: 
 
 
 Ai 
 
 i^BMI 
 
 Wam iiii'S 
 
^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 

 ^0^^ 
 
 it 
 
 
 -X'^.^/^, 
 
Songs of the Year 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLTON" 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO., PRINTERS 
 
 1875 
 
 [qIi10 
 

 ?t>^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO. 
 
 1875- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication 7 
 
 Songs of. the Year 9 
 
 Magdala. 28 
 
 Fort Wagner 34 
 
 The Last Eide of the Good Steed FAroHABALLA. 44 
 
 Frothingham's Ball... 49 
 
 The Alchemist's Dream 55 
 
 Midnight 60 
 
 To Marion , 63 
 
 The Lost Path 65 
 
 Lines Written in an Album 67 
 
 Only ;.. 68 
 
 From a Water Baby to Charles Kingsley...... 70 
 
 The Knight of Athol 71 
 
 The Fountain 74 
 
 To A Child 76 
 
 Her Letter o 78 
 
 (iii) 
 
iv contents. 
 
 The Tillage Maid 81 
 
 Hymn to the Dead..„ 83 
 
 A Serenade 85 
 
 Two Visions 87 
 
 The Spanish Students 89 
 
 Lines on a Skeleton Ship found in the Ameri- 
 can Desert 92 
 
 Lines on the Sinking of the Oneida 93 
 
 Poet and Eiver 97 
 
 Hymn to the Eucharist 99 
 
 Idlesse ....,< 101 
 
 The Marriage of the Lamb 103 
 
 The Queen of the West 105 
 
 A Night PIcture 108 
 
 Lines on Murillo's Mother and Child 110 
 
 To THE New Year 112 
 
 Dante Gabriel Eossetti 114 
 
 The Water Spirit of the Saguenay 116 
 
 Suez 118 
 
 J3RIGHAM Young 120 
 
 The Mart of Gold., 122 
 
 Two Yoices 125 
 
 La Piu Gentile Donna... 127 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 I Said to my Love..,. 128 
 
 Why doth.it Lie so Still....... 130 
 
 Only a Eose that Bloomed but a Day 131 
 
 I Cried in the Heat of my Passionate Youth. 132 
 
 One Lightly Uttered, Love is Blind 133 
 
 To Be, that is to Dream 134 
 
 The Singers' Yoices Softly Eise 135 
 
 Enough is Enough, hath the Proverb Well 
 
 Said 136 
 
 The Future is an Idle Dream 137 
 
 LoRSQu 'on doit quitter ceux qu'on aime 138 
 
 I KNOW A Man, but he's unknown to Pame 139 
 
 O, Eestless Soul, Worn with Unrest, be still. 140 
 HAST Thou Forgotten the Walk by the 
 
 Eiver 141 
 
 Wherefore? From the French of Louise Ber- 
 
 TIN 142 
 
 On the Opening of an Egyptian Tomb 143 
 
 Palmyra 145 
 
 Apostrophe to France.... « 146 
 
 Alexis 148 
 
 Kaiser Wilhelm. 151 
 
 Westminster 154 
 
vi contents. 
 
 The ]^ovice 155 
 
 Chiselhurst, January 9, 1873 157 
 
 The Golden Age 159 
 
 Far, O Fair, G-randly Free 161 
 
 Under the Eose 162 
 
 Dore's Picture of Christ Descending from the 
 
 Pr^torium c. 161: 
 
 Immortal and Almighty God. 165 
 
 Parthenope 167 
 
 1 Plucked a Flower in every Land...... ... 169 
 
 To Eleanor....; ,. 170 
 
 Kalakaua 172 
 
 O, Freedom, Sigh not for the Euined Shade... 174 
 
 To Castelar 175 
 
 Translations — 
 
 I. "Beauteous Alice rose at Mokin^," 177 
 
 II. "The BiKDLixa all-embowered in Greei^,'' 177 
 
Father^ where art thou? Can no voice from thee 
 Break through the silence and coine dozv7t to me? 
 Father I — that sacred naiiie I^ve written here 
 That thou^ who dwellest afar^ 7nay seem more 7iear: 
 If thou couldst sfeak^ not all the f raises won 
 Fro77i mo7^tal lips were sweet as thy " ^vell done I " 
 These first fruits of 77ty so7ig I hri7ig to thee 
 l7i silence— yet I k7tow thotc seest 772e. 
 
 (vii) 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 T N a far and western country 
 'Neath an opal-hearted sky, 
 Where the strange and glowing foliage 
 Takes a deeper tinct and dye, 
 Forth into the primal forest 
 Went a joyous village band, 
 And their songs are blown back to us 
 From that happy sunset land. 
 
 (9)' 
 
lO SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 [First sang a woman who had drained 
 The cup of life till youth had waned, 
 And hope was dead, and night was near, 
 The saddest song of all the year.] 
 
 I. 
 
 THE SONG OF MEMORY. 
 
 Methought I heard a still small voice 
 Cry to eartli, Rejoice, rejoice. 
 
 Over the winter cold and dark ; 
 
 Hope has drifted like the ark, 
 
 And spring has brought the first green leaf — 
 
 Forerunner of the gathered sheaf! 
 
 And then methought I heard a sigh, 
 
 It seemed the wind that glided by : 
 
 The flowers are fed with sun and rain. 
 
 But can they bring to life again 
 
 The rose that bloomed and died last year, 
 
 Or paint the leaf that's brown and sere? 
 
 The flowers will never bloom again. 
 
 For them the spring returns in vain ! 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. II 
 
 [A lover sang the song of May, 
 The trysting time of all the year, 
 When all things love, and woo, and mate : 
 And all the village paused to hear.] 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SONG OF LOVE, 
 
 Methought her eyes were bluer 
 Than the sky on summer eves ; 
 Her voice methought made music 
 . Like the rustling wind-swept leaves ! 
 
 She touched me with her white hand 
 And it thrilled me through and through, 
 I kissed her lips and thought them 
 Like violets steeped in dew ! 
 
 A nightingale was singing 
 
 All night to the moon's pale face ; 
 
 It seemed like the voice of our passion 
 
 Or the soul of that beautiful place ! 
 
12 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 [Then a soldier sang of battles 
 And of comrades long at rest ; 
 Standing with an empty coat-sleeve 
 Meekly crossed above his breast : 
 Other sign was none of glory, 
 For when war's alarums cease, 
 Freedom's mighty host disbanded 
 Turn into the paths of peace.] 
 
 IIL 
 
 THE SONG OF THE HEALER. 
 
 Are these the hills that trembled 
 Beneath the shock of war : 
 Are these the vales that drank in 
 Our fallen heroes gore? 
 
 How few the scars and gashes 
 Upon sweet nature's face : 
 The springs have come and gone here 
 And left their tender grace ; 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 1 3 
 
 So like a human anguish 
 That leaves a holy calm. 
 The hills all clothed in silence 
 Are nature's voiceless psalm : 
 
 Save where : upon the hillsides 
 Open to wind and sun ; 
 Where silence keeps her watches 
 And mountain brooklets run, 
 
 Where wild clematis blossoms 
 And purple violets hide ; 
 The conquerors and the conquered 
 Are lying side by side : 
 
 The stars sing on together 
 Beyond our human ken, 
 And earth gives back the echo, 
 "Peace and good will to men !" 
 
^4 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 _ [Then one aweary grown 
 
 Of love, made thus his moan.] 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE ROSE. 
 
 O love, love, love, 
 
 Thou art fair as the blossoming rose, 
 But thy beauty, 'and thy fragrance 
 With the fallen rose leaf goes ; 
 One day in the summer sunshine. 
 One hour of the morning dew, 
 One night all steeped iiT silence. 
 And when dawn breaks anew 
 The memory of thy beauty 
 Upon the fragrant air. 
 But scattered are the rose leaves 
 And the ravished bough is bare ! 
 
SOl^GS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 [Then, standing in the morning light 
 Among her children, taJl and white, 
 A noble matron large and fair, 
 With calm blue eyes, and yellow hair, 
 Full in her prime, sang sweet and strong 
 In mellow tones the harvest song.] 
 
 . V. 
 
 THE HARVEST SONG. 
 
 Bring home, bring home the loaded wain 
 
 Piled with the fragrant yellow grain, 
 
 In triumph bring the harvest spoil 
 
 The fruit of all our hope and toil : 
 
 We sowed the seed with generous hand 
 
 And God has blessed the faithful land ; 
 
 He sent the sun, and latter rain, 
 
 Bring home, bring home the harvest wain ! 
 
 But many a flower of brightest hue 
 Fed by the sun, the wind, the dew. 
 Blue as the sky, red as the morn. 
 
j6 SONGS OF THE YEV^R. 
 
 Is blooming 'mid the tasseled corn. 
 Thus if in hope and patient toil 
 We sow the seed and till the soil, 
 The flowers in our wheat are strewn, 
 We gather more than we have sown ! 
 
 Soon where there is no grief or sin 
 My days will all be gathered in ; 
 But I have left the seed behind 
 Of others lives for sun and wind, 
 And winter snows and summer showers. 
 To ripen into fruit and flowers. 
 For all the coming harvest fields 
 Till death to time his sickle yields ! 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. ^7 
 
 [Then two together sing 
 With voice aUernating :] 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE CLOVER SONG. 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 As the bee to the blossom 
 
 So I to thy bosom 
 
 From roving and roving return : 
 
 He roves for an hour, 
 
 Then back to the flower 
 
 To drink from its honey-filled urn I 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 The bee, O my lover, 
 
 Returns to the clover. 
 
 But the blossom is withered and dead : 
 
 So thou from another 
 
 Returnest false lover. 
 
 But the bloom of my passion is fled ! 
 
i8 
 
 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 [Then sang sweet nature's poet-priest, 
 Who holds divine the very least 
 Atom of dust, and yet w^ould lay 
 All things in his nice scales and weigh 
 The worlds, as merchants weig^h out orold 
 Whom prudent men deem over bold.] 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE SONG OF DEATH. 
 
 The year is dying like a king in purple robes and 
 
 golden haze ; 
 His weary limbs and aching brows upon our mother 
 
 earth he lays. . 
 
 Le rot est mort: vive le roil the herald winds of 
 
 autumn ring 
 Adown the echoing forest aisles unleafing for the 
 
 far off spring. 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. ^9 
 
 For nature is not dead ; but sleeps : already 'neath 
 
 the purple glow 
 The buds are forming that will bloom beyond the 
 
 winter and the snow. 
 
 [When rose among them tall and grand 
 He on whose breast the years had broken, 
 There fell upon that listening band 
 Silence, as though a seer had spoken.] 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE SONG OF HOPE. 
 
 There has come to the sad old year a memory of 
 
 the spring : 
 And a bird in a leafless tree-top begins once more 
 
 to smg, 
 
20 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 For a hazy Indian summer has fallen on the scene, 
 And a smile steals o'er the landscape like a thought 
 of what has been. 
 
 Oh the sweet and solemn beauty of tliat tardy after- 
 glow^, 
 
 When the year is growing weary, and his pulse is 
 beating slow^ ! 
 
 Is it memory's lingering smile that softens his old 
 face so, 
 
 Or the light of the coming life from the spring be- 
 yond the snow? 
 
 [The graybeard then turned to a little maid 
 Who sought the four-leafed clover at his side, 
 Laid on her curls his thin white hand and said, 
 
 ''And have you then no song for Christmas-tide?" 
 The little maid lifted her blue eyes bright 
 And sinking turned her sweet face to the light.] 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 21 
 
 IX. ^ 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS SONG. 
 CHILD. 
 
 .Christmas bells, Christmas bells, 
 What is it your music tells, 
 
 Ringing out above the snow. 
 Ringing round the wide world so? 
 
 BELL. 
 
 Little child : — with brazen tongue 
 Through the ages we have rung 
 
 Every year the blessed chime 
 At the merry Christmas time. 
 
 Once in holy Galilee 
 
 There was born a child like thee : 
 
22 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 In a manger he was laid, 
 Roughly cradled — little maid : 
 
 Bui the Magi from afar 
 
 Saw the glowing eastern star, 
 
 Knelt before him and adored, 
 Called him Jesu, Christ, the Lord I 
 
 This is what the clappers tell 
 Swinging in each brazen bell. 
 
 Ringing round the world so wide, 
 '' Christ was born at Christmas-tide !" 
 
 [Then one who stood among the crowd, 
 A poet broad and noble-browed. 
 Before whose eyes all space and lime 
 Move in their pageantry sublime.] 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 23 
 
 THE MARRIAGE SONG. 
 
 Yea all things come and all things go, but earth 
 
 abideth still for aye. 
 In silence clothed she walks the ether realms, 
 
 bride of the god of day ; 
 
 Born of the sun, she bears the years, and feeds 
 them from her own white breast. 
 
 And rocks them on her ample lap, and then she 
 hushes them to rest. 
 
 The pale moon hangs her silver lamp, to light her 
 
 way through space by night. 
 Queen of the air the fair earth sleeps, and turns and 
 
 dreams in her white light. 
 
 The worlds that roll through dark and light, sun, 
 moon and stars, sing on their way, 
 
24 SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Though all things come and. all things go, in depth 
 of space we live for aye ! 
 
 [Then sang a maiden fair as any star. 
 And dark and tall as eastern maidens are, 
 In sweet low tones that sent their lingering thrill 
 To wake the echoes sleeping in the hill.] 
 
 XL 
 
 THE SONG OF BIRTH. 
 
 Through the silence of the midnight hour, 
 From the heart of the forest tree, 
 A single birdlike note broke forth 
 Like the flight of a soul set free. 
 
 "Was it the voice of a lonely bird 
 
 Asleep on a leafless bough. 
 
 As it dreams of its mate of the summer-time 
 
 And the nest that is vacant now? 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Or was it the rush of a spirit's wings 
 Through the darkened arch of night, 
 As it broke the bonds of its earthly thrall 
 And fled to the morning light? 
 
 Or was it a voice from the leafless tree 
 At the new year's mystic birth, 
 As it felt the stirring of the sap 
 Far down beneath the earth? • 
 
 But if 'twas the voice of a dreaming bird 
 It is still : and the downy breast 
 Is feeling only the pricking pain 
 Of a thorn in last year's nest. 
 
 And if 't was a spirit's winged flight 
 It will visit the earth no more, 
 And a deeper silence fills the air 
 Than the silence that went before. 
 
26 - SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 But if 't was the moving of the sap 
 At the turning of the year, 
 I shall wait in vain till this son of time 
 Is laid in the old year's bier. 
 
 [Last the young priest, beloved of his flock, 
 Spake, standing on a gray and moss-grown rock, 
 With clear eyes gazing where from earth afar 
 In purple ether hung the evening star.] 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE SONG OF FAITH. 
 
 Hail ! sweet approach of summer-time. 
 When all the earth shall smile again, 
 When murmuring brooks will run in rhyme 
 And there is music in the rain ! 
 
SONGS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Fair are the noiseless winter hours 
 When all the earth grows strong in sleep, 
 But fairer far the time when flowers 
 Like sunshine o'er the brown earth creep. 
 
 This is the time when faith grows strong 
 And weeps not o'er our fleeting breath, 
 And hope upon the wings of morn 
 Soars far beyond the gates of death. 
 Hail ! resurrection of the year, 
 Great tj^pe of what that day shall be, 
 When we shall break the bonds of fear 
 And comprehend eternity. 
 
MAGDALA. 
 
 T sing the fall of Abyssinia 
 
 The fate of Theodorus, King of kings ! 
 Where the blue Nile comes from Ethiopia 
 To pay his tribute to the mystic tide ; 
 Father of waters in dark Egyptus, 
 Giver of life, born on untrodden heights, 
 Bearing forgotten graves w^hen the North star 
 First set its beacon in the azure night 
 Of Afric's glowing climes ! Whose slimy' ebb 
 And fertile flooding of slow refluent waters, 
 Recorded time before the years were numbered ; 
 Wearing the shadow of the Southern cross 
 'Mid the dark secrets of his troubled breast. 
 
 In Magdala, the city of the hills. 
 
 The sunny hills, King Theodorus reigned, 
 
 (28) 
 
MAGDALA. 29 
 
 The heaven born, begotten of the gods. 
 
 Of Sheba's royal line, the King of kings. 
 
 His spears wrung tribute from the lesser kings, 
 
 And captives swelled the pageant of his train : 
 
 Till in a hapless year, there came a band 
 
 Of white, faced strangers prying through the land, 
 
 Then Theodoras, wrathful that they thus 
 
 Unbidden carne, bade all his trusty men 
 
 Bind them with chains, and from this deed there 
 
 sprung 
 Foul desolation over all the land. 
 
 Drink, drink for the monarch, 
 
 The cup must be brimming 
 
 On the breath of its fragrance 
 
 His spirit will drift; 
 
 It steals through his veins like 
 
 A goblet of sunshine, 
 
 The spell of the wine cup 
 
 Is subtle and swift. 
 
 What passionate sweetness 
 
 Is sweet as the passion, 
 
 Of steeping one's soul in 
 
30 MAGDALA. 
 
 The juice of the vine? 
 The river of Lethe 
 That 's sung by the poet, 
 Is only a bumper 
 Of generous wine. 
 
 Then through the plains the glistening banners 
 
 flashed 
 And scarlet trappings glimmered in the sun, 
 And the loud trumpet woke the faint alarm 
 Of distant echoes in the purple hills. 
 Before the troubled eyes of dusky tribes 
 They passed, a vision of white warriors, 
 With gleaming sabres, and with nodding plumes, 
 And all laid siege to sunny Magdala. 
 
 The maidens are coming 
 With music and cymbals, 
 And circles of jewels 
 Around their brown arms; 
 With vestures of purple, 
 And orange, and azure, 
 That serve but to heighten 
 Their sinewy charms. 
 
MAGDALA. 
 
 Their brown feet are moving 
 In rhythmical measiire, 
 Their bare hands are beating 
 Qjaick time to the dance, 
 They reel past the throne of 
 Their bronze-visaged monarch 
 Who throws them in passing 
 A cynical glance. 
 
 Then signs from their number 
 The queen of the dancers, 
 Whose dark eyes are filled with 
 A smouldering fire; 
 Her bosom still heaves from 
 The pulse of the dance, as 
 She lies at the feet of 
 Her amorous sire. 
 
 He kisses her red lips 
 
 With African fervor, 
 
 And stills with his dark hand 
 
 The passionate throes 
 
 Of her bosom ; then goes from 
 
 The palace of pleasure 
 
 To steep that same hand in 
 
 The blood of his foes. 
 
 31 
 
32 MAGDALA. 
 
 They hurled the trembling captives down the cliff 
 To lie in quivering masses at its base, 
 And from the burnished east the birds of prey 
 Gathered and darkened to their reeking feast. 
 Forth from the v^alls the Abyssinians came 
 With bows, and spears, and all the pomp of war: 
 Wound down the mountain path ; and at their head 
 The mighty monarch, Theodorus, walked, 
 Fronting the proud invaders of the land 
 With all the presence of an outlawed king. 
 The cruel anger gleaming in his eyes 
 Crouched like a panther ready for the spring. 
 But vain are bosoms bared to meet the foe, 
 'Gainst cunning engines, belching smoke and fire : 
 And vain are spears against a foe that stands 
 Beyond the winged arrows utmost flight. 
 Like some lone pine that shudders to its fall 
 And shakes the earth with dying majesty, 
 Across the path of those that spoiled the land 
 The mighty monarch, Theodorus, fell. 
 
MAGDALA. S;"^ 
 
 THE SONG OF THE KING'S JESTER. 
 
 Spilt is the wine of the wine cup 
 
 And empty the palaces stand, 
 
 The sound of the clashing of cymbals 
 
 Is silent throughout all the land. 
 
 The maiden who danced for the monarch, 
 The monarch who toyed with her hair, 
 Are dead, and I sit mid the ruins 
 A jester grown silent with care. 
 
 Weep for the fall of Abyssinia, 
 Mother of lands in the dawn of days, 
 She sits uncrowned upon the stricken hills 
 Her hearths made desolate, her children slain. 
 Where is the Queenof Sheba's sacred dust, 
 Where is the pomp of all her pageants now. 
 And where her sons who ne'er should cease to 
 reign ! 
 
FORT WAGNER. 
 
 •• T T AIL, son of man, thy advent on the earth : 
 
 Hail myriad-timed miracle of birth : 
 Immortal one, whose day is just begun, 
 'Twas I created theei — all hail,, my son ! " 
 Thus sang a mother o'er her cradled child. 
 Rocking the little crib ; and singing smiled 
 'Neath the dark shadow of the northern fir, 
 Rejoicing that a son was born to her : 
 Through rolling years the babe id manhood passed 
 No shade of doom athwart his footsteps cast. 
 
 He was as fair as some Achaean god : 
 Or young Endymion sleeping on the sod, 
 What time Diana, coming from the chase, 
 Stooped down to kiss the fair unconscious face ; 
 
 (34) 
 
FORT WAGNE% 35 
 
 And as she, trembling, started from his side 
 Fringed eyes of troubled blue he opened wide : 
 There was such childlike beauty in his face, 
 Such marriage of soft lines with tender grace, 
 Such w^oman-purity, it did not seem 
 Strange^that a goddess kissed him in his dream. 
 [O, chaste Diana, w^ho could e'er have told 
 Thou wouldst have loved a man of mortal mould : 
 Passion e'er take possession of thy breast. 
 Beat in thy bosom with its wild unrest : 
 Thou, goddess of the vaulted realm of night, 
 Wouldst ever fall in this our earthly plight : 
 Thou feel, who art all mortal ills above, 
 This mortal anguish of immortal love : - 
 And thou, O goddess of the chase, e'er know 
 The quivering arrow^ sped from Cupid's bow !] 
 Or more, perchance, like that fair greek, who— 
 
 when 
 By prudence banished from the haunts of men ; 
 While all the maids the silken fabrics scan, 
 Seizing the hidden arms reveals himself a man. 
 
^6 FORT WAGNER. 
 
 For there was stuff as stern in this young breast, 
 Of mortals born and cradled in the west. 
 But she who formed this hero 'neath her heart, 
 With truer courage chose a nobler part ; 
 Taught his young lips to prate of lofty themes. 
 And with high hopes inspired his baby dreams. 
 
 While with another dame in high converse 
 Upon the anguish of the bondman's curse, 
 As o'er the cradle faithful watch she kept 
 Where, smiling in his dreams, her infant slept ; 
 Down her white cheek the tear of pity fell : 
 '' I love the weak and the oppressed so well 
 That I would give : " she cried with kindling eye : 
 " Yea, this, my only son, for them to die ! " 
 Thinking, poor mother, but to illustrate 
 The love she bore them for their piteous fate. 
 When from her lips there broke that generous, cry 
 Could she foretell it was a prophecy : 
 Could she foresee those golden curls should be 
 Mangled and bloody by the southern sea : 
 
FORT WAGNER 
 
 37 
 
 Or picture, lying helpless on the ground, 
 
 That snowy form gashed o'er* with many a wound ! 
 
 Too oft, of noble dreamers, 'tis the doom 
 
 To sleep untimely in a hero's tomb. 
 
 War now proclaimed, to arms the stripling flies: 
 His days are filled with dreams of high emprise : 
 He trains his warriors for the coming strife 
 Led by the rolling drum and piercing fife. 
 His being thrills with generous love of fame, 
 He longs to hear the ages lisp his name : 
 Yet woman's luring eyes and pretty whiles 
 Oft from the path his eager step beguiles : 
 But one there was, still fairer than the rest. 
 Who stirred the dormant passion in his breast. 
 
 Worthy a hero's love, sweet womanhood, 
 In Anna's form revealed before him stood : 
 The swelling bosom which her gown confines, 
 Gives promise of the matron's fuller lines : 
 Her noble presence and her eyes proud sheen 
 
38 FORT WAGNER. 
 
 Would grace a Roman maiden's stately mien ; 
 A helpmeet true, a staff, a guide, a friend : 
 Here grace and wisdom in sweet union blend. 
 
 Whilst 'neath the roof tree of his sires he passed, 
 
 Ere hastening to the camp, perchance the last 
 
 Fleet hours with those he loved ; to the wide gate, 
 
 There came a hasty messenger of state. 
 
 *' We form a band of swarthy troops ; and need 
 
 A man of mark these lowly ones to lead : 
 
 We la}-' not now on you our high command 
 
 But seek your service; — will you lead the band?" 
 
 Thus wrote the Chief: the warrior asked a day 
 
 Wherein this weighty matter he might weigh. 
 
 O who can tell the struggle of his soul ! 
 Great drops of anguish down his forehead roll : 
 Oft had he dreamed of wounds, and death per- 
 chance, 
 But death, and danger, gilded with romance ; 
 Women should strive and poets should aspire, 
 
FORT WAGNER. 39 
 
 To wreathe his brow, and tune for him the lyre : 
 But this ! — O God, to be the conscious butt 
 Of jeering tongues, who with derision glut 
 Their paltry malice : and instead of fame, 
 
 To marshal bondmen whom to lead w^ere shame ! 
 " I can not counsel !" — thus the mother spake • 
 And looking on him thought her heart would 
 
 break 
 Alone he paced through all the hours of night 
 Till day, returning, flushed the east with light; 
 Then, with a hero's mien, and lofty air. 
 He spake, and never had he seemed so fair : 
 " The noble chief hath sought us for this deed, 
 And shall he say we failed him in his need !" 
 Doubt and regret are banished from his breast ; 
 To the new task he brings a patriot's zest. 
 
 The maid he loves to bear his name consents 
 Ere her young lover hastens to the tents : 
 Through clouds and storms they catch a glimpse 
 of heaven : 
 
40 FORT WAGNER, 
 
 In haste the blessing of the church is given. 
 Fair is the maiden standing at his side, 
 Robed all in white, a hero's spotless bride : 
 His lips, at last, receive her trembling kiss ; 
 Too soon must cease the rapture of their bliss : 
 Often he clasps her to his beating heart : 
 Speechless and tearless — thus the lovers part. 
 
 When to the field he led his swarthy band 
 The eager crowd pressed close on either hand : 
 There too the gracious lady of his love, 
 Her blue eyes dim with tears, leaned high above 
 O'er the stone coping , and with white hand threw, 
 Down on his path, a rose still wet with dew : 
 The blushing leaves his lips an instant pressed, 
 And then he placed the flower in his breast. 
 With sudden upward glance to where his bride 
 Looked down through tears of mingled grief and 
 
 pride. 
 Leading those dusky troops her lover seems 
 Fair as the hero of a maiden's dreams : 
 
FORT WAGNER. 4I 
 
 His golden locks by amorous breezes blown. 
 His head with graceful gesture backward thrown, 
 His war-horse moving lightly 'neath his hand; 
 His young voice ringing clearly in command : 
 She leans far out to see him to the last ; 
 Thus from the presence of his love he passed. 
 
 Far to the southward, at the dawn of day, 
 
 The hosts of battle marshal for the fray 
 
 Where beetling Wagner frets the morning skies : 
 
 *' Send the black troops:" the eager chieftain 
 
 cries : 
 " To lead the van : now set them in the front 
 And eye of Wagner : let them bear the brunt 
 And heat of battle ; that the world may see 
 If night-black hosts are worthy to be free V^ 
 Rings on the air the cannon's loud report : 
 The tide of battle reddens round the fort, 
 Shaw, with his freedmen, leads the wild attack: 
 The untried troops yield and are driven back ; 
 But he, their leader, rushes on apace : 
 
42 FORT WAGNER. 
 
 Then pause the warriors of the meek-eyed race, 
 And turn, and follow, up the fearful sward 
 Where, o'er their path, a rain of fire is poured. 
 When rolled the cloud of battle from the plain 
 The gallant Shaw was lying 'mid the slain 
 Within the rebel lines : while far away 
 The camps of freedom to the northward lay. 
 — O was the glory of that little hour 
 Paid all too dearly, when the pride and flower 
 Of all our armies gave his blameless life 
 To prove his freedmen worthy of the strife I 
 The white-winged angel of the summer night 
 Passing o'er Wagner, shuddered in her flight ; 
 And when from day's return she, trembling, fled 
 The very sun looked palely on the dead. 
 They sent a band of warriors from the plain 
 To clahn the body of the hero slain. 
 But he, the ribald chieftain of the fort. 
 Drunk with his passion hurled a fierce retort : 
 '' He's buried with his negroes : " seeking so 
 A slur upon the very grave to throw. 
 
FORT WAGNER. 43 
 
 Fame took the insult by the rebel hurled 
 And whispered it to all a listening world : 
 Men said the deed, unwittingly, was fine : 
 The place became an altar and a shrine : 
 For who could guard the hero's dust so well 
 As those who round his body, fighting, fell. 
 
 They carried tidings how her lover died 
 
 To her who was his six-weeks-widowed bride. 
 
 Her rich hair powdered with the snows of grief 
 
 Cast her young beauty into higher relief. 
 
 And could not mar, but only served to raise 
 
 That noble beauty far above all praise. 
 
 She seemed to stand apart among the great 
 
 Touched by communion to their lofty state ; - 
 
 Like some lone priestess at a m3'stic fane 
 
 Rapt in the silent memories of the slain. 
 
 And though she smiled, and made no outward 
 
 moan, 
 Among the living, widowed, she moved alone. 
 
THE LAST RIDE OF THE GOOD STEED 
 . FAUGHABALLA.* 
 
 X/'ON trooper on his coal-black steed, 
 
 The scion of a desert breed 
 Far famed through all that western land, 
 Like carved horse and rider stand : 
 
 His nostrils glow like coals of fire ; 
 His eyes are filled wath battle-ire; 
 The free blood coursing through his veins 
 Knows but one hand upon the reins ; 
 One yoke by Faughaballa worn ;' 
 One master rules the desert born ; 
 His ears like watchful sentries stand 
 To catch the first word of command 
 Of that low-ringing voice. 
 
 ^" Faughaballa ('' clear the way") General Lytle's famous black 
 horse killed at Carnifex. 
 
 f44) 
 
THE GOOD STEED FAUGHABALLA 45 
 
 11. * 
 
 Where death and danger lead the van 
 There Lytle rides the foremost man ; 
 He lingers where the bullets hiss 
 As lovers linger when they kiss : 
 And smiles to feel his destrier brave 
 Cleaving the battle's seething wave. 
 His mistress is not mortal maid, 
 Her tresses with the laurel braid : 
 She woos him with her scented breath 
 To win her from his rival death : 
 She murmurs low her lover name, 
 Arid Lytle's mistress men call Fame ; — 
 A maiden coy and false. 
 
 HI. 
 
 '' Charge ! " — He gives his chafing steed the rein ; 
 The troops move swiftly o'er the plain, 
 When midway on their headlong course 
 
46 THE GOOD STEED FAUGHABALLA, 
 
 Death strikes the rider and his horse : 
 The waves of battle halt and sway 
 Their swift impulsion reft away : 
 He cheers them on ; then sways and falls 
 But Faughaballa leaps the walls, 
 Thrice makes the circle of the fort, 
 With wild and loud triumphant snort - 
 Sinks to the earth a corpse. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " All honor to the noble dead ! " 
 The southern warriors softly said. 
 " No braver deed was ever done, 
 No laurels ever better won !" 
 They took the pistols from his side 
 As trophies of that famous ride ; 
 And laid the warrior to his rest 
 Beside the river's peaceful breast : 
 Far from his western plains. 
 
THE GOOD STEED FAUGHABALLA. a^ 
 
 V. . 
 
 Fame stood by Lytle* where he lay 
 All through that tinted autumn day, 
 Unseen save by those eyes raised wide 
 Pleading with her to be his bride ; 
 '' Thy course," she murmurs, *' is not run, 
 Columbia needs her bravest son ; 
 When autumn twice shall tread again 
 With red-foot prints the southern plain ; 
 When thrice for freedom thou hast bled 
 I '11 make my lover's marriage-bed 
 Beside the stream of death !^' 
 
 VI. 
 
 All through the day with shot and shell 
 They make their fearful vengeance tell ; 
 And when the dark night wraps the earth, 
 Before the late moon's tardy birth, 
 
 ♦General Ljtle was wounded at the battles of Carnifex and 
 Perrjville, and killed at Chickamauga. 
 
48 THE GOOD STEED FAUGHABALLA. 
 
 The baffled, conquered southern host 
 Desert their well-defended post. 
 When from the dewy couch of dawn 
 The cloudy curtains are withdrawn, 
 With solemn mien and reverent tread 
 Across the field where sleep the dead, 
 Their banners riddled by the storm. 
 They bear their leader's shattered form 
 Within the conquered fort. 
 
FROTHINGHAM'S BALL. 
 
 TT happened the night of the Frothingham's ball; 
 I went with the Bertrams : 't was late in the fall ; 
 The music, and dancing, and laughter, and light, 
 And flowers, all made it a beautiful sight. 
 
 Around the great entrance were gathered about 
 The rabble to see the fair ladies come out : 
 A woman and child stood aloof from the crowd, 
 The face of the woman was dark and low-browed : 
 Yet, it must have been beautiful once, that pale face. 
 And she carried herself with a wild heedless grace ; 
 But her look of despair would have turned you to 
 
 stone, ^ 
 
 As she stood 'mid the chattering beggars, alone ; 
 
 (49) 
 
50 FROTHINGHAM S BALL. 
 
 Her dress which was thin, was bedraggled and 
 
 torn, 
 But the boy was well clad, and he seemed not base- 
 born. 
 
 The butler one moment is gone from the door, 
 The woman glides in, and for once on that floor 
 'Neath the glare of the gaslight, the two extremes 
 
 meet. 
 The cream of the fashion, the scum of the street. 
 She passes the paralyzed guests in the hall 
 Through the silence that falls like a spell over all. 
 And none lays a hand on the woman ; like fate 
 She crosses the threshold, and then 't is too late. 
 
 Frothingham stood there full under the light, 
 His wife at his left hand, his boy on his right. 
 She entered the room and came slowly along. 
 With her boy by the hand, through that gaily 
 
 dressed throng ; 
 He started, turned red, and then pale at the sight, 
 
FROTHINGHAM S BALL, 5 I 
 
 And the wife of his bosom was trembling with fright. 
 She came where they stood, and then paused with 
 
 the child, 
 And spoke in a voice that was broken and wild :^ 
 
 " We wandered too-ether in darkness and nio-ht 
 Till we came to your house all ablaze in the light ; 
 He asked who was his father : and, lady, I came 
 To answer that question, and show you his shame : 
 My son, there 's your father : nay, fear not his scorn ! 
 Yes, lady, they Ve brothers, but mine's the first-born. 
 See, lady, in both the same look of surprise, 
 The same golden curls, and the same deep blue 
 
 eyes ; 
 Ah ! do you not see how the life streams that course 
 Through their veins, are each fed from the same 
 
 parent source ? 
 But I was his mistress, and you are his wife. 
 And your son will live like a prince all his life, 
 While mine is thrust down to be one of the mob ! " 
 And then her voice broke in a shuddering sob ; 
 
^2 frothingham's ball. 
 
 And she shook, and she trembled, and shivered and 
 
 cried. 
 And the boy fell to sobbing, and clung to her side. 
 The woman he honored drew close to her lord, 
 While over the two her hot anger was poured •, 
 The hearts of his guests witli strange pity were 
 
 stirred, 
 But he looked on the woman and spake not a word. 
 
 'T was the butler, I tliink, who found on his stand 
 The w^atchman, who laid not unkindly his hand 
 On the woman and led them away from the rooms. 
 * 'Where ! " none asked, but most likely a cell in the 
 Tombs. 
 
 It broke up the dancing, and each guest withdrew 
 
 With conventional phrases of formal adieu. 
 
 The dreams of the sleepers were troubled and 
 
 stirred 
 With the sight they had seen, and the words they 
 
 had heard ; 
 
FROTHINGHAMS BALL. 53 
 
 But the morrow they laughed with a laughter as 
 
 light,^ 
 And forgot the grim ghost they had seen over 
 
 night. 
 You ask what became of the w^oman forsaken? 
 I remember 'tw^as said that the father overtaken 
 With tardy repentance, the wife moved with pity, 
 Sought the outcasts in vain through the dens of the 
 
 city. 
 
 They eased their remorse with the moral reflection. 
 That what can not be helped should not cause us 
 
 dejection ; ' 
 
 And time the avenger and healer halts not, 
 Weeks passed, she was silent, and they too forgot. 
 
 Both were his sons, and the women had been 
 Each dear Jto his dastardly bosom, I ween ; 
 But one for a summer, and one for a life. 
 One was his mistress, and one was his wife ; 
 One he beguiled with the false words he told. 
 
54 frothingham's ball. 
 
 Of altar, and priest, and a ring of pure gold. 
 
 His marriage was pledged in the same words, I 
 
 trow, 
 But one was a promise, the other a vow. 
 
 'T is not often we look on this truth face to face. 
 And we ask not how many are wrecjced in this 
 
 place ; 
 We shrink ft'om a problem so tragic and grim. 
 But what do you think should be meted to him 
 Who betrays a poor woman, and steals all the sweet 
 From her life, and then casts her out into the street? 
 
o 
 
 THE ALCHEMIST'S DREAM. 
 
 LD I — ^so old !■ — with his head bent low, 
 And the heart in his bosom beating slow : 
 
 By the gleam of the taper's flickering light 
 The alchemist toiled through the hours of night. 
 
 He brought strange herbs from distant lands 
 And mingled them all with his trembling hands, 
 
 And sought the secret of life in vain 
 That should touch his locks to gold again ; 
 
 Softly he smiled at his midnight toil 
 
 And whispered : " The miser may seek to spoil 
 
 (55) 
 

 
 6 THE alchemist's DREAM. 
 
 '' The earth, in search of her secret old 
 To fill his coffers with yellow gold. 
 
 " I seek the clue to a deeper truth, 
 The mystery of undying youth." 
 
 Often he mingled the potion again 
 And wrought the secret of life in vain. 
 
 And ever he sought in his mystic lore 
 Only one little ingredient more. 
 
 Once, as his rriidnight watch he kept, 
 He bowed his hoary head, and slept. 
 
 A sunbeam fell through the shadowy night 
 And there came to him on its path of light, 
 
 A beautiful woman, tall and fair, 
 With deep blue eyes, and golden hair. 
 
THE alchemist's DREAM. 57 
 
 She wore in her breast where the soft lines meet 
 A bunch of violets fresh and^sweet ; 
 
 As close she came to the dim oak stand, 
 She loosed them with her snowy hand : 
 
 And spake in tones so low 'twould seem 
 A zephyr breathing through his dream ; 
 
 Standing beside him white and calm 
 Holding the violets in her palm. 
 
 ^'Stcn^ and earthy and dew^ and wind 
 All their ?nystic powers combined; 
 Time^ the alchemist^ had brought 
 Hoarded juices^ and had wrought^ 
 Many years beneath the earth 
 For the hour that gave it birth; 
 Fanned it with the winds that blew^ 
 Fed it with the sicn and dew^ 
 Fashioned every secret ^art^ 
 
5 8 THE alchejniist's dream. 
 
 Petals stein ^ and golden hearty 
 That this little -pur fie Jlvwer 
 Should httt blossom for an hour : 
 Wrought it in a mystery^ 
 This is nature's alchemy ; 
 O vain mortal^ would you then 
 In httt three score years and ten ^ 
 Solve the secret of your youths 
 Mix and mingle here forsooth^ 
 In this little cup of gold^ . 
 All its mysteries manifold; 
 Trace the sources whence you came, 
 And resolve your solid frame 
 . To rebuild it in an hour 
 With your earth begotten 'fower ? 
 Tet^ grieve not, for the mystery 
 You seek, is im^nortality ^ 
 And the violet when it dies 
 But returns into the skies.'' 
 
THE alchemist's DREAM 
 
 He woke to find himself alone, 
 The lamp was out, the visian flown : 
 
 But stealing faintly through the gloom, 
 The scent of violets filled the room. 
 
 59 
 
MIDNIGHT. 
 
 A S the clock was slowly striking 
 Midnight in the old oak hall, 
 Breathless silence fell around me, 
 And I heard an angel call : 
 All my flesh seemed, growing weaker 
 And my spirit gaining strength, 
 '* Come ! " the waiting angel whispered, 
 And I felt my wings at length. 
 
 Through the blue we sped together 
 
 Till the earth waned like a star, 
 
 And w^e lost her in the distance 
 
 Where the waves of silence are : 
 
 And I saw a golden radiance 
 
 Fall upon our soundless wings, 
 (60) 
 
MIDNIGHT. 6l 
 
 And the ether spread around us 
 In illuminated rings. 
 
 Saw a host upon a mountain 
 
 In a golden haze of light. 
 
 Every brow was wreathed with laurel 
 
 Every form was robed in white : 
 
 And a music softer, fainter, 
 
 Than the breeze that stirs the rose, 
 
 Round the bases of the mountain 
 
 Faintly ebbs, and softly flows. 
 
 But the angel drew me onward 
 To the mountain's dizzy verge. 
 And I looked down deep abysses 
 Where the waves of darkness surge : 
 Countless hosts of men and women. 
 Pale and passionless and sad, 
 Some were worn with hopeless watching. 
 Some were weeping, some were mad. 
 
62 MIDNIGHT, 
 
 Who are these? I cried in anguish. 
 And my fleshless spirit quailed ; 
 Then the angel softly answered, 
 " The unnumbered ones who failed : 
 See how vastly they outnumber 
 Those whom earth delights to praise, 
 They have borne the cross of genius 
 But they wear no deathless bays ! " 
 
TO MARION. 
 
 T^AREWELL, calm lakes, and tinted hills, 
 And streams that flow by murmurous mills : 
 And Berkshire elms that stud the vales 
 Where autumn plies her winnowing flails. 
 
 Yet not for these, w^hen I am gone, 
 Will memory lead me by the hand 
 Back through the vista of the past, 
 Till once again I seem to stand 
 
 Within the home upon the hill— 
 A picture mirrored in the lake ; 
 Where happy sounds of laughter light 
 The answering hillside echoes wake. 
 
 (63) 
 
64 TO MARION. 
 
 Not for the scenes that meet the eye, 
 But for the thoughts that fill the heart, 
 For memories dear of kindly deeds, 
 And clasped hands that fall apart. 
 
 There is a light upon the lake 
 
 Softer than haze by autumn shed, 
 
 A light that stays upon the hills 
 
 When autumn's mellowing sheen is fled. 
 
 It never fell on hill or vale, 
 'T was ne'er reflected in the lake, 
 Yet all the changeful scenes around 
 New beauty from its presence take. 
 
 Farewell, dear friends ! I send you tTiese 
 Weak words that half reveal my love ; 
 God keep your home upon the hill 
 All earthly ills and clouds above ! 
 
THE LOST PATH. 
 
 "|\ yrOUSIE tripping o'er my floor. 
 
 Coming shily to the fore, 
 Peering slily through the crack, 
 Rushing, scampering madly back ; 
 Mousie, have 3'^ou lost your way. 
 Have your footsteps gone astray? 
 Round and round my room you roam 
 Vainly seeking your way home : 
 Ah ! gray mousie, trembling there. 
 Others know thy wild despair. 
 Other lives have gone astray 
 On a wider darker way ; 
 In that lone and fearful hour 
 Storms and shadows darkly lower. 
 
 And alone they face the blast 
 
 (65) 
 
66 
 
 THE LOST PATH. 
 
 Seeking vainly some lost past : 
 Mousie, like thee, far from home 
 All life's weary paths they roam. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, 
 
 T IKE unto this unwritten book 
 
 Thy life unfolds its leaves : 
 Who can foretell the closing page 
 And who the garnered sheaves? 
 
 Then slowly read the book of life 
 And linger o'er the page. 
 For we may never turn again 
 The leaves from vouth to acre. 
 
 This is the sibyl's mj^stic book 
 
 Its secrets all her lore ; 
 
 And hope the flickering lamp that dies 
 
 • To kindle nevermore. 
 
 ^67) 
 
ONLY. 
 
 /^^NLY a portrait looking down 
 
 Upon a woman* bent and brown, 
 Haggard with want and bowed with years : 
 There's nothing, friend, to move your tears. 
 
 Only a garret dark as fate, 
 A bed of straw, a fireless grate, 
 A tattered paper on the wall, 
 And looking down upon them all, 
 With Christ and Mary on each side, 
 The portrait of a regicide. 
 
 Only a life that ebbs away 
 Dying of hunger day by day ; 
 
 ^ The widow of Pietre, the regicide. 
 (68) 
 
ONLY. 69 
 
 While on the wall there hangs above 
 This miracle of woman's love, 
 With Christ and Mary on each side, 
 The portrait of a regicide. 
 
 O love, that covers every sin. 
 Did ever bard or hero win, 
 In all this weary world beside. 
 Such love as this poor regicide? 
 
FROM A WATER BABY TO CHARLES 
 
 KINGSLEY. 
 
 T COME from the Pacific 
 
 Where water babies swim, 
 According to Charles Kingsley's 
 Most scientific whim. 
 
 Like the giant of his story, 
 If he would read us true, • 
 He must turn into a baby 
 And study us anew. 
 
 For we 're the seed of promise, 
 
 But he 's the fallen leaf, 
 
 And vain's the coming summer 
 
 To autumn's garnered sheaf. 
 (70) 
 
THE KNIGHT OF ATHOL. 
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 r^ WHITER than the lilies 
 
 That bloom beside the gate, 
 The lady of the castle 
 Awaits in silent state. 
 Her knight is gone with Richard 
 To fight for Holy Land ; 
 The ship that should have brought him 
 Lies shivered on the strand. 
 
 Ah ! well the Knight of Athol 
 Has battled for his God, 
 And low lies many a Moslem 
 On Israel sacred sod : 
 His arm is strong as iron. 
 
 His heart is true as steel, 
 
 (70 
 
72 THE KNIGHT OF ATHOL. 
 
 Before Ijie Holy Altar. 
 
 He's sworn to win and kneel. 
 
 But on a glowing even, 
 Amidst the deadly fray, 
 Many a Turk had fallen 
 Beneath his sword that day, 
 Three Moslems rode down on him, 
 Their cimeters on high, 
 One struck him on the bosom. 
 And one across the thigh. 
 
 Ah ! long the Knight of Athol 
 Lay bleeding unto death. 
 Many an hour had flitted 
 Before he drew his breath ; 
 His goodly strength w^as broken. 
 His battle days were o'er. 
 The knights that knelt around him 
 He 'd ride with them no more. 
 
THE KNIGHT OF ATHOL. 73 
 
 Through weary years there watches 
 
 A lady in her tower, 
 
 And with her beads she numbers 
 
 Each slowly passing hour : 
 
 The ship that should have brought him 
 
 Is^ shivered on the strand, 
 
 The gallant Knight of Athol 
 
 Will never win to land. 
 
 She builds a cloistered convent 
 Beside that treacherous wave, 
 And from her tower the abbess 
 Looks down upon his grave : 
 She watches morn and even, 
 She prays at noon and night, 
 Ah ! well I ween is resting 
 The soul of Athol's knight. 
 
THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 ^' A GIFT, a gift!" The city cried, 
 
 ''A gift of water purified ! " 
 The turgid stream is raised on high 
 To gleam a rainbow in the sky, 
 And fall from lifted hands again 
 In benediction like the rain. 
 The passing traveller weary bows 
 And drinks and laves his aching brows, 
 The parched and fevered lips of pain 
 Drink the cool draught, and drink again, 
 And little children laugh and play 
 Within the circle of its spray : 
 And old and young, and rich and poor 
 Wash in this fountain and are pure, 
 
 (74) 
 
A FOUNTAIN. 75 
 
 And thus the giver of good gifts 
 This fair embodied water lifts. 
 And raises from the generous tide 
 Toward heaven, a city purified. 
 
TO A CHILD. 
 
 "pOOR little rosy, tottering feet, 
 They scarce can stand alone, 
 But they must learn a harder task 
 Dear feet ere they are grown ! 
 
 In all life's rough and thorny paths 
 To stand, and walk alone : 
 Through all her dark and rugged ways 
 To pass and make no moan. 
 
 No friendly hand reached out to stay 
 
 Their steps through the unknown ; 
 
 They tread the vale of life, like death 
 
 Unguided and alone. 
 (76) 
 
TO A CHILD. 77 
 
 O would that I could stretch my hand 
 To thee, my child, my own ; 
 But thou must walk the future days 
 As I have walked — alone ! 
 
HER LETTER. 
 
 T^AREWELL !— That I should ever write 
 
 These bitter words to thee ! 
 Farewell, and hope no more, my friend, 
 For it may never be ! 
 
 Those summer days when we two loved, 
 How near, how far they seem ; 
 Their golden hours have flitted past 
 The pageants of a dream, 
 
 'T was but an idle tear that fell 
 
 And blotted these sad lines : 
 
 Why weep that every life must hold 
 
 Its desolated shrines? 
 (78) 
 
HER LETTER. 79 
 
 Perchance, the gentle hand of time 
 Will cover them with flowers. 
 And memory love to linger round 
 These broken shrines of ours : 
 
 Thy name, a silence in my life. 
 May one day grow to be, 
 Faint as the scarce-remembered strains 
 Of some sweet melody! 
 
 When our unsexed shadow^s meet 
 Beyond the silent shore, 
 Shall we two love in that strange land 
 Where partings are no more? 
 
 Or will the light that flooded life 
 With radiance divine, 
 Fade like the sunset's after-glow 
 From some deserted shrine? 
 
80 HER LETTER. 
 
 I linger that I may belong 
 One moment more to thee. 
 Out of all time ! — 'T is over now- 
 Farewell ! — Remember me ! 
 
THE VILLAGE MAID. 
 
 ' T WAS a little village maid 
 
 Down by the wild sea shore, 
 Life w^as so sweet, and yet I longed, 
 I longed for something more. 
 
 Many a gallant sailor lad 
 
 Asked me to he his wife. 
 
 And yet I longed for something more 
 
 Than simple village life. 
 
 I met Lord Edward at the stile, 
 
 When all was dark above. 
 
 And yet I longed for something more, 
 
 I longed for Edward's love, 
 
 C8r) 
 
82 THE VILLAGE MAID. 
 
 I walked beneath the village trees, 
 Lord Edward by my side. 
 And yet I longed for something more, 
 I longed to be his bride. 
 
 And now I hold a little child 
 Against my throbbing breast. 
 And still I long for one thing more, 
 I long to be at rest ! 
 
HYMN TO THE DEAD. 
 
 I. 
 
 TV /T ORTAL, turn thee to thy rest, 
 
 Fold thy hands upon thy breast, 
 Close thine eyes and hold th}-- breath 
 In the silent halls of death ! 
 These white hands shall hold the palm, 
 These pale lips shall chant the psalm, 
 These still feet shall tread the shore 
 Where death enters nevermore ! 
 
 H. 
 
 Spirit, hasten to thy rest; 
 Verily the dead are blest ! 
 Thou hast died to rise again 
 Freed from every mortal pain : 
 
84 HYMN TO THE DEAD. 
 
 Thou shalt wake from thy long sleep 
 Where tired eyes forget to weep ; 
 Thy dull ears shall hear the chimes . 
 Ringing in celestial climes ! 
 
A SERENADE. 
 
 /^^H sweet in the hazy summer-time 
 
 Are the sounds of the forest to me, 
 But the sweetest of all earth's sweetest sounds 
 Is the sound of the moaning sea ! 
 
 Then come across the sands, my love, 
 By the light of the evening star. 
 And listen to the distant wave 
 As it breaks on the fearful bar. 
 
 The night is all too fair, my love, 
 To dream away in sleep ; 
 Then come with me to the golden sands 
 And look on the mystic deep ! 
 
 (85) 
 
86 A SERENADE. 
 
 All night the wild waves sing of love 
 To the moon, the sea's pale bride, 
 And he woos her from her lonely heights 
 To sleep on the breast of the tide. 
 
TWO VISIONS. 
 
 T SAW a maiden seventeen, 
 And she was passing fair; 
 The sun his benediction laid 
 Upon her golden hair. 
 
 And still beside the sunlit wave 
 Methinks I see her stand, 
 Fair as the lily that she held 
 Within her folded hand. 
 
 Frail as the light bark was her form 
 Before it meets the shuddering storm, 
 
 I saw a vision of the night 
 Beside the darkling lake, 
 
 (87) 
 
88 TWO VISIONS. 
 
 And o'er the waters and the maid 
 The faltering moonbeams break. 
 
 And still she wanders like a wraith 
 By the waters cold and dark ; 
 Love took the lily from her hand 
 And wrecked her fragile bark. 
 
THE SPANISH STUDENTS. 
 
 "XT OT in a great and glorious cause, 
 , Not for their country and its laws, 
 But dead to fill the greedy maws 
 Of despotism and tyranny. 
 Not on the battle-plain they fell 
 Beneath the storms of shot and shell : 
 With pale, mute lips that scorned to tell 
 Their bitter boyish agony, 
 
 They faced the fierce and hungry crowd 
 So sad, so young, so calm and proud. 
 For one mad freak and troubled shroud 
 They paid the last dark penalty. 
 The sum of their brief days all told 
 
 Would scarce make two of them seem old, 
 
 (89) 
 
90 THE SPANISH STUDENTS. 
 
 And yet they passed so brave and bold 
 From life on to eternity. 
 
 Ere twice the sun had sunk to rest, 
 Ere they one friendly hand had pressed, 
 Poor boys, or on a mother's breast 
 Wept out their hopeless misery. 
 The soldiers to the public place 
 Led them to die : each fair young face 
 Was worthy of its noble race, 
 Fronting the Spanish musketry. 
 
 Eight youths the flower of Spain have died 
 
 That mob-rule might be satisfied; 
 
 O Spain ! now woe to thee betide 
 
 For thy cold inhumanity : 
 
 The dead shall cry aloud to God, 
 
 Their blood shall feed the Cuban sod 
 
 Till heroes rise up vengeance shod 
 
 For their untoward destiny. 
 
THE SPANISH STUDENTS. 9I 
 
 In shedding human blood ye sinned 
 
 And sowed broad-cast the\vild whirlwind. 
 
 But ye shall reap again the wind 
 
 The mead of all your cruelty : 
 
 For there shall grow from each green grave 
 
 In that fair isle kissed by the wave, 
 
 The isle their martyrs died to save, 
 
 The passion-flower of liberty ! 
 
LINES 
 
 ON A SKELETON SHIP FOUND IN THE AMERICAN DESERT. 
 
 *^ I ^HY fleshless ribs bleach on the plain, 
 
 O wave-forgotten ship : 
 How long, how long, since thou wert last 
 Kissed by the sea's salt lip? 
 
 Ship of the past, thou liest now 
 Upon a waste of sand, 
 Below the line upon the hills 
 That marks the waveless strand. 
 
 Here must have rolled some mighty sea 
 But whither has it fled, 4 
 
 To leave thee stranded thus alone 
 Upon its arid bed? 
 
 (9^) 
 
LINES. 93 
 
 No sea-mew comes on feathered wing 
 Forerunner of the storm, ' 
 No sea-weed trails its tresses through 
 Thy ribbed and shrunken form. 
 
 Wher;i did the sweet winds fill thy sails 
 
 Above a murmuring sea ; 
 
 Were yon far hills a tropic shore 
 
 O .ship of m3^stery ? 
 
 The earth is changed, the sea is gone, 
 The desert round thee lies. 
 And still thou liest mutely there 
 Beneath the burnished skies, — 
 
 Till science from the voiceless lips 
 Of earth her secret robs, 
 And lays a finger on the pulse 
 Of time to count its throbs. 
 
LINES 
 
 ON THE SINKING OF THE ONEIDA. 
 
 /^"^ O forth unharmed upon the earth, 
 Free, as the noblest son of man ! 
 Breathe heaven's taintless summer airs ; 
 Sleep even, if you can ! 
 
 But look not on that smiHng sea 
 As treacherous as thou. 
 Thou antitype of Cain ! Go free, 
 His brand upon thy brow ! 
 
 Like him, unshackled wander forth 
 
 Bearing thy chainless curse ! 
 
 Great Heaven, pity this lone man 
 
 Shunned by the universe ! 
 
 (94) 
 
LINES. 
 
 «' Am I my brother's keeper? I ! " 
 This echoless wild prayer * 
 Rings through the blood-stained ages ; 't is 
 The death-cry of despair. 
 
 The flowers for him drip human blood, 
 The airs are filled with ghostly moans, 
 The waves that ripple on the sands 
 Sound in his ears like dead men's groans. 
 
 For yonder sailor sent to death 
 
 A hundred hero souls : 
 
 Unloose his bands ! . Let him go free ! 
 
 Heap mercy's fiery coals 
 
 Upon his pitiless craven bead! 
 Leave him in life's dead calm 
 Like that false sea ; and men go by 
 Nor touch his guilty palm ! 
 
 95 
 
96 LINES. 
 
 And, England, mother of the free, 
 Leave not thy work undone ; 
 In justice to thy noble dead. 
 Disown this dastard son. 
 
POET AND RIVER. 
 
 POET. 
 
 I 7 AIR Innisfallen, sweet Innisfallen, 
 Brightest of waters that flow, 
 Tell me, O tell me, hastening ever 
 Whither, O whither you go ! 
 
 RIVER, 
 
 Whither the dreams of yourboyhood have gone, 
 Whither your manhood will go. 
 Into the void of the limitless sea. 
 Whither the rivers all flow. 
 
 Out of the light of the sunshine we go. 
 Far from the flowers that bloom 
 And fade, on the shores we 'U visit no more — 
 Together we haste to our doom ! 
 
 ^97) 
 
98 rOET AND RIVER. 
 
 Whither the waters of time flowing far 
 From rivers whose sources are fed 
 Out of the future, that deep hidden spring, 
 Are lostin the days that are dead ! 
 
 To the past, to the gulf of the ages, 
 Into the wide shoreless sea 
 That covers our life with its silence, 
 Thither I hasten with thee ! 
 
HYMN TO THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 'THHIS is the bread that feeds my flocks, 
 
 And this the wine of life ; 
 These are the holy mysteries, 
 The emblems of the strife. 
 
 Our Lord is risen from the cross, 
 No more to suffer death ; 
 '^'Tis finished !" thus the dying Lord 
 Cried with his failing breath. 
 
 No more upon the altar now 
 We make our sacrifice; 
 These are memorial services, 
 His blood has paid the price. 
 
 (99) 
 
lOO HYMN TO THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 Forever now our risen- Lord 
 Sits at Jehovah's side. 
 His body shall unbroken be 
 And healed his bruised side. 
 
IDLESSE. 
 
 T^LICKY, flccky, flocky sheep, 
 
 Standing in the grass knee-deep, 
 Browsing, drowsing, half asleep. 
 
 Frisking, skipping little lambs 
 Playing round the horned rams, 
 Bleating faintly for your dams : 
 
 Nibbling off each grassy blade ; 
 Huddling in the fragrant shaded 
 By the leafy aspen made. 
 
 O 'twere sweet to while away 
 
 All one idle summer-day 
 
 Following the shade that way ! 
 
 (loi) 
 
I02 IDLESSE,, 
 
 Yea 't were passing sweet ! — what though 
 To the shambles they must go, 
 Naught of this the dreamers know. 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LA.AIB. 
 
 A LL hail ! Thou spotless bride of Christ, 
 Come forth to meet thy Lord ! 
 The guests are waiting with their lamps 
 Wherein the oil is poured. 
 Around the church, his chosen bride, 
 The faithful virgins stand : 
 Kindle your lamps, the night is dark. 
 The bridegroom is at hand ! 
 
 She comes arrayed in shining robes. 
 
 Without a seam or stain : 
 
 Within her virgin home her feet 
 
 Shall never pass again. 
 
 She enters now the bridegroom's house, 
 
 (103) 
 
I04 THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB 
 
 The mighty heavens above, 
 
 The mansion of the bride and groom 
 
 Whereof the light is love ! 
 
THE QiJEEN OF THE WEST. 
 
 /^^UR blue grapes grow 
 
 Where the waters flow, 
 Round the banks of the beautiful river: 
 Where the Queen of the West, 
 Her fair brows pressed 
 With a wreath of the graceful vine. 
 Lets the beams of the sun 
 Through her wine-cup run. 
 To color the sparkling wine ; 
 Whose fame has gone 
 To the frozen coast, 
 And the south-sea's salted brine. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Then drain the cup to the Queen of the West, 
 
 And dash the glass to the floor; 
 
 (105) 
 
I06 THE QUEEN OF THE WEST. 
 
 On tlie fields of death, in the wine of blood 
 We'll drink to our queen once more. 
 
 She sits on the hills 
 At the gates of the west. 
 And her robe is a mantle of green : 
 With a smile of peace 
 She looks to the south, 
 And the river flows ever between ; 
 Kissing her feet 
 As he enters in. 
 
 To the land of the Queen of the West; 
 -And w^estward — ho ! 
 The river goes 
 With her image on his breast. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Then drain the cup to the Qiieen of the West, 
 And dash the glass to the floor ; 
 On the fields of death, in the wine of blood 
 We '11 drink to our queen once more. 
 
THE QUEEN OF THE WEST. IO7 
 
 But storm and tempest 
 
 Will gather I ween 
 
 Round the brow of our beautiful queen. 
 
 And blood shall flow 
 
 In the vale below, 
 
 Where the grapes grow purple and green ; 
 
 She looks to the south 
 
 To the fields of death, 
 
 O'er the river that rolls between, 
 
 For a sea of blood shall ebb and flow 
 
 Round the feet of our beautiful queen. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Then drain the cup to the Queen of the West, 
 And dash the glass to the floor ; 
 On the fields of death, in the wine of blood 
 We'll drink to our queen once more. 
 
A NIGHT PICTURE. 
 
 A YACHT sailed slowly from the south, 
 And moored below my window-sill, 
 Under the shadow of the rock, 
 And furled its sails, and all was still. 
 
 The yacht's light glowing like a star 
 Threw flickering gleams on deck and mast; 
 The water lapping round her sides 
 Scarce broke the silence as it passed. 
 
 Upon the river's further side, 
 Across the heaven's azure field, 
 Above the mountain dark and bold 
 
 The moon lifts up her silver shield. 
 
 (io8) 
 
A NIGHT PICTURE. IO9 
 
 The yacht is in the darkness save 
 Her red star gleaming through the night, 
 One moment more, river and vacht 
 Are flooded with the golden light ! 
 
LINES. 
 
 ON MURILLO'S MOTHER AND CHILD. 
 
 FITTING alone by the cold gray wall 
 
 Where the dark-leafed creepers climb and fall : 
 
 Holding her child to her heavy breast 
 
 Where the full red lips are softly pressed, 
 
 Kissing and clinging and falling apart ; 
 
 Sending a thrill to the mother's heart, 
 
 Healing the wounds of the heart that was broken, 
 
 Of the lonely heart of the desolate woman : 
 
 Drinking the purest draught on earth, 
 
 From the fountain of love that gave him birth. 
 
 The soft round limbs that wrought her such pain, 
 
 Pledges of days that come never again : 
 
 All, all are hers, save the clustering wave 
 
 Of sun-brown curls his father gave. 
 
 Dost thou love him better, thou lonely one, 
 
 (no) 
 
LINES. Ill 
 
 For the father's touch on thy little son ? 
 
 She gives two kisses where rnothers give one. 
 
 For the father who never has kissed his son : 
 
 And folds him closer within her arm 
 
 As though to shield him from shame or harm ; 
 
 But the mother's wistful drooping eyes. 
 
 Where the shadow of trouble darkly lies, 
 
 Are turned from the child so fondly clasped 
 
 With a dreamy gaze on the distant past. 
 
 On the parted lips is a smile of peace. 
 
 With a yearning look that shall never cease, 
 
 For the soft lips droop, and seem to miss 
 
 The remembered touch of the loved one's kiss : 
 
 Ah, well we know if those lips could part. 
 
 Not one harsh w^ord from the troubled heart. 
 
 Not one rebuke would the lips have spoken 
 
 Though the mother and child are forsaken ! 
 
TO THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 T BOW, I kneel, I pray to thee, 
 Dim presence veiled in night, 
 Reveal thy radiant form to me 
 Robed in effulgent light. 
 
 I send my ship of hope afloat 
 Upon thy tideless stream, 
 The old year seems already like 
 A faint and vanished dream. 
 
 Bring the impossible to pass 
 
 In thy resplendent lights? 
 
 On the strong wings of hope I rise 
 
 To blue untrodden heights. 
 
 (112) 
 
TO THE NEW YEAR. II3 
 
 I bow to thee, I kneel to thee, 
 Veiled prophet of my days. 
 Thou art so bright I can not see 
 Thy dark and rugged ways, 
 
 That lead through lone and sunless vales, 
 The paths of the new year : 
 I bow to thee, I kneel to thee 
 In mingled hope and fear 1 
 
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. 
 
 A POET 'S arisen in time, 
 
 And the rh\^thm of his musical rhyme 
 Is filled with a pity sublime ; 
 
 With sorrow as pale, as pale as the moon. 
 And passion that glows like the noon, 
 And deep thoughts that fade all too soon. 
 
 What though the worn theme of his song 
 Be ever of woman's dark wrong. 
 Does not mercy to genius belong? 
 
 Pure loves are the stars that inspire. 
 And the poet who writes of desire 
 May kindle a white altar fire : 
 
 (114) 
 
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. II 
 
 But the false singer's torch leads astray, 
 And its lurid gleam lightens the way 
 Whence none may return to the day. 
 
THE WATER SPIRIT OF THE SAGUENAY. 
 
 y^ARK glance the waves beneath our feet, 
 
 And dark the clouds on high ; 
 The white foam on the blackened tide 
 Laughs as it flashes by ! 
 
 The granite walls rise grand and dark 
 The frothing stream beside, 
 They look upon the setting sun 
 And smile in solemn pride ! 
 
 Here bathes the Syren of the stream 
 
 Within her moss-hung caves : 
 
 Her hair like molten sunlight gleams 
 
 And round her bosom waves ! 
 
 (ii6) 
 
THE WATER SPIRIT OF THE SAGUENAY. II7 
 
 Faint and sweet is the song she sings 
 To lure men to their death : 
 The river's sound is in her voice, 
 The wild-flowers in her breath ! 
 
 Th,us on Hfe's stream some syren song 
 Allures man to his fate, 
 While echo whispers from the shore 
 '' Too late, lost soul, too late ! " 
 
 Sing, water-nymph, thy syren song, 
 Set thy false beacon light; 
 Our good ship glides adown the stream, 
 Good night, sweet friend,. good night! 
 
SUEZ. 
 
 T T ATL ! resurrection of nations 
 
 That phoenix-like heavenward soar; 
 The nations that parted at Babel 
 Are building together once more. 
 
 Hail, the clasped hands of the peoples, 
 The pomp and the pageant of peace ; 
 Where hearts are laid down in the desert, 
 A mantle without seam or crease, 
 
 For a woman to walk in her beauty 
 
 Subduing the nations of earth, 
 
 To the cradle that rocked the young ages, 
 
 The shrine of the old world's new birth. 
 
 (ii8) 
 
SUEZ. 119 
 
 Does she stand as a woman who blesses 
 The past that flowed over this sand? 
 Does she stand as a woman, a prophet 
 Proclaiming the hour is at hand? 
 
 It is womanhood's apotheosis : 
 She comes with the cross in her hands ; 
 She comes : and the rivers of plenty 
 Flow out through the once barren lands. 
 
 The waves of the land-girded ocean 
 Are flowing from India's main ; 
 And the rock that was smitten by Moses 
 Is yielding its waters again. 
 
BRIGHAM YOUNG. 
 
 HE Mormons at the bar of fate in calm defi- 
 
 T 
 
 ance stand, 
 
 An outcast band of Ishmaelites in this our Christian 
 land : 
 
 Grand in the borrowed dignity of courage and de- 
 spair. 
 
 They turn upon their mighty foe, and front him in 
 their lair. 
 
 Ere once again their wandering steps still farther 
 w^estward fly 
 
 From the stern presence of the law's unveiled 
 majesty ; 
 
 And he, their hoary patriarch, who might have 
 
 been so great 
 
 (120) 
 
BRIGHAM YOUNG. 121 
 
 If he had served a greater cause, falls from his 
 
 pigmy state. 
 These beardless patriarchs revived the hoariest sin 
 
 of time, 
 And bade an outraged world proclaim their travesty 
 
 sublime ; 
 And sought to flaunt in this fair clime where free- 
 dom holds her sway 
 A broken and dishonored law in the calm face of 
 
 day: 
 But freedom is not license, and she will not trail 
 
 her 'skirt, 
 Because she walks with lowly men, in the foul mire 
 
 and dirt; 
 Nay, freedom in her garments white is perfect law 
 
 sublime, 
 A sword to right the lowliest wrong, and smite the 
 
 loftiest crime. 
 
THE MART OF GOLD. 
 
 TTOLLOWED by righteous anger, 
 
 By curses, tears, and sighs, 
 And covered with dishonor 
 The mighty gold ring dies. 
 
 All in their gilded temple 
 The money changers stand, 
 And for a price they barter 
 Even their native land. 
 
 They lay upon this altar 
 
 Honor, and life, and truth. 
 
 And the young men leave it 
 
 Spectres of wasted youth. 
 (122) 
 
THE MART OF GOLD. 123 
 
 '' Praise God !" the chimes are ringing 
 
 From Holy Trinity, 
 
 As lightning flashes northward 
 
 The news of victory. 
 
 For Mother Church is standing 
 Close to the mart of gold, 
 Her sacred chimes are ringing 
 Where blood is bought and sold. 
 
 Thus in the mighty city 
 Mingles the wheat and chaft\' 
 Here votaries of Croesus 
 Worship the golden calf. 
 
 They take the bread of sorrow 
 From the widow and her child, 
 And the dying patriot's pension 
 To this altar thrice defiled. 
 
124 THE MART OF GOLD. 
 
 The curses of the soldiers 
 As they clasp their freezing guns ; 
 The sighs of saintly women, 
 The tears of little ones, 
 
 Appeal to God for vengeance ; 
 The very stones cry out. 
 This shame, the people echo, 
 The nation shall blot out. 
 
 Ring, Trinity, ring sweetly 
 Your many silver chimes, 
 As they rang across the city 
 In the good old bloodless times. 
 
 We Ve won the last dark battle 
 O'er treason, south and north; 
 The golden temple 's shattered. 
 The idol driven forth ! 
 
TWO VOICES. 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 \1[ 7HEN I am gone out of this breathing world, 
 Will sentient life move calmly on its way? 
 Or am I but a bubble of the air, 
 And shall I vanish like a WTeath of spray 
 Into the depths of that mysterious deep, 
 Where every life is but a beauteous wave 
 That breaks one moment into consciousness, 
 Then backward shudders to, its watery grave ? 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 Ask not the wind from whence it blows, 
 Ask not thy life from whence it came : 
 Seek not to stay the passing wind; 
 Seek not to grasp thy fleeting fame ! 
 
 (125) 
 
126 TWO VOICES. 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 Am I a torch upon the night of time 
 
 That flares around its evanescent gleam? 
 
 Or is my hfe unto the source of life 
 
 But as a vague and scarce remembered dream ? 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 Ask not the earth why she has borne 
 Thy life upon her troubled breast, 
 But when thy little day is o'er 
 Turn calmly to thy peaceful rest 1 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 The life from whence my being came 
 
 Knows not annihilation's breath ; 
 
 I am, I can not cease to be — 
 
 And men have called a shadow death I 
 
LA PIU GENTILE DONNA. 
 
 T HAVE a friend so far above 
 
 Her sex, that she seems made to love 
 So lithe, so supple, and so fair, 
 With such a winning, gracious ctir 
 E'en envy at her sight disarms 
 And yields allegiance to her charms : 
 Her sisters own her fair and true, 
 And pure as the new fallen dew ; 
 And men in her sweet presence ne'er 
 At woman's wiles and follies sneer. 
 But feel a new-born reverence ' 
 
 For womanhood and innocence. 
 
 (127) 
 
I SAID TO MY LOVE : 
 
 T SAID to my love : '' In the future days, 
 
 A hundred years from now, 
 What will it matter that we have grieved 
 And oi^r hearts are breaking now?" 
 
 I looked in his eyes, that w^ere filled with pain. 
 And on his troubled brow : 
 '' O ! what will it matter, my love," I cried, 
 ''A hundred years from now?" 
 
 '* When our days are canceled and told, and we 
 
 Are sleeping — I and thou. 
 
 Will it vex the earth, in a hundred years, 
 
 That we are troubled no\v?" 
 
 (128) 
 
I SAID TO MY LOVE : 
 
 *« I care not," he cried, *< for the moving earth- 
 . The future's threatening brow, 
 So I spend but a day with thee, my love, 
 In the blessed sunshine now ! " 
 
 *' And what care I that others share 
 The pang we suffer now : 
 Give me the present, and come what will 
 A hundred years from now ! " 
 
 129 
 
^X T^HY doth it lie so still, 
 Panoplied in silence? 
 All the life is gone 
 To Jehovah's presence. 
 
 The spirit that wore this 
 Has laid it calmly down ; 
 As the kincr at nis^ht-fall 
 Lays aside his gow^n.. 
 
 The king is still the king, 
 
 Without his purple gown : 
 
 So the crowned spirit 
 
 Lays its mantle down, 
 (130) 
 
/^NLY a rose that bloomed but a day, 
 
 It lies in my hand so still and dead : 
 Only a rose from within whose leaves 
 The soul of its passionate scent has fled. 
 
 O ye w^ho dream of a deathless fame, 
 And breathe outyour hearts in passionate song ; 
 And ye who rise by your giant strength 
 O'er the hydra-headed seething throng : 
 
 This little rose that lies in my hand 
 With withered leaves that bloomed but a day, 
 Is the emblem of all the pride and strength 
 Of the world w^hen they pass away. 
 
 Its beauty withered : its passion fled : 
 The dreams of its singers all unknown : 
 Its strength a handful of scattered dust : 
 Its spirit — whither flown? 
 
T CRIED, in the heat of my passionate youth, 
 
 " A love that is true can not die !" 
 And marveled to see on the lips of my love 
 A smile that was lost in a sigh. 
 
 Ah ! could I foresee, love, that I too one day 
 Should smile at the faith of my youth, 
 That the bloom of my life would so wither and fade 
 That I too should hold it a truth — 
 
 That this passionate incense and worship of love 
 Is only the instinct that draws 
 The youth to the maid, and the bird to its mate. 
 The impulse of natural laws. 
 
 A thing that must die, if you give it but time. 
 
 For the pulse of the senses to calm. 
 
 Not a spirit that dwells in this temple of flesh 
 
 As holy as prayer or psalm ! 
 
 (132) 
 
/'^NE lightly uttered : '' Love is blind," 
 Another spake with saddened smile : 
 *'Nay, say not so, for loyal love 
 That seeth all is dumb the while. 
 
 ** When true love sees the loved one's shame 
 The lips are still, the heart is numb, 
 She sees the truth with clear sad eyes, 
 But speaks no vv^ord, for love is dumb 1" 
 
'TPO be, that is, to dream — 
 
 To float across infinity of space 
 
 Like the warm breath upon a troubled glass, 
 
 To weary time one moment with our sighs, 
 
 To draw a breath amid unconsciousness, 
 
 To see the dawn between two endless nights, 
 
 To flit a shadow on the disc of life, 
 
 To pass a dream upon the night of time. 
 
 To break the silence with a cry of pain ; 
 
 To say " I am !" and then to pass away ; 
 
 This is the scope of man's exalted will ! 
 
 (134) 
 
nr^HE singers' voices softly rise 
 
 In broken music to the skies : 
 How sad the burdened earth would be 
 Without its human minstrelsy ; 
 For, though the wheels of space and time 
 Ply with a harmony sublime, 
 'T is but the finest ear that hears 
 The music of the rolling spheres. 
 Or all the quivering atoms thrill 
 
 The depths of space that seem so still ! 
 (135) 
 
T^NOUGH is enough, hath the proverb well 
 
 said : 
 And wholesome restraint to contentment is wed. 
 Not vauhing ambition is like to attain 
 The goal of his wishes; and, therefore, 'tis plain. 
 'T were better to steer for the safe middle-course. 
 Many a book has been lost on a horse 
 Who was full of the promise pure pedigree gives, 
 
 Yet goes lame, from hard riding, as long as he 
 
 lives. 
 I own I admire the swift king of the race, 
 But give me a cob with a good steady pace 
 Who will take me in peace to each day's destina- 
 tion : 
 
 Yes, give me in all things a wise moderation. 
 
 • (136) 
 
'nr^HE future is an idle dream. 
 
 And memory a tear, 
 The present but a breath of time. 
 
 Gone ere we know 't was here. 
 
 ri37) 
 
T ORSQU 'on doit quitter ceux qu 'on aime, 
 
 Dans tons les pays, en tout lieu, 
 Ou ne trouve qu 'un mot supreme 
 
 Pour ce moment d 'angoisse — adieu 1 
 
 (138) 
 
T KNOW a man, but he's unknown to fame, 
 
 AH homely virtues cluster round his name, 
 To purer heights his matchless soul aspires : 
 He walks the earth unscathed by passion's fires ; 
 His manhood is not wasted in the race, 
 Strength in repose adds majesty to grace. 
 The beggars mark his calm and pit3'ing eye, 
 And know before he will not pass them by ; 
 No pleading voice of human grief or pain 
 That e'er appealed to him appealed in vain : 
 But ask me not, " Who is the man? " he holds 
 
 Sacred the silence that his life enfolds. 
 
 (139) 
 
/^A RESTLESS soul, worn with unrest, be still ! 
 
 Hast thou not, O parched spirit, drunk thy fill ; • 
 And dost thou still, rash mortal, yearn forsooth 
 For the sweet waters of the springs of youth? 
 Ringed round with silence in the desert-zone, 
 Panting and weary, outcast and alone. 
 Canst thou not quench the thirst that tortures thee 
 At the cool springs of miraged memory ; " 
 Feel the. soft palm that lay within thine own : 
 Live in the past, though all things else have fiown? 
 Yea : 't is divine, this deathless pain, and yet 
 I can not slake my soul with passionate regret ! 
 
 (140) 
 
/^^ "Hast thou forgotten the walk by the river — 
 
 The bank where we sat long ago? 
 O, often I hear, through the distance and silence. 
 The sound of that broad river's flow ! 
 
 The foliage of autumn was casting its shadows — 
 
 Its bright golden gleams o'er the way ; 
 
 It seemed that our passion had caught from Octob( r 
 
 The hues of its coming decay ! 
 
 (141) 
 
I 
 
 WHEREFORE ? 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF LOUISE BERTIN. 
 
 F death is the aim, wherefore then on the path 
 Sweet flowers in the hedges that border the way : 
 
 When the winds of the autumn deflower the hedge, 
 Why weep that its beauty is passing away ? 
 
 If life is the aim, wherefore then on the path 
 
 These stones in the grasses and thorns on the bud, 
 
 That during the journey, alas ! we are doomed • 
 
 To wet with our tears and mark with our blood? 
 
 (142) 
 
ON THE OPENING OF AN EGYPTIAN 
 
 TOMB. 
 
 T T NNUMBERED ages honored this poor dust, 
 
 'Till some sad pilgrim on the shores of time 
 Entered the tomb of the forgotten dead, 
 And with a touch dissolved its sleep sublime. 
 
 When sacrilegious hands with careless haste 
 Scattered the dust of its unconscious kind. 
 The spirit waiting to possess its form 
 Fled with a sigh that seemed the desert w^irid. 
 
 Or, was it but the fond and foolish dream 
 
 Of this poor clay ere it was laid to rest. 
 
 That it should rise out of its pictured tomb 
 
 And live again forever with the blest? 
 
 (143) 
 
144 ^^ '^^^ OPENING OF AN EGYPTIAN TOMB, 
 
 Fairer than Egypt's dream of garnered dust, 
 Safe from the touch of every idle hand, 
 This scattered dust and its long parted soul 
 Shall, in God's presence, re-united standi 
 
PALMYRA. 
 
 ^ I ^HE palms may wave, the palms may shed 
 
 Their shadows o'er thy silent dead, 
 But thou and all thy towers lie 
 In leveled ruin 'neath the sky : 
 
 vanished city of the plain, 
 
 In dreams I see thee rise'again ! 
 
 1 see her gay and bannered w^alls 
 Flaunt the proud conqueror ere she falls : 
 A mirage 'neath the burnished skies, 
 Her fretted towers seem to rise ; 
 
 A cool oasis 'mid the sand, 
 Shadowed with palms, she seems to stand : 
 But even as the city fell, 
 A vanished dream, a broken spell. 
 The mirage fades, and o'er the plain 
 Ruin and silence reign again ! ' 
 
 (145) 
 
APOSTROPHE TO FRANCE. 
 
 'T^HE Prussian is trampling thee under his 
 
 heel, 
 And the blood of thy martyrs is red on his steel ! 
 His armies have marched from the east to the west, 
 And slain in their progress thy noblest and best : 
 Then, rise in the might of thine agony, France, 
 And cast off the spell of this unworthy trance ! 
 The priest and the alien who loved not thy soil 
 Have parted thy garments, and made thee their 
 
 spoil : 
 But the w^hite lilies bloom in the w^ar-stricken plains. 
 And the blue blood of Bayard still flows in thy 
 
 veins : 
 
 Then rise in thine agony, shake off" this trance ! 
 
 And seize thine own sceptre, O down-trodden 
 
 France ! 
 
 (146; 
 
APOSTROPHE TO FRANCE. I47 
 
 Are thy heroes all banished or dead? and where are 
 The sons of Du Quesclin, Ttirenne, and Navarre? 
 Rise, Orleans, Valois, and Bourbon, drive out 
 The tyrant within, and the foe from without ! 
 
ALEXIS. . 
 
 T T AIL, Alexis, hail ! 
 From near and far 
 Columbia hails thee, 
 Son of the Czar ! 
 
 Not for the power, _ 
 Nor for the fame, 
 Nor for the glory 
 Of thy great name. 
 
 Echo reechoes 
 From sea to sea, 
 Alexandrowitz, 
 
 Welcome to thee ! 
 
 (148) 
 
ALEXTS. 149 
 
 In our dark hour, 
 Russia held forth 
 Her royal right hand 
 To the great North : 
 
 For this, O, for this, 
 Alexis, hail ! 
 For this our friendship 
 Never shall fail ! 
 
 Over this broad land, 
 Smiling, to-day, 
 Wars all forgotten, 
 Peace holds its sway. 
 
 We, through the night of 
 War-stricken plains. 
 Broke in the darkness 
 Four million chains : 
 
150 ALEXIS. 
 
 Thv Alexandei*, 
 Worthy to reign, 
 Loosed the serfs' fetters 
 Through his domain : 
 
 Russia, Columbia, 
 For this, all hail ! 
 For this, our friendship 
 Never shall fail ! 
 
 Russia, Columbia, 
 Hand laid in hand, 
 Through all the ages 
 Thus may we stand ! 
 
 Winds bear the echo 
 Back to his shore, 
 Alexis, Russia, 
 Hail, evermore ! 
 
KAISER WILHELM. 
 
 |V^ AISER WILHELM is come to his city again 
 
 A conqueror home from the war, 
 And Germany's heroes, Von Moltke, and Roon, 
 And Bismarck are riding before. 
 
 The gallant old king with his grizzled mustache 
 Is a king of the good olden time ; 
 The lance-bearing Uhlans are riding before, 
 And behind him a pageant sublime. 
 
 Untcr den Linden^ they're coming, they're coming, 
 Our Fritz and the Princes before ; 
 Then, warriors wearing the broad cross of iron, 
 And bearing the trophies of war. 
 
 (151) 
 
152 KAISER WILHELM. 
 
 This, this is the army returning from conquest, 
 The gallant, the steadfast, the brave : 
 Another is camped on the field of their glory. 
 The cross of their faith on each grave. 
 
 And many a woman is wearing this morning 
 A dead hero's cross on her breast ; 
 And one army enters the city in triumph. 
 And one is forever at rest. 
 
 But the graves on her border will guard for the 
 
 future 
 The way to the beautiful Rhine : 
 Hail,Wilhelm ! the Vaterland welcomes her heroes, 
 The great iron crown shall be thine ! 
 
 But Wilhelm, our Kaiser, forgets not whose spirit 
 Is hovering over the land ; 
 
 From the pageant he goes to the tomb of Louisa, 
 And lays there, with reverent hand, 
 
KAISER WILHELM. I53 
 
 The trophies from France, and the crown of our 
 
 Fathers, 
 Germania placed on his head : 
 
 At the tomb of his mother our Kaiser is kneeling— 
 Fulfilled is the dream of the dead ! 
 
WESTMINSTER. 
 
 'T^HERE is a minster which doth strangely seem 
 
 Not altar, arch, and lifted spire alone ; 
 But the calm presence of the vanished past, 
 The silent ages frozen into stone : 
 There sleep the dead with crosswise folded palms ; 
 In stony calm, kings, heroes, poets lie, 
 Touched by the power of some mysterious spell, 
 And so made visible to mortal eye : 
 While the revolving earth rolls round the sun 
 This grand old minster shall not pass away ; 
 In marble effigy and graven stone 
 Lives what was once but perishable clay ; 
 And England, here, may look upon her- past 
 
 Standing, transfigured, in the light of day. 
 
 (154) 
 
THE NOVICE. 
 
 T~\EAD ? Did 3'oii sa}^ she 's dead, 
 
 Who was so passing fair? 
 Methought that death itself, 
 In pity, would forbear. 
 
 Nay, father ! Only dead 
 To earth, and earth's alloys; 
 Dead to its dreams of love, 
 Dead to its living joys. 
 
 Not in the narrow house 
 
 Where all lie down to rest. 
 
 With folded palms, to wait 
 
 The risen Lord's behest, 
 (155) 
 
156 THE NOVICE. 
 
 To rise and walk with him 
 Upon that distant shore. 
 Where earth and all her pangs 
 Will trouble them no more 1 
 
 But in the prison-house, 
 And in the narrow cell, 
 Just wide enough for one 
 In solitude to dwell : 
 
 For memory to sit 
 And dream of what has been. 
 Life and its hopes shut out — 
 Life and its tears shut in ; 
 
 And in the name of one 
 Who bore Christ in her womb, 
 To bury womanhood 
 Within a living tomb ! 
 
CHISELHURST, 
 
 yANUARTg, 1873. 
 
 ^T 7ALK backward, and throw a cloak above 
 
 the dead. 
 And lay a hand upon the lips for silence. 
 Who yesterday w^as monarch of the world 
 Is but a heap of still insensate clay. 
 The beggar that looks on is greater now than he ; 
 For he is dead. France now may go her way. 
 He will not wince, although she scoff at him ; 
 He will not come, although she call to him ; 
 Nor raise his hand, though she reach crowns to him. 
 The lust of power, and the greed of fame, 
 The will that swerved not, and the brain that 
 
 schemed, 
 
 Death jarred the busy wheels, and they are still. 
 
 (157) 
 
158 CHISELHURST. 
 
 But with sweet compensation in her hands 
 Fate brings the fallen exile two who stand, 
 With blanching lips, and ask not is he crowned ; 
 But dumbly gaze into each other's eyes, 
 Till one falls prostrate on the senseless clay, 
 And cries aloud, *'0 mother, he is dead !" 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 'TPHERE was a day when time was young, 
 
 And earth was in its primal bloom, 
 And life basked in the golden light, 
 Unconscious of the coming gloom. 
 
 You would have said it must have been 
 In the far dawn of nature's da}^ 
 When earth, a new-born smiling child, 
 Beneath a cloudless heaven lay. 
 
 Nay, strange and wondrous to relate, 
 Within my memory it lies, 
 A garden in the dewy dawn, 
 
 Beneath the changeless summer skies. 
 
 (159) 
 
l6o THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 I ate the bitter fruit of life, 
 
 And passed without the shining gate : 
 
 We dwell in Eden in our youth. 
 
 But, Ah ! the knowledge comes too late, 
 
/^ FAR ! O fair ! O grandly free : 
 
 My heart, my heart turns round to thee, 
 
 I see the might of other lands. 
 
 The tottering thrones where power stands. 
 
 And feels the slowly-rising flood 
 
 Of freedom stirring in the blood 
 
 Of peoples who are still o'ercast 
 
 With the dark shadow of the past : 
 
 And crowned monarchs stand appalled 
 
 Before the masses disenthralled. 
 
 From these, from these I turn to thee, 
 
 O blessed nation of the free. 
 
 Sprung full-fledged from the brows of time, 
 
 His crowning w^ork, most fair, sublime. 
 
 (i6i) 
 
*' UNDER THE ROSE." 
 
 \ T TE play in the garden, 
 In life's dewy morn. 
 When the rose that bends o'er us 
 Wears never a thorn : 
 The wee little maiden 
 Stands up on tiptoes, 
 And innocence kisses me, 
 *' Under the rose," 
 
 The child of the garden 
 
 A maiden is grown, 
 
 Who steals through the twilight 
 
 To meet me alone ; 
 
 We murmur our passion, 
 
 But nobody knows ; 
 (162) 
 
''UNDER THE ROSE." 163 
 
 Our kisses are given still 
 '* Under the rose." 
 
 She sleeps in the churchyard, 
 And I am grown gray ; 
 Not many illusions 
 Are left- me to-day ; 
 Yet I think that the sweetest thinof 
 Life can disclose, 
 Is a kiss that is stolen from 
 *' Under the rose." 
 
DORE'S PICTURE 
 
 OF CHRIbT DESCENDING FROM THE PR^TORIUM. 
 
 OTILL, central, silent, down the marble way, 
 
 Through scoffing ranks, the path of Jesus lay : 
 Serenely absent, down the steps he trod — 
 In anguish mortal, and in strength a God. 
 With seamless raiment falling to the ground, 
 And bleeding brows, with thorns in mockery 
 
 crowned. 
 And lofty mien, and troubled eyes divine. 
 Where some unearthly triumph seems to shine ; 
 Wrapped in a God-like trance, he passes by 
 The herd that mocks at him, for them to die, 
 For them to bear the cross that waits him there. 
 For them to suffer a divine despair. 
 Lifted above their taunting gibes and scorn, 
 
 The sinless victim passes slowly on. 
 
 (164) 
 
IMMORTAL AND ALMIGHTY GOD. 
 
 T MMORTAL and Almighty God ! to whom 
 
 A thousand years are but as yesterday ; 
 Look now on us who w^atch the sands of life, 
 The fleeting sands, and hear us as we pray. 
 
 We know there falls no sparrow to the earth 
 But thine all-seeing eye doth mark its fall ; 
 And if thou hearest, Lord, the birds of air 
 And wandering beasts of prey that on thee call. 
 
 Wilt thou not hear the human cry of those 
 
 Whom thou hast made in thine own image, Lord; 
 
 When kneeling low to thee, from trembling lips 
 
 The anguished prayer of human hearts is poured? 
 
 (165) 
 
l66 IMMORTAL AND ALMIGHTY GOD. 
 
 O stay, and strike not, we beseech thee : Christ, 
 Intercede thou for us with offended God ! 
 Yet, if it be thy will that this should be, 
 Teach us to bow submissive to the rod. 
 
 Yea, all thou dpest, Lord, thy servants know 
 Is wisely done : and yet, and yet, we pray, 
 If it be possible, O gracious Lord, 
 Let this dark cup of anguish pass away. 
 
PARTHENOPE. 
 
 \T 7HERE Naples' leafless hills, divinely fair, 
 
 Bare their brown bosoms to the azure air. 
 
 Where flows the sea like liquid sapphire o'er 
 
 Clear depths, and murmurs to the ruined shore ; 
 
 The mild-eyed Greek, with Phrygian bonnet 
 
 crowned, 
 
 His supple limbs by Latian suns imbrowned, 
 
 Roams by the alien shore, and feels again 
 
 The dream of Athens stir in every vein : 
 
 Looking on ruins none but he could raise, 
 
 " 'T w^as the barbarian laid them low," he says ; 
 
 'Mid the light shadows of the trellised vine. 
 
 Where dusty grapes in purple clusters shine, 
 
 C167), 
 
I 68 PARTHENOPE. 
 
 With smiling lips the dark-e3?ed maiden stands, 
 Gleaning the full-orbed grapes with shapely hands ; 
 And nature all unveiled and shameless lies 
 'Neath the deep silence of the wide-arched skies. 
 
T PLUCKED a flower in every land, 
 
 And bound it in my posy ; 
 A violet here, a lily there, 
 A French rose, sweet and thorny : 
 
 'A sprig of rue from stricken Spain, 
 In English fields a daisy : 
 A passion-flower from the sun-kissed land 
 Where nature e'en grows lazy ; 
 
 A morning-glory from the isle 
 That trembles like a lily, 
 Upon the ocean's boundless breast : 
 I bring them willy nilly ; 
 
 And lay them in these leaves to pass 
 
 In perfumes faint and airy ; 
 
 To haunt these pages like a ghost 
 
 Of some dead woodland fairy. 
 (169) 
 
TO ELEANOR. 
 
 "\"X 7 HAT shall I sing to thee, Eleanor, Eleanor? 
 
 Maidenhood sweet and fair. 
 With the pure proud eyes, and the fresh young lips. 
 And masses of tawny hair? 
 
 Shall I sing of the peoples that dwelt of old 
 On the shores of this shining bay : 
 Like an idle dream in the sleep of time 
 The peoples have passed away. .• 
 
 Nay, what care you for the storied past 
 
 On these time-forgotten slopes, 
 
 Who dwell all day in the sunny halls 
 
 Of a maiden's airy hopes : 
 
 (170) 
 
TO ELEANOR. I7I 
 
 And what care you for the singers sweet 
 That sang in the old days here, 
 When a lover's whispered word fills all 
 The shell of your rosy ear. 
 
 Then build your castles, and dream your dreams, 
 And let the dead past rest; 
 There is one I know who would give it all 
 For the heart in thy loving breast. 
 
 Naples, 1874. 
 
KALAKAUA. 
 
 jV^INGof the isles, 
 
 Where nature smiles, 
 And stoops to kiss the western sea : 
 Of happy isles, 
 Where all beguiles, 
 Columbia turns to welcome thee. 
 
 Where in the west. 
 
 On ocean's breast, 
 
 Tremble the jewels of the sea, 
 
 In isles afar, 
 
 Where shines the star 
 
 Of eve, the people kneel to thee. 
 
 Across the sea, 
 
 The burnished sea, 
 (172) 
 
KALAKUA. 173 
 
 He comes, the king of many isles ; 
 
 From sunny strands 
 
 To sunless lands, 
 
 Where wintrj'- nature rarely smiles. 
 
 Through all the north, 
 
 The sunless north, 
 
 Echoes a great *' all hail ! '^ to thee, 
 
 O King ! who dwell 
 
 Where, like a shell 
 
 That holds the murmur of the sea, 
 
 Hawaii dreams, 
 
 And floats, and seems 
 
 A cloud upon the western skies ; 
 
 While in the sea. 
 
 The burnished sea, 
 
 The setting sun in splendor dies. 
 
/^ FREEDOM ! sigh not for the ruined shade 
 
 Of ivied walls, where memory loves to dwell ; 
 Thine be the rajdess beauty of the dawn, 
 The light of morning breaking overhead. 
 The owl hoots not within thy ruined towers. 
 Where sits the muse, her lyre all unstrung ; 
 She strikes her harp beneath the western skies, 
 And sings a p^an to the rising sun. 
 Time hath not writ on thy memorial stones 
 The mouldering record of forgotten days ; 
 She stands, a maiden in the setting sun, 
 And beckons us to hurry on amain. 
 We do not gaze on lofty penciled spires 
 Whose network seems to fret the glowing air, 
 Here sweet religion walks among the fields, 
 And dream- like domes of beauty fill the air. 
 Thine be the fame of half-forgotten lore, 
 The dust and ruin of the storied dead. 
 Ours the unworn path of days unborn. 
 
 Wherein young hope with eager steps may tread. 
 
 (174) 
 
TO CASTELAR. 
 
 TT^EEM not that all thy warriors were slain. 
 
 Or thou, O Castelar, hast lived in vain ! 
 Who set the gulf between the queen uncrowned 
 And this, her son, by law and justice bound : 
 Who paved the way for this young prince to tread 
 In pleasant paths? Thou and thy mighty dead. 
 And when there yawned a fearful chasm in Spain, 
 Leaped like another Curtius again? 
 Thou, silver-tongued and unpolluted one, 
 Brave as the Cid, Hispagnia's deathless son. 
 When time unfurls her brooding wings to show 
 Her sweet fruitions all divinely slow, 
 Then shall the seed thy generous hand hath sown 
 
 (175) 
 
176 TO CASTELAR. 
 
 Bear fruit and flower, for ages yet unknown 
 To pluck and eat : and like the morning star 
 Thy name shall shine on Spain, O sweet-lipped 
 Castelar, 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 OLD FRENCH. 
 
 "DEAUTEOUS Alice rose at morn, 
 
 All her body did adorn, 
 Went into an orchard fair, 
 Flowerets five discovered there ; 
 Made a chaplet, in that hour. 
 Of the roses all in flower. 
 O God ! would you leave this dell — 
 You, who love me passing well? 
 
 From t/ie Romafi de la Rose. 
 OLD FRENCH. 
 
 •^ I ^HE birdling, all-embowered in green, 
 
 When he is caught and cast within 
 A cage, and fed with dainties rare, 
 And watched with love and tender care, 
 
 (177) 
 
178 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 « 
 
 Sings still ; for while he lives he sings, 
 With joA'ous breast : but, if there springs 
 A yearning for the tangled grove, 
 That nature taught his breast to love, 
 Then round his cage the birdling flies, 
 Longing to reach his native skies ; 
 And beats about his prisoned cage. 
 In the great anguish of his rage. 
 Seeking a space the bars between. 
 To fly back to his bower of green. 
 
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