
 Heavenward from this vale of tears, 
 
 Soaring, with unwearied wing, 
 Through the illimitable years. 
 
 Each sweet nursling of the spring 
 Here shall weep its fresh'ning dews ; 
 
 Here its fragile censer swing. 
 And all its fragrant soul diffuse. 
 
 The lily, in her white symar. 
 Fondly o'er the turf shall wave ; 
 
 Asphodels and violets star 
 
 All the greensward of the grave. 
 
 Here the pale anemone 
 
 In the April breeze shall nod. 
 
 And the may-flower weave her blooms 
 Through and through the velvet sod. 
 
 Bending by the storied urn. 
 Purple eglantine shall blow, 
 
THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 5 I 
 
 Till the pallid marble takes, 
 From her cheek, a tender glow. 
 
 Where the folding branches close 
 
 In a verdant coronal, 
 Through their dim and dreaming boughs 
 
 Faintly shall the sunbeams fall. 
 
 Memories, mournful, yet how sweet ! 
 
 Here shall weave their mystic spell ; 
 Angels tread, with silent feet. 
 
 Paths where love and sorrow dwell. 
 
 No rude sound of earth shall break 
 
 The dim quiet, evermore ; 
 But the winds and waves shall chant 
 
 A requiem on the lonely shore. 
 
 Flitting through the laurel's gloom. 
 The humming-bird shall wander by, 
 
 Winnowing the floral bloom 
 From cups of wreathed ivory. 
 
 The bee shall wind his fairy horn. 
 Faintly murmuring on the ear ; 
 
 Sounds that seem of silence born 
 Soothe the soul of sadness here ; 
 
52 THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 
 
 Many a low and mystic word, 
 From the realm of shadows sent, 
 
 In the busy throng unheard, 
 Make the silence eloquent : 
 
 Words of sweetest promise, spoken 
 Only where the dirge is sung ; 
 
 Where the golden bowl is broken, 
 And the silver chord unstrung. 
 
 Faith shall, with uplifted eye. 
 All the solitude illume ; 
 
 Hope and Memory shall sit. 
 Shining seraphs, by the tomb. 
 
A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 
 
 " Yet one more smile, departing distant sun, 
 Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run, 
 And snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare." — Bryant. 
 
 A DAY of golden beauty ! Through the night 
 The hoar-frost gathered, o'er each leaf and 
 spray 
 Weaving* its filmy net-work ; thin and bright, 
 
 And shimmering like silver in the ray 
 Of the soft, sunny morning ; turf and tree 
 Pranct in its delicate embroidery, 
 And every withered stump and mossy stone. 
 With gems incrusted and with seed-pearl sown ; 
 While in the hedge the frosted berries glow, 
 The scarlet holly and the purple sloe. 
 And all is gorgeous, fairy-like, and frail 
 As the famed gardens of the Arabian tale. 
 
 How soft and still the autumnal landscape lies. 
 Calmly outspread beneath the smiling skies ; 
 As if the earth, in prodigal array 
 Of gems and broidered robes, kept holiday, 
 
54 A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 
 
 Her harvest yielded and her work all done, 
 Basking in beauty 'neath the Autumn sun ! 
 
 Yet once more, through the soft and balmy 
 
 day, 
 Up the brown hill-side, by the woodland way, 
 Far let us rove, through dreamy solitudes 
 Where "Autumn's smile beams through the 
 
 yellow woods," 
 Fondly retracing each sweet summer haunt 
 And sylvan pathway ; where the sunbeams 
 
 slant 
 Through yonder copse, kindling the yellow stars 
 Of the witch-hazel with their golden bars ; 
 Or, lingering down this dim and shadowy lane, 
 Where still the damp sod wears an emerald 
 
 stain. 
 Though ripe brown nuts hang clustering in the 
 
 hedge. 
 And the rude barberry, o'er yon rocky ledge. 
 Droops with its pendant corals. When the 
 
 showers 
 Of April clothed this winding path with flowers. 
 Here oft we sought the violet, as it lay 
 Buried in beds of moss and lichens gray ; 
 And still the aster greets us, as we pass, 
 With her faint smile, — among the withered 
 
 grass 
 
A BAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 55 
 
 Beside the way, lingering as loath of heart, 
 Like me, from these sweet solitudes to part. 
 
 Now seek we the dank borders of the stream, 
 Where the tall fern-tufts shed a tawny gleam 
 Over the water from their saffron plumes ; 
 And, clustering near, the modest gentian blooms 
 Lonely around, hallowed by sweetest song. 
 The last and loveliest of the floral throng. 
 Yet here we may not linger, for behold 
 Where the stream widens, like a sea of gold 
 Outspreading far before us ! All around 
 Steep, wooded heights and sloping uplands 
 
 bound 
 The sheltered scene ; along the distant shore. 
 Through colored woods, the glinting sunbeams 
 
 pour, 
 Touching their foliage with a thousand shades 
 And hues of beauty, as the red light fades 
 Beneath the shadow of a fleecy shroud. 
 Or, through the rifted silver of the cloud, 
 Pours down a brighter gleam. Gray willows 
 
 lave 
 Their pendant branches in the crystal wave. 
 And slender birch-trees o'er its banks incline, 
 Whose tall, slight stems across the water shine 
 
56 A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 
 
 Like shafts of silver ; there the tawny elm, — 
 The fairest subject of the sylvan realm, — 
 The tufted pine-tree, and the cedar dark, 
 And the young chestnut, its smooth, polished 
 
 bark 
 Gleaming like porphyry in the yellow light ; 
 The dark brown oak and the rich maple, dight 
 In robes of scarlet, — all are standing there, 
 So still, so calm, in the soft, misty air. 
 That not a leaf is stirring ; not a sound 
 Startles the deep repose that broods around, 
 Save when the robin's melancholy song 
 Is heard amid the coppice, and along 
 The sunny side of yonder moss-grown wall 
 That skirts our path the cricket's chirping call, 
 Or the fond murmur of the drowsy bee 
 O'er some lone floweret on the sunny lea. 
 And, heard at intervals, a pattering sound 
 Of ripened acorns rustling to the ground 
 Through the crisp, withered leaves. How 
 
 lonely all. 
 How calmly beautiful ! Long shadows fall 
 More darkly o'er the wave as day declines. 
 Yet from the west a deeper glory shines ; 
 While every crested hill and rocky height 
 Each moment varies in the kindling light 
 
A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 57 
 
 To some new form of beauty, changing 
 
 through 
 All shades and colors of the rainbow's hue, 
 The last still loveliest, till the gorgeous day 
 Melts in a flood of golden light away ; 
 And all is o'er. Before to-morrow's sun 
 Cold winds may rise, and shrouding shadows 
 
 dun 
 Obscure the scene ; yet shall these fading hues 
 And fleeting forms their loveliness transfuse 
 Into the mind, and memory shall burn 
 The painting in on her enameled urn 
 In undecaying colors. When the blast 
 Hurtles around and snows are gathering fast, 
 When musing sadly by the twilight hearth. 
 Or lonely wandering through life's crowded 
 
 path, 
 Its quiet beauty, rising through the gloom, 
 Shall soothe the languid spirits and illume 
 The drooping fancy, — winning back the soul 
 To cheerful thoughts through Nature's sweet 
 
 control. 
 
A NOVEMBER LANDSCAPE. 
 
 How like a rich and gorgeous picture hung 
 In memory's storied hall seems that fair scene 
 O'er which long years their mellowing tints 
 
 have flung ! 
 The way-side flowers had faded one by one, 
 Hoar were the hills, the meadows drear and 
 
 dun. 
 When homeward wending, 'neath the dusky 
 
 screen 
 Of the autumnal woods, at close of day. 
 As o'er a pine-clad height my pathway lay, 
 Lo ! at a sudden turn, the vale below 
 Lay far outspread, all flushed with purple light ; 
 Gray rocks and umbered woods gave back the 
 
 glow 
 Of the last day-beams, fading into night ; 
 While down a glen where dark Moshassuck 
 
 flows, 
 With all its kindling lamps the ■ distant city 
 
 rose. 
 
A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 In the soft gloom of Summer's balmy eve, 
 When from the lingering glances of the Sun 
 The sad Earth turns away her blushing cheek, 
 Mantling its glow in twilight's shadowy veil. 
 Oft 'mid the falling dews I love to stray 
 Onward and onward, through the pleasant 
 
 fields, 
 Far up the lilied borders of the stream. 
 To this green, silent hollow of the hills. 
 Endeared by thronging memories of the past. 
 
 Oft have I lingered on this rustic bridge. 
 To view the limpid waters winding on 
 Under dim-vaulted woods, whose woven boughs 
 Of beech and maple and broad sycamore 
 Throw their soft, moving shadows o'er the 
 
 wave ; 
 While blossomed vines, dropped to the water's 
 
 brim. 
 Hang idly swaying in the summer wind. 
 
6o A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 The birds that wander through the twihght 
 
 heaven 
 Are mirrored far beneath me ; and young 
 
 leaves 
 That tremble on the birch-tree's silver boughs, 
 In the cool wave reflected, gleam below, 
 Like twinkling stars athwart the verdant gloom. 
 
 A sound of rippling waters rises sweet 
 Amid the silence ; and the western breeze, 
 Sighing thrQugh sedges and low meadow- 
 blooms, 
 Comes wafting gentle thoughts from Memory's 
 
 land. 
 And wakes the long-hushed music of the 
 
 heart. 
 Oft dewy spring hath brimmed the brook 
 
 with showers ; 
 Oft hath the long, bright summer fringed its 
 
 banks 
 With breathing blossoms ; and the autumn 
 
 sun 
 Shed mellow hues o'er all its wooded shores. 
 Since first I trod these paths, in youth's sweet 
 
 prime. 
 With loved ones whom Time's desolating wave 
 Hath wafted now forever from my side. 
 
A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 6 1 
 
 Long years have passed, and on its flowery 
 brink, 
 Bereft and sorrow-taught, alone I stand, 
 Listening the hollow music of the wind. 
 Alone — alone : the stars are far away, 
 And wild clouds wander o'er the face of 
 
 heaven ; 
 But still the green earth wears her summer 
 
 crown. 
 And whispers hope through all her breathing 
 flowers. 
 Not all in vain the vision of our youth, 
 The apocalypse of beauty and of love, 
 The stag-like heart of hope. Life's mystic 
 
 dream 
 The soul shall yet interpret ; to our prayer 
 The Isis veil be lifted. Though we pine 
 E'en 'mid the ungathered roses of our youth. 
 Pierced with strange pangs and longings in- 
 finite, 
 As if earth's fairest flowers served but to wake 
 Sad, haunting memories of our Eden home ; 
 Not all in vain. Meantime, in patient trust. 
 Rest we on Nature's bosom : from her eye. 
 Serene and still, drinking in faith and love ; 
 To her calm pulse attempering the heart 
 That throbs too wildly for ideal bliss. 
 
62 A HOLLOW OF THE HLLLS. 
 
 Oh gentle Mother, heal me, for I faint 
 Upon Hfe's arid pathway ; or apart. 
 On lonely mountain heights, oft hear a voice 
 Tempting my agony with perilous thoughts 
 Of death's calm, dreamless slumber ; and my 
 
 feet 
 On the dark mountains stumble. Near thy 
 
 heart. 
 Close nestling, let me lie ; and let thy breath, 
 Fragrant and cool, fall on my fever'd cheek. 
 As in those unworn ages ere pale thought 
 Forestalled life's patient harvest. Give me 
 
 strength 
 To follow wheresoe'er o'er the world's waste 
 The cloudy pillar moveth ; till at last 
 It guide to pleasant vales and pastures green 
 By the still waters of eternal life. 
 
TO 
 
 Thine is the hope that knows no fear, 
 
 The patient heart and true ; 
 Whose wrongs but make the right more dear, 
 
 Whose love no loss may rue. 
 
 Sometimes a soft and sad surprise, — 
 A pitying angel, passion free, — 
 
 Looks earthward, from thy tender eyes, 
 Upon our frail humanity. 
 
 Thy calm brow speaks a nature true, 
 
 A marble constancy of soul, 
 A heart that can its dreams subdue 
 
 To wisdom's passionless control. 
 
 Thine eye hath the serenity 
 
 By Raphael to the Virgin given, 
 
 And from its blue benignity 
 
 Looks out the holy light of heaven. 
 
MORNING AFTER A STORM. 
 
 The wan and melancholy stars 
 Are fading with the fading gloom, 
 
 And, through the Orient's cloudy bars, 
 I see the rose of morning bloom. 
 
 All flushed, and fairer for the storm, 
 It opens on our vernal skies. 
 
 Divinely beautiful and warm. 
 As on the hills of Paradise. 
 
 And on its breast a shining spark. 
 Like a bright drop of morning dew. 
 
 Lies glittering on the rosy dark. 
 
 Then melts and mingles with the blue. 
 
 Sweet morning-star ! thy silver beams, 
 Foretell a fairer life to come ; 
 
 Arouse the sleeper from his dreams 
 And call the wandering spirit home. 
 
MORNING AFTER A STORM. 65 
 
 My soul, ascending like a lark, 
 Would follow on thine airy flight ; 
 
 And like yon little diamond spark, 
 Dissolve into the realms of light. 
 
TO K O. S. 
 
 " Eos, fair Goddess of the Morn ! whose eyes 
 Drive back Night's wandering ghosts." — Hokne's Orion. 
 
 When issuing from the realms of " Shadow- 
 Land " 
 I see thee mid the Orient's kindling bloom, 
 With mystic lilies gleaming in thy hand, 
 
 Gathered by dream-light in the dusky gloom 
 Of bowers e'nchanted — I behold again 
 
 The fabled Goddess of the Morning, veiled 
 In fleecy clouds. Thy cheek, so softly paled 
 With memories of the Night's mysterious 
 reign, 
 And something of the star-light, burning still 
 In thy deep, dreamy eyes, do but fulfill 
 The vision more divinely to my thought : 
 While all the cheerful hopes enkindling 
 
 round thee — 
 Warm hopes, wherewith thy prescient soul 
 hath crowned thee — 
 Are with the breath of morning fragrance 
 fraught. 
 
SHE BLOOMS NO MORE. 
 
 " Oh primavera, gioventu dell' anno, 
 Bella madre di fiori, 
 Tu torni ben, ma teco 
 Non tornani i sereni 
 E fortunati di delle mi gioge." — Guarini. 
 
 I DREAD to see the summer sun 
 Come glowing up the sky, 
 
 And early pansies, one by one, 
 Opening the violet eye. 
 
 Again the fair azalea bows 
 
 Beneath her snowy crest ; 
 In yonder hedge the hawthorn blows. 
 
 The robin builds her nest ; 
 
 The tulips lift their proud tiars. 
 The lilac waves her plumes ; 
 
 And, peeping through my lattice-bars, 
 The rose-acacia blooms. 
 
 But she can bloom on earth no more. 
 Whose early doom I mourn ; 
 
6S SHE BLOOMS NO MORE. 
 
 Nor spring nor summer can restore 
 Our flower, untimely shorn. 
 
 She was our morning-glory, 
 Our primrose, pure and pale, 
 
 Our little mountain daisy. 
 Our lily of the vale. 
 
 Now dim as folded violets, 
 
 Her eyes of dewy light ; 
 And her rosy lips have mournfully 
 
 Breathed out their last good-night. 
 
 'T is therefore that I dread to see 
 The glowing summer sun ; 
 
 And the balmy blossoms on the tree, 
 Unfolding one by one. 
 
THE PAST. 
 
 " So fern, und doch so nah." — Goethe. 
 
 Thick darkness broodeth o'er the world : 
 
 The raven pinions of the Night, 
 Close on her silent bosom furled, 
 
 Reflect no gleam of Orient light. 
 E'en the wild Norland fires that mocked 
 
 The faint bloom of the eastern sky. 
 Now leave me, in close darkness locked, 
 
 To-night's weird realm of fantasy. 
 
 Borne from pale shadow-lands remote, 
 
 A morphean music, wildly sweet. 
 Seems, on the starless gloom, to float, 
 
 Like the white-pinioned Paraclete. 
 Softly into my dream it flows, 
 
 Then faints into the silence drear ; 
 While from the hollow dark outgrows 
 
 The phantom Past, pale gliding near. 
 
 The visioned Past ; so strangely fair ! 
 So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets. 
 
70 THE PAST. 
 
 So Steeped in sadness, like the air 
 That lingers when the day-star sets ! 
 
 Ah ! could I fold it to my heart, 
 On its cold lip my kisses press, 
 
 This waste of aching life impart, 
 To win it back from nothingness !' 
 
 I loathe the purple light of day, 
 
 And shun the morning's golden star, 
 Beside that shadowy form to stray, 
 
 Forever near, yet oh how far ! 
 Thin as a cloud of summer even. 
 
 All beauty from my gaze it bars ; 
 Shuts out the silver cope of heaven. 
 
 And glooms athwart the dying stars. 
 
 Cold, sad, and spectral, by my side. 
 
 It breathes of love's ethereal bloom, — 
 Of bridal memories, long affied 
 
 To the dread silence of the tomb : 
 Sweet, cloistered memories, that the heart 
 
 Shuts close within its chalice cold ; 
 Faint perfumes, that no more dispart 
 
 From the bruised lily's floral fold. 
 
 " My soul is weary of her life ; " 
 
 My heart sinks with a slow despair ; 
 
THE PAST. 71 
 
 The solemn, star-lit hours are rife 
 With fantasy ; the noontide glare, 
 
 And the cool morning, fancy free, 
 Are false with shadows ; for the day 
 
 Brings no blithe sense of verity, 
 
 Nor wins fronl twilight thoughts away. 
 
 Oh, bathe me in the Lethean stream, 
 
 And feed me on the lotus flowers ; 
 Shut out this false, bewildering dream, 
 
 This memory of departed hours ! 
 Sweet haunting dream! so strangely fair — 
 
 So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets — 
 So steeped in sadness, like the air 
 
 That lingers when the day-star sets ! 
 
 The Future can no charm confer, 
 
 My heart's deep solitudes to break ; 
 No angel's foot again shall stir 
 
 The waters of that silent lake. 
 I wander in pale dreams away. 
 
 And shun the morning's golden star, 
 To follow still that failing ray, 
 
 Forever near, yet oh how far ! 
 
 Feb., 1846. 
 
"THE RAVEN." 
 
 Raven, from the dim dominions 
 On the Night's Plutonian shore, 
 
 Oft I hear thy dusky pinions 
 
 Wave and flutter round my door — 
 
 See the shadow of thy pinions 
 Float along the moon-lit floor ; 
 
 Often, from the oak-woods glooming 
 Round some dim ancestral tower, 
 
 In the lurid distance looming — 
 Some high solitary tower — 
 
 I can hear thy storm-cry booming 
 Through the lonely midnight hour. 
 
 When the moon is at the zenith. 
 Thou dost haunt the moated hall. 
 
 Where the marish flower greeneth 
 O'er the waters, like a pall — 
 
 Where the House of Usher leaneth. 
 Darkly nodding to its fall : 
 
THE RAVEN, 73 
 
 There I see thee, dimly gliding, — 
 See thy black plumes waving slow, — 
 
 In its hollow casements hiding, 
 When their shadow yawns below. 
 
 To the sullen tarn confiding 
 
 The dark secrets of their woe : — 
 
 See thee, when the stars are burning 
 In their cressets, silver clear, — 
 
 When Ligeia's spirit yearning 
 
 For the earth-life, wanders near, — 
 
 When Morella's soul returning, 
 Weirdly whispers '' I am here." 
 
 Once, within a realm enchanted. 
 
 On a far isle of the seas, 
 By unearthly visions haunted, 
 
 By unearthly melodies. 
 Where the evening sunlight slanted 
 
 Golden through the garden trees, — 
 
 Where the dreamy moonlight dozes. 
 Where the early violets dwell. 
 
 Listening to the silver closes 
 Of a lyric loved too well. 
 
 Suddenly, among the roses. 
 Like a cloud, thy shadow fell. 
 
74 THE RAVEN. 
 
 Once, where Ulalume lies sleeping, 
 Hard by Auber's haunted mere, 
 
 With the ghouls a vigil keeping, 
 On that night of all the year. 
 
 Came thy sounding pinions, sweeping 
 Through the leafless woods of Weir 
 
 Oft, with Proserpine I wander 
 On the Night's Plutonian shore. 
 
 Hoping, fearing, while I ponder 
 On thy loved and lost Lenore — 
 
 On the demon doubts that sunder 
 Soul from soul for evermore ; 
 
 Trusting, though with sorrow laden, 
 That when life's dark dream is o'er, 
 
 By whatever name the maiden 
 Lives within thy mystic lore, 
 
 Eiros, in that distant Aidenn, 
 
 Shall his Charmion meet once more. 
 
REMEMBERED MUSIC. 
 
 Oh, lonely heart ! why do thy pulses beat 
 To the hushed music of a voice so dear, 
 That all sweet, mournful cadences repeat 
 
 Its low, bewildering accents to thine ear. 
 Why dost thou question the pale stars to know 
 
 If that rich music floats upon the air, 
 In those far realms where, else, their fires 
 would glow 
 Forever beautiful to thy despair ? 
 Trust thou in God ; for, far within the veil. 
 Where glad hosannas through the empyrean 
 roll, 
 And choral anthems of the angel's hail 
 
 With hallelujah's sweet the enfranchised 
 soul, — 
 The voice that sang earth's sorrow through 
 
 earth's night. 
 Shall with glad seraphs sing, in God's great 
 light. 
 
OUR ISLAND OF DREAMS. 
 
 " By the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." — Keats. 
 
 Tell him I lingered alone on the shore, 
 Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet never 
 
 more ; 
 The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart, 
 But colder those wild words of doom, "Ye 
 
 must part ? " 
 
 O'er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a 
 
 cry; 
 Save the wail of those waters there came no 
 
 reply. 
 I longed, like a bird, o'er the billows to flee. 
 From our lone island home and the moan of 
 
 the sea : 
 
 Away — far away — from the wild ocean shore, 
 Where the waves ever murmur, '^ No more, 
 never more ; " 
 
OUR ISLAND OF DREAMS. 77 
 
 Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, 
 
 to hear 
 That lone song of the surges, so mournful and 
 
 drear. 
 
 When the clouds that now veil from us heaven's 
 
 fair light. 
 Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night ; 
 When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel, 
 He shall know if I loved him ; but never how 
 
 well. 
 1849. 
 
THE LAST FLOWERS. 
 
 " The undying voice of that dead time, 
 With its interminable chime, 
 Rings on my spirit like a knell." 
 
 Dost thou remember that Autumnal day 
 When by the Seekonk's lonely wave we 
 stood, 
 
 And marked the languor of repose that lay, 
 Softer than sleep, on valley, wave, and wood ? 
 
 A trance of holy sadness seemed to lull 
 The charmed earth and circumambient air, 
 
 And the low murmur of the leaves seemed full 
 Of a resigned and passionless despair. 
 
 Though the warm breath of summer lingered 
 still 
 In the lone paths where late her footsteps 
 passed. 
 The pallid star-flowers on the purple hill 
 Sighed dreamily, ^' We are the last ! the last ! " 
 
THE LAST FLOWERS. yg 
 
 I stood beside thee, and a dream of heaven 
 Around me like a golden halo fell ! 
 
 Then the bright veil of fantasy was riven, 
 And my lips murmured, " Fare thee well ! — 
 farewell ! " 
 
 I dared not listen to thy words, nor turn 
 To meet the mystic language of thine eyes, 
 
 I only felt their power, and in the urn 
 
 Of memory, treasured their sweet rhapso- 
 dies. 
 
 We parted then, forever, — and the hours 
 Of that bright day were gathered to the 
 past, — 
 But, through long wintry nights, I heard the 
 flowers 
 Sigh dreamily, " We are the last ! — the 
 last ! " 
 
 September, 1849. 
 
SONG. 
 
 I BADE thee stay. Too well I know 
 The fault was mine, — mine only : 
 
 I dared not think upon the past, 
 All desolate and lonely. 
 
 I feared in memory's silent air 
 Too sadly to regret thee, — 
 
 Feared in the night of my despair 
 I could not all forget thee. 
 
 Yet go, — ah, go ! those pleading eyes, 
 Those low, sweet tones, appealing 
 
 From heart to heart, — ah, dare I trust 
 That passionate revealing ? 
 
 For ah, those dark and pleading eyes 
 Evoke too keen a sorrow, — 
 
 A pang that will not pass away, 
 With thy wild vows, to-morrow. 
 
SONG. 8 1 
 
 A love immortal and divine 
 
 Within my heart is waking : 
 Its dream of anguish and despair 
 
 It owns not but in breaking. 
 
WITHERED FLOWERS. 
 
 Remembrancers of happiness ! to me 
 
 Ye bring sweet thoughts of the year's pur- 
 ple prime, 
 Wild, mingling melodies of bird and bee, 
 That pour on summer winds their silvery 
 chime 
 Of balmy incense, burdening all the air, 
 
 From flowers that by the sunny garden wall 
 Bloomed at your side, nursed into beauty 
 there 
 By dews and silent showers : but these to all 
 Ye bring. Oh ! sweeter far than these the 
 spell 
 Shrined in those fairy urns for me alone ; 
 For me a charm sleeps in each honeyed cell. 
 Whose power can call back hours of rapture 
 flown. 
 To the sad heart sweet memories restore. 
 Tones, looks, and words of love that may re- 
 turn no more. 
 
THE PHANTOM VOICE. 
 
 " It is a phantom voice : 
 Again! —again ! how solemnly it falls 
 Into my heart of hearts ! " 
 
 Scenes from Politian. 
 
 Through the solemn hush of midnight, 
 
 How sadly on my ear 
 Falls the echo of a harp whose tones 
 
 I never more may hear ! 
 
 A wild, unearthly melody, 
 Whose monotone doth move 
 
 The saddest, sweetest cadences 
 Of sorrow and of love : 
 
 Till the burden of remembrance weighs 
 
 Like lead upon my heart, 
 And the shadow, on my soul that sleeps. 
 
 Will never more depart. 
 
 The ghastly moonlight, gliding 
 
 Like a phantom through the gloom, 
 
84 THE PHANTOM VOICE. 
 
 How it fills with solemn fantasies 
 My solitary room ! 
 
 And the sighing winds of Autumn, 
 Ah ! how sadly they repeat 
 
 That low, bewildering melody, 
 So mystically sweet ! 
 
 I hear it softly murmuring 
 At midnight o'er the hill, 
 
 Or across the wide savannas, 
 When all beside is still. 
 
 I hear it in the moaning 
 Of the melancholy main ; 
 
 In the rushing of the night-wind, 
 The rhythm of the rain. 
 
 E'en the wild-flowers of the forest. 
 Waving sadly to and fro, 
 
 But whisper to my boding heart 
 The burden of its woe. 
 
 And the spectral moon, now paling 
 And fading, seems to say, 
 " I leave thee to remembrances 
 That will not pass away." 
 
THE PHANTOM VOICE. 85 
 
 Ah, through all the solemn midnight, 
 
 How mournful 't is to hark 
 To the voices of the silence, 
 
 The whisper of the dark ! 
 
 In vain I turn, some solace 
 
 From the distant stars to crave : 
 
 They are shining on thy sepulchre, 
 Are smiling on thy grave. 
 
 How I weary of their splendor ! 
 All night long they seem to say, 
 " We are lonely, — sad and lonely, — 
 Far away, — far, far away ! " 
 
 Thus, through all the solemn midnight. 
 
 That, phantom voice I hear. 
 As it echoes through the silence, 
 
 When no earthly sound is near. 
 
 And though dawn-light yields to noon- 
 light. 
 
 And though darkness turns to day, 
 They but leave me to remembrances 
 
 That will not pass away. 
 
 Novet?ibery 1849. 
 
ARCTURUS. 
 
 WRITTEN IN OCTOBER. 
 " Our star looks through the storm." 
 
 Star of resplendent front ! thy glorious eye 
 Shines on me still from out yon clouded sky, — 
 Shines on me through the horrors of a night 
 More drear than ever fell o'er day so bright, — 
 Shines till the envious Serpent slinks away, 
 And pales and trembles at thy steadfast ray. 
 
 Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star ! 
 
 to be 
 So near me in this hour of agony .-* — 
 So near, — so bright, — so glorious, that I seem 
 To lie entranced as in some wondrous dream, — 
 All earthly joys forgot, — all earthly fear, 
 Purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere : 
 Kindling within my soul a pure desire 
 To blend with thine its incandescent fire, — 
 To lose my very life in thine, and be 
 Soul of thy soul through all eternity. 
 1849. 
 
RESURGEMUS. 
 
 I MOURN thee not : no words can tell 
 
 The solemn calm that tranced my breast 
 
 When first I knew thy soul had past 
 From earth to its eternal rest ; 
 
 For doubt and darkness, o'er thy head, 
 Forever waved their Condor wings ; 
 
 And in their murky shadows bred 
 Forms of unutterable things ; 
 
 And all around thy silent hearth, 
 
 The glory that once blushed and bloomed 
 Was but a dim-remembered dream 
 
 Of "the old time entombed." 
 
 Those melancholy eyes that seemed 
 To look beyond all time, or, turned 
 
 On eyes they loved, so softly beamed, — 
 How few their mystic language learned. 
 
88 RESURGEMUS. 
 
 How few could read their depths, or know 
 The proud, high heart that dwelt alone 
 
 In gorgeous palaces of woe. 
 
 Like Eblis on his burning throne. 
 
 For ah ! no human heart could brook 
 The darkness of thy doom to share, 
 
 And not a living eye could look 
 Unscathed upon thy dread despair. 
 
 I mourn thee not : life had no lore 
 Thy soul in morphean dews to steep, 
 
 Love's lost nepenthe to restore, 
 Or bid the avenging sorrow sleep. 
 
 Yet, while the night of life shall last. 
 While the slow stars above me roll, 
 
 In the heart's solitudes I keep 
 A solemn vigil for thy soul. 
 
 I tread dim cloistral aisles, where all 
 Beneath are solemn-sounding graves ; 
 
 While o'er the oriel, like a pall, 
 A dark, funereal shadow waves. 
 
 There, kneeling by a lampless shrine, 
 Alone amid a place of tombs, 
 
RESURGEMUS. 89 
 
 My erring spirit pleads for thine 
 Till light along the Orient blooms. 
 
 Oh, when thy faults are all forgiven, 
 
 The vigil of my life outwrought. 
 In some calm altitude of heaven, — 
 
 The dream of thy prophetic thought, — 
 
 Forever near thee, soul in soul. 
 
 Near thee forever, yet how far. 
 May our lives reach love's perfect goal 
 
 In the high order of thy star ! 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 TO 
 
 Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven : 
 It had no refuge from thy love, — no Heaven 
 But in thy fatal presence ; — from afar 
 It owned thy power and trembled like a star 
 O'erfraught with light and splendor. Could I 
 
 deem 
 How dark a shadow should obscure its beam ? — 
 Could I believe that pain could ever dwell 
 Where thy bright presence cast its blissful 
 
 spell ? 
 Thou wert my proud palladium ; — could I fear 
 The avenging Destinies when thou wert 
 
 near ? — 
 Thoti wert my Destiny ; — thy song, thy fame, 
 The wild enchantments clustering round thy 
 
 name, 
 Were my soul's heritage, its royal dower ; 
 Its glory and its kingdom and its power ! 
 
SONNETS. 91 
 
 IL 
 
 When first I looked into thy glorious eyes, 
 
 And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained, 
 Heaven deepening within heaven, like the 
 skies 
 Of autumn nights without a shadow stained, 
 I stood as one whom some strange dream en- 
 thralls ; 
 For, far away, in some lost life divine, 
 Some land which every glorious dream recalls, 
 
 A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine. 
 E'en now, though death has veiled their starry 
 
 light, 
 And closed their lids in his relentless night — 
 As some strange dream, remembered in a 
 
 dream. 
 Again I see, in sleep, their tender beam ; 
 Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill. 
 Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and 
 still. 
 
92 SONNETS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oft since thine earthly eyes have closed on 
 mine, 
 Our souls, dim-wandering in the hall of 
 dreams, 
 Hold mystic converse on the life divine, 
 
 By the still music of immortal streams ; 
 And oft thy spirit tells how souls, affied 
 
 By sovran destinies, no more can part, — 
 How death and hell are powerless to divide 
 Souls whose deep lives lie folded heart in 
 heart. 
 And if, at times, some lingering shadow lies 
 
 Heavy upon my path, some haunting dread, 
 Then do I point thee to the harmonies 
 
 Of those calm heights whereto our souls 
 arise 
 Through suffering, — the faith that doth ap- 
 prove 
 In death the deathless power and divine life 
 of love. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 93 
 
 IV. 
 
 We met beneath September's gorgeous beams : 
 Long in my house of life thy star had 
 reigned ; 
 Its mournful splendor trembled through my 
 dreams, 
 Nor with the night's phantasmal glories 
 waned. 
 We wandered thoughtfully o'er golden meads 
 
 To a lone woodland, lit by starry flowers, 
 Where a wild, solitary pathway leads 
 
 Through mouldering sepulchres and cypress 
 bowers. 
 A dreamy sadness filled the autumnal air ; — 
 By a low, nameless grave I stood beside 
 thee. 
 My heart according to thy murmured prayer 
 The full, sweet answers that my lips denied 
 thee. 
 O mournful faith, on that dread altar sealed — • 
 Sad dawn of love in realms of death revealed ! 
 
94 SONNETS. 
 
 On our lone pathway bloomed no earthly- 
 hopes : — 
 Sorrow and death were near us, as we stood 
 Where the dim forest, from the upland slopes, 
 Swept darkly to the sea. The enchanted 
 wood 
 Thrilled, as by some foreboding terror stirred ; 
 And as the waves broke on the lonely shore, 
 In their low monotone, methought I heard 
 A solemn voice that sighed, " Ye meet no 
 more." 
 There, while the level sunbeams seemed to 
 burn 
 Through the long aisles of red, autumnal 
 gloom, — 
 Where stately, storied cenotaphs inurn 
 
 Sweet human hopes, too fair on Earth to 
 bloom, — 
 Was the bud reaped, whose petals, pure and 
 
 cold. 
 Sleep on my heart till Heaven the flower un- 
 fold. 
 
SONNETS. 95 
 
 VI. 
 
 If thy sad heart, pining for human love, 
 
 In its earth solitude grew dark with fear, 
 Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should 
 prove 
 Powerless to save from that phantasmal 
 sphere 
 Wherein thy spirit wandered — if the flowers 
 That pressed around thy feet, seemed but 
 to bloom 
 In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours, 
 When all, who loved, had left thee to thy 
 doom : — 
 Oh, yet believe, that, in that hollow vale, 
 
 Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain 
 So much of Heaven's sweet grace as shall avail 
 
 To lift its burden of remorseful pain, — 
 My soul shall meet thee and its Heaven forego 
 Till God's great love, on both, one hope, one 
 Heaven bestow. 
 
ARCTURUS. 
 
 WRITTEN IN APRIL. 
 
 " Nee morti esse locum, sed viva volare 
 Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere coelo." 
 
 Virgil, Gear., IV. 
 
 Again, imperial star ! thy mystic beams 
 Pour their wild splendors on my waking 
 
 dreams, 
 Piercing the blue depths of the vernal night 
 With opal shafts and flames of ruby light ; 
 Filling the air with melodies, that come 
 Mournful and sweet, from the dark, sapphire 
 
 dome, — 
 Weird sounds, that make the cheek with won- 
 der pale. 
 As their wild symphonies o'ersweep the 
 
 gale. 
 For, in that gorgeous world, I fondly deem, 
 Dwells the freed soul of one whose earthly 
 dream 
 
ARCTURUS. 97 
 
 Was full of beauty, majesty and wo ; 
 
 One who, in that pure realm of thine, doth 
 
 grow 
 Into a power serene, — a solemn joy, 
 Undimmed by earthly sorrow or alloy ; 
 Sphered far above the dread, phantasmal 
 
 gloom, — 
 The penal tortures of that living tomb 
 Wherein his earth-life languished ; — who shall 
 
 tell 
 The drear enchantments of that Dantean hell ! 
 
 " Was it not Fate, whose earthly name is Sor- 
 row," 
 That bade him, with prophetic soul, to borrow 
 From all the stars that fleck night's purple 
 
 dome. 
 Thee, bright Arcturus ! for his Eden home : — 
 Was it not Fate, whose name in Heaven 
 
 above, 
 Is Truth and Goodness and unchanging 
 
 Love, — 
 Was it not Fate, that bade him turn to thee 
 As the bright regent of his destiny ? — 
 For when thine orb passed from the lengthen- 
 ing gloom 
 Of autumn nights, a morning-star to bloom 
 7 
 
98 ARCTURUS. 
 
 Beside Aurora's eastern gates of pearl, 
 
 He passed from earth, his weary wings to furl 
 
 In the cool vales of Heaven : thence, through 
 
 yon sea 
 Of starry isles, to hold his course to thee. 
 
 Now, when in April's cloudless nights, I turn 
 To where thy pharos mid the stars doth burn, — 
 A glorious cynosure, — I read in thee 
 The rune of Virgil's golden augury ; ^ 
 And deem that o 'er thy seas of silver calm 
 Floats the far perfume of the Eden palm. 
 
 1 For there is no place of annihilation : but alive they 
 mount up each into his own order of star, and take their high 
 seat in the heavens. — Georgics, Book IV. 
 
 Aprils 1850. 
 
TO THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 *' Fair crescent star, upborne on waves of light, — 
 Bud of the morning, that must fade so soon." 
 
 Dalgoni. 
 
 Sweet Phosphor ! star of Love and Hope, 
 
 Again I see thy silver horn 
 Rise o'er the dark and dewy slope 
 
 Of yonder hills that hide the morn. 
 
 All night the glooming shadows lay 
 So thick on valley, wave, and wold, 
 
 I scarce could deem the buried day 
 
 Would ever pierce their shrouding fold : 
 
 Yet, even now, a line of light 
 
 Comes slowly surging o'er the dark ; 
 
 And lo ! thy crescent, floating bright 
 And buoyant as a fairy bark. 
 
 But ah, the solemn stars of night, — 
 The distant stars that long have set, — 
 
100 TO THE MORNING-STAR, 
 
 How can I, in thy nearer light 
 
 Of love and hope, their smile forget ? — 
 
 The stars that trembled through my dream, 
 That spoke in accents faint and far, 
 
 Can I forget their pensive beam, 
 
 For thine, my radiant morning-star ? 
 
 No dawn-light in my soul can wake 
 One hope to make the world more fair ; 
 
 No noon-tide ray illume the lake 
 
 Of dark remembrance, brooding there ; 
 
 But Night comes down the paling west. 
 With mystic glories on her brow : — 
 
 She lays her cold hand on my breast, 
 And bids, for me, the lotus blow : 
 
 She bears me on her Lethean tides 
 To lands by living waters fed : 
 
 She lifts the cloudy veil that hides 
 The dim campagnas of the dead. 
 
 Down the long corridor of dreams. 
 
 She leads me silently away ; 
 Till, through its shadowy portal, streams 
 
 The dawn of that diviner Day ! 
 1850. 
 
HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " Temp' era dal principio del matino 
 E'l sol montava in su con quelle stelle 
 Ch'eran con lui quando I'Amor divine 
 Mo3se da prima quelle cose belle ; 
 Si cha bene sperir mera cagione 
 L'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione." 
 
 Dante. 
 
 Ere youth with its auroral blooms 
 
 Dispels the tender twilight glooms 
 
 Of Infancy, while yet it lies 
 
 Close to the gates of Paradise, 
 
 No fears the guileless bosom thrill ; 
 
 The little stranger slumbers still, 
 
 O'ershadowed by the silent wings 
 
 Of angels, till the morning brings 
 
 Music and perfume, and around him flings 
 
 Her rosy mist-wreaths, drooping warm and low, 
 
 And prints her fragrant kisses on his brow. 
 
104 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Startled from out that dreamless rest, 
 Through mist-wreaths, drooping warm and 
 low, 
 
 I saw her faint smile in the east, 
 ■ I felt her kisses on my brow. 
 
 From the high meadows, dewy-sweet, 
 Fair Eos with her silver feet 
 Chased the shadows as they crept 
 
 Under woodland boughs away, 
 Or down the airy uplands swept 
 
 Into hollows cool and gray, 
 Till her full refulgence, bright 
 As a perfect chrysolite, 
 Filled the solemn dome of Night ! 
 
 With a sweet, indolent surprise, 
 Undimmed by haunting memories, 
 I saw the gradual glory rise. 
 
 Divinely calm and fancy-free 
 Were those morning hours to me ; 
 I recked not of the bitter root 
 That bears the paradisal fruit ; 
 I knew not that the serpent brood 
 Lurked in that Aidenn solitude : 
 
MORNING. 105 
 
 For childhood kept inviolate 
 The tenure of its fair estate, 
 Lulled in a murmurous monotone, 
 As when bees in violets drone. 
 
 Till gently as the spring-time showers 
 Wake the rose-buds into flowers, 
 Nature wrought her spells to lure 
 The child-heart from its clear-obscure, 
 Dazzling the bewildered sense 
 With daedalian opulence, 
 Protean visions, sweet and strange. 
 And swift and subtle interchange 
 Of hght with shadow, too intense 
 For the sweet calm of innocence : 
 Soon like the pure and priceless pearl 
 
 In Egypt's festal goblet tossed, 
 It vanished in the dizzy whirl 
 
 Of life's bewildering pleasures lost. 
 
 Wild hopes came fluttering round my heart 
 And swept its folded leaves apart. 
 As underneath those cloudless skies 
 I wandered with my Destinies, 
 Nor sought to read their silent eyes. 
 
 Thoughts for pain too dear — too deep 
 For pleasure — caused the heart to weep 
 
I06 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Tears that, steeped in fragrance, fell 
 Like dew-drops from the lily's bell. 
 
 Dream followed dream : and still the day 
 Floated on golden wings away. 
 
 Then, while each little woodland bird 
 
 One sweet note forever sung. 
 My heart on one bewildering word 
 
 Its wealth of morning music flung : 
 All the glory and the gloom — 
 
 All the passion and the power — 
 All the mystic bale and bloom 
 
 Of its high imperial dower. 
 
 Like the sole phoenix in his perfumed nest. 
 Love reigned within my heart a sovran guest, — 
 Reigned in my heart of hearts — the throned 
 
 lord 
 Of its young life, unquestioned and adored ; 
 Folding its fragrant altar-gifts in flame 
 
 That made the summer heavens look wan 
 and pale, 
 Forestalling life's fair heritage and claim 
 
 On earthly hope till hope waxed cold and 
 stale, 
 Bankrupt and blighted with the fond excess 
 Of a too rare and costly happiness, 
 
MORNING. 107 
 
 A flame that earth's calm joys too proudly 
 
 spurned, 
 And left but ashes where its altars burned. 
 
 Yet, like the fabled Greek, superbly bold, 
 
 Who on Jove's awful countenance would gaze, 
 Pining immortal beauty to behold. 
 
 Consumed beneath the lightning of its rays, 
 My conscious heart a willing fate had sought. 
 Undaunted by the pangs its triumphs bought ; 
 Content love's mortal penalties to share. 
 And, for a dream so sweet, a dreadless doom 
 to dare. 
 
 I trod o'er meads of asphodel, 
 
 I walked the hall of dreams. 
 And gathered sweeter flowers than fell 
 
 By Enna's fabled streams. 
 
 Every wind of morning bore 
 Music from some haunted shore. 
 Some fairy island o'er the seas, 
 Insphered in Orient fantasies. 
 
 Every cloud that floated by 
 
 Veiled beneath its silver wing 
 Missives from a world more fair 
 
 Than the Poet's dream of spring. 
 
I08 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 I sought the holy wells of song 
 Love's wild enchantments to prolong, 
 And walked as in a waking trance 
 The wonder-land of old romance. 
 
 Sometimes to a triumph march 
 
 Throbbed the life-pulse, warm and high ; 
 
 Sometimes tolled in silver time 
 
 To a haunting melody. 
 
 Like a holy matin bell 
 
 Chiming in a far chapelle : 
 
 Now trembling to a cadence sweet 
 
 As the clear and silver beat 
 
 Of fairy footsteps, or the fall 
 
 Of fountains in a marble hall ; 
 
 Now as to an echoing horn. 
 
 Far through moonlit forests borne, 
 
 Sad and rhythmically slow. 
 
 Moved to grand adagio. 
 
 Dream followed dream : the horizon lay 
 
 A line of silver far away ; 
 
 The trees soared far into the blue. 
 
 The rose-cups dripped with morning dew, 
 
 And still the level life-path wound 
 
 Away, away, o'er flowery ground. 
 
NOON. 
 
 " The mysterious silence of full noon." 
 
 Bailey. Fcstus. 
 
 " Combien de fois dans le silence de minuit, et dans cet autre silence de 
 midi, si accablant, si inquiet, si devorant, n'ai-je pas senti mon cceur se pr6- 
 cipiter vers un but inconnu, vers un onhbeur sans forme et sans nom, qui 
 est au ciel, qui est dans I'air, qui est partout, comme I'amour! C'est I'aspi- 
 ration sainte de la partie la plus ^thdree de notre ame vers rinconnu." 
 
 George Sand 
 
 Dream followed dream ; and still the day 
 Floated on golden wings away ; 
 
 But in the hush of the high noon, 
 Touched by a sorrow without name, 
 Consumed by a slow fever-flame, 
 
 I loathed my life's mysterious boon. 
 Unconscious of its end or aim ; 
 
 Lost in a languor of repose, — 
 
 A luxury of gloom, — 
 As when the curved, voluptuous rose 
 
 Droops with its wealth of bloom. 
 
 Decked as for a festival 
 Seemed the wide and lonely hall 
 
no HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Of Nature, but a mute despair 
 Filled the universal air ; — 
 A sense of loneliness and void, — 
 A wealth of beauty unenjoyed, — 
 A sadness born mid the excess 
 Of life's unvalued loveliness. 
 
 Every pulse of being panting 
 With a bliss it fain would share. 
 
 Still there seemed a presence wanting, 
 
 Still some lost ideal haunting 
 All the lone and lustrous air. 
 
 Far off I heard the solemn chimes 
 
 Of Life and Death,— 
 The rhythm of ancestral rhymes 
 
 Above, — beneath ! 
 
 " Light in shadow ever fading, — 
 Death on Life's bright realm invading, - 
 Pain with pleasure keeping measure, — 
 Wasting care with golden treasure. 
 
 So the ancient burden rang, 
 
 So the choral voices sang. 
 
 Though beautiful on all the hills 
 The summer noonlight lay, 
 
NOON. 1 1 1 
 
 Far in the west a single cloud 
 Lay folded like a fleecy shroud, 
 
 Ready to veil its ray. 
 And over all a purple pall 
 
 Seemed waiting for the day. 
 
 I heard far, phantom voices calling 
 
 Over all the flowery wold, — 
 O'er the westering meadows falling 
 
 Into slopes of gleamy gold ; — 
 
 Still I heard them calling, — calling, — 
 Through the dim, entangled glooms, — 
 
 Far through sunless valleys falling 
 Downward to a place of tombs. 
 
 Near me pressed a vassal throng, 
 Slaves to custom, serfs to wrong — 
 Hollow-hearted, vain and cold. 
 Minions of the earthly mold ; 
 Holding in supreme derision 
 Memories of the life Elysian, 
 Reckless of the birthright lost. 
 Heedless of the heavenly host. 
 Traitors to the Holy Ghost ! 
 
112 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Haunted by a nameless terror, — 
 Thrilled by a foreboding breath, 
 As the aspen wildly trembles 
 
 When the winds are still as death, — 
 I sought amid the sadness drear 
 Some loved familiar face to cheer 
 The solitude, — some lingering tone 
 Of love ere love and hope had flown. 
 
 I heard a low voice breathe my name : 
 Was it the echo of my own, — 
 That weird and melancholy tone, — 
 
 That voice whose subtle sweetness came 
 
 Keen as the serpent's tongue of flame ? 
 
 So near, its music seemed to me 
 
 The music of my heart to be. 
 
 Still I heard it, nearer, clearer. 
 When all other songs had flown, 
 
 Floating round me till it bound me 
 In a wild world of its own. 
 
 Suddenly a chill wind leapt 
 Through its woven harmonies ; 
 
 All its silver chords were snapt 
 As a wind-harp's by the breeze. 
 
NOON. 113 
 
 A shudder through the silence crept 
 And death athwart the noonUght swept. 
 
 Then came the pall, the dirge, the knell, 
 As, dust to dust, the earth-clods fell, 
 Down crumbling on a coffin lid. 
 Within whose narrow casket hid, — 
 Shut from the cheerful light of day, — 
 Buried, yet quick, my own heart lay. 
 
 Graves closed round my path of life, 
 
 The beautiful had fled ; 
 Pale shadows wandered by my side, 
 
 And whispered of the dead. 
 The far off hollow of the sky 
 
 Seemed like an idle mockery. — 
 The vaulted hollow of the sky, 
 
 With its blue depths of mystery 
 
 But rounded Death's vast empery. 
 
 O'erwearied with life's restless change 
 
 From ecstacy to agony, 
 Its fleeting pleasures born to die. 
 
 The mirage of its fantasy, 
 Its worn and melancholy range 
 Of hopes that could no more estrange 
 
 The married heart of memory, 
 
1 14 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Doomed, while we drain life's perfumed wine, 
 For the dull Lethean wave to pine, 
 And, for each thrill of joy, to know 
 Despair's slow pulse or sorrow's throe, — 
 I sought some central truth to span 
 
 These wide extremes of good and ill, — 
 I longed with one bold glance to scan 
 
 Life's perfect sphere, to rend at will 
 The gloom of Erebus, — dread zone, 
 Coiled like a serpent round the throne 
 Of Heaven, — the realm where Justice veils 
 Her heart and holds her even scales, — 
 Where awful Nemesis awaits 
 The doomed, by Pluto's iron gates. 
 
 In the long noon-tide of my sorrow, 
 I questioned of the eternal morrow ; 
 
 I gazed in sullen awe 
 Far through the illimitable gloom 
 Down -deepening like the swift maelstrom, 
 
 The doubting soul to draw 
 Into eternal solitudes. 
 Where unrelenting silence broods 
 
 Around the throne of Law. 
 
 I questioned the dim chronicle 
 Of ages gone before, — 
 
NOON. 115 
 
 I listened for the triumph songs 
 
 That rang from shore to shore, 
 Where the heroes and the conquerors 
 wrought 
 
 The mighty deeds of yore, — 
 Where the foot-prints of the martyrs 
 
 Had bathed the earth in gore, 
 And the war-horns of the warriors 
 
 Were heard from shore to shore. 
 
 Their blood on desert plains was shed, — 
 Their voices on the wind had fled, — 
 They were the drear and shadowy Dead ! 
 
 Still, through the storied past, I sought 
 An answer to my sleepless thought ; 
 In the cloisters old and hoary 
 
 Of the mediaeval time — 
 In the rude ancestral story 
 
 Of the ancient Runic rhyme. 
 
 I paused on Grecian plains, to trace 
 Some remnant of a mightier race, 
 Serene in sorrow and in strife. 
 Calm conquerors of Death and Life, 
 Types of the god-like forms that shone 
 Upon the sculptured Parthenon. 
 
Il6 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 But still, as when Prometheus bare 
 
 From heaven the fiery dart, 
 I saw the " vulture passions " tear 
 
 The proud Caucasian heart,^ — 
 The war of destiny with will 
 Still conquered, yet conflicting still. 
 
 I heard loud Hallelujahs 
 
 From Israel's golden lyre, 
 And I sought their great Jehovah 
 
 In the cloud and in the fire. 
 I lingered by the stream that flowed 
 •' Fast by the oracle of God," — 
 I bowed, its sacred wave to sip ; — 
 Its waters fled my thirsting lip. 
 The serpent trail was over all 
 
 Its borders, — and its palms that threw 
 Aloft their waving coronal, 
 
 Were blistered by a poison dew. 
 
 Serener elements I sought, 
 Sublimer altitudes of thought, 
 
 1 Gustav Klemm, in a work entitled Allgenteine Ctdturge- 
 schichte der Menschheit, divides the human races into the active 
 and passive : the former (embracing only the so-called Cau- 
 casian race) marked by restless activity and aspiration, prog- 
 ress and the spirit of doubt and inquiry ; the latter (comprising 
 all the remaining races), by an absence or inferiority of these 
 characteristics. 
 
NOON. 117 
 
 The truth Saint John and Plato saw, 
 The mystic light, the inward law ; 
 The Logos ever found and lost. 
 The aureola of the Ghost. 
 
 I hailed its faint auroral beam 
 
 In many a Poet's Delphic dream, — 
 
 On many a shrine where faith's pure flame 
 
 Through fable's gorgeous oriel came. 
 
 Around the altars of the god. 
 In holy passion hushed, I trod. 
 Where once the mighty voice of Jove 
 Rang through Dodona's haunted grove. 
 No more the dove with sable plumes ^ 
 Swept through the forest's gorgeous glooms ; 
 The shrines were desolate and cold. 
 Their paeans hushed, their story told. 
 In long, inglorious silence lost. 
 Like fiery tongues of Pentecost. 
 
 No more did music's golden surge 
 The mortal in immortal merge : 
 
 1 "The priestesses of Dodona assert that two black pigeons 
 flew from Thebes in Egypt ; one of which settled in Lybia, 
 the other among themselves : which latter, resting on a beech- 
 tree, declared with a human voice that here was to be the or- 
 acle of Jove." — Herodotus, Book II. ch. 55. 
 
Il8 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 High canticles of joy and praise 
 Died with the dream of other days ; 
 I only heard the Maenad's wail, — 
 That shriek that made the orient pale : 
 Evohe ! — ah — Evohe ! 
 The mystic burden of a woe 
 Whose dark enigma none may know ; ^ 
 The primal curse, — the primal throe. 
 
 Evohe ! — ah — Evohe ! 
 Nature shuddered at the cry 
 Of that ancient agony ! 
 
 Still the fabled Python bound me, — 
 Still the serpent coil inwound me, — 
 Still I heard the Maenad's cry, 
 Evohe ! — ah — Evohe ! 
 
 1 " The Masnads, in their wild incantations, carried serpents 
 in their hands, and with frantic gestures cried out Eva ! Eva ! 
 Epiphanius thinks that this invocation related to the mother 
 of mankind ; but I am inclined to believe that it was the word 
 Epha or Opha, rendered by the Greeks, Ophis, a serpent. I 
 take Abaddon to have been the name of the same ophite God 
 whose worship has so long infected the world. The learned 
 Heinsius makes Abaddon the same as the serpent Python." 
 — Jacob Bryant's Analysis of Ancient MytJwlogy. 
 
 " While Maenads cry aloud Evoe, Evoe ! 
 That voice that is contagion to the world." 
 
 Shelley's Protnetheus- 
 
NOON. 119 
 
 Where the Nile pours his sullen wave 
 
 Through tombs and empires of the grave, 
 
 I sought, 'mid cenotaphs, to find 
 
 The earlier miracles of mind : 
 
 Alas, beside the funeral urn 
 
 How drearily the death-lights burn ; 
 
 On dim Denderah's sculptured lore 
 
 How sad the noonlight falls, 
 How mournfully the west wind sighs 
 
 Through Karnak's moldering halls ! 
 No tongue shall tell their wondrous tale, 
 No hand shall lift the Isis veil ; 
 The mighty pyramids that rise 
 So drear along the morning skies, 
 Guard well the secrets of the dead, 
 Nor break the sleep of ages fled. 
 
 Their awful shadow passed, I stood 
 
 On India's burning solitude ; 
 
 Where, in the misty morning of the world, 
 
 Life lay as in a dream of beauty furled. 
 
 I saw the mighty altars of the Sun, — 
 Before whose fires the star-gods, one by one. 
 Paled like thin ghosts, — in lurid splendors 
 
 rife; 
 I heard the Persian hail him Lord of Life ! 
 
120 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 I saw his altar-flames rise wild and high, 
 Veiling the glory of the noon-day sky, 
 Hiding the holy heavens with their ensan- 
 guined dye. 
 
 I turned, and from the Brahmin's milder law 
 I sought truth's mystic element to draw, 
 Pure as it sparkled in the cup of Heaven, — 
 The bright Amreeta to the immortals given, — 
 To bathe my soul in fontal springs, that lie 
 Veiled from the careless and incurious eye. 
 
 Half wakened from the brooding sleep 
 
 Of Nature ere she felt the leap 
 
 Of sentient life, the Hindoo seemed 
 
 Sad as the faith his fathers dreamed ; 
 
 Like his own rock-hewn temples, wrought 
 
 From some obscure and shadowy thought 
 
 Of ancient days, — some formless dread. 
 
 In the gray dawn of ages bred, — 
 
 Prone on his native earth reclined. 
 
 To endless reveries resigned, 
 
 His dull soul lapsing on the Lethean stream. 
 
 Lost in the dim world of a lotus dream. 
 
 Still, still the eternal mystery. 
 The shadow of the poison-tree 
 
NOON. 121 
 
 Of Good and Evil haunted me. 
 In Religion's holy name, 
 Furies fed her altar-flame, 
 Sophists gloried in her shame. 
 Still the ancient mythus bound me, 
 Still the serpent coil invvound me, 
 Still I heard the Maenad's cry, 
 Evohe ! — ah — Evohe ! 
 
 Wearied with man's discordant creed, 
 I sought on Nature's page to read 
 Life's history, ere yet she shrined 
 Her essence in the incarnate m.ind ; 
 Intent her secret laws to trace 
 In primal solitudes of space. 
 From her first, faint atomic throes, 
 To where her orbed splendor glows 
 In the vast, silent spheres that roll 
 Forever towards their unknown goal. 
 
 I turned from dull alchemic lore 
 
 With starry Chaldeans to soar, 
 
 And sought, on fancy's wing, to roam 
 
 That glorious galaxy of light 
 Where mingling stars, like drifting foam, 
 
 Melt on the solemn shores of night ; 
 
122 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 But Still the surging glory chased 
 The dark through night's chaotic waste ; 
 And still, within its deepening voids, 
 Crumbled the burning asteroids. 
 
 Long gloating on that hollow gloom, 
 Methought that in some vast maelstrom, 
 The stars were hurrying to their doom, — 
 Bubbles upon life's boundless sea, 
 Swift meteors of eternity, 
 Pale sparks of mystic fire, that fall 
 From God's unwaning coronal. 
 
 Is there, I asked, a living woe 
 
 In all those burning orbs that glow 
 
 Through the blue ether .? — do they share 
 
 Our dim world's anguish and despair } 
 
 In their vast orbits do they fiy 
 
 From some avenging destiny, — 
 
 And shall their wild eyes pale beneath 
 
 The dread anathema of Death ? — 
 
 Our own fair Earth, — shall she too drift, 
 
 Forever shrouded in a weft 
 
 Of stormy clouds, that surge and swirl 
 
 Around her in her dizzy whirl : — 
 
 Forever shall a shadow fall 
 
 Backward from her golden wall, 
 
NOON. 123 
 
 Its dark cone stretching, ghast and gray, 
 Into outer glooms away ? — 
 
 From the sad, unsated quest 
 
 Of knowledge, how I longed to rest 
 
 On her green and silent breast ! 
 
 I languished for the dews of death 
 
 My fevered heart to steep, — 
 The heavy, honey-dews of death. 
 
 The calm and dreamless sleep. 
 
 I left my fruitless lore apart, 
 And leaned my ear on Nature's heart, 
 To hear, far from life's busy throng. 
 The chime of her sweet undersong. 
 
 She pressed her balmy lips to mine. 
 
 She bathed me in her sylvan springs ; 
 
 And still, by many a rural shrine. 
 
 She taught me sweet and holy things. 
 
 I felt her breath my temples fan, 
 
 I learned her temperate laws to scan, 
 
 My soul, of hers, became a conscious part ; 
 
 Her beauty melted through my inmost heart. 
 
124 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Still I languished for the word 
 
 Her sweet lips had never spoken, 
 Still, from the pale shadow-land, 
 
 There came nor voice nor token ; 
 No accent of the Holy Ghost 
 Whispered of the loved and lost ; 
 
 No bright wanderer came to tell 
 If, in worlds beyond the grave, 
 
 Life, love, and beauty dwell. 
 
EVENING. 
 
 " And, it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." 
 
 Zechariah xiv. 7. 
 
 " All the dawn promised shall the day fulfill, 
 The glory and the grandeur of each dream ; 
 And every prophecy shall be achieved, 
 And every joy conceded, prove a pledge 
 Of some new joy to come." 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Wilder and lonelier grew the day : 
 The vault of heaven once so high, — 
 Fading to infinity, — 
 Now bowed by its own weight of gloom, 
 Seemed dark and low-browed as a tomb. 
 Cold, sculptured hills, forlorn and gray, 
 Like sun-forsaken Memnons, lay 
 Around my drear and pathless way. 
 The thunder rolled ; and loud and shrill 
 The storm-blast shrieked from hill to hill. 
 
 Beside the lamp within the veil 
 Of the soul's temple burning pale, 
 
126 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 I sought, in self-renouncing prayer, 
 
 Truth's guarded secrets to forbear, 
 
 Till lowly trust the right should earn 
 
 Life's golden meanings to discern. 
 
 I sought in ministries of love 
 
 The purchase of the Cross to prove, — 
 
 The mysteries of the Holy Rood 
 
 In sorrow's pale beatitude. 
 
 Content, through lowering clouds, to greet 
 
 The glory of the Paraclete ; 
 
 I sought, within the inner shrine, 
 
 The Father-God of Palestine. 
 
 A holy light began to stream 
 
 Athwart the cloud-rifts, like a dream 
 
 Of Heaven ; and lo ! a pale, sweet face. 
 
 Of mournful grandeur and imperial grace, — 
 
 A face whose mystic sadness seemed to borrow 
 
 Immortal beauty from that mortal sorrow 
 
 Looked on me ; and a voice of solemn cheer 
 
 Uttered its sweet evangels on my ear ; 
 
 The open secrets of that eldest lore 
 
 That seems less to reveal than to restore. 
 
 " Pluck thou the Life-tree's golden fruit, 
 Nor seek to bare its sacred root : 
 Live, and in life's perennial faith 
 Renounce the heresy of death ; 
 
EVENING. 12 J 
 
 Believe, and every sweet accord 
 Of being, to thine ear restored, 
 Shall sound articulate and clear ; 
 Perfected love shall banish fear. 
 Knowledge and wisdom shall approve 
 The divine synthesis of love." 
 
 Royally the lilies grow 
 On the grassy leas, 
 Basking in the sun and dew, 
 Swinging in the breeze. 
 Doth the wild-fowl need a chart 
 Through the illimitable air } 
 Heaven lies folded in thy heart ; 
 Seek the truth that slumbers there ; 
 Thou art Truth's eternal heir." 
 
 Let the shadows come and go ; 
 
 Let the stormy north wind blow : 
 
 Death's dark valley cannot bind thee 
 
 In its dread abode ; 
 
 There the Morning Star shall find thee. 
 
 There the living God. 
 
 Sin and sorrow cannot hide thee, — 
 
 Death and hell cannot divide thee 
 
 From the love of God." 
 
128 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 In the mystic agony 
 
 On the Mount of Calvary, 
 
 The Saviour with his dying eyes 
 
 Beheld the groves of Paradise. 
 
 "Then weep not by the charnel stone, 
 Nor veil thine eyelids from the sun. 
 Upward, through the death-dark glides 
 The spirit on resurgent tides 
 Of light and glory on its way : 
 Wilt thou by the cerements stay t — 
 Thou the risen Christ shalt see 
 In redeemed Humanity. 
 Though mourners at the portal wept, 
 And angels lingered where it slept, 
 The soul but tarried for a night. 
 Then plumed its wings for loftier flight." 
 
 " Is thy heart so lonely } — Lo, 
 Ready to share thy joy and woe, 
 Poor wanderers tarry at thy gate, 
 The way-worn and the desolate ; 
 And angels at thy threshold wait : 
 Wouldst thou love's holiest guerdon win } 
 Arise, and let the stranger in." 
 
EVENING. 129 
 
 " The friend whom not thy fickle will, 
 But the deep heart within thee, still 
 Yearneth to fold to its embrace. 
 Shall seek thee through the realms of space. 
 Keep the image Nature sealed 
 On thy heart, by love annealed, 
 Keep thy faith serene and pure ; 
 Her royal promises are sure. 
 Her sweet betrothals shall endure." 
 
 '' Hope thou all things, and believe ; 
 And, in child-like trust, achieve 
 The simplest mandates of the soul, 
 The simplest good, the nearest goal ; 
 Move but the waters, and their pulse 
 The broad ocean shall convulse." 
 
 "When love shall reconcile the will 
 Love's mystic sorrow to fulfill, 
 Its fiery baptism to share, — 
 The burden of its cross to bear, — 
 Earth shall to equilibrium tend. 
 Ellipses shall to circles bend. 
 And life's long agony shall end." 
 
 " Then pluck the Life-tree's golden fruit ; 
 No blight can reach its sacred root. 
 9 
 
130 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 E'en though every blossom fell 
 Into Hades, one by one, 
 Love is deeper far than Hades, — 
 Shadows cannot quench the sun." 
 
 '' Can the child-heart promise more 
 Than the Father hath in store ? — 
 The blind shall see, — the dead shall live ; 
 Can the man-child forfeit more 
 Than the Father can forgive ? 
 The Dragon, from his empire driven, 
 No more shall find his place in Heaven, 
 Till e'en the Serpent power approve 
 The divine potency of love." 
 
 '' Guard thy faith with holy care, — 
 Mystic virtues slumber there ; 
 'T is the lamp within the soul 
 Holding genii in control : 
 Faith shall walk the stormy water, — 
 In the unequal strife prevail, — 
 Nor, when comes the dread avatar, 
 From its fiery splendors quail. 
 Faith shall triumph o'er the grave, 
 Love shall bless the life it gave." 
 
 I heard ; and in my heart the incarnate Word 
 Uttered, serene and clear, its sweet accord, — 
 
EVENING, 131 
 
 To Him that sitteth on the eternal throne, 
 All power and grace earth's discord to 
 
 atone, — 
 To the great Soul that foldeth all in one. 
 Father in Heaven, I cried, thy will be done ! 
 
 Then faintly, with my heart's low music blend- 
 ing, 
 I heard a sound of silver wings descending : 
 The Holy Dove of Peace, the promised guest, 
 Folded its fragrant pinions on my breast. 
 
 Life into lines of beauty flowed 
 
 Around me, flexuous and free ; 
 
 The passive face of Nature showed 
 
 A sweet, responsive sympathy ; 
 
 And dimly, through the Human, glowed 
 
 The lineaments of Deity. 
 
 I saw the frowning orbs of Fate 
 Into a regent calm dilate — 
 A sovran and superb disdain 
 Of earth's fast-fleeting joy and pain ; 
 While patience budding into peace. 
 And knowledge ripening into power, 
 And thought with its pale alchemy. 
 Made beautiful the passing hour ; 
 
132 HOURS OF LIFE. 
 
 Till morn and noonlight seemed to fuse 
 
 Their glory with its fading hues, 
 
 As the fair outline of my day, 
 
 From dawn to twilight's golden gray, 
 
 Rose grandly on the prescient soul. 
 
 Crowned with the sunset's aureole. 
 
 Far off, among the Norland hills, 
 
 The distant thunders rolled ; 
 
 Soft rain-clouds dipped their fringes down 
 
 Across the evening gold. 
 
 Heaven's stormy dome was rent, and high 
 
 Above me shone the summer sky ; 
 
 Ever more serene it grew. 
 
 Fading off into the blue. 
 
 Till the boundless hyaline 
 
 Seemed melting into depths divine. 
 
 And the angels came and went 
 
 Through the opening firmament. 
 
 In all the glooming hollows lay 
 
 A light more beautiful than day ; 
 
 All the blossom bells waved slowly 
 
 In the evening's golden calm. 
 
 And the hum of distant voices 
 
 Sounded like a vesper psalm. 
 
EVENING. 133 
 
 Till dimly seen, through day's departing bloom, 
 The far-off lamps of heaven began to fling 
 Their trembling beams athwart the dewy 
 
 gloom, 
 As Evening, on the horizon's airy ring, 
 Winnowing the darkness with her silver wing, 
 Descended like an angel, calm and still. 
 
ADDITIONAL POEMS. 
 
SONNETS. 
 TO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 " O perpetui fiori 
 Dell' eterna letizia ! " 
 
 II Paradiso. 
 
 Fair Sibyl, sitting in thy " House of Clouds," 
 
 Shrined, like some solitary star, above 
 The dull, cold shadow that our earth enshrouds, 
 
 How oft my spirit looks to thee in love ! 
 To thy " Lost Bower " how oft in dreams re- 
 turning, 
 
 I see thee standing in the sylvan room, — 
 See the red sun-light in the rose-cups burning, 
 
 And the sweet blue-bells nodding through 
 the gloom : 
 Again I hear thy grand and solemn dirges 
 
 To the dim " Gods of Hellas," like the breeze 
 O'er lone savannas sighing, or the surges 
 
 That wash the sands of solitary seas ; 
 Then, in calm waves of glory, swells the strain, 
 
 " Christ from the dead hath risen and shall 
 reign ! " 
 
138 SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Ad una vista 
 D'un gran palazzo Michol ammirava 
 Si come donna dispettosa e trista." 
 
 Il Purgatorio. 
 
 Sometimes I see thee, pale with scorn and sor- 
 row, 
 At a great palace window, looking forth, 
 To-day on plumed Florentines, — to-morrow 
 
 Upon the hireling legions of the North : 
 Sometimes o'er little children bending lowly, 
 To hear their cry, in the dark factories 
 drowned ; 
 Ah, then thy pitying brow grows sweet and 
 holy, 
 With a saint's aureole of sorrow crowned ! 
 But most I love thee when that mystic glory — 
 
 KindHng at horrors that abhor the day — 
 Sheds a wild, stormy splendor o'er the story 
 
 Of the dark fugitive, who turned away 
 To death's cold threshold, calm in death's dis- 
 dain. 
 From the "White Pilgrim's Rock," beside 
 the western main. 
 
SONNETS. 139 
 
 III. 
 
 " Or discendiamo omai a maggior pieta." 
 
 L'Inferno. 
 
 Ay, most I love thee when thy starry song 
 Stoops to the plague-spot that we dare not 
 name, 
 
 And bares with burning breath the envenomed 
 wrong — 
 Our country's dark inheritance of shame. 
 
 When our blaspheming synods look thereon, 
 Stifling God's law and Nature's noble ires 
 
 With the cold ashes of dead council-fires. 
 
 That Gorgon terror chills them into stone. 
 
 Yet while they cringe and palter, thy true 
 heart, 
 
 Serene in love's own light and woman's ruth, 
 
 Loyal to God and to God's living truth. 
 
 Hath uttered words whose fulgent rays shall 
 dart 
 
 Like sunbeams through our land's Tartarean 
 gloom, 
 
 Till freedom's holy law its Stygian depths il- 
 lume. 
 
TO PERDITA. 
 
 What holds thy dreamy eyes in thrall ? 
 A sombre picture on the wall ; ^ 
 A sombre picture, weird and cold, 
 That dims the daylight's morning gold. 
 
 A grass-grown rampart, lifting high 
 
 Its reedy fringe against the sky ; 
 
 Half lost in its overshadowing gloom, 
 
 The semblance of a moldering tomb ; 
 
 Upon the tablet, side by side, 
 
 In pomp of old heraldic pride, 
 
 Two sculptured figures lying stark 
 
 And dumb within the glimmering dark; 
 
 A raven on the moldering tomb ; 
 
 An owlet flitting through the gloom ; 
 
 A cold, white, wandering moon, that seems 
 
 The ghost of long-forgotten dreams ; 
 
 In the high rampart an old door. 
 
 Where night winds enter : nothing more. 
 
 1 Midnight. By G. H. Boughton. 
 
TO PERDITA. 141 
 
 Why doth it hold thine eyes in thrall, 
 This sombre picture on the wall, 
 That dims the daylight's glad return. 
 And shrineth darkness like an urn ? 
 
 Is there within thy heart a grave 
 O'er which the winds of memory wave. 
 Where, sepulchred in marble pride. 
 Thy dead hopes slumber, side by side, 
 Lost to the future's dawning light, 
 And shrined in immemorial nio:ht ? 
 
 '&" 
 
 Ah ! never hope of thine shall sleep 
 Within oblivion's donjon-keep. 
 Thy dreams were born to soar afar 
 Beyond the morning's purple star ; 
 Thy loyal heart shall re-create 
 From loss and wrong a loftier fate ; 
 Thy own deep heart of love illume 
 Thy life with love's immortal bloom. 
 On thy white brow, absolved from blame, 
 A shining stone, with a new name. 
 Shall flood the dark with living flame ; 
 Thy life, a perfume and a prayer. 
 With mystic fragrance fill the air. 
 And all thy buried hopes shall rise 
 Transfigured into destinies. 
 1859. 
 
A PANSY FROM THE GRAVE OF KEATS. 
 
 " That's for thoughts!"— Shakespeare. 
 
 Three velvet petals darkly spread 
 
 In sumptuous sorrow for the dead, 
 
 Superbly sombre as a pall 
 
 Wrought for an elfin funeral ; 
 
 Two, hued like wings of silver light 
 
 Unfurled for Psyche's heavenward flight ; 
 
 And every petal, o'er and o'er, 
 
 All legended with faery lore, 
 
 A palimpsest of fables old 
 
 And mythic stories manifold. 
 
 Endymion in enchanted swoon 
 Tranced by the melancholy moon ; 
 And, hovering near, the crescent-crowned 
 Diana, with her sylvan hound ; — 
 The virgin huntress, proud and pale. 
 Betrayed to passion's blissful bale. 
 Till all her beautiful disdain 
 Is lost in love's imperial pain. 
 
A PANSY FROM THE GRAVE OF KEATS. 143 
 
 Sad, star-eyed Lamia's serpent spell, 
 And the wild dirge of Isabel. 
 
 Hyperion in his palace bright, 
 Bastioned with pyramids of light. 
 Kindling the dawn with fiery breath. 
 Battling with Darkness and with Death, — 
 The pregnant fable left half told, — 
 A fading blush of morning gold. 
 
 The story of St. Agnes' Eve, 
 
 The tale where legioned fairies weave 
 
 Their spells within the moonlit gloom 
 
 Of Madeline's enchanted room. 
 
 The casement, triple-arched and high, 
 
 Enwrought with antique tracery, — 
 
 The blazoned window's gorgeous panes 
 That blush with old heraldic stains ; 
 The broidered kirtle on the floor. 
 The jeweled casket's gleaming store ; 
 The chamber, silken, hushed and chill, 
 Where Madeline lies dreaming still. 
 Lost in the lap of legends old. 
 And curtained from the moonlight cold, 
 Till, lowly kneeling at her side. 
 The minstrel-lover woos his bride. 
 
144 ^ PANSY FROM THE GRAVE OF KEATS. 
 
 I hear afar the wassail roar 
 Surge through the distant corridor, 
 As through the ancient, bannered halls 
 The midnight music swells and falls ; 
 The castle lamps are all aglow ; 
 The silver-snarling trumpets blow. 
 'T was ages, ages long ago. 
 The vigil of St. Agnes' Night, 
 The ruse, the revel, and the flight ; 
 But, till love's faery lore be past, 
 The charm of Agnes' Eve shall last. 
 
 "fc>" 
 
 The poet sleeps, and pansies bloom 
 Beside his far Italian tomb ; 
 The turf is heaped above his bed ; 
 The stone is moldering at his head ; 
 But each fair creature of his dream. 
 Transferred to daylight's common beam, 
 Lives the charmed life that waneth never, 
 A Beauty and a Joy forever. 
 
 1859. 
 
APPLE-BLOOMS. 
 
 TO CARRIE, BY HER COUSIN. 
 
 You had been robbing apple-trees, — 
 Robbing rosy apple-trees, — 
 Stealing from the honey-bees 
 
 Stores of sweetness, while I lay, 
 In the twilight's tender gray. 
 Dreaming of orchards far away, - 
 
 Pale orchard blooms that fell like rain 
 Upon a far-off phantom plain, — 
 Dear days that would not dawn again. 
 
 And May-moons that would rise no more 
 When softly through the open door 
 A cloud of perfume seemed to pour, 
 
 And then I saw two faces loom 
 Through tufts of pearly apple-bloom. 
 Filling with rose-light all the room, — 
 
 10 
 
146 APPLE-BLOOMS. 
 
 Two fair young faces, smiling through 
 The pink-white blossoms, and I knew 
 The May-queen's messengers in you. 
 
 I knew the orchard slopes were fair, — 
 I knew the winds that lingered there 
 O'er-swept them with enchanted air ! 
 
 I saw the branches toss and swing, 
 
 Heard the bee's elfin bugle ring, 
 
 And owned the presence of the Spring. 
 
 May, i860. 
 
NIGHT WANES. 
 
 Night wanes : the nation's travail, throe by 
 throe, 
 Brings on the hour that shall absolve her 
 sin ; 
 And the great, solemn bells, now swinging slow, 
 With tales of murder in their iron din. 
 Shall ring the years of peace and freedom 
 in. 
 
 Be patient, O my heart; look through the 
 gloom 
 Of the sad present, look through all the past, 
 And learn how, out of sin and death and 
 doom. 
 And .mournful tragedies, august and vast. 
 The world's great victories are achieved at 
 last. 
 
148 ' NIGHT WANES. 
 
 Look far away ; count all the triumphs bought 
 
 By martyred saints, found worthy to atone 
 For others' sin, see life from death outwrought, 
 And know each blast from War's wild bugle 
 
 blown 
 Shall melt in music round the " Great White 
 Throne." 
 
 1861. 
 
NIGHT AND STORM. 
 
 I SAW the waning August moon 
 
 Rise o'er the rocky shore, 
 And on a sad and stormy sea 
 
 Its lurid crimson pour. 
 
 My window opened to the east, 
 
 And far and far away, 
 I saw the headlong billows breast 
 
 The breakers of the bay. 
 
 The broad red sea seemed like a field 
 Where charging squadrons go : 
 
 I heard the clang of spear and shield, 
 I heard the clarions blow. 
 
 Near me the dancers' flying feet, 
 With sounds of harp and horn, 
 
 And wild waltz-music, madly sweet, 
 Were on the night-winds borne. 
 
 Rich voices lingered on the ear, 
 And laughter floated by, 
 
150 NIGHT AND STORM. 
 
 And many a call of merry cheer, 
 And many a glad reply. 
 
 I only watched the trampling feet 
 Of waves upon the shore ; 
 
 I only heard their war-drums beat, 
 Their plunging batteries roar. 
 
 I thought on many a bannered plain, 
 On battles lost and won, 
 
 On homes bereft and heroes slain. 
 And armies marching on. 
 
 The wild waltz-music died away. 
 The laughter and the glee. 
 
 But all night long a stormy song 
 Seemed sounding from the sea : 
 
 A wail of trumpets in the air, 
 A dead march on the wave. 
 
 Wild tones of triumph or despair 
 O'er all our martyred brave. 
 
 I hailed Jehovah's fiery sword 
 
 In battles lost and won ; 
 I hailed the armies of the Lord 
 
 And heard them marching on. 
 
 Ocean House, Cape Elizabeth, August^ 1863. 
 
DON ISLE. 
 
 Cromwell's siege of the sea-girt castle and fortress of Don Isle, which was 
 heroically defended by a female descendant of Nicholas Le Poer, Baron of 
 Don Isle, is, as represented by Sir Bernard Burke in his Romance of Irish 
 History, full of legendary interest. 
 
 Lonely beneath the silent stars 
 
 It stands, a gray and moldering pile, 
 Wreck'd in the wild Cromwellian wars, 
 
 The sea-girt castle of Don Isle. 
 The wild waves beat the castle wall, 
 
 And bathe the rock with ceaseless showers; 
 Dark heaving billows plunge and fall 
 
 In whitening foam beneath the towers. 
 
 High beetling o'er the headland's brow 
 
 All seam'd and battle-scarr'd it stands. 
 And rents and gaping ruins show 
 
 The ravage of the spoiler's hands. 
 Two hundred years have rolled away, 
 
 And still, at twilight's haunted hour, 
 A ghostly Ip.dy seems to stray 
 
 Bv - ^d barbacan and tower. 
 
152 DON ISLE. 
 
 Dauntless within her lone domain 
 
 She held at bay her father's foe, 
 Till faithless followers fired the train 
 
 That laid her feudal fortress low. 
 Afar her exiled kinsmen roam ; 
 
 She perished in the smoldering pile, 
 The last of all her house and home, 
 
 The lonely lady of Don Isle. 
 
 The gray moss gathers on the wall. 
 
 And slow beneath the silent stars 
 The crumbling turrets waste and fall 
 
 Wrecked in the wild Cromwellian wars 
 And peasants round their evening fire 
 
 With many a tale the hours beguile. 
 Of warrior ghosts and spectres dire 
 
 That haunt the castle of Don Isle. 
 
 1864. 
 
NIGHTFALL ON THE SEACONNET SHORE. 
 
 To R. D. S. 
 
 We sat together, you and I, 
 
 And watched the daylight's dying bloom, 
 And saw the great white ships go by. 
 
 Like phantoms through the gathering gloom. 
 
 Like phantom lights the lonely stars 
 
 Looked through the sea-fog's ghastly veil, 
 
 Beyond the headland's rocky bars 
 We heard the stormy surges wail. 
 
 Ne sat together, hand in hand. 
 
 Upon the lonely, sea-girt wall. 
 And watched along the glimmering strand, 
 
 The wild, white breakers plunge and fall. 
 
 You spoke of pleasures past away. 
 Of hopes that left the heart forlorn. 
 
 Of life's unrest and love's decay, 
 And lonely sorrows proudly borne. 
 
154 NIGHTFALL ON THE SEACONNET SHORE. 
 
 The sea's phantasmal sceneries 
 
 Commingled with your mournful theme ; 
 The splendors of your starry eyes 
 
 Were drowned in memory's deepening 
 dream. 
 
 Darker and lonelier grew the night 
 Along the horizon's dreary verge, 
 And lonelier through the lessening light 
 * Sang the wild sea-wind's wailing dirge. 
 
 When, kindling through the gathering gloom, 
 Beyond West-Island's beetling brow, 
 
 Where breakers dash, and surges boom, 
 We saw Point Judith's fires aglow. 
 
 Piercing night's solemn mystery, 
 
 The light-house reared its lonely form, 
 
 Serene above the weltering sea 
 
 And guardant through the gathering storm. 
 
 So, o'er the sea of life's unrest, 
 
 Through grief's wild storm, and sorrow's 
 gloom. 
 Faith's heavenly pharos in the breast 
 
 Lights up the dark with deathless bloom. 
 
NIGHTFALL ON THE SEACONNET SHORE, 1 55 
 
 The sea-born sadness of the hour 
 
 Melted beneath its holy spell ; 
 Faith blossomed into perfect flower. 
 
 And our hearts whispered, "• All is well." 
 
 1864. 
 
TO " SHIRLEY : " 
 
 The good Santa Claus who sent me David Gray's Poems. 
 
 Dear Santa Claus, your reindeer hoof 
 
 Fell soft as snow-flakes on the roof 
 
 That spanned my hall of dreams last night, 
 
 And when I woke, the morning light 
 
 Was lovelier, and the wintry day 
 
 More fair for you and David Gray : 
 
 His summer moons, his autumn nights. 
 
 The glamour of his sunset lights. 
 
 His red dawns and their rosy glow 
 
 On the white wonder of the snow ; 
 
 The sadness of his poet-soul 
 
 That looked beyond life's mortal goal, 
 
 For the great glory that should pour. 
 
 Through golden death's immortal door. 
 
 Entranced I lie the livelong day, 
 Dreaming of you and David Gray, — 
 Dreaming I see the daylight fade 
 Across the castled palisade 
 
TO ''SHIRLEY:' 1 57 
 
 Of sunset clouds ; it dies and dies 
 Into diviner harmonies. 
 Sweet, haunting faces light the gloom 
 Of twilight in my lonely room, — 
 Proud poet-faces, sad and stern. 
 To whom earth gave a marble urn 
 That could nor life nor love restore : 
 This, " only this, and nothing more ! " 
 
 The page grows dim, and solemn night, 
 Drops her rich curtain o'er the light, 
 Till, fold on fold, its dusky fall 
 Shuts out the far horizon wall : 
 The stars begin to glint and spark 
 Across the purple of the dark. 
 And all the happy winter day. 
 Made fair through you and David Gray, 
 Melts in a heavenly dream away ! 
 
 Deceynber 25, 1865. 
 
PROSERPINE TO PLUTO IN HADES. 
 
 " Nee repetlta sequi curet Proserpina matrem." 
 
 Virgil, Georg. I. 39. 
 
 I THINK on thee amid these spring-time flowers, 
 
 On thee, my emperor, my sovran lord, 
 DwelHng alone in dim Tartarean towers 
 
 Of thy dark realm, by earth and heaven ab- 
 horred. 
 Wandering afar by that Avernian river 
 Where dead kings walk and phantoms wail for- 
 ever. 
 
 I think on thee in that stern palace regnant. 
 Where no sweet voice of summer charms the 
 air. 
 Where the vast solitude seems ever pregnant 
 
 With some wild dream of unforetold despair. 
 Thy love, remembered, doth heaven's light 
 
 eclipse ; 
 I feel thy lingering kisses on my lips. 
 
PROSERPINE TO PLUTO IN HADES. 1 59 
 
 I languish for the late autumnal showers, 
 The cool, cool plashing of the autumn rain, 
 
 The shimmering hoar-frost and fast-fading flow- 
 ers. 
 That give me back to thy dark realm again : 
 
 To thee I '11 bring Sicilia's starry skies 
 
 And all the heaven of summer in my eyes. 
 
 When from earth's noontide beauty borne away 
 
 To the pale prairies of that under world, 
 A mournful flower upon thy breast I lay 
 
 Till round thy heart its clinging tendrils 
 curled — 
 A frighted dove, that tamed its fluttering pin- 
 ion 
 To the dear magic of thy love's dominion. 
 
 For thou wert grandly beautiful as night, 
 Stern Orcus, in thy realm of buried kings ; 
 
 And thy sad crown of cypress in my sight 
 Fairer than all the bright and flowery rings 
 
 Of wreathed poppies and of golden corn 
 
 By Ceres on her stately temples worn. 
 
 I sat beside thee on Hell's dusky throne. 
 Nor feared the awful shadow of thy fate ; 
 
 Content to share the burden of thy crown, 
 And all the mournful splendors of thy state ; 
 
l60 PROSERPINE TO PLUTO IN HADES. 
 
 Bending my flower-like beauty to thy will. 
 Seeking with light thy lonely dark to fill. 
 
 Wondering, I think how thy dear love hath 
 bound me 
 In a new life that half forgets the old ; 
 All day I haunt the meadows where you found 
 me, 
 Knee-deep in daffodils of dusky gold, 
 Or sit by Cyane's sad fountain, dreaming 
 Of the red lake by thy proud palace gleaming. 
 
 When, in her car by wingM dragons borne, 
 Pale Ceres sought me through the shudder- 
 ing night, 
 With angry torches and fierce eyes, forlorn, 
 Slaying the dark that screened me from her 
 sight, 
 Like a reft lioness that rends the air 
 Of midnight with her perilous despair, 
 
 Jove, pitying the great passion of her woe, 
 Gave back thy queen-bride to the mother's 
 grief — 
 To Ceres gave — through summer's golden 
 glow 
 And all the crescent months, from spear to 
 sheaf : 
 
PROSERPINE TO PLUTO IN HADES. l6l 
 
 Alas, how sadly in Sicilian bowers 
 
 I pass this lonely, lingering time of flowers ! 
 
 In the long silence of the languid noons, 
 When all the panting birds are faint with 
 heat, 
 I wander listless by the blue lagoons 
 
 To hear their light waves rippling at my feet 
 Through the dead calm, and count the linger- 
 ing time 
 By the slow pulsing of their silver chime. 
 
 I languish for the late autumnal showers, 
 The cool, cool plashing of the autumn rain, 
 
 The shimmering hoar-frost and fast-fading 
 flowers. 
 That give me back to thy dark realm again : 
 
 I have no native land from thee apart. 
 
 And my high heaven of heavens is in thy heart. 
 
THE TYPHON. 
 
 " Typhon, dread demon from the realms below, 
 The dark, mysterious cause of eveiy woe. 
 The racking ague and the fever throe ! " 
 
 When the green leaves to golden bronze were 
 
 And earth lay parched beneath the Octo- 
 ber sun, 
 A sullen fever in my veins was burning, 
 
 While life and death seemed melting into 
 one. 
 
 At eventide the cheerful embers glowing 
 Through the cool chamber turned to fires 
 of doom ; 
 In the white draperies o'er the windows flow- 
 ing 
 Lurked sheeted phantoms from the nether 
 gloom. 
 
 Great, gorgon heads and stony faces only 
 Looked out from all the pictures on the 
 wall ; 
 
THE TYPHON. 163 
 
 The quaint sequestered room grew vast and 
 lonely 
 As the wide vaulted arch of Vathek's hall ; 
 
 The walls, now fading into endless distance, 
 Now narrowing round me to a low-browed 
 cave, 
 
 Where in a living death without resistance 
 I lay as in the hollow of a grave. 
 
 Strange life in death ! that left my soul to 
 wander 
 
 Long ages in a dim sepulchral pile, 
 The legend of forgotten lives to ponder 
 
 On footworn marbles of the moldering aisle. 
 
 My vanished years were there — a long suc- 
 cession 
 
 Of sultry summers severed by the snows 
 Of endless winters, while some dark obsession 
 
 Forced me to read the record to its close. 
 
 Day followed day and night to night succeeded, 
 And still the powers of darkness reigned 
 supreme ; 
 A smoldering fire the pulse of 'life impeded, 
 And all my past seemed one long fever 
 dream. 
 
1 64 THE TYPHON. 
 
 Then the foul Typhon fled. A wondrous glory 
 Flooded the world with health's returning 
 tide, 
 And all the sorrows of life's mystic story 
 Were but as wandering clouds through 
 moonlit heavens that glide. 
 
 1865. 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS AT NEW ROCHELLE. 
 
 Let fall the curtains, drop the shades ; 
 Behind the hills the twilight fades ; 
 The sullen rain-drops, heavily. 
 In the dank, drooping hemlocks lie ; 
 The fir-trees in the rounding park 
 Loom statelier through the gathering dark. 
 And reddening in the starless night 
 The tall church windows blaze with light. 
 The north wind whistles down the glades ; 
 Let fall the curtains, drop the shades, 
 And, while the fire-light's glowing gloom 
 Casts fitful shadows through the room. 
 Gather around the ruddy blaze 
 To welcome in the holidays. 
 
 See Haidee's dark brown eyes grow bright 
 
 As diamonds in the dancing light. 
 
 To hear the merry bells that ring 
 
 In the tall steeples, — ding dong ding ; 
 
1 66 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 While Rena's songs sound sweet and rare 
 
 As music heard in mountain air, 
 
 And Ethel, with cheeks all abloom. 
 
 Goes dancing, dancing round the room. 
 
 Or softly lingers at my knee 
 
 To watch the wondrous Christmas Tree, 
 
 Sweet Christmas Eve ! The holidays 
 May pass, the firelight's cheerful blaze 
 Die out, the little waltzing feet 
 To other mazy measures beat. 
 And other Christmas Trees may spread 
 Their fragrant branches o'er my head. 
 And fairy fruit for us may fall 
 In many a distant bower and hall. 
 And Santa Claus at Christmas tide 
 May down the roaring chimneys ride, 
 And chapel bells with solemn chime 
 Ring in the Christ-child's holy time. 
 And tell to all the wondering Earth 
 The mystic story of his birth ; 
 But memory long shall fondly dwell 
 On this blithe eve at New Rochelle, 
 And fairer deem our Christmas Tree 
 Than all that have been or may be, 
 And keep the birthnight it embalms 
 Sweet as the breath of heavenly palms. 
 
 Decc7nber. 1866. 
 
SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 A HEALTH to good old Santa Claus, 
 
 And to his reindeer bold, 
 Whose hoofs are shod with eider-down, 
 
 Whose horns are tipped with gold. 
 
 He comes from utmost fairy-land 
 
 Across the wintry snows ; 
 He makes the fir-tree and the spruce 
 
 To blossom like the rose. 
 
 Over the quaint old gables, 
 
 Over the windy ridge. 
 By turret wall and chimney tall. 
 
 He guides his fairy sledge ; 
 
 Along the sleeping house-tops 
 
 Its silver runners trend, 
 All loaded down with wonder-books 
 
 And tales without an end. 
 
l68 SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 He steals upon the slumbers 
 
 Of little rose-lipped girls, 
 And lays his waxen dollies down 
 
 Beside their golden curls. 
 
 He scatters blessings on his way 
 
 And sugar-coated plums. 
 He robs the sluggard of his rest, 
 
 With trumpets, guns, and drums. 
 
 Small feet, before the dawn of day, 
 
 Are marching to and fro, 
 Drums beat to arms through all the house, 
 
 And penny trumpets blow. 
 
 A health to brave old Santa Claus, 
 
 And to his reindeer bold, 
 Whose hoofs are shod with eider-down. 
 
 Whose horns are tipped with gold. 
 
 He tells us of the yule-log 
 
 That blazed in Saxon halls. 
 Of the marchpane and the mistletoe, 
 
 And the minstrels' merry calls ; 
 
 Of Christmas candles burning bright 
 In ages long ago ; 
 
SANTA CLAUS. 1 69 
 
 Those long dark ages when the world 
 Turned round so very slow. 
 
 He comes from utmost fairy-land 
 
 Across the wintry snows ; 
 He makes the fir-tree and the spruce 
 
 To blossom like the rose. 
 
 He lingers till the Christmas bells, 
 With sweet and solemn chime, 
 
 Come sounding o'er the centuries 
 Through years of war and crime. 
 
 Ring out, ring out, sweet Christmas bells ! 
 
 Ring loud and silver clear ! 
 Ring peace on earth, good will to man, 
 
 Till all the world shall hear ! 
 
 Dece7nber^ 1867. 
 
OUR LAST WALK. 
 
 TO R. B. B. 
 
 The October day was dying, the dark sea 
 Flushed crimson at the coming of the sun ; 
 
 The ripened year lay drowsing on the lea, 
 Like a tired reaper when his task is done. 
 
 Slowly we loitered o'er the twilight wold, 
 Through velvet sheep-walks, and where reedy 
 plumes 
 And nodding fern tufts, tipt with tawny gold. 
 Fringe the dank borders where the gentian 
 blooms. 
 
 The very crickets seemed to drone and dream, 
 As if they felt the sweet mysterious charm 
 
 Of the hushed evening, and attuned their 
 theme 
 To its low cadences of slumberous calm. 
 
OUR LAST WALK. I/I 
 
 With scarlet hips and sprays of pnrpHng leaves 
 The brier-rose in the bosky thickets burned, 
 
 The maples flamed beneath the forest eaves, 
 And their cold gloom to sudden splendor 
 turned. 
 
 The level sunbeams glinted through the trees 
 And flecked with arrowy light their verdant 
 mold, 
 And bound red baldricks round their gnarled 
 knees, 
 And fringed the tufted knolls with raveled 
 gold. 
 
 Our woodland path was dim with tender dreams 
 Of the past summer, and a pensive gloom, 
 
 Lit by the rosy sunset's dying gleams, 
 
 Filled the long arches of our sylvan room : 
 
 Sweet haunting memories of our golden noons, 
 Our twilight wanderings by the lonely shore, 
 
 Our August mornings, our September noons, 
 Our long, sweet, summer days that are no 
 more. 
 
 We sat together by the sunset sea. 
 
 Screened from its solemn splendors by a wall 
 
1/2 OUR LAST WALK. 
 
 Of beech and oak and many a tangled tree 
 Of the witch-elms that over-roofed our hall. 
 
 It was your birthnight, and close-clasped in 
 mine 
 I held your hand, and blessed the imperial 
 hour 
 That sheathed your spirit in a mortal shrine, 
 And gave to bloom on earth a thornless 
 flower. 
 
OUR HAUNTED ROOM. 
 
 TO E. N. G. 
 
 " Oh life ! infinite life ! the beautiful gates unfold ! 
 
 The shadowless light that knows no night 
 Breaks over the city of gold ! 
 
 I rise on invisible pinions. 
 I breathe an ineffable breath ! 
 Oh, life ! rivers of life ! for me there is no more death ! " 
 
 iLasi lines of Elizabeth N. Gladding, who died of malarial fever ^ 
 while teaching the freedme7i at St. Helena Island, S. C, July, 1867.] 
 
 Here, where thy presence, like a rare, 
 Sweet perfume, lingers everywhere, 
 Elusive shadows haunt the air. 
 
 The dimly-pictured walls expand 
 
 To mountain sceneries, wild and grand. 
 
 Where war-worn castles proudly stand, 
 
 Bastions and barbacans that gleam 
 In the old mirror's crystal stream, 
 Like far-off palaces of dream. 
 
1/4 OUR HAUNTED ROOM. 
 
 A censer, curiously enwrought, 
 That burned in some barbaric court, 
 Drowsed in the Orient's dusky thought, 
 
 On the long centuries seems to brood, 
 When in MongoUan halls it stood, 
 Breathing of myrrh and sandal wood. 
 
 From an amphora, quaint and tall. 
 Funereal mosses float and fall. 
 And waver down the chamber wall. 
 
 Dark southern mosses that have hung 
 The wild sea-island woods among. 
 And o'er their deep morasses swung. 
 
 The hands that twined with flexile grace 
 Their garlands round my flower-lipped vase, 
 Shrouding the corbel's sculptured face. 
 
 Fair-folded in a southern clime. 
 Absolved from all the toils of time, 
 Await the eternal morning's prime : 
 
 Fair-folded by the Atlantic wave, 
 'Mid the dark race she died to save. 
 Where homeless sea-winds haunt her grave. 
 
OUR HAUNTED ROOM. 1 75 
 
 But when the sunset fires are low, 
 And twilight fancies come and go, 
 And mystic winds of memory blow, — 
 
 When the heart feels its courage fail, 
 Its visioned hopes without avail, 
 Untouched, unfound its Holy Grail, — 
 
 Some solemn rapture, like a strain 
 Of music's beautiful disdain. 
 Uplifts beyond all mortal pain : 
 
 A sudden splendor rifts the gloom, — 
 A light that seems to bud and bloom 
 From out the shadows of the room : 
 
 A silken stir anear the door, 
 
 Like rose-leaves rippling o'er the floor. 
 
 And lo ! glad-smiling, as of yore, 
 
 Close at my side I see thee stand 
 In shining garments, ghostly grand, 
 A palm-branch budding in thy hand. 
 
 And, sweet as morning's music breath 
 
 Across the hills of Nazareth, 
 
 A low voice murmurs, " No more death ! " 
 
 1870. 
 
MEMORIAL HYMN. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE RHODE 
 ISLAND soldiers' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT. 
 
 Raise the proud pillar of granite on high, 
 Graced with all honors that love can im- 
 part; 
 Lift its fair sculptures against the blue sky, 
 Blazoned and crowned with the trophies of 
 
 art,— 
 Crowned with the triumphs of genius and 
 art! 
 Long may its white column soar to the 
 sky, 
 Like a lone lily that perfumes the mart, 
 Lifting its coronal beauty on high. 
 
 Sons of Rhode Island, your record shall stand 
 Graven on tablets of granite and bronze ; 
 
 Soldiers and sailors, beloved of our land. 
 
 Darlings and heroes, our brothers and sons, — 
 
MEMORIAL HYMN. lyy 
 
 Gray-bearded heroes and beautiful sons ! 
 Soldiers and sailors, the flower of our land, 
 
 Deep as on tablets of granite and bronze, 
 Graved on our hearts shall your bright rec- 
 ord stand. 
 
 Swell the loud psalm, let the war trumpets 
 sound ; 
 Fling the old flag to the wild autumn blast ; 
 High in Valhalla our comrades are crowned ; 
 There may we meet when life's conflicts are 
 
 past, — 
 Meet in the great Hall of Heroes at last ! 
 High in Valhalla our comrades are 
 crowned. 
 Swell with Hosannas the wild autumn 
 blast ! 
 Let the full chorus of voices resound ! 
 
 Sep f ember i6, 1871. 
 
A BUNCH OF GRAPES. 
 
 PAINTED BY E. C. LEAVITT. 
 
 " Such as lurked behind the trees 
 In gardens of Hesperides." 
 
 On a sultry night in June, 
 In the trances of the moon, 
 Came a sudden thunder-squall 
 Crashing through the lindens tall ; 
 Every grape-vine was blown down. 
 Every rose-tree lost its crown. 
 Jagged lightning, sheeted rain. 
 Dashed athwart the window pane. 
 
 Then a gust swept through the hall, 
 A sudden splendor rent the pall 
 Of darkness ; — by its dazzling glare 
 I saw a stranger standing there. 
 With beaded raindrops in his hair. 
 Over eyes of dusky sheen 
 Vine-wreaths wove a leafy screen, 
 
A BUNCH OF GRAPES. 1 79 
 
 Such as crowns the marble brow 
 Of Bacchus in the busts we know ;. 
 Such, at least, I seemed to see, — 
 Perchance the lightning blinded me. 
 
 Then a hand of plastic power. 
 Cool and dripping with the shower, 
 Dropped within my hand a bunch 
 Of grapelets, fit for Juno's lunch ; 
 Grapes by Orient sunbeams kissed 
 Into globes of amethyst ; 
 Such as haughty Guinevere 
 Flung into the haunted mere ; 
 Jewels for some queenly head, 
 In the purple born and bred ; 
 Every dark globe veined with fire, 
 
 Like the brown cheek of a gypsy ; 
 Lucent drops of love and ire. 
 
 Such as made the Maenads tipsy ; 
 Every purple bead a gem 
 For Alraschid's diadem ; 
 Each a miracle of art. 
 Fit to charm a poet's heart. 
 
 Dazed I stood, without a word, 
 And the silence was unstirred 
 
80 A BUNCH OF GRAPES. 
 
 Save by storm winds sweeping o'er us, 
 And the thunder's hollow chorus, 
 As he vanished from my sight, 
 In the wild and lonesome night. 
 
 Was it Bacchus ? Who can tell ? 
 If not he, 't was — E. C. L. 
 1872. 
 
THE OLD MIRROR. 
 
 Oft I see at twilight, 
 In the hollow gloom 
 
 Of the dim old mirror, 
 Phantasmal faces loom : 
 
 Noble antique faces, 
 Sad as with the weight 
 
 Of some ancient sorrow, 
 Some ancestral fate : 
 
 Little rose-lipped faces. 
 Locks of golden shine. 
 
 Laughing eyes of childhood 
 Looking into mine : 
 
 Sweet auroral faces, 
 
 Like the morning's bloom 
 Ah, how long and long ago 
 
 Shrouded for the tomb ! 
 
1 82 THE OLD MIRROR. 
 
 In a bridal chamber 
 Once the mirror hung ; 
 
 Draperies of Indian looms 
 Over it were flung. 
 
 From its gilded sconces, 
 Fretted now with mold, 
 
 Waxen tapers glimmered 
 On carcanets of gold. 
 
 Perfumes of the summer night 
 Were through the lattice blown, 
 
 Scents of brier roses 
 
 And meadows newly mown. 
 
 The mirror then looked eastward 
 And caught the morning bloom, 
 
 And flooded with its rosy gold 
 The dreamlight of the room. 
 
 To-night 't is looking westward 
 Toward the sunset wall ; 
 
 The wintry day is waning, 
 The dead leaves drift and fall. 
 
 All about the hearth-stone 
 The whitening ashes blow, 
 
THE OLD MIRROR. 1 83 
 
 The wind is wailing an old song 
 Heard long and long ago. 
 
 Like the dead leaves drifting 
 
 Through the wintry air, 
 Like white ashes sifting 
 
 O'er the hearth-stone bare, 
 
 Sad ancestral faces. 
 
 Wan as moon-lit snow, 
 Haunt the dim old mirror 
 
 That knew them long ago. 
 
 1875. 
 
THE NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS. 
 
 A NOCTURNE, FOR M. A. 
 
 A July evening, damp and cold ; 
 
 Over the dim horizon wall 
 Low clouds their heavy draperies rolled, 
 
 Till darkness gathered like a pall 
 Around me, and the shadowy room 
 Grew slumberous with its weight of gloom. 
 
 Heard I a step ? — or had I dreamed ? 
 Strange perfume through the chamber 
 
 streamed, 
 A phantom flower was in my hand 
 From some far off enchanted land. 
 Wondering, I placed it where a low 
 Lamp gleamed, like moonlight over snow. 
 The winds were hushed, the night was still, 
 The very silence seemed to thrill 
 With that strange effluence. 
 
THE NIGHT BLOOMING CERE US. 1 85 
 
 Filled with awe, 
 In rapt and wondering mood I saw 
 
 The mystic lily, pure and cold, 
 Whose beauty never knew the sun, 
 
 Its vestal garniture unfold. 
 Till slowly, slowly, one by one. 
 
 Its lucent petals fall apart, 
 
 Unveiling all its virgin heart ! 
 From what far heights of glory came 
 That coronal of silver flame ? 
 From what deep fount of wonder welled 
 The holy gold its chalice held ? 
 
 Strange marvel of the summer night, 
 Veiled in an aureole of light. 
 To vanish ere the morning hour ! 
 Gazing upon thy magic flower. 
 
 With such superfluous beauty fraught, — 
 Owning the presence of a power 
 
 Beyond the reaches of our thought, — 
 Almost the gazer fears to guess 
 The mystery of thy loveliness. 
 
 1877. 
 
"A PAT OF BUTTER." 
 
 TO EMILIA. 
 
 Yellow as the cups of gold, 
 Peering through the springtime mold, 
 Sweeter than a breath of clover 
 Blowing the June meadows over. — 
 Butter, such as Goethe said 
 Werter saw his Charlotte spread 
 For her sisters and her brothers. 
 And, perhaps, for a few others, 
 Till it turned her lover's head ; 
 Such as sweet Red Riding Hood, 
 By that wicked wolf pursued, 
 Through the enchanted forest bore 
 To her grandam's fatal door. 
 'T is the ashen time of Lent. 
 Well, I know some fairy sent 
 This, for my soul's nourishment : 
 Well I know a fairy churned 
 The creamy lactage till it turned 
 
''A PAT OF butter:' 18/ 
 
 To golden gobbets ; that a dame 
 
 Of gracious presence, known to fame 
 
 By her sweet baptismal name 
 
 Of Emilia (Emily), 
 
 Pressed it into shape for me 
 
 With her jeweled fingers. 
 
 Say you : 
 "This is all a dream ? " I pray you, 
 Then, in sober truth to tell me 
 Has your huckster some to sell me ? 
 Tell me, tell me, I implore, 
 What 's his number ? Where 's his store ? 
 1877. 
 
EPIG.^A. 
 
 " Pink with promises of spring." 
 
 I WANDERED lonely as a cloud " 
 Along the busy, bustling street, 
 
 Unmindful of the alien crowd 
 
 That passed me by with hurrying feet : 
 
 I knew not 't was an April day, 
 
 So chill the winds that blew this way. 
 
 When, at a crossing of the flags 
 
 A wanderer from the woods I met, 
 With willow wands and alder tags 
 And tufts of pink arbutus, wet 
 With April dews and showers, that fell 
 Around them in some far-off dell. 
 And redolent of the rich loam 
 That fed them in their forest home — 
 Strange perfume, in whose effluence broods 
 The wild, sweet spirit of the woods — 
 Bringing remembrance of old days, 
 
E PI GAL A. 1 89 
 
 Of spring-time wanderings through a maze 
 Of mossy, winding, woodland ways, 
 Or, o'er some brown hill's hoary side 
 Where the shy May-flower loves to hide. 
 
 Then, with a glinting of surprise 
 In the cool shadow of his eyes, 
 The woodman touched me with his wand 
 And turned the street to Fairy-land ! 
 " Well met," he cried ; " I have a few 
 Tufts of arbutus. These for j/^?/.." 
 
 Api-il, 1876. 
 
"SCIENCE." 
 
 " The words ' vital force,' ' instinct,' ' soul,' are only expressions of our 
 ignorance." — Buchner. 
 
 While the dull Fates sit nodding at their loom, 
 
 Benumbed and drowsy with its ceaseless boom, 
 
 I hear, as in a dream, the monody 
 
 Of life's tumultuous, ever-ebbing sea ; 
 
 The iron tramp of armies hurrying by 
 
 Forever and forever but to die ; 
 
 The tragedies of time, the dreary years, 
 
 The frantic carnival of hopes and fears. 
 
 The wild waltz-music wailing through the 
 
 gloom, 
 The slow death-agonies, the yawning tomb, 
 The loved ones lost forever to our sight. 
 In the wide waste of chaos and old night ; 
 Earth's long, long dream of martyrdom and 
 
 pain ; 
 No God in heaven to rend the welded chain 
 Of endless evolution ! 
 
''SCIENCE. 
 
 191 
 
 Isthis<^//f 
 And mole-eyed " Science," gloating over bones, 
 The skulls of monkeys and. the Age of Stones, 
 Blinks at the golden lamps that light the hall 
 Of dusty death, and answers: " It is all." 
 1877. 
 
TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 
 
 Thou ancient Mystery ! thy solemn night, — 
 Pierced by attempered rays from that far 
 realm 
 That lies beyond, dark with excess of light, — 
 No more the shuddering spirit shall o'er- 
 whelm. 
 
 No more thy charnel glooms the soul appall, 
 
 Pale Azrael ! awful eidolon of Death ! — 
 The dawn-light breaks athwart thy glimmering 
 hall. 
 And thy dank vapors own the morning's 
 breath. 
 
 Too long the terror of the dread unknown 
 Hath the wrung heart with hopeless anguish 
 riven ; 
 The blasting splendors of the fiery throne 
 "Burning within the inmost veil of 
 Heaven " — 
 
TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 1 93 
 
 The gloom of that great glory, which of old 
 Haunted the vision of the prophet's dream, 
 
 When the archangel of the Lord foretold 
 The day of doom, by dark Hiddekel's stream. 
 
 In vain, through lingering years, I turned the 
 page 
 
 Rich with these sacred records of the past, 
 Hope languished, and no legend could assuage 
 
 The rayless gloom thy awful shadow cast. 
 
 In dread apocalypse, I saw thee borne 
 
 On the pale steed, triumphant o'er the 
 doomed, 
 Till the rent Heavens like a scroll were torn. 
 And hollow earth her hundred isles en- 
 tombed. 
 
 In vain I questioned the cold stars, and kept 
 Lone vigils by the grave of buried love ; 
 
 No angel wing athwart the darkness swept. 
 No voice vouchsafed my sorrow to reprove. 
 
 Was it the weight of that remorseless woe. 
 The lonely anguish of that long despair, — 
 
 That made thy marble lips at length forego 
 Their silence at my soul's unceasing prayer } 
 13 
 
194 TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH, 
 
 Henceforth, the sorrowing heart its pulse shall 
 still 
 
 To solemn cadences of sweet repose, 
 Content hfe's mystic passion to fulfill 
 
 In the great calm that from thy promise flows. 
 
 Welcome as the white feet of those who bring 
 Glad tidings of great joy unto the world, 
 
 Shall fall the shadow of thy silver wing 
 Over the weary couch of woe unfurled. 
 
 A heavenly halo kindles round thy brow ; 
 
 Beyond the palms of Eden softly wave ; 
 Bright messengers athwart the empyrean go, 
 
 And love to love makes answer o'er the 
 grave. 
 
THE PORTRAIT. 
 
 After long years I raised the folds concealing 
 That face, magnetic as the morning's beam : 
 While slumbering memory thrilled at its reveal- 
 ing, 
 Like Memnon wakening from his marble 
 dream. 
 
 Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor, 
 The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume ; 
 
 The sweet, imperious mouth, whose haughty 
 valor 
 Defied all portents of impending doom. 
 
 Eyes planet calm, with something in their 
 vision 
 That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture 
 born; 
 Strange mythic faiths and fantasies E^ysian, 
 And far, sweet dreams of "fairy lands for- 
 lorn." 
 
196 THE PORTRAIT, 
 
 Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow 
 Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps, 
 
 Lit by that prescience of a heavenly morrow 
 Which in high hearts the immortal spirit 
 keeps. 
 
 Oft has that pale, poetic presence haunted 
 My lonely musings at the twilight hour. 
 
 Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted. 
 With marvel and with mystery and with 
 power. 
 
 Oft have I heard the sullen sea-wind moaning 
 Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore, 
 
 Or listening to the Autumn woods intoning 
 The wild, sweet legend of the lost Lenore ; 
 
 Oft in some ashen evening of October, 
 
 Have stood entranced beside a moldering 
 tomb 
 
 Hard by that visionary Lake of Auber, 
 
 Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume ; 
 
 Oft in chill, star-lit nights have heard the chim- 
 ing 
 
 Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air. 
 And felt their molten-golden music timing 
 
 To the heart's pulses, answering unaware. 
 
THE PORTRAIT. 1 97 
 
 Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's 
 sorrow 
 Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream ! 
 Sleep, wayward heart ! till on some cool, bright 
 morrow, 
 Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's 
 beam. 
 
 Though cloud and sorrow rest upon thy story. 
 And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall, 
 
 Time, as a birthright, shall restore the glory. 
 And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall. 
 1870. 
 
THE VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 " When I entered for the last time that magnificent hall of the Louvre, 
 where stands on her pedestal the ever-blessed goddess of beauty, our be- 
 loved Lady of Milo, the diva looked on me with a face of mournful and 
 tender compassion." — Heinrich Heine. 
 
 Goddess of dreams, mother of love and sorrow, 
 Such sorrow as from love's fair promise flows, 
 Such love as from love's martyrdoms doth bor- 
 row 
 That conquering calm which only sorrow 
 knows ! — 
 
 Venus, Madonna ! so serene and tender. 
 In thy calm after-bloom of life and love, 
 
 More fair than when of old thy sea-born splen- 
 dor 
 Surprised the senses of Olympian Jove ! — 
 
 Not these the lips, that kindling into kisses, 
 Poured subtile heats through Adon's lan- 
 guid frame, 
 Rained on his sullen lips their warm caresses, 
 Thrilled to his heart and turned its frost to 
 flame. 
 
THE VENUS OF MILO. 1 99 
 
 Thy soul transcending passion's wild illusion, 
 
 Its fantasy and fever and unrest, 
 Broods tenderly in thought's devout seclusion, 
 
 O'er some lost love-dream lingering in thy 
 breast. 
 
 Thy face seems touched with pity for the an- 
 guish 
 
 Of earth's disconsolate and lonely hearts ; 
 For all the lorn and loveless lives that languish 
 
 In solitary homes and sordid marts : 
 
 With pity for the faithlessness and feigning, 
 The vain repentance and the long regret, 
 
 The perfumed lamps in lonely chambers wan- 
 in o* 
 The untouched fruits on golden salvers set : 
 
 With pity for the patient watchers yearning 
 Through glimmering casements over mid- 
 night moors. 
 Thrilled by the echo of far feet returning 
 Through the blank darkness of the empty 
 doors : 
 
 With sorrow for the coy, sweet buds that cher- 
 ish 
 In virgin pride love's luxury of gloom. 
 
200 THE VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 And in their fair unfolded beauty perish, 
 Fading like flowers that knew not how to 
 bloom : 
 
 With sorrow for the over-blown pale roses 
 That yield their fragrance to the wandering 
 air ; 
 
 For all the penalties that life imposes 
 
 On passion's dream, on love's divine despair. 
 1868. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 How many Aprils have I roamed beside thee 
 O'er the brown hills where now alone I 
 tread ? 
 And though far realms of wonder now divide 
 thee 
 From our dim world, I cannot deem thee 
 dead. 
 
 I held thee in my arms while life was failing, — 
 Close in my arms and watched thy fluttering 
 breath, 
 
 Till the red sunset in the west was paling 
 And twilight veiled the awful calm of death. 
 
 In that white calm I saw then and forever 
 The grandeur of thy spirit and its power ; 
 
 E'en as its mortal vestment seemed to sever, 
 I saw the immortal bursting into flower. 
 
 That soul, so lofty in its isolation ; 
 
 So strong in weakness, resolute in pain ; 
 
202 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 So self-reliant in its reprobation 
 
 Of servile arts and custom's iron reign ; 
 
 Mid alien crowds alone, with none to know 
 thee, 
 With nothing left behind thee to regret, 
 Save one sad heart that love's sweet debt doth 
 owe thee, 
 One lonely heart that never can forget. 
 
 April, 1878. 
 
SONNET, 203 
 
 MY FLOWERS. 
 
 Sweet buds and berries gathered, far and wide, 
 
 In haunted glens or wild sequestered ways ; 
 By sun or starUght, — in the purple pride. 
 
 Of Summer, or in Autumn's golden haze ; — 
 Long have I held ye, clasped within my hands, 
 
 Wooing your mystic odors to restore 
 The sweet aroma of those flowery lands ; — 
 
 The perfume of the days that are no more : 
 Sad Autumn leaves, touched with the fata] 
 glow 
 
 Kindling athwart the forest's silent gloom, 
 Farewell ! I fling ye on the way-side now. 
 
 Where heedless feet may trample on your 
 bloom ; 
 For, through the silence and the o'ershadow- 
 
 ing calm. 
 Floats the far perfume of the Eden palm. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 
 
THE GARDEN MINSTER. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 How seems this garden, with its depths of 
 
 shade 
 And verdurous, vaulted aisles, for worship 
 
 made ; 
 Where every blossom bows its head in prayer, 
 Or swings its censer on the silent air ; 
 Where the slow footsteps of the Summer Hours 
 From dawn till dusk descend on opening flow- 
 ers. 
 And, as they pass, with light and shade by 
 
 turns, 
 Fill the cool hollows of the marble urns. 
 A holy rapture thrills me while I gaze 
 Up the blue heavens through the o'ershadow- 
 
 ing maze ; 
 Or sit long hours in sweet monastic dreams. 
 Where o'er its rocky bed the river streams, 
 In the long grotto, dusky, cool and dim. 
 Where ivies cluster round the fountain's brim. 
 
THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Little darlings, return to my desolate room ! 
 Since I drove you away, it is mantled in 
 
 gloom ; — 
 Since I drove you away, with rude, menacing 
 
 words ; — 
 What harm had you done me, you dear Httle 
 
 birds } 
 Little rosy-lipped bandits ; — what Japanese 
 
 vase 
 Did you dash into fragments ? — What picture 
 
 deface ? 
 Ah, none : you but stopped in my study a min- 
 ute, 
 To plunder my desk of some papers within it — 
 Some manuscript verses devoted to Fame ; 
 Which you threw in the fire, and fanned to a 
 
 flame ; 
 To see, as you said, how the wandering sparks 
 Ran over the paper like lamp-lighted barques. 
 
THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 209 
 
 Or gleamed, as from window to window at night, 
 One sees in the houses a vanishing light. 
 Then muttering vengeance, in menacing tone, 
 I shouted, " Begone, imps, and leave me alone ! 
 You have burnt up my verses, entitled *To 
 
 Fame : ' 
 I shall die, and the world never hear of my 
 
 name." 
 
 Great loss then, indeed ! and great cause for 
 
 dismay, — 
 A strophe, ill-born in the noise of your play ! 
 Great Bobadil verses that puffed as they went, 
 And swaggered their impotent meanings to 
 
 vent ; 
 And long Alexandrines, entangling their feet 
 Like a pack of rude school-boys, let loose in 
 
 the street. 
 You did but redeem from a fate more obscure 
 The rhyme that some newspaper waited to 
 
 lure 
 To that cavernous cell, called the poet's own 
 
 nook. 
 Where no reader of newspapers pauses to look. 
 For this have I raved ! Ah, I blush to recall 
 How I sat, with my chair leaning back to the 
 
 wall, 
 
2IO THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 
 
 Still muttering vengeance, in menacing tone, 
 And repeating " Begone, imps, and leave me 
 alone!" 
 
 Alone ! fine result, and great triumph ! alone ! 
 Forgotten — forlorn, like a toad in a stone ! 
 And here have you left me, — my eye on the 
 
 door. 
 Grave, haughty, severe, — but you mind me no 
 
 more ; 
 For without you have found all you sought to 
 
 obtain, — 
 All the freedom that here you had sighed for 
 
 in vain, — 
 The fresh air, the streamlet that runs through 
 
 the grass. 
 Where you fling in sweet blossoms and leaves 
 
 as you pass ; 
 The breezes, the flowers, the perfumes divine, — 
 Ah, this poem of God is far better than 
 
 mine ! 
 You may pluck out the leaves of his book with- 
 out fear. 
 Nor tremble the voice of the tyrant to hear : — 
 His roses and pinks you may rifle all day. 
 Nor regret the dull room whence I drove you 
 
 away. 
 
THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 211 
 
 As for me, all the joy of my day has departed ; 
 I sit in my chair — half asleep, heavy hearted, 
 While old Doctor Ennui, a Londoner, born 
 Of fogs and the Thames on a December morn, 
 Who waited to enter till you had gone out. 
 Has moped in my study all day in a pout, 
 And, usurping your corner, sits grouty and 
 
 grim. 
 He gaping at me, and I gaping at him. 
 
 The pages I turned with such zeal to explore, 
 The books and the manuscripts please me no 
 
 more : 
 I miss, o'er my shoulder, the sweet, peering 
 
 face, 
 I miss the small finger to point out the place, 
 The nudge of the elbow, the sly little kiss. 
 The brow full of candor, that always said 
 
 -Yes," 
 The great eyes of wonder, the frolicksome 
 
 screams, 
 The sweet humming voices that lapt me in 
 
 dreams. 
 
 Return little birds ! — since I drove you away 
 I have lost all the sunshine and bloom of my 
 day. 
 
212 THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 
 
 Take my teacups, enameled with butterflies' 
 
 wings, — 
 All my Dresden and Sevres and beautiful 
 
 things : — 
 You may twirl the round globe, the big map 
 
 may unroll. 
 And sketch out new countries with crayon and 
 
 coal. 
 My pictures and statues are waiting for you, — 
 My vases of jasper and bright or-molu : 
 Of my corals and shells you may gather your 
 
 fill. 
 And my malachite tables may mount at your 
 
 will. 
 Your whooping and hiding, — to all I agree ; 
 Your trooping and training are music to me. 
 Like heroes, returned from some great battle 
 
 ground. 
 You may drag my old armchair in triumph 
 
 around : 
 My great painted Bible may turn o'er and o'er, — 
 That book you ne'er touched but with terror 
 
 before, — 
 Where you see on the page, in fine colors dis- 
 played, 
 Dieu le pkrey in an emperor's habit arrayed ! 
 
THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 213 
 
 Then return, little doves ! to my desolate room ; 
 Since I drove you away, it is mantled in 
 
 gloom ; — 
 Oh, return ! you may ransack and rifle and 
 
 reign. 
 So you will but forgive me, and love me again. 
 
THE LOST CHURCH. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. 
 
 In yonder dim and pathless wood 
 
 Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour, 
 And peals of solemn music swell, 
 
 As from some minster's lofty tower. 
 From age to age those sounds are heard, 
 
 Borne on the breeze at twilight hour ; 
 From age to age, no foot hath found 
 
 A pathway to the minster's tower. 
 
 Late, wandering in that ancient wood, 
 
 As onward through the gloom I trod, 
 From all the woes and wrongs of earth 
 
 My soul ascended to its God. 
 When lo ! in the hushed wilderness 
 
 I heard, far off, that solemn bell : 
 Still heavenward as my spirit soared. 
 
 Wilder and sweeter rang the knell. 
 
THE LOST CHURCH. 21 S 
 
 While thus in holy musings rapt, 
 
 My mind from outward sense withdrawn, 
 Some power had caught me from the earth, 
 
 And far into the heavens upborne — 
 Methought a hundred years had passed. 
 
 In mystic visions as I lay. 
 When suddenly the parting clouds 
 
 Seemed opening wide and far away. 
 
 No midday sun its glory shed, — 
 
 The stars were shrouded from my sight, — 
 And lo ! majestic o'er my head, 
 
 A minster shone in solemn light 
 High through the lurid heavens it seemed 
 
 Aloft, on cloudy wings, to rise. 
 Till all its pointed turrets gleamed. 
 
 Far flaming, through the vaulted skies ; 
 
 The bell, with full, resounding peal. 
 
 Rang booming through the rocking tower : 
 No hand had stirred its iron tongue, 
 
 Slow swaying to the storm-wind's power. 
 My bosom beating like a bark 
 
 Dashed by the surging ocean's foam, 
 I trod, with faltering, fearful joy. 
 
 The mazes of the mighty dome. 
 
2l6 THE LOST CHURCH, 
 
 A soft light through the oriel streamed, 
 
 Like summer moonlight's golden gloom ; 
 Far through the dusky arches gleamed, 
 
 And filled with glory all the room. 
 Pale sculptures of the sainted dead 
 
 Seemed waking from their icy thrall, 
 And many a glory-circled head 
 
 Smiled sadly from the storied wall. 
 
 Low at the altar's foot I knelt, 
 
 Transfixed with awe, and dumb with dread, 
 For blazoned on the vaulted roof 
 
 Were heaven's fiercest glories spread. 
 Yet when I raised my eyes once more. 
 
 The vaulted roof itself was gone ; 
 Wide open was heaven's lofty door. 
 
 And every cloudy veil withdrawn ! 
 
 What visions burst upon my soul — 
 
 What joys unutterable there, 
 In waves on waves, forever roll 
 
 Like music through the pulseless air — 
 These never mortal tongue may tell : 
 
 Let him who fain would prove their power 
 Pause when he hears that solemn knell 
 
 Float on the breeze at twilight hour. 
 
LEONORA. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF BURGER. 
 
 From heavy dreams, sad Leonore 
 
 Rose with the dawning day ; 
 Her heart oppressed by boding fears 
 
 At Wilhelm's long delay. 
 With Frederic's force her soldier went 
 
 To meet his country's foe ; 
 And since, no tidings had he sent 
 
 To tell of weal or woe. 
 
 The king and the proud empress-queen, 
 
 Weary of endless war. 
 At length renounce their fruitless strife 
 
 And welcome peace once more. 
 The weary, toil-worn warriors come. 
 
 Rejoicing on their way ; 
 With blare of trump and beat of drum, 
 
 In oaken garlands gay. 
 
2l8 LEONORA. 
 
 And every way-side, every path, 
 
 Is thronged with eager feet, 
 Of friends and kindred, hurrying forth 
 
 The coming host to meet. 
 The lover greets his plighted bride ; 
 
 But ah ! for poor Leonore, — 
 No greeting to her pallid lips 
 
 Shall bring the roses more. 
 
 She wandered up and down the road. 
 
 To frantic fears a prey. 
 And vainly questioned all that came, 
 
 Throughout that weary day ; 
 The army now had all passed by ! 
 
 She tore her raven hair. 
 She threw herself upon the earth. 
 
 In desolate despair. 
 
 The mother folds her to her heart, 
 
 And seeks with counsels vain 
 Some word of comfort to impart 
 
 To soothe her darling's pain. 
 " Oh mother, what is lost is lost ! 
 
 Now Earth and Heaven may go. 
 There is no pitying God in Heaven — 
 
 No love for aught below." 
 
LEONORA. 219 
 
 " Peace, peace ! who know the Father's love, 
 Knows he can aid impart ; — 
 The blessed sacrament shall soothe 
 Thy pierced and bleeding heart." 
 " No balm upon this burning heart 
 The sacrament can pour ! — 
 No sacrament to love and life 
 The cold, cold dead restore. 
 
 " Oh mother, would my lamp of life 
 
 Would sink in endless night ! 
 How shall I loathe the midnight gloom 
 
 And loathe the morning Ught ! 
 And what, to me, is Heaven's bhss. 
 
 And what, to me, is Hell ; 
 With him, with him is happiness. 
 
 And oh, without him, Hell ! " 
 
 " Perchance, dear child, he loves no more, 
 And wandering far and wide. 
 Hath sought, upon a foreign shore. 
 To wed a foreign bride." 
 " Oh mother, what is lost is lost ! 
 There is no pitying love — 
 No joy in life, no balm in death — 
 No hope in Heaven above. 
 
220 LEONORA. 
 
 "Go out, life's light, — forever out ; 
 
 Die, die, in night and dread ! 
 There is no pitying God in Heaven ; 
 
 Would, would that I were dead ! " 
 Thus raged the frenzy of despair 
 
 'Within her burning brain — 
 Thus with God's righteous providence 
 
 She strove in anguish vain. 
 
 She beat her breast and tore her hair 
 
 Till the long day was done, — 
 Till in the West the silent stars 
 
 Came twinkling one by one. 
 She sat within her lonely room, 
 
 Nor marked the dying day, 
 Till the moon's light, o'er tower and height, 
 
 In silver glory lay. 
 
 When lo ! she hears a courser's hoofs 
 
 Ring on the frozen ground : 
 A knight alights before the gate — 
 
 His clanging arms resound. 
 And hark ! a low and soft " kling ling " 
 
 Sounds through the silent room ! 
 And hark ! a well known voice she hears 
 
 Beside her in the gloom ! 
 
LEONORA. 221 
 
 " What ho ! Leonore : unbar the door ; — 
 Art watching or asleep ? — 
 Doth my fair bride forget her vows, 
 Or fear her vows to keep ? " 
 " Ah Wilhelm, thou ! so late at night ? 
 Oh, I have watched and wept ; 
 What from thy Leonora's side 
 So long her love hath kept ! " 
 
 " From far Hungarian fields I come 
 On my lone midnight ride, 
 To bear thee to thy distant home ; 
 Away, away my bride ! " 
 " The wind blows through the hawthorn bush ; 
 In whistles loud and shrill ; 
 Come in, and warm thee in my arms ; 
 Ah ! why so cold and still ? " 
 
 " Let the wind through the hawthorn blow, 
 
 Or howl across the mere ; 
 The black horse paws, and clank the spurs, 
 
 I dare not linger here. 
 Come, don thy snow-white robes with speed. 
 
 And swiftly mount behind ; 
 We ride a hundred leagues ere day, 
 
 Our bridal bed to find ! " 
 
222 LEONORA, 
 
 " And must we ride a hundred leagues 
 To reach our bridal bower ? 
 Hark ! even now, the booming bell 
 Tolls out the midnight hour." 
 " Ha ! dost thou fear ? — the moon shines 
 clear ; 
 Soon will our course be sped ! 
 I bear thee to our bridal home 
 And to our bridal bed." 
 
 " Ah ! tell me where the bridal hall, 
 
 And where the couch is spread 1 " 
 " Far, far from here ; cold, narrow, drear, 
 
 Lies our low marriage bed ! " 
 " Hast room for me t " " For thee and me ; 
 
 Come, busk thee, darling bride ; 
 The wedding guests are waiting. 
 
 The door stands open wide." 
 
 The maiden donned her bridal robes ; 
 
 On the black steed she sprung, 
 And round the knight her snowy arms 
 
 In trembling silence flung. 
 And on they gallop, fast and far, 
 Nor mount nor stream their course can bar ; 
 While horse and rider pant and blow ; 
 The fire-sparks flashing as they go. 
 
LEONORA. 223 
 
 The crags shoot by, — the castles fly, — 
 
 The rattling hoofs resound ; 
 The bridges thunder 'neath their tread. 
 
 And rings the hollow ground. 
 " Ha ! doth my Leonora fear 
 
 With her true love to ride ? 
 The midnight moon shines cold and clear — 
 
 The dead ride swift, my bride ! " 
 
 Hark ! wailings float upon the air, 
 
 And hollow dirges ring ! 
 Why tolls the bell that solemn knell, 
 
 Why flaps the raven's wing ? 
 Lo, sweeping o'er the lonely moor, 
 
 A dark funereal train ! 
 They chant a requiem o'er the bier, — 
 
 A hoarse, sepulchral strain. 
 
 " Bury your dead when midnight 's past. 
 
 With wild lament and prayer ; 
 To-night I wed a fearless bride, 
 
 Our banquet ye shall share. 
 Come, priest and choir, and mourners all. 
 
 Come, crone the marriage song ; 
 Come, priest, and bless the bridal bed, 
 
 And join the merry throng." 
 
224 LEONORA, 
 
 Now fades into the dusky air 
 
 The coffin and the pall ; 
 They sweep along, a ghostly throng, 
 
 The mourners, priest, and all ; 
 And faster, faster, still they speed. 
 O'er wild morass and moonlight mead, 
 While horse and rider pant and blow, 
 The fire sparks flashing as they go ! 
 
 How swiftly, on the right and left, 
 
 The mountains hurry by ; 
 How swiftly, on the right and left, 
 
 Town, tower, and forest fly ! 
 "Doth my love fear ? the moon shines clear; 
 
 Ah ha ! dost fear the dead ? 
 The dead ride swift, — hurrah ! hurrah ! " 
 " Ah, speak not of the dead ! " 
 
 Now, where the moonbeams faintly fall, 
 
 Yon frantic rabble see ; 
 How fearfully they wheel and spin, 
 
 Beneath the gallows-tree ! 
 " Halloo, halloo ! ye grisly crew, 
 
 Come here, and follow me ; 
 Around us prance a fetter-dance, 
 
 And quit the gallows-tree." 
 
LEONORA. 225 
 
 And now, across the moonlit waste, 
 
 They hurry on behind ; 
 A sound Hke dry and withered leaves, 
 
 Low rustling in the wind. 
 And onward, onward still they speed, 
 Nor rock nor stock their course impede ; 
 While horse and rider pant and blow, 
 The fire-sparks flashing as they go ! 
 
 Fast flies the quiet moonlight scene, 
 
 Fast, fast and far, it flies ; 
 Fast fly the fleecy clouds above, 
 And fast the starry skies. 
 " Ah ! dost thou fear } — the moon shines clear ; 
 
 And fast the dead can ride." 
 " Oh, name the dead no more ! " " Ah, ha ! 
 Dost fear the dead, my bride ? 
 
 " Methinks I smell the morning air. 
 And hark ! the cock doth crow ! 
 Then onward speed, my trusty steed ! 
 
 Haste, haste ! our sands run low. 
 Our race is run, our course is done. 
 
 And we are at the goal ; 
 Swift ride the dead, — hurrah, hurrah ! 
 Come, priest, bind soul to soul ! " 
 15 
 
226 LEONORA. 
 
 Up to a gloomy portal now, 
 
 With slackened rein they ride ; 
 When lo ! the massive bar and bolt 
 
 Back from their staples glide. 
 And as the dark and sounding door 
 
 Upon its hinges turns, 
 She sees, in the moon's glimmering light, 
 
 Gray tombs and moldering urns. 
 
 Suddenly, from the rider's form. 
 
 By some unearthly spell. 
 The welded armor, piece by piece. 
 
 In shivered fragments fell. 
 She sees a hideous skeleton, 
 
 A ghastly Horror, stand 
 Before her glazing eyes revealed, — 
 
 An hour-glass in his hand. 
 
 High reared the fiery, frantic steed, 
 
 And trembled with affright ; 
 Then sank into the yawning earth. 
 
 And vanished from her sight ! 
 Wild bowlings echoed through the air. 
 
 And from the graves beneath ; 
 While Leonora's throbbing heart 
 
 Trembled 'twixt life and death. 
 
LEONORA. 227 
 
 Now round her, in the paUid Hght, 
 
 The wheehng spectres fly, 
 And, as they vanish from her sight, 
 
 In hollow murmurs cry : 
 " Repent ; nor doubt the Father's love ; 
 
 Submit to Heaven's control : 
 We yield thy body to the earth : 
 
 May God receive thy soul." 
 
FROM GOETHE'S FAUST. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 SCENE AT THE COURT OF THE EMPEROR. 
 
 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 It seems that everywhere on this dull earth 
 Something is lacking; — hereoi gold is dearth. 
 'T is true we cannot sweep it from the floor, 
 But wisdom can unfathomed depths explore. 
 In mountain clefts and dungeons manifold, 
 Are piles of minted and unminted gold. 
 And I, by spiritual force and trust 
 In mighty nature, can obtain the dust. 
 
 CHANCELLOR. 
 
 Nature and spirit ! — never Christian spake 
 Such words as these. — We burn men at the 
 
 stake 
 For such profanities. Foul words and evil ! 
 Nature means sin, and spirit means the Devil ; 
 
FROM GOETHE'S FAUST. 229 
 
 And, between both, is nursed the abortive 
 
 brood 
 Whose monster heresies mankind delude. 
 
 MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 By this I see what wiseacres ye are ; 
 What ye can handle not seems miles afar : 
 What ye can grasp not is an empty shade ; 
 What ye divine not must all search evade : 
 That which ye have not poised in weight is 
 
 stinted, 
 And no coin current save what ye have minted. 
 
TO THE CLOUDS. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 Clouds that sweep the midnight heaven, 
 On your wild wings let me rove ; 
 
 Leave me not with anguish riven, 
 None who love me, — none to love. 
 
 Oft, my nightly vigils keeping, 
 - I have watched ye till the dawn ; 
 Through the far blue heavens sweeping, 
 On your snowy pinions borne. 
 
 Away, — away, forever speeding. 
 Careless wanderers of the air, — 
 
 Human joy or woe unheeding, — 
 Ah, ye pause not at my prayer : 
 
 Leave, oh, leave me not in sadness, — 
 Heavenly longings in my breast, — 
 
 Bear me, on your wings of gladness. 
 To the far home of my rest. 
 
TO THE CLOUDS. 23 1 
 
 On the lonely hills of morning 
 Breaks a red and lurid ray ; — 
 
 Hide me, hide me from the dawning, — 
 Fold me from the dreary day ! 
 
THE DYING HEROES. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. 
 
 The valiant Danes drive back the Swedish 
 
 host 
 In wild confusion to the northern coast ; 
 The sounding chariots clash, — the bright 
 
 swords gleam, 
 The broad, round shields flash back the moon's 
 
 cold beam ; 
 On the red corse-field, mid the fierce affray, 
 Lies the young Sven and Ulf the warrior gray. 
 
 Alas ! my father, in the power and bloom 
 Of life, grim Noma calls me to the tomb : 
 In vain my mother, from the oaken bough. 
 Weaves a bright garland for her warrior's 
 
 brow ; — 
 From her high tower my Edith looks in vain 
 To see my chariot in the victor's train. 
 
THE DYING HEROES. 
 
 233 
 
 In the gray night for thee her tears shall fall, 
 Till visioned sleep thine image shall recall ; 
 Yet mourn not thus : the path which thou hast 
 
 led, 
 Though dark the way, she will not fear to 
 
 tread ; 
 Soon shall she, smiling through her golden 
 
 hair. 
 For thee at Odin's feast the bowl prepare. 
 
 No more the solemn chant my voice shall raise 
 Amid our warrior youth on festal days ; 
 The deeds of kings and heroes sing no more ; 
 Their conquering arms, their fates in love and 
 
 war ; 
 Through my neglected harp the wind shall sigh, 
 And wake low dirges as it wanders by. 
 
 ULF. 
 
 High towers above us, like an eagle's nest. 
 The bright Valhalla of our fathers' rest ; 
 The stars roll under it, and, far below. 
 Red meteors gleam and fiery comets glow ; — 
 There, at the solemn feast, we meet again ; 
 Lift up thy song to a triumphal strain ! 
 
234 ^^^ DYING HEROES. 
 
 SVEN. 
 
 Ah, heavy doom ! thus from the bright world 
 
 torn, — 
 From life and love in youth's unhonored morn ; 
 While yet no proud deed of the battle-field — 
 No trophied arms, are sculptured on my shield : 
 Twelve fearful judges sit enthroned on high; 
 How shall I shrink before each awful eye ! 
 
 One lofty deed their favor shall secure, — 
 One deed whose rays no shadow can obscure ; 
 Pours not thy young heart, on this barren 
 
 strand, 
 Its life-blood freely for our fatherland ? 
 And see ! our foemen yield : — the clouds are 
 
 riven ! 
 There lies our pathway to the halls of Heaven ! 
 
THE COTTAGE. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF GLEIM. 
 
 I HAVE a cottage by the hill ; 
 
 It stands upon a meadow green ; 
 Behind it flows a murmuring rill, 
 
 Cool-rooted moss and flowers between. 
 
 Beside the cottage stands a tree, 
 
 That flings its shadow o'er the eaves ; 
 
 And scarce the sunshine visits me, 
 
 Save when a light wind rifts the leaves. 
 
 A red-bird sings upon a spray, 
 
 Through the sweet summer-time, night-long. 
 And evening travelers on their way 
 
 Linger to hear her plaintive song. 
 
 Thou, maiden, with the yellow hair, — 
 The winds of life are sharp and chill, — 
 
 Wilt thou not seek a shelter there, 
 In yon lone cottage by the hill ? 
 
CINDERELLA, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
The two following Poems, written conjointly by Mrs. Whitman and her 
 sister, Miss Susan Anna Power, appeared in Mrs Kirkland's " Union 
 Magazine" in 1848, and were revised and reprinted in 1867. 
 
CINDERELLA. 
 
 " Pomp and feast and revelry, 
 Masque and antique pageantry." 
 
 V Allegro. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The night was cold, the skies were bleak, 
 
 The ways were dark and dreary, 
 When Cinderella o'er the fire 
 
 Sat hovering, worn and weary. 
 Neglected in her childhood's home, 
 
 She knew no mother's care, 
 Condemned, in youthful loveliness, 
 
 A menial's lot to share. 
 
 Her haughty sisters spend their days 
 
 In splendor and parade ; 
 To ball and opera they go, 
 
 To play and masquerade : 
 And now, bedecked with gems and gold. 
 
 In festal crowds they shone. 
 While she beside the chimney nook 
 
 Sat musing and alone. 
 
240 CINDERELLA. 
 
 The ruddy hearth-fires gleam and fade 
 
 Upon the dusky wall, 
 And on the oaken paneling 
 
 Fantastic shadows fall. 
 No sound is heard in all the house, 
 
 So lonely now and drear, 
 And e'en the cricket's drowsy song 
 
 Falls faintly on her ear. 
 
 There pensive by the hearth she sat 
 
 And watched the flickering fire, 
 Nor saw that close beside her stood 
 
 A dame in rich attire. 
 When, lo ! upon her startled gaze 
 
 A matchless splendor broke, 
 As thus, in thrilling words and low, 
 
 The radiant fairy spoke : — 
 
 " No longer shalt thou moping sit. 
 
 Oppressed with gloom and care, 
 But at the royal banquet shine 
 
 The fairest of the fair. 
 Go, search, and by the garden wall 
 
 A pompion thou shalt find. 
 And lo ! a chariot shall arise 
 
 From out its golden rind ! 
 
CINDERELLA. 24 1 
 
 'Down in the cellar's darkest nook 
 
 A rat-trap shalt behold, 
 Whose narrow space doth stable steeds 
 
 Of more than mortal mold ! 
 Behind the moss-grown garden well 
 
 Six lizards thou shalt see ; 
 These, with the pompion and the trap, 
 
 Go quickly bring to me." 
 
 And now she sees with wondering awe 
 
 Six powdered footmen stand, 
 Six mice transformed to stately steeds 
 
 Beneath the fairy's wand ! 
 At length a glittering car arose 
 
 From out the pompion's rind. 
 While blazing torches flamed before 
 
 And footmen swung behind ! 
 
 Lo ! Cinderella's tattered garb. 
 
 With dust and ashes strown, 
 Touched by the fairy's magic wand. 
 
 With pearls and diamonds shone ! 
 All woven woof of mortal loom 
 
 Her vesture did surpass. 
 And on her little feet were seen 
 
 Two slippers framed of glass ! 
 16 
 
242 CINDERELLA. 
 
 "Now," said the fairy, ''mount thy car 
 
 And to the palace speed, 
 But as you prize my fairy gifts, 
 
 -My parting counsel heed : 
 Shouldst thou within the castle gates 
 
 Outstay the midnight hour. 
 Thy gorgeous robes to tatters turn, 
 
 My spell hath lost its power." 
 
 She said : — the fiery coursers prance. 
 
 Their rattling hoofs resound. 
 With tossing heads and flying manes 
 
 They clear the frozen ground. 
 The Prince (informed some noble dame 
 
 Arrives in matchless state). 
 With all his royal retinue. 
 
 Receives her at the gate. 
 
 With courtly grace the startled child 
 
 He up the staircase hands, 
 And now within the blazing hall 
 
 Sweet Cinderella stands. 
 Soon as she stept within the door 
 
 The music ceased to sound. 
 And on the softly perfumed air 
 
 A murmur floats around. 
 
CINDERELLA. 243 
 
 Before her nobles bent the knee, 
 
 And courtly dames caressed, 
 While foremost in the glittering throng 
 
 Her haughty sisters pressed. 
 Amid the glittering throng she stood 
 
 Like some wild woodland flower, 
 Blushing at her own loveliness, 
 
 And trembling at its power. 
 
 The Prince, enamored, claimed her hand 
 
 And bore her to the dance. 
 And oft amid its mazy rings 
 
 She sought her sisters' glance. 
 At length upon the castle clock 
 
 She chanced to turn her eye 
 And starts to see upon its face 
 
 The hour of midnight nigh ! 
 
 Then, swiftly as a falling star 
 
 Shoots through the gloom of night, 
 She sprang into her airy car 
 
 And vanished from their sight. 
 And now of all her splendor reft 
 
 And all her rich attire. 
 She takes her solitary place 
 
 Beside the smoldering fire. 
 
244 CINDERELLA. 
 
 But soon she hears a thundering knock 
 
 Resounding through the hall ; — 
 The sisters all come rushing in, 
 
 Enraptured with the ball. 
 All talk at once and all descant 
 
 Upon the unknown guest, 
 And tell of all the courtesies 
 
 She showed them at the feast. 
 
 They say that court and city now 
 
 Are ringing with her fame. 
 The Prince has offered countless sums 
 
 To learn the stranger's name. 
 Fair Cinderella, wild with joy, 
 
 Seems little heed to take, 
 She only yawns and rubs her eyes 
 
 As if but half awake. 
 
 At length she said, ^' Ah, sisters dear, 
 
 Might I but only go. 
 To-morrow night, in pearl and white. 
 
 With you to see the show 1 " 
 " In pearl and white, you little fright ! 
 
 A figure you would cut ! 
 How would your pearl and white agree 
 
 With cinders and with smut ? " 
 
CINDERELLA. 245 
 
 " Then would my sister Charlotte, dear, 
 But only give me leave 
 To wear the yellow satin dress 
 She wore on Christmas eve ? " 
 " Lend you my satin dress, indeed ! 
 But understand at once 
 That courts and balls are not for such 
 As you, you little dunce ! " 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Again the palace halls are thronged 
 
 With many a noble guest, 
 And Cinderella, lovelier still, 
 
 Is there among the rest. 
 So fast the golden moments fly 
 
 In rapture and delight, 
 She soon forgets to count the hours 
 
 Nor heeds their rapid flight. 
 
 But, hark. ! at length the castle clock 
 Sounds from its lofty tower ; 
 
 She starts to hear it, stroke by stroke, 
 Toll forth the midnight hour. 
 
246 CINDERELLA. 
 
 She fled across the marble floor 
 Fleet as the mountain wind, 
 
 But, tripping at the door, she left 
 One shining shoe behind. 
 
 There, gleaming like a diamond spark, 
 
 The little slipper lies. 
 Dropped like a star-flake in the path 
 
 Where some swift meteor flies. 
 Breathless she gains the castle court, 
 
 In terror and dismay. 
 With naught of all her splendor left 
 
 Nor all her rich array. 
 
 Her rich array, to tatters turned, 
 
 Hangs fluttering in the wind ; 
 The mice run scampering on before. 
 
 The pompion rolls behind ! 
 The guards that round the portal wait, 
 
 With startled eyes, behold 
 A vagrant leave the palace gate 
 
 And cross the moonlit wold. 
 
 And wondering menials stare to see 
 
 The little beggar pass, 
 For nought of all her pomp remains 
 
 Except one shoe of glass. 
 
CINDERELLA. 247 
 
 Next day the herald's trump did sound 
 
 Proclaiming far and wide 
 That whosoe'er could wear the shoe 
 
 Should be the Prince's bride ! 
 
 From street to street, from house to house, 
 
 The glittering prize they bear, 
 But ne'er a lady in the land 
 
 That little shoe could wear. 
 'T was midnight ere they reached the door 
 
 Where Cinderella dwelt, 
 Who vainly strove to veil her heart 
 
 And hide the joy she felt. 
 
 The sisters rushed into the hall 
 
 And sought, with vain ado. 
 To press and pinch and crowd their feet 
 
 Into the fairy shoe. 
 Till Cinderella, all the while 
 
 Demurely standing by. 
 Now on the royal messenger 
 
 Cast an appealing eye. 
 
 The mute request with curling lip 
 
 The tittering sisters see, 
 But soon to wonder and amaze 
 
 Was turned their scornful glee. 
 
248 CINDERELLA. 
 
 With perfect ease she slides her foot 
 
 Into the fairy shoe, 
 Then, blushing, from her folded vest 
 
 Its little partner drew. 
 
 When, lo ! soft music filled the air. 
 
 Resplendent lustre shone ; 
 The fairy comes to claim her charge 
 
 And lead her to a throne. 
 And " Ne'er forget, my child," she said, 
 
 " In sorrow's darkest hour 
 That unseen guardians still are nigh 
 
 To aid thee with their power : 
 
 "And often in yon glittering court 
 
 Recall my last behest, 
 For pleasure's self pursued too far 
 
 Shall lose its sweetest zest. 
 Then count the moments as they pass 
 
 And heed their warning chime, 
 Nor ever in life's mazy dance 
 
 Forget the flight of time." 
 1848. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 *' A tale of forests and enchantments drear." // Penseroso. 
 
 Sister, 't is the noon of night ! — 
 
 Let us, in the web of thought, 
 Weave the threads of ancient song. 
 
 From the realms of Fairie brought. 
 
 Thou shalt stain the dusky warp 
 
 In nightshade wet with twilight dew ; 
 I, with streaks of morning gold, 
 
 Will strike the fabric through and through. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Where a lone castle by the sea 
 
 Upreared its dark and moldering pile, 
 
 Far seen, with all its frowning towers, 
 For many and many a weary mile ; 
 
 The wild waves beat the castle walls 
 
 And bathed the rock with ceaseless showers, 
 
 The winds roared hoarsely round the pile, 
 And moaned along its moldering towers. 
 
 Within those wide and echoing halls, 
 To guard her from a fatal spell, 
 
250 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 A maid, of noble lineage born, 
 Was doomed in solitude to dwell. 
 
 With portents dark and omens dire, 
 
 The orphan's natal day began, 
 As warring destinies conspire 
 
 Her charmed life to bless or ban. 
 
 Four Fairies graced the infant's birth 
 
 With fame and beauty, wealth and power ; 
 
 A fifth, by one fell stroke, reversed 
 The magic splendors of her dower : 
 
 If e'er a spindle's shining steel 
 
 Should pierce the maiden's lily hand, 
 
 A solemn trance her eyes should seal 
 In sleep's forlorn, enchanted land : 
 
 A hundred years her soul should stray 
 In far-off shadow-lands of dream, 
 
 Till, warm beneath love's kindling ray, 
 It opened to the morning's beam. 
 
 In olden times the tale had birth, 
 By wandering minstrels told of yore, 
 
 Whose names have perished from the earth, - 
 Whose legends live in fairy lore. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 25 I 
 
 The wild waves beat the castle wall, 
 
 And bathed the rock with ceaseless showers ; 
 
 Dark, heaving billows plunge and fall 
 In whitening foam beneath the towers. 
 
 There, rocked by winds and lulled by waves. 
 In youthful grace the maiden grew. 
 
 And from her solitary dreams 
 
 A sweet and pensive pleasure drew. 
 
 Yet often, from her lattice high. 
 
 She gazed athwart the gathering night 
 
 To mark the sea-gulls wheeling by, 
 And longed to follow in their flight. 
 
 One winter night, beside the hearth 
 
 She sat and watched the smoldering fire. 
 
 While now the tempest seemed to lull, 
 And now the winds rose high and higher, 
 
 Strange sounds are heard along the wall. 
 Dim faces glimmer through the gloom, 
 
 And still mysterious voices call, 
 
 And shadows flit from room to room : 
 
 Till, bending o'er the dying brands. 
 She chanced a sudden gleam to see ; 
 
252 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 She turned the sparkling embers o er, 
 And lo ! she finds a golden key ! 
 
 Lured on, as by an unseen hand, 
 
 She roamed the castle o'er and o'er, — 
 
 Through many a darkling chamber sped, 
 And many a dusky corridor : 
 
 And still, through unknown, winding way 
 She wandered on for many an hour. 
 
 For gallery still to gallery leads, 
 And tower succeeds to tower. 
 
 Oft, wearied with the steep ascent. 
 She lingered on her lonely way. 
 
 And paused beside the pictured walls, 
 Their countless wonders to survey. 
 
 At length, upon a narrow stair 
 That wound within a turret high. 
 
 She saw a little low-browed door, 
 And turned, her golden key to try ; 
 
 Slowly, beneath her trembling hand, 
 The bolts recede, and, backward flung. 
 
 With harsh recoil and sullen clang, 
 The door upon its hinges swung. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 253 
 
 There, in a little moonlit room, 
 
 She sees a weird and withered crone, 
 
 Who sat and spun amid the gloom. 
 
 And turned her wheel with drowsy drone. 
 
 With mute amaze and wondering awe, 
 A passing moment stood the maid, 
 
 Then, entering at the narrow door, 
 More near the mystic task surveyed. 
 
 She saw her twine the flaxen fleece. 
 She saw her draw the flaxen thread, 
 
 She viewed the spindle's shining point. 
 And, pleased, the novel task surveyed. 
 
 A sudden longing seized her breast 
 
 To twine the fleece, — to turn the wheel : 
 
 She stretched her lily hand, and pierced 
 Her finger with the shining steel ! 
 
 Slowly her heavy eyelids close. 
 
 She feels a drowsy torpor creep 
 From limb to limb, till every sense 
 
 Is locked in an enchanted sleep. 
 
 A dreamless slumber, deep as night, 
 In deathly trance her senses locked. 
 
254 ^-^^ SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 At once, through all its massive vaults 
 And gloomy towers, the castle rocked. 
 
 The beldame roused her from her lair. 
 And raised on high a mournful wail, — 
 
 A shrilly scream that seemed to float 
 A requiem on the dying gale. 
 
 " A hundred years shall pass," she said, 
 " Ere those blue eyes behold the morn, — 
 
 Ere these deserted halls and towers 
 Shall echo to a bugle-horn ; 
 
 " A hundred Norland winters pass, 
 
 While drenching rains and drifting snows 
 
 Shall beat against the castle walls, 
 Nor wake thee from thy long repose. 
 
 " A hundred times the golden grain 
 Shall wave beneath the harvest moon. 
 
 Twelve hundred moons shall wax and wane 
 Ere yet thine eyes behold the sun ! " 
 
 She ceased ; but still the mystic rhyme 
 The long-resounding aisles prolong, 
 
 And all the castle's echoes chime 
 In answering cadence to her song. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 255 
 
 She bore the maiden to her bower, 
 An ancient chamber, wide and low, 
 
 Where golden sconces from the wall 
 A faint and trembling lustre throw ; 
 
 A silent chamber, far apart, 
 
 Where strange and antique arras hung, 
 That waved along the moldering walls, 
 
 And in the gusty night-wind swung. 
 
 She laid her on her ivory bed. 
 
 And gently smoothed each snowy limb. 
 Then drew the curtain's dusky fold 
 
 To make the entering daylight dim. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 And all around, on every side. 
 Throughout the castle's precincts wide, 
 
 In every bower and hall. 
 All slept : the warder in the court. 
 The figures on the arras wrought. 
 
 The steed within his stall. 
 
256 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 No more the watch-dog bayed the moon, 
 The owlet ceased her boding tune, 
 
 The raven on his tower. 
 All, hushed in slumber still and deep, 
 Enthralled in an enchanted sleep. 
 
 Await the appointed hour. 
 
 A pathless forest, wild and wide. 
 Engirt the castle's inland side, 
 
 And stretched for many a mile ; 
 So thick the deep, impervious screen. 
 Its topmost towers were dimly seen 
 
 Above the moldering pile. 
 
 So high the ancient cedars sprung, 
 • So far aloft their branches flung, 
 
 So close the covert grew, 
 No foot its silence could invade, 
 No eye could pierce its depths of shade. 
 
 Or see the welkin through. 
 
 Yet oft, as from some distant mound. 
 The traveler cast his eyes around 
 
 O'er wold and woodland gray. 
 He saw, as by the glimmering Hght 
 Of moonbeams, on a misty night, 
 
 A castle far away. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 2S7 
 
 All desolate and drear it stood 
 Within the wild and tangled wood, 
 
 'Mid gloomy foss and fell ; 
 And oft the maiden's form did seem 
 To mingle with a champion's dream, 
 
 As Gothic legends tell. 
 
 Long ere the hundred years had passed, 
 Brave knights, with vigil and with fast. 
 
 Essayed to break the thrall ; 
 Till, in the old romantic time 
 Of minstrel and Provencal rhyme. 
 
 And Amadis de Gaul, 
 
 A paladin from holy land. 
 
 With helm and hauberk, spear and brand, 
 
 And high, untarnished crest. 
 By visions of enchantment led, 
 Hath vowed the magic maze to tread, 
 
 And break her charmed rest. 
 
 As in the Valley of St. John, 
 The bold de Vaux defied alone 
 
 The mighty elfin powers. 
 And sought to gain the enchanted mound. 
 And break the spell that darkly bound 
 
 Its battlements and towers^ — 
 17 
 
258 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 So, like that knight of Triermain, 
 He came through Saracenic Spain 
 
 O'er deserts waste and wide ; 
 No dangers daunt, no toils can tire ; 
 With throbbing heart and soul on fire 
 
 He seeks his sleeping bride. 
 
 He gains the old, enchanted wood. 
 Where never mortal footsteps trod, 
 
 He pierced its tangled gloom ; 
 A chillness loads the lurid air, 
 Where baleful swamp-fires gleam and glare 
 
 His pathway to illume. 
 
 Well might the warrior's courage fail, 
 Well might his lofty spirit quail. 
 
 On that enchanted ground ; ■ 
 No open foeman meets him there, 
 But, borne upon the murky air, 
 
 Strange horror broods around ! 
 
 At every turn his footsteps sank 
 'Mid tangled boughs and mosses dank, 
 
 For long and weary hours, — 
 Till issuing from the dangerous wood, 
 The castle full before him stood. 
 
 With all its flanking towers ! 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 259 
 
 The moon a paly lustre sheds ; 
 
 Resolved, the grass-grown court he treads ; 
 
 The gloomy portal gained, 
 He crossed the threshold's magic bound, 
 He paced the hall, where all around 
 
 A deathly silence reigned. 
 
 No fears his venturous course could stay, — 
 Darkling he groped his dreary way, — 
 
 Up the wide staircase sprang : 
 It echoed to his mailed heel ; 
 With clang of arms and clash of steel 
 
 The silent chambers rang. 
 
 He sees a glimmering taper gleam 
 Far off, with faint and trembling beam. 
 
 Athwart the midnight gloom : 
 Then first his soul confessed a fear. 
 As with slow footsteps drawing near, 
 
 He gained the lighted room. 
 
 And now the waning moon was low. 
 The perfumed tapers faintly glow. 
 
 And, by their dying gleam, 
 He raised the curtain's dusky fold. 
 And lo ! his charmed eyes behold 
 
 The lady of his dream ! 
 
26o THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 As violets peep from wintry snows, 
 Slowly her heavy lids unclose, 
 
 And gently heaves her breast ; 
 But all unconscious was her gaze, 
 Her eye with listless languor strays 
 
 From brand to plumy crest : 
 
 A rising blush begins to dawn 
 Like that which steals at early morn 
 
 Across the eastern sky ; 
 And slowly, as the morning broke, 
 The maiden from her trance awoke 
 
 Beneath his ardent eye ! 
 
 As the first kindling sunbeams threw 
 Their level light athwart the dew. 
 
 And tipped the hills with flame. 
 The silent forest-boughs were stirred 
 With music, as from bee and bird 
 
 A mingling murmur came. 
 
 From out its depths of tangled gloom 
 There came a breath of dewy bloom. 
 
 And, from the valleys dim, 
 A cloud of fragrant incense stole. 
 As if each violet breathed its soul 
 
 Into that floral hymn. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 26 1 
 
 Loud neighed the steed within his stall, 
 The cock crowed on the castle wall, 
 
 The warder wound his horn ; 
 The linnet sang in leafy bower, 
 The swallows, twittering from the tower, 
 
 Salute the rosy morn. 
 
 But fresher than the rosy morn. 
 And blither than the bugle-horn. 
 
 The maiden's heart doth prove, 
 Who, as her beaming eyes awake, 
 Beholds a double morning break, — 
 
 The dawn of light and love !