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LAYS AND BALLADS. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS BUCHANAN ilEAD. 
 
 
 j^riTu^v^J 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 GEORGE S. APPLETON, 164 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 1849. 
 

 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1S4?, by 
 
 GEORGE S. APPLETON. 
 
 in the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 
 
 Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 PRINTED BY SMITH & PETERS, 
 
 Franklin Buildings, Satb Strnd below Arch, riiilaiclphla. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PROEM, INSCRIBED TO GEORGE HAMMERSLEY . . . Page 5 
 
 9 
 
 . 12 
 
 19 
 
 . 21 
 
 23 
 
 . 34 
 
 37 
 
 . 40 
 
 43 
 
 . 45 
 
 52 
 
 . 56 
 
 60 
 
 62 
 
 w 64 
 
 . 67 
 69 
 
 THE STRANGER ON THE SILL 
 
 THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE 
 
 A SONG . ... 
 
 A BUTTERFLY IN THE CITY 
 
 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES . 
 
 THE DESERTED ROAD . 
 
 MIDNIGHT . . . < 
 
 THE TWO DOVES . 
 
 SONG FOR A SABBATH MORNING 
 
 THE BRICKMAKER 
 
 A NIGHT THOUGHT . 
 
 THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME . 
 
 LINES TO A LITTLE FRIEND 
 
 THE WAY-SIDE 
 
 FRANCE IS FREE 
 THE LAND OF THE WEST .... 
 THE alchemist's DAUGHTER, A DRAMATIC SKETCH 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 SONG OF THE SERF 92 
 
 TO THE WIFE OF A POET 94 
 
 THE NAMELESS 96 
 
 THE NEW VILLAGE 98 
 
 BALBOA ....'. 104 
 
 A VISION OF DEATHj AN EXTRACT 108 
 
 THE FAIRER LAND 115 
 
 MANHOOD .118 
 
 THE REALM OF DREAMS 121 
 
 THE WAY 131 
 
 THE MARSEILLAISE 134 
 
 THE WITHERING LEAVES .137 
 
 l'envoi 139 
 
PROEM, 
 
 INSCRIBED TO GEORGE HAMMERSLEY. 
 
 Come thou, my friend ;— the cool autumnal eves 
 About the hearth have drawn their magic rings ; 
 
 There, while his song of peace the cricket weaves, 
 The simmering hickory sings. 
 
 The winds unkennelled round the casements whine, 
 The sheltered hound makes answer in his dream. 
 
 And in the hayloft, hark, the cock at nine 
 Crows from the dusty beam. 
 
 The leafless branches chafe the roof all night. 
 And through the house the troubled noises go, 
 
VI PROEM. 
 
 While, like a ghostly presence, thin and white 
 The frost foretells the snow. 
 
 The muffled owl within the swaying elm 
 
 Thrills all the air with sadness as he swings, 
 
 Till sorrow seems to spread her shadowy realm 
 About all outward things. 
 
 Come, then, my friend, and this shall seem no more' 
 Come when October walks his red domain. 
 
 Or when November from his windy floor 
 Winnows the hail and rain. 
 
 And when old Winter through his fingers numb 
 Blows till his breathings on the windows gleam ; 
 
 And when the mill-wheel spiked with ice is dumb 
 Within the neighbouring stream. 
 
 Then come, for nights like these have power to wake 
 The calm delight no others may impart, 
 
 WTien round the fire true souls communing make 
 A summer in the heart. 
 
PROEM. 
 
 And I will weave athwart the mystic gloom, 
 
 With hand grown weird in strange romance, for thee 
 
 Bright webs of fancy from the golden loom 
 Of charmed Poesy. 
 
 And let no censure in thy looks be shown, 
 That I, with hands adventurous and bold. 
 
 Should grasp the enchanted shuttle which was thrown 
 Through mightier warps of old. 
 
THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. 
 
 Between broad fields of wheat and com 
 Is the lowly home where I was born ; 
 The peach-tree leans against the wall, 
 And the woodbine wanders over all ; 
 There is the shaded doorway still, 
 But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill. 
 
 There is the barn — and, as of yore, 
 I can smell the hay from the open door. 
 And see the busy swallow's throng, 
 And hear the peewee's mournful song ; 
 But the stranger comes — oh ! painful proof - 
 His sheaves are piled to the heated roof. 
 
10 THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. 
 
 There is the orchard — the very trees 
 Where my childhood knew long hours of ease, 
 And watched the shadowy moments run 
 Till my life imbibed more shade than sun : 
 The swing from the bough still sweeps the air, 
 But the stranger's children are swinging there. 
 
 There bubbles the shady spring below, 
 
 With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow ; 
 
 'T was there I found the calamus root, 
 
 And watched the minnows poise and shoot, 
 
 And heard the robin lave his wing. 
 
 But the stranger's bucket is at the spring. 
 
 Oh, ye who daily cross the sill. 
 
 Step lightly, for I love it still ; 
 
 And when you crowd the old barn eaves. 
 
 Then think what countless harvest sheaves 
 
 Have passed within that scented door 
 
 To gladden eyes that are no more. 
 
 Deal kindly with these orchard trees ; 
 And when your children crowd their knees, 
 
THE STRANGER, ON THE SILL. 1] 
 
 Their sweetest fruit they shall impart, 
 As if old memories stirred their heart : 
 To youthful sport still leave the swing, 
 And in sweet reverence hold the spring. 
 
 The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds. 
 The meadows with their lowing herds, 
 The woodbine on the cottage wall — 
 My heart still lingers with them all. 
 Ye strangers on my native sill. 
 Step lightly, for I love it still ! 
 
THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 
 
 Little maiden, you may laugh 
 That you see me wear a staff, 
 For your laughter 's but the chaff 
 
 From the melancholy grain. 
 Through the shadows long and cool 
 You are tripping down to school ; 
 But your teacher's cloudy rule 
 Only dulls the shining pool 
 
 With its loud and stormy rain. 
 
 There 's a higher lore to learn 
 Than his knowledge can discern, 
 There 's a valley deep and dern 
 In a desolate domain ; 
 
THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. l3 
 
 But for this he has no chart — 
 Shallow science, shallow art! 
 Thither — oh, be still, my heart — 
 One too many did depart 
 
 From the halls of Linden Lane. 
 
 I can teach you better things ; 
 For I know the secret springs 
 Where the spirit wells and sings 
 
 Till it overflows the brain. 
 Come when eve is closing in, 
 When the spiders gray begin, 
 Like philosophers, to spin 
 Misty tiscaes, vain and thin, 
 
 Through the shades of Linden Lane. 
 
 While you sit as in a trance, 
 Where the moon-made shadows dance. 
 From the distaff of Romance 
 I will spin a silken skein : 
 Down the misty years gone by 
 I will turn your azure eye ; 
 2 
 
14 THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 
 
 You shall see the changeful sky 
 Falling dark or hanging high 
 Over the halls of Linden Lane. 
 
 Come, and sitting by the trees, 
 Over long and level leas. 
 Stretched between us and the seas, 
 
 I can point the battle-plain : 
 If the air comes from the shore 
 We may hear the billows roar ; 
 But oh ! never, nevermore 
 Shall the wind come as of yore 
 
 To the halls of Linden Lane. 
 
 Those were weary days of wo, 
 Ah ! yes, many years ago. 
 When a cruel foreign foe 
 
 Sent his fleets across the main. 
 Though all this is in your books. 
 There are countless words and looks. 
 Which, like flowers in hidden nooks, 
 Or the melody of brooks, 
 
 There 's no volume can retain. 
 
THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 15 
 
 Come, and if the night be fair, 
 And the moon be in the air, 
 I can tell you when and where 
 
 Walked a tender loving twain : 
 Though it cannot be, alas ! 
 Yet, as in a magic glass, 
 We will sit and see them pass 
 Through the long and rustling grass 
 
 At the foot of Linden Lane. 
 
 Yonder did they turn and go. 
 Through the level lawn below. 
 With a stately step and slow, 
 
 And long shadows in their train : 
 Weaving dreams no thoughts could mar, 
 Down they wandered long and far. 
 Gazing toward the horizon's bar 
 On their love's appointed star 
 
 Rising in the Lion's Mane. 
 
 As across a summer sea. 
 Love sailed o'er the quiet lea. 
 Light as only love may be. 
 
 Freighted with no care or pain. — 
 
16 THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 
 
 Such the night ; but v/ith the morn 
 Brayed the distant bugle-horn — 
 Louder! louder! it vf as borne — 
 Then were anxious faces worn 
 In the halls of Linden Lane. 
 
 With the trumpet's nearer bray, 
 Flashing but a league away, 
 Saw we arms and banners gay 
 
 Stretching far along the plain. 
 Neighing answer to the call, 
 Burst our chargers from the stall ; 
 Mounted, here they leaped the wall. 
 There the stream : while in the hall 
 
 Eyes were dashed with sudden rain. 
 
 Belted for the fiercest fight, 
 
 And with swimming plume of white, 
 
 Passed the lover out of sight 
 
 With the hurrying hosts amain. 
 Then the thunders of the gun 
 On the shuddering breezes run, 
 
THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 17 
 
 And the clouds o'erswept the sun, 
 Till the heavens hung dark and dun 
 Over the halls of Linden Lane. 
 
 Few that joined the fiery fray- 
 Lived to tell how went the day ; 
 But that few could proudly say 
 
 How the foe had fled the plain. 
 Long the maiden's eyes did yearn 
 For her cavalier's return ; 
 But she watched alone to learn 
 That the valley deep and dern 
 
 Was her desolate domain. 
 
 Leave your books awhile apart ; 
 For they cannot teach the heart ; 
 Come, and I will show the chart 
 
 Which shall make the mystery plain. 
 I can tell you hidden things 
 Which your knowledge never brings ; 
 For I know the secret springs 
 Where the spirit wells and sings 
 
 Till it overflows the brain. 
 
 2* B 
 
18 THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE. 
 
 Ah, yes, lightly sing and laugh — 
 Half a child and woman half ; 
 For your laughter 's but the chaff 
 
 From the melancholy grain ; 
 And, ere many years shall fly, 
 Age will dim your laughing eye, 
 And like me you '11 totter by ; 
 For remember, love, that I 
 
 Was the Maid of Linden Lane. 
 
A SONG. 
 
 Bring me the juice of the honey fruit, 
 The large translucent, amber-hued, 
 
 Rare grapes of southern isles, to suit 
 The luxury that fills my mood. 
 
 And bring me only such as grew 
 Where rarest maidens tend the bowers, 
 
 And only fed by rain and dew 
 
 Which first had bathed a bank of flowers. 
 
 They must have hung on spicy trees 
 In airs of far enchanted vales, 
 
20 A SONG. 
 
 And all night heard the ecstasies 
 Of noble-throated nightingales : 
 
 So that the virtues which belong 
 To flowers may therein tasted be, 
 
 And that which hath been thrilled with song 
 May give a thrill of song to me. 
 
 For I would wake that string for thee 
 Which hath too long in silence hung, 
 
 And sweeter than all else should be 
 The song which in thy praise is sung. 
 
A BUTTERFLY IN THE CITY. 
 
 Dear transient spirit of the fields, 
 Thou com'st without distrust, 
 
 To fan the sunshine of our streets 
 Among the noise and dust. 
 
 Thou leadest in thy wavering flight 
 
 My footsteps unaware, 
 Until I seem to walk the vales 
 
 And breathe thy native air. 
 
 And thou hast fed upon the flowers, 
 And drained their honeyed springs, 
 
 Till every tender hue they wore 
 Is blooming on thy wings. 
 
22 A BUTTERFLY IN THE CITY. 
 
 I bless the fresh and flowery light 
 Thou bringest to the town, 
 
 But tremble lest the hot turmoil 
 Have power to weigh thee down ; 
 
 For thou art like the poet's song, 
 
 Arrayed in holiest dyes, 
 Though it hath drained the honeyed wells 
 
 Of flowers of Paradise, 
 
 Though it hath brought celestial hues 
 
 To light the ways of life. 
 The dust shall weigh its pinions down 
 
 Amid the noisy strife. 
 
 And yet, perchance, some kindred soul 
 
 Shall see its glory shine. 
 And feel its wings within his heart 
 
 As bright as I do thine. 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 The music of the marriage bell 
 
 Woke all the morning air to pleasure, 
 
 And breasts there were that rose and fell 
 
 To the delightful measure. 
 
 Oh, well it were if they might hear alway 
 
 The music of their nuptial day 
 
 Flowing, as o'er enchanted lakes and streams. 
 
 Out of the land of dreams — 
 
 Sweet sounds that melt but never cease. 
 
 Dropped from celestial bells of peace. 
 
 Oh, well it were if those rare bridal flowers 
 Had drunken deep of life's perpetual dews, 
 
24 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 Had drunken of those charmed showers 
 
 For ever falling in ambrosial hues 
 
 Through the far loving skies, 
 
 Beyond the flaming walls of long-lost Paradise ; 
 
 Or grown beside that fabled river 
 
 Where it is spring-time ever ; 
 
 Where, when the aged pilgrim stooped and drank, 
 
 He rose again upon that primrose bank 
 
 In all the bloom of youth to bloom for ever. 
 
 Ah, well for Beauty's transient bowers 
 
 If they might bud and blow in life's autumnal hours: 
 
 For she, who wore that bridal wreath 
 
 Was Naples' noblest child ; 
 
 The fairest maid that e'er beguiled 
 
 An Abbot of a prayerful breath. 
 
 And he who rode beside her there 
 
 Was Fame and Fortune's richest heir ; 
 
 One who had come from foreign realms afar 
 
 To dazzle like a new-discovered star. 
 
 Yet as they passed between the crowd 
 
 He looked not scornfully nor proud, 
 
 But to the beggars thronging every side 
 
 Scattered the golden coin in plenteous rain. 
 
 And smiled to see their joy insane. 
 
 And passing, thus addressed the bride : 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 25 
 
 « The merry bells make music sweet, 
 
 But never to the beggar's ear 
 
 Fell music half so sweet and clear 
 
 As the chime of gold when it strikes the street; 
 
 It drives their hearts to swifter swinging, 
 
 And fills their brains with gladder ringing 
 
 Than ever bells will swing or ring. 
 
 Even though the sturdy sacristan 
 
 Should labour the very best he can 
 
 To chime for the wedding of a king. 
 
 Such sights to me will always bring 
 
 The story of a beggar, who 
 
 Perchance has ofttimes begged of you ; 
 
 And here the tale may well be told. 
 
 To wile away this idle gait 
 
 That keeps us from our happy fate : 
 
 For Time is very lame and old 
 
 Whene'er the surly gray-beard brings 
 
 A prayed-for pleasure on his wings ; 
 
 But robbing us of a joy can flee 
 
 As fleet of foot as Mercury. 
 
 << Avoiding every wintry shade, 
 
 The lazzaroni crawled to sunny spots, — 
 
 At every corner miserable knots 
 
 Pursued their miserable trade ; 
 3 
 
26 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 And held the sunshine in their asking palms, 
 
 Which gave unthanked its glowing alms, 
 
 Thawing the blood until it ran 
 
 As wine within a vintage runs. 
 
 And there was one among that begging clan. 
 
 One of Italia's listless dreamy sons, 
 
 A native Neapolitan — 
 
 A boy whose cheeks had drawn their olive tan 
 
 From fifteen summer suns. 
 
 Long had he stood with naked feet 
 
 Upon the lava of the street, 
 
 With shadowy eyes cast down, 
 
 Making neither a smile nor frown. 
 
 And in the crowd he stood alone, 
 
 Alone with empty hanging hands. 
 
 And through his brain the idle dreams 
 
 Slid down like idle sands ; 
 
 Or hung like mists o'er sleeping streams 
 
 In uninhabitable lands. 
 
 To him, I ween, the same. 
 
 All seasons went and came. 
 
 Nor did ambition's pomp and show 
 
 Disturb his fancy^s tranquil flow ; 
 
 For like the blossom of the soil 
 
 Existence was his only toil. 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 27 
 
 " One morn (the bells had summoned all to mass) 
 
 He knelt before the old cathedral door — 
 
 At such a place the wealthier who pass 
 
 Will throw a pious pittance to the poor, 
 
 Who kneel with face demure, 
 
 With their mute eyes and hands saying their < alas!' 
 
 Oh, beautiful it was to see him there. 
 
 Looking his wordless prayer. 
 
 With solemn head depressed. 
 
 And hands laid crosswise on his breast, — 
 
 Such figures saw Murillo in his dream, 
 
 The painter and the pride of Spain ; 
 
 With such he made his living canvass gleam. 
 
 As canvass touched by man may never gleam again. 
 
 " Upon the beggar's heart the matin hymn 
 
 Fell faint and dim, 
 
 As when upon some margin of the sea 
 
 The fisher breathes the briny air. 
 
 And hears the far waves' symphony, 
 
 But hears it unaware. 
 
 The music from the lofty aisle. 
 
 And all the splendour of the sacred pile, — 
 
 The pictures hung at intervals 
 
 Like windows, giving from the walls 
 
 Clear glimpses of the days agone. 
 
 From that blest hour when over Bethlehem shone 
 
28 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 The shepherd's Star, until that darker time 
 
 When groaned the earth aloud with agony sublime • — 
 
 All were unheeded, 
 
 And came, but as his breath ; 
 
 Or if there came a thought, that thought unneeded 
 
 Even in its birth met death. 
 
 The names of Raphael, — Angelo, — Lorraine, — 
 
 Da Vinci, — Rosa, — Titian, — and the rest 
 
 Are sounds to thrill the Italian's soul and brain, 
 
 With all the impulse native to his breast ; 
 
 And Dante, — Petrarch, — these are mighty names 
 
 The meanest tongue with a true pride proclaims ; 
 
 And Ariosto's song a loved bequest ; 
 
 And Tasso's sung by all — by all is loved and blest. 
 
 But what cared he, the sunburnt beggar-boy? 
 
 All these bequeathed no other joy 
 
 Than did the silent stars. 
 
 Or morn or evening with their golden bars, 
 
 Or the great azure arch of day, 
 
 Or his own bright, unrivalled bay, 
 
 Or old Vesuvius' deathless flames — 
 
 And these to him alone were empty sights and names. 
 
 « Few were there who did any alms bestow, 
 For few will hear accustomed sounds of wo, 
 Yet there was one among that few 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 29 
 
 Who but a moment stopped, 
 
 And in the beggar's hands the silver dropped. 
 
 And shed the benediction of her smile. 
 
 Such smile as hers might well renew 
 
 A heart to its lost light, and might beguile 
 
 The shadow of a mourner's hour ; 
 
 Such smiles are like the blessed dew 
 
 By evening shed upon a wayside flower, 
 
 Sinking to the heart of hearts with a miraculous power. 
 
 The earliest primrose of the spring 
 
 "Which at the brookside, suddenly in sight, 
 
 Gleams like a water sprite ; 
 
 And the first herald bird on southern wing 
 
 Chanting his wild, enthusiastic rhyme 
 
 About the summer time — 
 
 Wake in the soul an instant, deep delight! 
 
 But there are eyes whose first sweet look 
 
 Outshines the primrose by the brook ; 
 
 And there are lips whose simplest words 
 
 Outrival even the spring-time birds. 
 
 Ah, well, I ween, the beggar felt their power. 
 
 And wore them in bis heart from that bright hour. 
 
 She passed — a maiden very young and fair, 
 
 Of an illustrious house the pride and heir ; 
 
 She passed — but ah, she left 
 
 The miserable boy bereft ! ■ — 
 3* 
 
30 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 Bereft of all that quiet which had lain 
 
 Like a low mist within his brain, — 
 
 The idle fogs of some rank weedy isle 
 
 Hanging on the breezeless atmosphere, 
 
 Over a miasmatic mere ; — 
 
 All this the beauty of her smile 
 
 Had blown into a storm that would not rest again. 
 
 At once upstarting from his knees 
 
 He watched her as she went ; 
 
 The blood awakened from its slothful ease, 
 
 Through all his frame a flaming flood was sent. 
 
 He stood as with a statue's fixed surprise. 
 
 Great wonder making marble in his eyes ! 
 
 She, like a morn, had dawned upon his soul ; 
 
 And now he saw the marvellous whole 
 
 Of that mysterious land, 
 
 And felt a sense of awe as they who stand 
 
 For the first time upon an alien strand, — 
 
 Some sailor of a foreign sea. 
 
 Who, from the smooth waves swinging lazily, 
 
 Is thrown upon a shore 
 
 Where life is full of noise and strife for evermore. 
 
 He stood awake ! and suddenly there burst 
 
 The music of the organ on his brain, 
 
 And into every sense athirst 
 
 Dispensed a welcome rain. 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 31 
 
 Now that his soul had passed from its eclipse 
 
 All things at once became a glorious show; 
 
 Now could he see the sainted pictures glow ; 
 
 And instantly unto his lips 
 
 Rolled fragments of old song — 
 
 Fragments which had been thrown 
 
 Into his heart unknown, 
 
 And buried there had lain in silence deep and long. 
 
 " He saw his fellows kneel where he had knelt 
 
 With tattered garb and supplicating air ; 
 
 And for the first time in his life he felt 
 
 How mean was his attire, and that his feet were bare. 
 
 He sighed and bit his lips and passed away ; 
 
 And from that day. 
 
 His fellows idly as before 
 
 Without a hope, without a care, 
 
 Stood clustered in the sunny air, 
 
 But there the beggar boy was seen no more. 
 
 "His childhood, like a dry and sandy bar, 
 Lay all behind him as. he hurled 
 His soul's hot bark to sea, and wide unfurled 
 The straining sail upon a billowy world. 
 And now he joined the sacred fleet afar. 
 And 'mid tempestuous waves of war 
 Defied the Saracen and Death, 
 
32 THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 
 
 And won the warrior's laurel wreath, 
 
 And gave his beggar name to Fame's industrious breath. 
 
 " Years came and went, and no one missed the boy, 
 
 Nor wept his long farewell ; 
 
 They little guessed how much their joy 
 
 Was of his deeds to tell. 
 
 And when he knew his native town 
 
 Had learned to talk of his renown ; 
 
 The youth a bearded man returned. 
 
 And more than for renown he yearned 
 
 To see that blessed smile again 
 
 Which erst made beauty in his brain. 
 
 And ever in the van of war 
 
 Had shone a most propitious star. 
 
 He came, and she of whom he long had dreamed 
 
 With hopes which nought could e'er destroy. 
 
 In brighter beauty on him beamed. 
 
 And blessed him with a deeper joy ; 
 
 Even she, the noblest lady of the land, 
 
 Bestowed on him her virgin hand ! 
 
 Ah, sure it was the fairest alms 
 
 That ever blessed a beggar's palms ! 
 
 «'To him the chime which filled the skies 
 
 Upon his nuptial morn. 
 
 When down the loving breezes borne, 
 
THE BEGGAR OF NAPLES. 33 
 
 Did seem to be by angels rung 
 
 From silver bells of Paradise, 
 
 In golden turrets hung. 
 
 And she, who woke the boy to man. 
 
 As little dreamed, I guess, as now, 
 
 My gentle lady, as dost thou. 
 
 How proud she was to wed that barefoot Neapolitan." 
 
THE DESERTED ROAD, 
 
 Ancient road, that wind'st deserted 
 Through the level of the vale, 
 
 Sweeping toward the crowded market 
 Like a stream without a sail; 
 
 Standing by thee, I look backward, 
 And, as in the light of dreams. 
 
 See the years descend and vanish, 
 Like thy whitely tented teams. 
 
 Here I stroll along the village 
 As in youth's departed morn ; 
 
 But I miss the crowded coaches, 
 And the driver's bugle-horn — 
 
THE DESERTED ROAD. 35 
 
 Miss the crowd of jovial teamsters 
 Filling buckets at the wells, 
 
 With their wains from Conestoga, 
 And their orchestras of bells. 
 
 To the mossy way-side tavern 
 Comes the noisy throng no more, 
 
 And the faded sign, complaining, 
 Swings, unnoticed, at the door ; 
 
 While the old, decrepid tollman. 
 Waiting for the few who pass, 
 
 Reads the melancholy story 
 In the thickly springing grass. 
 
 Ancient highway, thou art vanquished ; 
 
 The usurper of the vale 
 Rolls in fiery, iron rattle, 
 
 Exultations on the gale. 
 
 Thou art vanquished and neglected ; 
 
 But the good which thou hast done, 
 Though by man it be forgotten^ 
 
 Shall be deathless as the sun. 
 
36 THE DESERTED ROAD. 
 
 Though neglected, gray and grassy, 
 Still I pray that my decline 
 
 May be through as vernal valleys 
 And as blest a calm as thine. 
 
MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The moon looks down on a world of snow, 
 And the midnight lamp is burning low. 
 And the fading embers mildly glow 
 
 In their bed of ashes soft and deep : 
 All, all is still as the hour of death ; 
 I only hear what the old clock saith, 
 And the mother and infant's easy breath, 
 
 That flows from the holy land of Sleep. 
 
 Or the watchman who solemnly wakes the dark. 
 With a voice like a prophet's when few will hark, 
 And the answering hounds that bay and bark 
 
 To the red cock's clarion horn — 
 
 4 
 
MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The world goes on — the restless world, 
 With its freight of sleep through the darkness hurled, 
 Like a mighty ship, when her sails are furled 
 On a rapid but noiseless river borne. 
 
 Say on, old clock — I love you well, 
 
 For your silver chime, and the truths you tell, 
 
 Your every stroke is but the knell 
 
 Of hope, or sorrow buried deep ; 
 Say on — but only let me hear 
 The sound most sweet to my listening ear. 
 The child and the mother breathing clear 
 
 Within the harvest-fields of Sleep. 
 
 Thou watchman, on thy lonely round, 
 I thank thee for that warning sound ; 
 The clarion cock and the baying hound 
 
 Not less their dreary vigils keep ; 
 Still hearkening, I will love you all, 
 While in each silent interval 
 I can hear those dear breasts rise and fall 
 
 Upon the airy tide of Sleep. 
 
MIDNIGHT. 39 
 
 Old world, on Time's benighted stream 
 Sweep down till the stars of morning beam 
 From orient shores — nor break the dream 
 
 That calms my love to pleasure deep ; 
 Roll on, and give my Bud and Rose 
 The fulness of thy best repose, 
 The blessedness which only flows 
 
 Along the silent realms of Sleep. 
 
THE TWO DOVES. 
 
 When the Spring's delightful store 
 
 Brought the bluebirds to our bowers, 
 And the poplar at the door 
 
 Shook the fragrance from its flowers, 
 Then there came two wedded doves, 
 
 And they built among the limbs, 
 And the murmur of their loves 
 
 Fell like mellow, distant hymns , 
 There, until the Spring had flown. 
 
 Did they sit and sing, alone, 
 In the broad and flowery branches. 
 
THE TWO DOVES. 41 
 
 With the scented Summer breeze 
 
 How their music swam around, 
 Till my spirit sailed the seas 
 
 Of enchanted realms of sound! 
 " Soul," said I, "thy dream of youth 
 
 Is not fancy, nor deceives, 
 For I hear Love's blissful truth 
 
 Prophesied among the leaves ; 
 Therefore till the Summer's flown 
 
 Sit and sing, but not alone, 
 In the broad and flowery branches." 
 
 Then the harvest came and went. 
 
 And the Autumn marshalled down 
 All his host, and spread his tent 
 
 Over fields and forests brown ; 
 Then the doves, one evening, hied 
 
 To their old accustomed nest ; 
 One went up, but drooped and died. 
 
 With an arrow in its breast — 
 Died and dropped ; while there, alone. 
 
 Sat the other, making moan. 
 In the broad and withering branches. 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE TWO DOVES. 
 
 There it sat and mourned its mate. 
 
 With a never-ending moan, 
 Till I thought perchance its fate 
 
 Was prophetic of my own ; 
 And at each lament I heard, 
 
 How the tears sprang to my eyes ! 
 O ! I could have clasped the bird 
 
 And communed with it in sighs ; 
 But it drooped — and with a moan, 
 
 Closed its eyes, and there, alone, 
 Dropped from out the leafless branches. 
 
 I beheld it on the ground, 
 
 Press the brown leaves, cold and dead, 
 And my brain went round and round. 
 
 And I clasped my throbbing head, 
 While thus spake a voice of Love : 
 
 « Rise, thou timid spirit, rise ! 
 Earth has claimed the fallen dove — 
 
 But thy soul shall cleave the skies ; 
 W^hile the angel, earlier flown. 
 
 Shall sit waiting thee, alone, 
 In the green eternal branches !" 
 
SONG FOR A SABBATH MORNING. 
 
 Arise, ye nations, with rejoicing rise. 
 And tell your gladness to the listening skies ; 
 Come out forgetful of the week's turmoil, 
 From halls of mirth and iron gates of toil ; 
 Come forth, come forth, and let your joy increase 
 Till one loud psean hails the day of peace. 
 Sing, trembling age, ye youths and maidens sing; 
 Ring, ye sweet chimes, from every belfry ring ; 
 Pour the grand anthem till it soars and swells. 
 And heaven seems full of great aerial bells ! 
 
44 SONG FOR A SABBATH MORNING. 
 
 Behold the Morn from orient chambers glide, 
 
 With shining footsteps, like a radiant bride ; 
 
 The gladdened brooks proclaim her on the hills. 
 
 And every grove with choral welcome thrills. 
 
 Rise, ye sweet maidens, strew her path with flowers, 
 
 With sacred lilies from your virgin bowers ; 
 
 Go, youths, and meet her with your olive boughs ; 
 
 Go, age, and greet her with your holiest vows ; — 
 
 See where she comes, her hands upon her breast, 
 
 The sainted Sabbath comes, and smiles the world to rest. 
 
THE BRICKMAKER. 
 
 Let the blinded horse go round 
 Till the yellow clay be ground, 
 And no weary arms be folded 
 Till the mass to brick be moulded. 
 
 In no stately structures skilled, 
 What the temple we would build ? 
 Now the massive kiln is risen — 
 Call it palace — call it prison ; 
 View it well : from end to end 
 Narrow corridors extend, — 
 
 * The plan of this poem may remind the reader of Schiller's " Song 
 of the Bell ;" but the resemblance is entirely accidental, as the author 
 had not read that poem when the " Brickmaker" M^as written. It 
 was suggested, a few years since, by seeing a brick kiln in full opera- 
 tion, near Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
 
46 THE BRICKMAKER. 
 
 Long, and dark, and smothered aisles 
 Choke its earthy vaults with piles 
 
 Of the resinous yellow pine ; 
 Now thrust in the fettered fire — 
 Hearken ! how he stamps with ire, 
 
 Treading out the pitchy wine ; 
 Wrought anon to wilder spells 
 
 Hear him shout his loud alarms ; 
 
 See him thrust his glowing arms 
 Through the windows of his cells. 
 
 But his chains at last shall sever ; 
 Slavery lives not for ever ; 
 And the thickest prison wall 
 Into ruin yet must fall. 
 Whatsoever falls away 
 Springeth up again, they say ; 
 Then, when this shall break asunder. 
 And the fire be freed from under, 
 Tell us what imperial thing 
 From the ruin shall upspring ? 
 
 There shall grow a stately building, 
 Airy dome and columned walls ; 
 
 Mottos writ in richest gilding 
 
 Blazing through its pillared halls. 
 
THE BRICKMAKER. 47 
 
 In those chambers, stern and dreaded, 
 They, the mighty ones, shall stand ; 
 
 There shall sit the hoary-headed 
 Old defenders of the land. 
 
 There shall mighty words be spoken, 
 Which shall thrill a wondering world ; 
 
 Then shall ancient bonds be broken, 
 And new banners be unfurled. 
 
 But anon those glorious uses 
 
 In these chambers shall lie dead. 
 And the world's antique abuses, 
 
 Hydra-headed, rise instead. 
 
 But this wrong not long shall linger — 
 
 The old capitol must fall ; 
 For, behold ! the fiery finger 
 
 Flames along the fated wall I 
 
 II 
 
 Let the blinded horse go round 
 Till the yellow clay be ground. 
 
48 THE BRICKMAKER. 
 
 And no weary arms be folded 
 Till the mass to brick be moulded — 
 Till the heavy walls be risen 
 And the fire is in his prison : 
 But when br^ak the walls asimder, 
 And the fire is freed from under. 
 Say again what stately thing 
 From the ruin shall upspring ? 
 
 There shall grow a church whose steeple 
 To the heavens shall aspire ; 
 
 And shall come the mighty people 
 To the music of the choir. 
 
 On the infant, robed in whiteness. 
 Shall baptismal waters fall. 
 
 While the child's angelic brightness 
 Sheds a halo over all. 
 
 There shall stand enwreathed in marriage 
 
 Forms that tremble — hearts that thrill — 
 To the door Death's sable carriage 
 Shall bring forms and hearts grown still ! 
 
THE BRICKMAKER. 49 
 
 Decked in garments richly glistening, 
 Rustling wealth shall walk the aisle ; 
 
 And the poor, without stand listening, 
 Praying in their hearts the while. 
 
 There the veteran shall come weekly 
 With his cane, oppressed and poor, 
 
 'Mid the horses standing meekly, 
 Gazing through the open door. 
 
 But these wrongs not long shall linger — 
 The presumptuous pile must fall ; 
 
 For, behold ! the fiery finger 
 Flames along the fated wall ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let the blinded horse go round 
 Till the yellow clay be ground ; 
 And no weary arms be folded 
 Till the mass to brick be moulded — 
 Say again what stately thing 
 From the ruin shall upspring ? 
 
 5 D 
 
50 THE BRICKMAKER. 
 
 Not the hall with columned chambers. 
 Starred with words of liberty, 
 
 Where the freedom-canting members 
 Feel no impulse of the free ; 
 
 Not the pile where souls in error 
 
 Hear the words, " Go, sin no more I" 
 
 But a dusky thing of terror, 
 With its cells and grated door. 
 
 To its inmates each to-morrow 
 Shall bring in no tide of joy. 
 
 Born in darkness and in sorrow 
 There shall stand the fated boy. 
 
 With a grief too loud to smother. 
 With a throbbing, burning head — 
 
 There shall groan some desperate mother. 
 Nor deny the stolen bread ! 
 
 There the veteran, a poor debtor. 
 Marked with honourable scars. 
 
 Listening to some clanking fetter. 
 Shall gaze idly through the bars : 
 
THE BRICKMAKER. 51 
 
 Shall gaze idly, not demurring, 
 
 Though with thick oppression bowed ; 
 
 While the Many, doubly erring. 
 
 Shall walk honoured through the crowd. 
 
 Yet these wrongs not long shall linger- 
 The benighted pile must fall ; 
 
 For, behold ! the fiery finger 
 Flames along the fated wall ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Let the blinded horse go round 
 Till the yellow clay be ground ; 
 And no weary arras be folded 
 Till the mass to brick be moulded- 
 Till the heavy walls be risen 
 And the fire is in his prison. 
 Capitol, and church, and jail, 
 Like our kiln at last shall fail ; 
 Every shape of earth shall fade ; 
 But the Heavenly Temple made 
 For the sorely tried and pure. 
 With its Builder shall endure ! 
 
A NIGHT THOUGHT. 
 
 Long have I gazed upon all lovely things, 
 Until ray soul was melted into song, — 
 
 Melted with love till fi-om its thousand springs 
 The stream of adoration, swift and strong. 
 
 Swept in its ardour, drowning brain and tongue, 
 
 Till what I most would say was borne away unsung. 
 
 The brook is silent when it mirrors most 
 Whate'er is grand or beautiful above ; 
 
 The billow which would woo the flowery coast 
 Dies in the first expression of its love ; 
 
A NIGHT THOUGHT. 63 
 
 And could the bard consign to living breath 
 Feelings too deep for thought, the utterance were death ! 
 
 The starless heavens at noon are a delight ; 
 
 The clouds a v^ronder in their varying play, 
 And beautiful when from their mountainous height 
 
 The lightning's hand illumes the wall of day : — 
 The noisy storm bursts down, and passing brings 
 The rainbow poised in air on unsubstantial wings. 
 
 But most I love the melancholy night — 
 When with fixed gaze I single out a star 
 
 A feeling floods me with a tender light — 
 A sense of an existence from afar, 
 
 A life in other spheres of love and bliss. 
 
 Communion of true souls — a loneliness in this! 
 
 There is a sadness in the midnight sky — 
 An answering fulness in the heart and brain, 
 
 Which tells the spirit's vain attempt to fly 
 And occupy those distant worlds again. 
 
 At such an hour Death's were a loving trust. 
 
 If life could then depart in its contempt of dust. 
 5* 
 
54 A NIGHT THOUGHT. 
 
 It may be that this deep and longing sense 
 
 Is but the prophecy of life to come ; 
 It may be that the soul in going hence 
 
 May find in some bright star its promised home ; 
 And that the Eden lost for ever here 
 Smiles welcome to me now from yon suspended sphere. 
 
 There is a wisdom in the light of stars, 
 A wordless lore which summons me away; 
 
 This ignorance belongs to earth which bars 
 The spirit in these darkened walls of clay, 
 
 And stifles all the soul's aspiring breath ; — 
 
 True knowledge only dawns within the gates of Death. 
 
 Imprisoned thus, why fear we then to meet 
 The angel who shall ope the dungeon door, 
 
 And break these galling fetters from our feet, 
 To lead us up from Time's benighted shore ? 
 
 Is it for love of this dark cell of dust. 
 
 Which, tenantless, awakes but horror and disgust ? 
 
 Long have I mused upon all lovely things ; 
 But thou, oh Death ! art lovelier than all ; 
 
A NIGHT THOUGHT. 55 
 
 Thou sheddest from thy recompensing wings 
 
 A glory which is hidden by the pall — 
 The excess of radiance falling from thy plume 
 Throws from the gates of Time a shadow on the tomb. 
 
THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME. 
 
 Oh, thou whose beauty on us beams 
 With glimpses of celestial light ; 
 
 Thou halo of our waking dreams, 
 
 And early star that crown'st our night ; 
 
 Thy light is magic where it falls ; 
 
 To thee the deepest shadow yields ; 
 Thou bring' st unto these dreary halls 
 The lustre of the summer-fields. 
 
 There is a freedom in thy looks 
 
 To make the prisoned heart rejoice ; — 
 
 In thy blue eyes I see the brooks, 
 And hear their music in thy voice. 
 
THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME. 57 
 
 And every sweetest bird that sings 
 
 Hath poured a charm upon thy tongue ; 
 
 And where the bee enamoured clings, 
 There surely thou in love hast clung : — 
 
 For when I hear thy laughter free, 
 And see thy morning-lighted hair, 
 
 As in a dream at once I see 
 
 Fair upland realms and valleys fair. 
 
 I see thy feet empearled with dews, 
 The violet's and the lily's loss ; 
 
 And where the waving woodland woos 
 Thou lead'st me over beds of moss ; — 
 
 And by the busy runnel's side, 
 Whose waters, like a bird afraid, 
 
 Dart from their fount, and flashing, glide 
 Athwart the sunshine and the shade. 
 
 Or larger streams our steps beguile ; — 
 We see the cascade, broad and fair, 
 
 Dashed headlong down to foam, the while 
 Its iris-spirit leaps to air ! 
 
58 THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME. 
 
 Alas ! as by a loud alarm, 
 
 The fancied turmoil of the falls 
 
 Hath driven me back and broke the charm 
 Which led me from these alien wails :• — 
 
 Yes, alien, dearest child, are these 
 Close city walls to thee and me : 
 
 My homestead was embow^ered with trees, 
 And such thy heritage should be : — 
 
 And shall be ; — I will make for thee 
 A home within my native vale, 
 
 Where every brook and ancient tree 
 Shall whisper some ancestral tale. 
 
 Now^ once again I see thee stand, 
 As down the future years I gaze, 
 
 The fairest maiden of the land, 
 The spirit of those sylvan ways. 
 
 And in thy looks again I trace 
 
 The light of her who gave thee birth ; 
 
 She who endowed thy form and face 
 With glory which is not of Earth. 
 
THE LIGHT OF OUR HOME. 59 
 
 And as I gaze upon her now, 
 
 My heart sends up a prayer for thee, 
 
 That thou mayest wear upon thy brow 
 The light which now she beams on me. 
 
 And thou wilt wear that love and light. 
 For thou 'rt the bud to such a flower : — 
 
 Oh fair the day, how blessed and bright, 
 Which finds thee in thy native bower ! 
 
LINES TO A LITTLE FEIEND. 
 
 Thou radiant playmate of the brook, — 
 The stream and thou are young together ; 
 
 Far down the flowery fields I look, — 
 
 Fields silent as a sabbath book, 
 And see the water winding thither. 
 
 O'er laughing wheels I see it shed ; 
 
 Then widening to the freighted river ; 
 Around yon purple headland spread 
 Lieth the ocean's azure bed. 
 
 And there at last it sleeps for ever. 
 
LINES TO A LITTLE FRIEND. 61 
 
 The brook near by — the river far 
 
 Winged with white sails in peace distended, 
 All sweeping toward the headland bar, 
 The prophets of thy future are, 
 
 And, prophet-like, uncomprehended. 
 
 Who knows thy future pathway ? Who 
 
 Discerns through what strange fields it wendeth ? 
 
 Yet soon to you and such as you, 
 
 This glorious world, the old and new. 
 With all its weight of care descendeth. 
 
 The skies, with all their suns and showers. 
 And all earth's gladness, and its sorrow. 
 The mighty forests, fields, and flowers. 
 The streams and seas, to-day are ours. 
 But shall be yours to-morrow. 
 
 Endowed with every youthful grace 
 
 Art thou ; brave, generous, and tender ; 
 Fair be thy future as thy face. 
 And few upon the earth shall trace 
 A path so overspread with splendour ! 
 6 
 
THE WAY-SIDE. 
 
 Who starteth abroad in the shadowy morn, 
 
 With pack and with staff for some far-away bourne, 
 
 While lieth before him the road and the day. 
 
 He loveth, I ween, the bright things by the way : 
 
 They cheer him, and lighten the wearisome load 
 
 When the sultry white noon cometh down on the road ; 
 
 When the blacksnake is lying asleep in the sun. 
 
 And the small heated streams o'er their thirsty beds run ; 
 
 While, mocking the sense, where no breeze is at play. 
 
 Like fountains of w^ater the white aspens quiver. 
 And the willow scarce moves with its slumberous sway, 
 
 Like the long idle grass in the low lazy river. 
 For him the bright mullein. 
 O'er its broad leaves so woollen, 
 
THE WAY-SIDE. 
 
 63 
 
 Biddeth its golden flowers to glow, 
 
 Where the buttercup shines, 
 
 And the strawberry vines 
 Creep over the bank where the dandelions grow. 
 
 The wealthy may fence-in their beautiful ground. 
 Where the large and the rare flaunting flowers abound ; 
 The pilgrim who sits by the roadside alone, 
 Hath a garden as good and fenced out for his own ! 
 An orchard of wild fruits, his brook and his spring. 
 Where the sweet birds from heaven all drop down to 
 
 sing ; — 
 There the oriole flits— and the butterflies throng, 
 And the wren giveth up its small tribute of song, 
 And the robin, from out the wild cherry, its strain. 
 While the small squirrel runs with its cheeks full of 
 
 grain. 
 From morning till night, through the sultriest day. 
 Bright, bright are the things by the wearisome way. 
 
 For there the bright mullein 
 
 O'er its broad leaves so woollen, 
 Biddeth its golden flowers to glow, 
 
 Where the buttercup shines, 
 
 And the strawberry vines 
 Creep over the bank where the dandelions grow. 
 
"FRANCE IS FREE!" t^' 
 
 A GREAT voice wakes a foreign land, 
 
 And a mighty murmur sweeps the sea, 
 While nations, dumb with wonder, stand. 
 
 To note what it may be ; — 
 The word rolls on like a hurricane's breath - 
 ^i Down with the tyrant — come life or death, 
 France must be free /" 
 
 « Upharsin" is writ on the Orleans wall, 
 
 And it needs no prophet to read the word- 
 The King has fled from his palace hall, 
 ^And there the mob is heard! 
 
 V 
 
*' FRANCE IS free!" 65 
 
 They shout in the heat of their maddened glee ; — 
 (What sound can compare with a nation's cry 
 When it leaps from bondage to liberty?") 
 The voice sweeps on like a hurricane's breath, 
 And the wondering world hears what it saith, 
 " France, France is free /" 
 
 The rough- shod foot of the people tramps 
 
 Through the silken rooms of royalty, 
 And over the floor the mirrors and lamps 
 
 Lie like the shattered monarchy ; 
 They have grasped the throne in their irony, 
 And have borne it aloft in mockery ; 
 But as if the ^^05^ of a king might be 
 
 Still wielding a shadowy sceptre there. 
 They dash it to earth, and trample it down, 
 Shivered to dust with the Orleans crown. 
 
 And shout with a voice that rends the air, 
 « France, France is free /" 
 
 Oh, joy to the world ! the hour is come, 
 W^hen the nations to freedom awake, 
 
 When the royalists stand agape and dumb, 
 And monarchs with terror shake ! 
 
66 "FRANCE IS free!" 
 
 Over the walls of majesty 
 
 "Upharsin" is writ in words of fire, 
 And the eyes of the bondmen, wherever they be. 
 
 Are lit with their wild desire. 
 Soon, soon shall the thrones that blot the world, 
 Like the Orleans, into the dust be hurled, 
 And the word roll on like a hurricane's breath. 
 Till the farthest slave hears what it saith, 
 « ArisCy arise, be free /" 
 
THE LAND OF THE WEST. 
 
 Thou land whose deep forest was wide as the sea, . 
 
 And heaved its broad ocean of green to the day, 
 Or, waked by the tempest, in terrible glee 
 
 Flung up from its billows the leaves like a spray ; 
 The swift birds of passage still spread their fleets there. 
 Where sails the wild vulture, the pirate of air. 
 
 Thou land whose dark streams, like a hurrying horde 
 Of wilderness steeds without rider or rein. 
 
 Swept down, owning Nature alone for their lord. 
 Their foam flowing free on the air like a mane : — 
 
 Oh ! grand were thy waters, which spurned as they ran 
 
 The curb of the rock and the fetters of man ! 
 
68 THE LAND OF THE WEST. 
 
 Thou land whose bright blossoms, like shells of the sea, 
 Of numberless shapes and of many a shade, 
 
 Begemmed thy ravines where the hidden springs be. 
 And crowned the black hair of the dark forest maid ; — 
 
 Those flowers still bloom in the depth of the wild 
 
 To bind the white brow of the pioneer's child. 
 
 Thou land whose lost hamlets were circled with maize, 
 
 And lay like a dream in the silence profound. 
 While murmuring its song through the dark woodland 
 ways 
 The stream swept afar through the lone hunting- 
 ground : — 
 Now loud anvils ring in that wild forest home, 
 And mill-wheels are dashing the waters to foam. 
 
 Thou land where the eagle of Freedom looked down 
 From his eyried crag through the depths of the shade, 
 
 Or mounted at morn where no daylight can drown 
 The stars on their broad field of azure arrayed : — 
 
 Still, still to thy banner that eagle is true. 
 
 Encircled with stars on a heaven of blue ! 
 
THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER; 
 
 A DRAMATIC SKETCH. 
 
 PERSONS REPRESENTED. 
 
 GiACOMO, the Alchemist. 
 
 Bernardo, his son-in-law. 
 
 Rosalia, his daughter, and Bernardo' s wife. 
 
 Lorenzo, his servant. 
 
 SCENE I. FERRARA. 
 
 The interior of Giacomo^s house. Giacomo and Lorenzo discovered 
 together. Time^ a little before daybreak. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Art sure of this } 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Ay, signor, very sure. 
 'Tis but a moment since I saw the thing; 
 Bernardo, who last night was sworn thy son, 
 Hath made a villanous barter of thine honour : — 
 Thou mayest rely the Duke is where I said. 
 
70 THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 If SO — no matter — give me here the light. 
 
 [Exit Giacomo. 
 LORENZO. {Alone.) 
 Oh, what a night ! It must be all a dream ! 
 For twenty years, since that I wore a beard, 
 I 've served my melancholy master here, 
 And never until now saw such a night ! 
 A wedding in this silent house, forsooth,- — 
 A festival ! The very walls in mute 
 Amazement stared through the unnatural light ; 
 And poor Rosalia, bless her tender heart. 
 Looked like her mother's sainted ghost ! Ah me, 
 Her mother died long years ago, and took 
 One half the blessed sunshine from our house — 
 The other half was married off last night. 
 My master, solemn soul, he walked the halls 
 As if in search of something which w^as lost ; 
 The groom, I liked not him, nor ever did, 
 Spake such perpetual sweetness, till I thought 
 He wore some sugared villany within : — 
 But then he is my master's ancient friend, 
 And always known the favourite of the Duke, 
 And, as I know, our lady's treacherous lord ! 
 Oh, Holy Mother, that to villain hawks 
 Our dove should fall a prey ! poor gentle dear ! 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 71 
 
 Now if I had their necks within my grasp, 
 
 These fingers should be adders at their throats ! 
 
 No matter — if my master be himself, 
 
 Nor time, nor place, shall bind up his revenge. 
 
 He 's not a man to spend his wrath in noise. 
 
 But when his mind is made, with even pace 
 
 He walks up to the deed and does his will. 
 
 In fancy I can see him to the end — 
 
 The Duke, perchance, already breathes his last. 
 
 And for Bernardo — he will join him soon ; 
 
 And for Rosalia, she will take the veil. 
 
 To which she hath been heretofore inclined ; 
 
 And for my master, he will take again 
 
 To alchemy — a pastime well enough. 
 
 For aught I know, and honest Christian work. 
 
 Still it was strange how my poor mistress died. 
 
 Found, as she was, within her husband's study. 
 
 The rumour went she died of suffocation ; 
 
 Some cursed crucible which had been left, 
 
 By Giacomo, aburning, filled the room. 
 
 And when the lady entered took her breath. 
 
 He found her there, and from that day the place 
 
 Has been a home for darkness and for dust. 
 
 I hear him coming ; by his hurried step 
 
 There 's something done, or will be very soon. 
 
72 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 Enter Giaeomo. {He sets the light upon the tahlcj and confronts 
 Lorenzo with a stern look.) 
 
 Lorenzo, thou hast served me twenty years, 
 And faithfully ; now answer me, how was 't 
 That thou wert in the street at such an hour ? 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 When that the festival was o'er last night, 
 I went to join some comrades in their wine 
 To pass the time in memory of the event. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 And doubtless thou wert blinded soon with drink ? 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Indeed, good signer, though the wine flowed free 
 I could not touch it, though much urged by all — 
 Too great a sadness sat upon my heart — 
 I could do nought but sit and sigh and think 
 Of our Rosalia in her bridal dress. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 And sober too ! so much the more at fault. 
 But, as I said, thou 'st served me long and well, 
 Perchance too long — too long by just a day. 
 Here, take this purse, and find another master. 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 73 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Oh, signer, do not drive me thus away ! 
 If I have made mistake — 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 No, sirrah, no ! 
 Thou hast not made mistake, but something worse. 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Oh, pray you, what is that then I have made } 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 A lie ! 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Indeed, good master, on my knees 
 I swear that what I said is sainted truth. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Pshaw, pshaw, no more of this. Did I not go 
 Upon the instant to my daughter's room 
 And find Bernardo sleeping at her side } 
 Some villain's gold hath bribed thee unto this. 
 Go, go. 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 Well, if it must be, then it must. 
 But I would swear that what I said is truth, 
 Though all the devils from the deepest pit 
 Should rise to contradict me ! 
 
 7 
 
74 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Prating still ? 
 
 LORENZO. 
 
 No, signor — I am going — stay — see here — 
 
 [He draws a paper from his bosom.) 
 Oh, blessed Virgin, grant some proof in this ! 
 This paper, as they changed their mantles, dropped 
 Between them to the ground, and when they passed 
 I picked it up and placed it safely here. 
 
 GIACOMO. {Examining it.) 
 Who forged the lie could fabricate this too : — 
 Get to thy duties, sir, and mark me well. 
 Let no word pass thy lips about the matter — 
 
 [Exit Lorenzo. 
 Bernardo's very hand indeed is here ! 
 Oh, compact villanous and black ! Conditions, 
 The means, the hour, the signal — everything 
 To rob my honour of its holiest pearl ! 
 Lorenzo, shallow fool — he does not guess 
 The mischief was all done, and that it was 
 The Duke he saw departing — oh, brain — brain 1 
 How shall I hold this river of my wrath ! 
 It must not burst — no, rather it shall sweep 
 A noiseless maelstrom, whirling to its centre 
 
THE ALCHEMIST S DAUGHTER. 75 
 
 All thoughts and plans to further my revenge 
 And rid me of this most accursed blot ! 
 (He rests his forehead on his hand a few minutes^ and exclaims^) 
 The past returns to me again^ — the lore 
 I gladly had forgot, comes like a ghost, 
 And points with shadowy finger to the means 
 Which best shall consummate my just design. 
 The laboratory hath been closed too long ; 
 The door smiles welcome to me once again. 
 The dusky latch invites my hand — I come ! 
 {He unlocks the door and stands upon the threshold.) 
 Oh, thou whose life was stolen from me here, 
 Stand not to thwart me in this great revenge ; 
 But rather come with large propitious eyes 
 Smiling encouragement with by- gone looks ! 
 Ye sages whose pale, melancholy orbs 
 Gaze through the darkness of a thousand years, 
 Oh, pierce the solid blackness of to-day, 
 And fire anew this crucible of thought 
 Until my soul flames up to the result ! 
 [He enters and the door closes.) 
 
 Scene II. Another apartment in the alchemisfs house. Enter 
 Rosalia and Bernardo. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 You tell me he has not been seen to-day ? 
 
76 THE alchemist's DAUGHTEPw. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Save by your trusty servant here, who says 
 
 He saw his master, from without, unclose 
 
 The shutters of his laboratory while 
 
 The sun was yet unrisen. It is well ; 
 
 This turning to the past pursuits of youth 
 
 Argues how much the aspect of to-day 
 
 Hath driven the ancient darkness from his brain. 
 
 And now, my dear Rosalia, let thy face 
 
 And thoughts and speech be drest in summer smiles, 
 
 And nought shall make a winter in our house. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 Ah, sir, I think that I am happy ! 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Happy.? 
 Why so, indeed, dear love, I trust thou art! 
 But thou dost sigh and look along the floor 
 So vaguely, that thy happiness seems rather 
 The constant sense of duty than true joy. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 Nay, chide me not, good sir ; the world to me 
 A riddle is at best — my heart has had 
 No tutor. From my childhood until now 
 My thoughts have been on simple honest things. 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 77 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 On honest things ? Then let them dwell henceforth 
 On love, for nothing is more honest than 
 True love. 
 
 I hope so, sir — it must be so ! 
 And if to wear thy happiness at heart 
 With constant watchfulness, and if to breathe 
 Thy welfare in my orisons, be love. 
 Thou never shalt have cause to question mine. 
 To-day I feel, and yet I know not why, 
 A sadness which I never knew before ; 
 A puzzling shadow swims upon my brain, 
 Of something which has been or is to be. 
 My mother coming to me in my dream. 
 My father taking to that room again. 
 Have somehow thrilled me with mysterious awe. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Nay, let not that o'ercast thy gentle mind : 
 For dreams are but as floating gossamer. 
 And should not blind or bar the steady reason ; 
 And alchemy is innocent enough, 
 Save when it feeds too greedily on gold, 
 A crime the world not easily forgives. 
 
78 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 But if Rosalia likes not the pursuit 
 Her sire engages in, my plan shall be 
 To lead him quietly to other things. 
 But see, the door uncloses and he comes. 
 
 Enter Giacomo in loose gown and dishevelled hair. 
 GiAcoMo. {Not perceiving them.) 
 Ha, precious villains, ye are caught at last ! 
 
 BOTH. 
 
 Good- morrow, father. 
 
 Ah, my pretty doves ! 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Come, father, we are jealous of the art 
 Which hath deprived us all the day of thee. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Are ye indeed .? {Aside.) How smoothly to the air 
 Slides that word father from his slippery tongue ! 
 Come hither, daughter, let me gaze on thee ; 
 For I have dreamed that thou wert beautiful. 
 So beautiful our very Duke did stop 
 To smile upon thy brightness ! What say'st thou, 
 Bernardo, didst thou ever dream such things .'* 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 79 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 That she is beautiful I had no cause to dream, 
 Mine eyes have known the fact for many a day. 
 What villains didst thou speak of even now ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Two precious villains — Carbon and Azote — 
 They have perplexed me heretofore ; but now 
 The thing is plain enough. This morning, ere 
 I left my chamber, all the mystery stood 
 Asudden in an awful revelation ! 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Fm glad success has crowned thy task to-day ; 
 But do not overtoil thy brain. These themes 
 Are dangerous things, and they who mastered most 
 Have fallen at last but victims to their slaves. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 It is a glorious thing to fall and die 
 The victim of a noble cause. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Ay, true — 
 The man who battles for his country's right 
 Hath compensation in the world's applause ; 
 The victor when returning from the field 
 Is crowned with laurel, and his shining way 
 
80 THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 
 
 Is full of shouts and roses. If he fall, 
 
 His nation builds his monument of glory. 
 
 But mark the alchemist who walks the streets : 
 
 His look is down, his step infirm, his hair 
 
 And cheeks are burned to ashes by his thought ; 
 
 The volumes he consumes, consume in turn ; 
 
 They are but fuel to his fiery brain, 
 
 Which being fed requires the more to feed on. 
 
 The people gaze on him with curious looks, 
 
 And step aside to let him pass untouched, 
 
 Believing Satan hath him arm in arm. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Are there no wrongs but what a nation feels ? 
 No heroes but among the martial throng ? 
 Nay, there are patriot souls who never grasped 
 A sword, or heard the crowd applaud their names ; 
 Who lived and laboured, died and were forgot. 
 And after w^hom the world came out and re apt 
 The field, and never questioned who had sown. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 I did not think of that. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Now mark ye well, 
 I am not one to follow phantom themes. 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 81 
 
 To waste my time in seeking for the stone, 
 
 Or crystallizing carbon to o'erflood 
 
 The world with riches which would keep it poor ; 
 
 Nor do I seek the elixir that would make 
 
 Not life alone, but misery immortal ; 
 
 But something far more glorious than these. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Pray what is that ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 A cure, sir, for the heart-ache. 
 Come, thou shalt see. The day is on the wane — 
 Mark how the moon, as by some unseen arm, 
 Is thrust towards heaven like a bloody shield ! 
 On such an hour the experiment must begin. 
 Come, thou shalt be the first to witness this 
 Most marvellous discovery. And thou, 
 My pretty one, betake thee to thy bower. 
 And I will dream thou 'rt lovelier than ever. 
 Come, follow me. {To Bernardo.) 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 Nay, father, stay ; I 'm sure 
 Thou art not well — thine eyes are strangely lit ; 
 The task, I fear, has overworked thy brain. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE ALCHEMIST S DAUGHTER. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Dearest Rosalia, what were eyes or brain 
 Compared with banishment of sorrow ? Come. 
 
 BERNARDO. {Astde to Rosttlia.) 
 I will indulge awhile this curious humour ; 
 Adieu ; I shall be with thee soon again. 
 
 GIACOMO. {Overhearing him.) 
 When Satan shall regain his wings, and sit 
 Approved in heaven, perchance, but not till then. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 What, "not till then?" 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Shall he be worthy deemed 
 To walk, as thou hast said the people thought, 
 Linked with the mighty-souled philosopher: — 
 And yet the people sometimes are quite right — 
 The devil 's at our elbow oftener than 
 We know. 
 {He gives Bernardo his arm^ and they enter the laboratory.) 
 
 ROSALIA. {Alone.) 
 He never looked so strange before ; 
 His cheeks are suddenly grown pale and thin ; 
 His very hair seems whiter than it did. 
 Oh, surely, 't is a fearful trade that crowds 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 83 
 
 The work of years into a single day. 
 
 It may be tliat the sadness which I wear 
 
 Hath clothed him in its own peculiar hue. 
 
 The very sunshine of this cloudless morn 
 
 Seemed but a world of broad, white desolation — 
 
 While in my ears small melancholy bells 
 
 Knolled their long, solemn and prophetic chime ; — 
 
 But hark ! a louder and a holier toll, 
 
 Shedding its benediction on the air, 
 
 Proclaims the vesper hour — Ave Maria ! 
 
 [Exit Rosalia. 
 
 Scene III. Giacomo and Bernardo discovered in the laboratory. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 What sayest thou now, Bernardo ? 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Let me live 
 Or die in drawing this delicious breath, 
 I ask no more. 
 
 GIACOMO. [Aside.) 
 Mark, how with wondering eyes 
 He gazes on the burning crucibles. 
 As if to drink the rising vapour with 
 His every sense. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Is this the balm thou spak'st of .^ 
 
84 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 Ay, sir, the same. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Oh, would that now my heart 
 Were torn with every grief the earth has known, 
 Then would this sense be sweeter by tenfold ! 
 Where didst thou learn the secret, and from whom ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 From Gebber down to Paracelsus, none 
 Have mentioned the discovery of this — 
 The need of it was parent of the thought. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 How long will these small crucibles hold out ? 
 
 A little while, but there are two beside, 
 
 That when thy sense is toned up to the point 
 
 May then be fired ; and when thou breath'st their fumes, 
 
 Nepenthe deeper it shall seem than that 
 
 Which Helen gave the guests of Menelaus. 
 
 But come, thou 'It weary of this thickening air ; 
 
 Let us depart. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Not for the wealth of worlds ! 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 85 
 
 Nay, but thy bride awaits thee — 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Go to her 
 And say I shall be there anon. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 I will. 
 
 {Aside.) Now while he stands enchained within the 
 
 spell 
 
 I '11 to Rosalia's room and don his cloak 
 
 And cap, and sally forth to meet the Duke. 
 
 'T is now the hour, and if he come — so be it. 
 
 [Exit Giacomo. 
 
 BERNARDO. [Aloue.) 
 
 These delicate airs seem wafted from the fields 
 
 Of some celestial world. I am alone — 
 
 Then wherefore not inhale that deeper draught, 
 
 That sweet nepenthe which these other two. 
 
 When burning, shall dispense ? 'T were quickly done. 
 
 And I will do it ! 
 
 (He places the two crucibles on the furnace.) 
 Now, Sir Alchemist, 
 Linger as long as it may suit thy pleasure — 
 'T is mine to tarry here. Oh, by St. John, 
 I '11 turn philosopher myself, and do 
 
86 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 Some good at last in this benighted world ! 
 
 Now how like demons on the ascending smoke. 
 
 Making grimaces, leaps the laughing flame, 
 
 Filling the room with a mysterious haze, 
 
 Which rolls and writhes along the shadowy air, 
 
 Taking a thousand strange, fantastic forms ; 
 
 And every form is lit with burning eyes, 
 
 Which pierce me through and through like fiery arrows! 
 
 The dim walls grow unsteady, and I seem 
 
 To stand upon a reeling deck ! Hold, hold ! 
 
 A hundred crags are toppling overhead. 
 
 I faint, I sink — now, let me clutch that limb — 
 
 Oh, devil ! It breaks to ashes in my grasp ! 
 
 What ghost is that which beckons through the mist? 
 
 The Duke ! the Duke ! and bleeding at the breast ! 
 
 Whose dagger struck the blow ? 
 
 Enter Giacomo. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Mine, villain, mine! 
 What ! thou 'st set the other two aburning ! 
 Impatient dog, thou cheat' st me to the last! 
 I should have done the deed — and yet 'tis well, 
 Thou diest by thine own dull hardihood ! 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Ha 1 is it so ? Then follow thou 1 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 87 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 My time 
 Is not quite yet ; this antidote shall place 
 A bar between us for a little while. 
 
 [He raises a vial to his lipsj drinks, and flings it aside. 
 
 BERNARDO. {Rallying.) 
 Come, give it me — 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Ha, ha ! I drained it all ! 
 There is the broken vial. 
 
 BERNARDO. 
 
 Is there no arm 
 To save me from the abyss ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 No, villain, sink ! 
 And take this cursed record of thy plot, 
 
 {He thrusts a paper into Bemardoh hand.) 
 And it shall gain thee speedy entrance at 
 The infernal gate ! 
 
 {Bernardo reads, reels, and falls.) 
 
 GIACOMO. {Looking on the body.) 
 Poor miserable dust ! 
 This body now is honest as the best. 
 The very best of earth, lie where it may. 
 
88 THE alchemist's daughter. 
 
 My mantle must conceal the thing from sight ; 
 
 For soon Rosalia, as I bade her, shall 
 
 Be here. Oh, Heaven ! vouchsafe to me the power 
 
 To do this last stern act of justice. Thou 
 
 Who calPdst the child of Jairus from the dead, 
 
 Assist a stricken father now to raise 
 
 His sinless daughter from the bier of shame ; 
 
 And may her soul, unconscious of the deed. 
 
 For ever walk the azure fields of heaven. 
 
 Enter Rosalia^ dressed in simple white, bearing a small golden 
 crucifix in her hand. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 Dear father, in obedience, I have come — 
 But where 's Bernardo ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Gone to watch the stars ; 
 To see old solitary Saturn whirl 
 Like poor Ixion on his burning wheel — 
 He is our patron orb to-night, my child. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 I do not know what strange experiment 
 Thou'dst have me see, but in my heart I feel 
 That He, in whose remembrance this was made, 
 
 [Looking at the cross.) 
 Should be chief patron of our thoughts and acts. 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 89 
 
 Since vesper time — I know not how it was — 
 I could do nought but kneel and tell my prayers. 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Ye blessed angels, hymn the word to heaven. 
 Come, daughter, let me hold thy hand in mine, 
 And gaze upon the emblem which thou bearest. 
 {He looks upon the crucifix awhile and presses it to his lips.) 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 Pray tell me, father, what is in the air ? 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Seest thou the crucibles, my child ? Now mark, 
 I '11 drop a simple essence into each. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 My sense is flooded w^ith perfume ! 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Again. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 My soul, asudden, thrills with such delight 
 It seems as it had won a birth of wings ! 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Behold, now w^hen I throw these jewels in, 
 
 The glories of our art ! 
 
 8* 
 
90 ■ THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 
 
 ROSALIA. 
 
 A cloud of hues 
 As beautiful as morning fills the air ; 
 And every breath I draw comes freighted with 
 Elysian sweets ! An iris-tinted mist, 
 In perfumed wreaths, is rolling round the room. 
 The very walls are melting from my sight, 
 And surely, father, there 's the sky o'erhead ! 
 And on that gentle breeze did we not hear 
 The song of birds and silvery waterfalls ? 
 And walk w^e not on green and flowery ground ? 
 Ferrara, father, hath no ground like this ; 
 The ducal gardens are not half so fair! 
 Oh, if this be the golden land of dreams, 
 Let us for ever make our dwelling here. 
 Not lovelier in my earliest visions seemed 
 The paradise of our first parents, filled 
 With countless angels whose celestial light 
 Thrilled the sweet foliage like a gush of song. 
 Look how the long and level landscape gleams, 
 And with a gradual pace goes mellowing up 
 Into the blue! The very ground we tread 
 Seems flooded with the tender hue of heaven ; 
 An azure lawn is all about our feet, 
 And sprinkled with a thousand gleaming flowers. 
 
THE alchemist's DAUGHTER. 91 
 
 GIACOMO. 
 
 Nay, dear Rosalia, cast thy angel ken 
 
 Far down the shining pathway we have trod, 
 
 And see behind us those enormous gates 
 
 To which the world has given the name of Death ; 
 
 And note the least among yon knot of lights, 
 
 And recognise your native orb, the earth ! 
 
 For we are spirits threading fields of space. 
 
 Whose gleaming flowers are but the countless stars ! 
 
 But now, dear love, adieu — a flash from heaven — 
 
 A sudden glory in the silent air — 
 
 A rustle as of wings, proclaims the approach 
 
 Of holier guides to take thee into keep. 
 
 Behold them gliding down the azure hill. 
 
 Making the blue ambrosial with their light ! 
 
 Our paths are here divided. I must go 
 
 Through other ways, by other forms attended. 
 
SONG OF THE SERF. 
 
 I KNOW a lofty lady, 
 
 And she is wondrous fair; 
 She hath wrought my soul to music 
 
 As the leaves are wrought by air. 
 And like the air that wakes 
 
 The foliage into play, 
 She feels no thrill of all she makes 
 
 When she has passed away. 
 And she will pass as bright, 
 
 And be as calm as now, 
 Even though I wither in love's blight 
 
 And drop from life's young bough. 
 
SONG OF TIIE SERF. 93 
 
 I know a lofty lady 
 
 Who seldom looks on me, 
 Or when she smiles her smile is like 
 
 The moon's upon the sea. 
 As proudly and serene 
 
 She shines from her domain, 
 Till my spirit heaves beneath her mien 
 
 And floods my aching brain. 
 Oh! I tremble when I see 
 
 The coming of her light. 
 For when she goes I know 'twill be 
 
 A doubly darkened night. 
 
 I know a lofty lady: — 
 
 But I would not wake her scorn 
 By telling all the love I bear. 
 
 For I am lowly born ; 
 So low, and she so high — 
 
 And the space between us spread 
 Makes me but as the weeds that lie 
 
 Beneath her stately tread. 
 I would not her imperial state 
 
 With mine were levelled down; 
 But would that iron-handed Fate 
 
 Had raised me to a crown. 
 
TO THE WIFE OF A POET. 
 
 There is a strange enchantment in those eyes, 
 
 A most mysterious witchery of light, 
 Which, like a meteor, kindles as it flies, 
 
 And leaves a glory when it fades from sight. 
 Their sudden splendour, like some magian's wand, 
 Transports me where *the oriental skies 
 
 Pavilion all that's beautiful and bright 
 Within the spicy vales of Persia's land, 
 Till in the shade of Tefflis' ancient towers, 
 I see the sacred maids of those forbidden bowers. 
 
 And in the gorgeous courts of old Castile, 
 Or the Alhambra's tesselated halls. 
 
 Thy glances lead me, till I see and feel 
 The glory of the Past within those walls. 
 
TO THE WIFE OF A POET. 95 
 
 I see the knights ride out on fiery steeds, 
 
 And in the tourney watch them plunge and wheel, 
 
 Until the fated one defeated falls 
 And in the loud arena prostrate bleeds ! 
 A king might proudly break a royal lance, 
 To win from eyes like thine one bright approving 
 glance ' 
 
 Such eyes saw she, the one imperial queen 
 
 Of all the realm of Intellect, De Stael, 
 When her own soul, which she had named " Co- 
 rinne," 
 Stood like a Sibyl in the Capitol, 
 Holding Italia breathless with her spell : — 
 Such were the eyes by glowing Raphael seen ; 
 
 And such, it may be, lit the prison wall 
 When Tasso dreamed of love within his cell ; — 
 And had not Nature touched thy minstrel's tongue, 
 The sunshine of thy looks had melted him to song ! 
 
THE NAMELESS. 
 
 Come fill, my merry friends, to-night, 
 
 And let the winds unheeded blow. 
 And we will wake the deep delight 
 
 Which true hearts only know. 
 And ere the passing wine be done. 
 
 Come drink to those most fair and dear, 
 And I will pledge a cup to one 
 
 Who shall be nameless here. 
 
 Come fill, nor let the flagon stand, 
 
 Till pleasure's voice shall drown the wind, 
 
 Nor heed old Winter's stormy hand 
 Which shakes the window-blind. 
 
THE NAMELESS. 97 
 
 And down the midnight hour shall run 
 The brightest moments of the year ; 
 
 While I will fill, my friends, to one 
 Who shall be nameless here. 
 
 Pledge you to lips that smile in sleep, 
 
 Whose dreams have strewed your path with flowers 
 And to those sacred eyes that weep 
 
 Whene'er your fortune lowers ; 
 And charm the night, ere it be done, 
 
 With names that are for ever dear, 
 While I must pour and quaff to one 
 
 Who shall be nameless here. 
 
 To her I proudly poured the first 
 
 Inspiring beaker of the Rhine, 
 And still it floods my veins as erst 
 
 It filled the German wine. 
 And when her memory, like the sun. 
 
 Shall widen down my dying year, 
 My latest cup will be to one 
 
 Who shall be nameless here. 
 
THE NEW VILLAGE. 
 
 Dear to our hearts are homes and household fires, 
 Where youthful pleasures hailed each happy morn ; 
 Where sang our mothers, and where sat our sires, 
 Whose hlessed looks our memories adorn. 
 Sacred the threshold by their footsteps worn, 
 From whence at last w^ent forth the funeral train — 
 Leaving our hearts by bitter anguish torn ; 
 Sacred the ground where their dear dust has lain ; 
 Sacred the church, the town, and the surrounding plain. 
 
 Not less the Indian loves his native spot, 
 Nor walks he less in memory's blessed beam ; 
 His parents, playmates, and the clay-built cot, 
 Melt o'er his senses like a morning dream. 
 
THE NEW VILLAGE. 99 
 
 See the small village sloping to the stream 
 Beneath the arch of the ancestral wood ; 
 Along the shade the dusky children teem, 
 Waking in mimic chase the solitude, 
 Free as their Eden-sire, as innocently nude. 
 
 Here dusky maidens roam through nature's bowers. 
 Mating with fawns along the pathless ways, 
 Bhthesome as birds, as sinless as the flowers. 
 Wild as the brook, and wandering where it strays. 
 Pouring to heaven their sweet, unconscious praise ; 
 The fohage bends to greet them as they pass. 
 And buds unfold to court their tender gaze ; 
 The daisies kiss their foot-falls in the grass. 
 And httle streams stand still to paint them in their glass. 
 
 Up with the day and glowing as the morn, 
 Along the brook the laughing children wade ; 
 The happy matron grinds the golden corn — 
 The sturdy hunters, for the chase arrayed. 
 Swift as their arrows flash from sun to shade : 
 Some spear the fish, and some collect the nut, 
 Till twiUght sheds her shadows o'er the glade ; 
 And when the day by peaceful night is shut, 
 Sleep, like an angel, reigns in every quiet hut. 
 
100 THE NEW VILLAGE. 
 
 But now the Indian dons his painted dress, 
 And burning glances flash their wordless ire, 
 Murdering peace through all the wilderness ; 
 And youthful Brave and gray and wrinkled Sire 
 Weave the wild war-dance at the midnight fire, 
 Where war-clubs, waved by naked arms and strong, 
 And knives and axes, speak the wild desire. 
 And maids and matrons mingle in the throng. 
 Swelling the sullen tide of dull, monotonous song. 
 
 Such now their nights ; but at the approach of day 
 Low sinks the fire, and dies the warlike sound. 
 While through the woods the warriors glide away, 
 And on the victim spring with sudden bound, 
 Hurling the hated settler to the ground. 
 Not long the Indian's skill or strength defies 
 The tide which westward bears its way profound ; 
 Conquered at last, the flying tribe descries 
 Its ancient wigwams burn, and light its native skies. 
 
 The pioneers their gleaming axes swing. 
 The sapling falls, and dies the forest's sire — 
 The foliage fades — but sudden flames upspring, 
 And all the grove is leafed again with fire ; 
 
THE NEW VILLAGE. 101 
 
 While gleams the pine tree like a gilded spire, 
 The homeless birds sail, circling wild, and high ; 
 At night the wolves gaze out their fierce desire ; 
 For weeks the smoke spreads, blotting all the sky, 
 While, twice its size, the sun rolls dull and redly by. 
 
 Before the cabin on the river's side, 
 When in the unknown west the day is done. 
 The labourers talk away the eventide. 
 Rehearse the plan so gloriously begim. 
 What house to rear, and where the street shall run 
 The morning comes, and with its earliest gleam 
 Loud ring the anvils, glowing like the sun ; 
 There fall the axe and adze that shape the beam, 
 And here the noisy raftsmen labour in the stream. 
 
 Behold the village I There the tavern grows, 
 A little inn with large, inviting sign ; 
 There the new store its mingled medley shows ; 
 And over all, yet simple in design. 
 The general care, ascends the house Divine ; 
 The unfinished steeple, like a skeleton. 
 Shows the blue sky between its ribs of pine; 
 Its gilded summit courts the early sun. 
 And holds it latest when the toilsome day is done. 
 9* 
 
102 THE ?^EW VILLAGE. 
 
 Now from the belfry rings a cheerful sound, 
 The air hangs trembling between joy and fear. 
 And echoes answer from the hills around, 
 Frightening the wild duck from the sedgy mere, 
 While trembles by the stream the listening deer. 
 Bending to drink the creature stands deterred ; 
 The squirrel drops his nut and turns to hear ; 
 All nature Ustens like a startled bird, 
 To hear the marriage bell, the first those forests heard. 
 
 But hark ! again the melancholy toll. 
 Spreading the shadow of the pall around. 
 While nature answers to its dreadful dole ; 
 Beside the church there lies the sacred ground. 
 And in its midst is made the first new mound ; 
 The fairest flower of all that western space 
 Sleeps in the grave, by sweetest blossoms crowned 
 The pure in heart ; the beautiful in face — 
 A fitting dust was hers to consecrate the place ! 
 
 Thus it begins ; but who shall know the end ? 
 What prophet's thought shall down the future go. 
 To tell how oft again that bell shall send 
 Through all the vale the notes of joy or wo ; 
 
THE NEW VILLAGE. 103 
 
 What graves shall sink ; what countless mounds shall 
 
 grow — 
 What rich, aspiring temples there shall stand 
 For Time to darken and to overthrow ; 
 How there at last shall lurk some savage band, 
 While woods and wolves unchecked shall claim their 
 
 native land ? 
 
BALBOA. 
 
 From San Domingo's crowded wliaif 
 
 Fernandez' vessel bore, 
 To seek in unknown lands afar 
 
 The Indian's golden ore. 
 
 And hid among the freighted casks, 
 Where none might see or know, 
 
 Was one of Spain's immortal men. 
 Three hundred years ago ! 
 
 But when the fading town and land 
 Had dropped below the sea. 
 
 He met the captain face to face, 
 And not a fear had he ! 
 
BALBOA. 105 
 
 "What villain thou?" Fernandez cried, 
 
 " And wherefore serve us so ?" 
 " To be thy follower," he replied, 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 He wore a manly form and face, 
 
 A courage firm and bold. 
 His words fell on his comrades' hearts 
 
 Like precious drops of gold. 
 
 They saw not his ambitious soul ; 
 
 He spoke it not — for lo! 
 He stood among the common ranks 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 But when Fernandez' vessel lay 
 
 At golden Darien, 
 A murmur, born of discontent, 
 
 Grew loud among the men ; 
 
 And with the word there came the act ; 
 
 And with the sudden blow 
 They raised Balboa from the ranks. 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
106 BALBOA. 
 
 And while he took command beneath 
 
 The banner of his lord, 
 A mighty purpose grasped his soul, 
 
 As he had grasped the sword. 
 
 He saw the mountain's far blue height, 
 Whence golden waters flow ; 
 
 Then with his men he scaled the crags, 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 He led them up through tangled brakes, 
 
 The rivulet's sliding bed. 
 And through the storm of poisoned darts 
 
 From many an ambush shed. 
 
 He gained the turret crag — alone — 
 
 And wept ! to see below. 
 An ocean, boundless and unknown, 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 And while he raised upon that height 
 
 The banner of his lord. 
 The mighty purpose grasped him still, 
 
 As still he grasped his sword. 
 
BALBOA. 107 
 
 Then down he rushed with all his men, 
 
 As headlong rivers flow, 
 And plunged knee-deep into the sea, 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
 And while he held above his head 
 
 The conquering flag of Spain, 
 He waved his gleaming sword, and smote 
 
 The waters of the Main : 
 
 For Rome ! for Leon ! and Castile ! 
 
 Thrice gave the cleaving blow ; 
 And thus Balboa claimed the sea, 
 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 
A VISION OF DEATH, 
 
 AN EXTRACT. 
 
 {An old man discovered in a country grave-yard.) 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Beneath this simple mound lies much, how much ! 
 That living made earth lovelier, and was 
 The throne and crown unto my own sad world 
 Of Love and Hope, which make the total sum 
 Of all that man calls happiness. Bloom, bloom, 
 Ye little blossoms ! and if beauty can 
 Like other purest essences exhale, 
 And penetrate the mould, your flowers shall be 
 Of rarest hue and perfume. I would see 
 
A VISION OF DEATH. 109 
 
 Ye in a fair inscription gild her dust 
 
 With thoughts no mortal hand shall dare. And you, 
 
 Ye little winged choirs of air, who chant 
 
 From over fulness of the heart, as do 
 
 The winds which breathe upon the rustling grass, 
 
 Or roar along the ocean, till his waves 
 
 Thunder and hiss in foamy cataracts^ — 
 
 Chant ye to-day and to all coming time. 
 
 Without the aid of burnished instrument. 
 
 The hollow organ of a seventhday pile, 
 
 But from your hearts with well accustomed throats, 
 
 Which loud from Sabbath unto Sabbath make 
 
 Perpetual worship, pour a requiem for 
 
 The early lost, or rather say removed. 
 
 Would I might follow ! wherefore do I stay ? 
 
 Can there still be in this poor tottering frame. 
 
 Which usurous Time has long since bankrupt made. 
 
 Aught which can make it valuable to life ? 
 
 This palsied head of its own free accord. 
 
 Which negatively shakes its beggared hairs. 
 
 Answers, how truly ! Wherefore do I stay ? 
 
 I have outlived all that inflamed my youth. 
 
 Or made my manhood resolute — outlived 
 
 A whole misfortune of ancestral gold, 
 
 And all the joy which empty Fame bestows ; 
 
 Two things of boundless sway, which are at once 
 10 
 
110 A VISION OF DEATH. 
 
 The strong man's weakness and the weak man's 
 
 strength. 
 A strange sensation through this wreck of dust 
 Proclaims a dissolution — let it come. 
 Oh Death, time was when I had deemed thy name 
 A terror, and thy cold and fleshless hand 
 A thing to shrink from ! — it is not so now — 
 Next to the names of those who gave me life 
 Thine is the dearest, and the next to hers 
 Whose hand thou hast usurped, I would clasp thine. 
 How now ? these marble monuments like ghosts 
 Do rise and stand above their natural wont. 
 And waver in the wind — I faint — who speaks ? 
 
 The Spirit of Death answers from the air. 
 'T is He whose name but now was on thy lips. 
 Thou didst desire me ; dost now repent ? 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 No! 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 But thou dost tremble ! 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Not at thee, for yet 
 I do behold thee not — this tenement 
 Doth topple with the weight of years; — thy breatli 
 
A VISION OF DEATH. Ill 
 
 May crumble it to dust ; but thou shalt see 
 The spirit standing on the ruin here ; 
 And face to face answering speech for speech, 
 Fearless as I do now. I can dare all ! 
 
 Dost thou defy ? 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Nothing except thy terrors. 
 My soul was fashioned for command, not fear. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Command'st thou me } . 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 No, not as did the hag 
 Of Endor the poor ghost, for I have still 
 Enough of courage to brave more of life ; 
 But beino^ here thou art most welcome. 
 
 Nay, 
 But knowest thou what I am ? 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 If thou art Death, 
 Then have I pictured thee a spirit fair, 
 And full of loving kindness unto all ; 
 
112 A VISION OF DEATH. 
 
 In love thou seal'st the infant's waxen eyes, 
 And tak'st the lily maiden to thy breast, 
 Or pour'st a healing balm in Manhood's wounds, 
 Or oil upon the troubled waves of Age. 
 Speak I not true ? 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Words may not answer that. 
 Now let thine eyes instead, compare the picture — 
 Come, look on me ! 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 I do! 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Well, what say'st thou } 
 Am I the thing of terror men have chosen 
 To name me .'' 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Wonder, like the unloosed wind 
 Seizes me — I cannot speak — yet — 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Would not 
 Curse me } 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Curse thee ? Oh no ! a thousand tongues 
 Are clamorous within my soul to sing 
 
A VISION OF DEATH. 113 
 
 Thy great, surprising loveliness — Thine eyes 
 
 Are wells of pity and of love, thy lips 
 
 Wreathed with the sainted smile of her who blessed 
 
 My earliest infancy. All that the world 
 
 E'er crowned me with, of sweet and beautiful, 
 
 Is crowded in the compass of thy face. 
 
 Art thou thus lovely unto all ? 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 I am 
 
 What they who find me make me — Shall we go ? 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Whither ? 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Upward — and onward, into outer space, 
 Where she, thy kindred spirit, waiteth thee. 
 
 OLD MAN. 
 
 Most willingly — but stay, one moment yet. 
 
 To let me gaze where I shall gaze no more. 
 
 On this new mound — Hold ! what is this which lies 
 
 Across her grave — The figure of a man ! 
 
 A poor old man, in dusty, threadbare robes ; 
 
 See there, how thin his hair is and how white ! 
 
 How pale he looks! and yet he wears a smile; 
 
 Oh, now if I had alms to give, here — 
 
 10 * H 
 
114 A VISION OF DEATH. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Alas! 
 Hast thou forgot thine own poor tenement 
 So soon? — 
 
 (The spirit of the Old Man leaning over the body exclaims^) 
 'T is not a face that I am used 
 To look upon — poor dust ! 
 
 When Death leads him gently away. 
 
THE FAIRER LAND.* 
 
 All the night, in broken slumber, 
 
 I went down the world of dreams, 
 
 Through a land of war and turmoil 
 
 Swept by loud and labouring streams, 
 
 Where the masters wandered, chanting 
 Ponderous and tumultuous themes. 
 
 Chanting from unwieldy volumes 
 Iron maxims stern and stark, 
 
 Truths that swept and burst and stumbled 
 Through the ancient rifted dark ; 
 
 * This has already been published as the proem to a volume of 
 The Female Poets of America," edited by the Author. 
 
116 THE FAIRER LAND. 
 
 Till my soul was tossed and worried. 
 Like a tempest-driven bark. 
 
 But anon, within the distance, 
 
 Stood the village vanes aflame. 
 
 And the sunshine, filled with music, 
 To my oriel casement came ; 
 
 While the birds sang pleasant valentines 
 Against my window frame. 
 
 Then by sights and sounds invited, 
 I went down to meet the morn, 
 
 Saw the trailing mists roll inland 
 Over rustling fields of com, 
 
 And from quiet hillside hamlets 
 Heard the distant rustic horn. 
 
 There, through daisied dales and byways, 
 Met I forms of fairer mould. 
 
 Pouring songs for very pleasure — 
 
 Songs their hearts could not withhold- 
 
 Setting all the birds a-singing 
 
 With their delicate harps of gold. 
 
THE FAIRER LAND. 117 
 
 Some went plucking little lily-bells, 
 
 That withered in the hand ; 
 Some, where smiled a summer ocean. 
 
 Gathered pebbles from the sand ; 
 Some, with prophet eyes uplifted. 
 
 Walked unconscious of the land. 
 
 Through that Fairer World I wandered 
 Slowdy, listening oft and long. 
 
 And as one behind the reapers. 
 
 Without any thought of wrong. 
 
 Loitered, gleaning for my garner 
 
 Flowery sheaves of sweetest song. 
 
MANHOOD. 
 
 Man, like his Eden sire, walks fresh from God, 
 
 In panoply of majesty and power; 
 
 And stands upon his mount of strength supreme. 
 
 Firm footed as the oak. The earth is his. 
 
 For he has forced the king of beasts to crouch, and 
 
 brought 
 The eagle from his eyried crag, and made 
 A traffic of the seas leviathan ; 
 And from the mountain's stubborn breast hath torn 
 Its iron heart, or traced the rich red ore 
 Along its shining veins. The vales, where erst 
 Free Nature held her sabbath all the year. 
 
MANHOOD. 119 
 
 He fills with week-day turmoil ; and the woods 
 Are bowed before him, while the quiet trees 
 Are moulded into temples broad and high, 
 Or hewn to build the ocean's winged arks, 
 That link together far ends of the earth 
 With chains of commerce over dangerous seas. 
 Man spreads the sail, and with his strong right arm 
 He holds the helm against the tempest's wrath ; 
 Or when the treacherous reef is struck, he clasps 
 The fainting form and struggles to the shore. 
 He wears his country's arms, and faces death 
 To plant above the bulwarks of the foe 
 The standard of his native land. 
 
 Than this 
 A faculty diviner still is his ; 
 For he hath on the walls of science stood. 
 Gray walls, whose towering turrets well nigh reach 
 The prophet's dome of inspiration ; — there 
 With all the book of space before him spread, 
 Hath read its starry pages, and transcribed 
 Its wonders for the waiting world below ! 
 But man, endowed with all the powers of earth, 
 The form majestic, and the strong right arm, 
 
120 MANHOOD. 
 
 With intellect to penetrate the skies, 
 To unriddle the enigma of the stars, — 
 Must cast aside his dusty strength, and lay 
 His little knowledge humbly by, and take 
 The tender innocence which childhood wears, 
 And he shall be invested with the power. 
 The majesty, and wisdom of the immortals. 
 
FEAGMENTS FROM THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 '* The baseless fabric of a vision." 
 
 Oft have I wandered through the Realm of Dreams, 
 By shadowy mountains and clear running streams, 
 Catching at times strange transitory gleams 
 Of Eden vistas, glimmering through a haze 
 Of floral splendour, where the birds, ablaze 
 With colour, streaked the air like flying stars. 
 With momentary bars ; 
 And heard low music breathe above, around, 
 As if the air within itself made sound, — 
 As if the soul of Melody were pent 
 Within some unseen instrument, 
 11 
 
123 THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 Hung in a viewless tower of air, 
 
 And with enchanted pipes beguiled its own despair. 
 
 But stranger than all other dreams which led, 
 
 Asleep or waking, my adventurous tread, 
 
 Were these which came of late to me 
 
 Through fields of slumber, and did seem to be 
 
 Wrapped in an awful robe of prophecy. 
 
 I walked the woods of March, and through the boughs 
 
 The earliest bird was calling to his spouse ; 
 
 And in the sheltered nooks 
 
 Lay spots of snow, 
 
 Or with a noiseless flow 
 
 Stole down into the brooks ; 
 
 And where the springtime sun had longest shone 
 
 The violet looked up and found itself alone. 
 
 Anon I came unto a noisy river, 
 
 And felt the bridge beneath me sway and quiver ; 
 
 Below, the hungry waters howled and hissed. 
 
 And upward blew a blinding cloud of mist ; 
 
 But there the friendly Iris built its arch, 
 
 And I in safety took my onward march. 
 
 Now coming to a mighty hill, 
 
 Along the shelvy pathway of a rill 
 
THE REALM OF DREAMS. 123 
 
 Which danced itself to foam and spray, 
 
 I clomb my steady way. 
 
 It may be that the music of the brook 
 
 Gave me new strength — It may be that I took 
 
 Fresh vigour from the mountain air 
 
 Which cooled my cheek and fanned my hair; 
 
 Or was it that adown the breeze 
 
 Came sounds of wondrous melodies, — 
 
 Strange sounds as of a maiden's voice 
 
 Making her mountain home rejoice ? 
 
 Following that sweet strain, I mounted still 
 
 And gained the highest hemlocks of the hill, 
 
 Old guardians of a little lake, which sent 
 
 Adown the brook its crystal merriment, 
 
 Blessing the valley where the planter went 
 
 Sowing the furrowed mould and whistling his content. 
 
 Though underwood of laurel, and across 
 
 A little lawn shoe-deep with sweetest moss, 
 
 I passed, and found the lake, which, like a shield 
 
 Some giant long had ceased to wield. 
 
 Lay with its edges sunk in sand and stone, 
 
 With ancient roots and grasses overgrown ; 
 
 But far more beautiful and rare 
 
 Than any strange device that e'er 
 
 Glittered upon the azure field 
 
 Of ancient warrior's polished shield, 
 
124 THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 Was the fair vision which did lie 
 
 Embossed upon the burnished lake, . 
 
 And in its sweet repose did make 
 
 A second self that sang to the inverted sky. 
 
 Not she who lay on banks of thornless flowers 
 
 Ere stole the Serpent into Eden's bowers ; 
 
 Not she who rose from Neptune's deep abodes 
 
 The wonder of Olympian Gods ; 
 
 Nor all the fabled nymphs of wood or stream 
 
 Which blest the Arcadian's dream, 
 
 Could with that floating form compare, 
 
 Lying with her golden harp and hair 
 
 Bright as a cloud in the sunset air. 
 
 Her tresses gleamed with many stars, 
 
 And on her forehead one, like Mars, 
 
 A lovely crown of light dispread 
 
 Around her shining head. 
 
 And now she touched her harp and sung 
 
 Strange songs in a forgotten tongue ; 
 
 And as my spirit heard, it seemed 
 
 To feel what it had lived or dreamed 
 
 In other worlds beyond our skies, — 
 
 In ancient spheres of Paradise ; 
 
 And as I gazed upon her face 
 
 It seemed that I could dimly trace 
 
THE REALM OF DREAMS. 125 
 
 Dear lineaments long lost of yore 
 
 Upon some unremembered shore, 
 
 Beyond an old and infinite sea, 
 
 In the realm of an unknown century. 
 
 For very joy I clapped my hands. 
 
 And leaped upon the nearer sands ! — 
 
 A moment, and the maiden glanced 
 
 Upon me where I stood entranced ; 
 
 Then noiselessly as moonshine falls 
 
 Adown the ocean's crystal walls. 
 
 And with no stir or wave attended. 
 
 Slowly through the lake descended-, 
 
 Till from her hidden form below 
 
 The waters took a golden glow, 
 
 As if the star which made her forehead bright 
 
 Had burst and filled the lake with light! 
 
 Long standing there I watched in vain. 
 
 The vision would not rise again. 
 
 Again, in sleep, I walked by singing streams, 
 And it was May-day in my Realm of Dreams : — 
 The flowering pastures and the trees 
 Were full of noisy birds and bees ; 
 And swinging roses, like sweet censers, went 
 The village children making merriment, 
 11* 
 
126 THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 Followed by older people ; — as they passed 
 
 One beckoned, and I joined the last. 
 
 We crossed the meadow, crossed the brook, 
 
 And through the scented woodland took 
 
 Our happy way, until we found 
 
 An open space of vernal ground ; 
 
 And there around the flowery pole 
 
 I joined the joyous throng and sang with all' my soul ! 
 
 But when the little ones had crowned their queen, 
 
 And danced their mazes to the wooded scene 
 
 To hunt the honey-suckles, and carouse 
 
 Under the spice- wood boughs,— 
 
 I turned, and saw with wondering eye 
 
 A maiden in a bower near by. 
 
 Wreathed with unknown blossoms, such as bloom 
 
 In orient isles with wonderful perfume. 
 
 And she was very beautiful and bright ; 
 
 And in her face was much of that strange light 
 
 Which on the mountain lake had blessed my sight ; 
 
 Her speech was like the echo of that song 
 
 Which on the hillside made me strong. 
 
 Now with a wreath, now with a coin she played, 
 
 Pursuing a most marvellous trade — 
 
 Buying the lives of young and old^ 
 
 Some with Fame, and some with gold ! 
 
THE REALM OF DREAMS. • 127 
 
 And there with trembling steps I came, 
 
 But ere I asked for gold or fame, 
 
 Or ere I could announce my name, 
 
 The wreath fell withered from her head, 
 
 And from her face the mask was shed ; 
 
 Her mantle dropped — and lo ! the morning sun 
 
 Looked on me through a nameless skeleton ! 
 
 Again I stood within the Realm of Dreams, 
 
 At midnight, on a huge and shadowy tower ; 
 
 And from the east the full moon shed her beams. 
 
 And from the sky a wild meteoric shower 
 
 Startled the darkness ; and the night 
 
 Was full of ominous voices and strange light. 
 
 Like to a madman's brain ; — below 
 
 Prophetic tongues proclaiming wo 
 
 Echoed the sullen roar 
 
 Of Ocean on the neighbouring shore ; 
 
 And in the west a forest caught the sound 
 
 And bore it to its utmost bound. 
 
 And then, for hours, all stood as to behold 
 
 Some great event by mighty seers foretold ; 
 
 And all the while the moon above the sea 
 
 Grew strangely large and red, — and suddenly, 
 
128 THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 Followed by a myriad stars, 
 Swung at one sweep into the western sky, 
 And, widening with a melancholy roar. 
 Broke to a hundred flaming bars. 
 Grating the heavens as with a dungeon door. 
 Then to that burning gate 
 A radiant spirit came, and through the grate 
 Smiled till I knew the Angel, Fate ! 
 And in its hand a golden key it bore 
 To open that celestial door. 
 Sure, I beheld that angel thrice ; 
 Twice met on earth, it mocked me twice ; 
 But now behind those bars it beamed 
 Such love as I had never dreamed, 
 Smiling my prisoned soul to peace 
 With eyes that promised quick release ; 
 And looks thus spake to looks, where lips on earth 
 were dumb, 
 *< Behold, behold the hour is come !" 
 
THE REALM OF DREAMS. 129 
 
 Come, gentle trembler, come — for see, 
 Our hearths have lost their native fires ; 
 
 The vacant world invites us, — we 
 
 Must go the heirless heirs of countless sires. 
 
 Let us away, the wild wolf's home 
 
 Were not so desolate as ours ; 
 Beside the singing brooks we '11 roam, 
 
 And seek a sweet community of flowers. 
 
 Here are the dwellings whence the few 
 We loved, departed ; where they lead 
 
 We follow — these their tombs ; — but who 
 Shall write our epitaphs, and who shall read? 
 
130 THE REALM OF DREAMS. 
 
 Hark, how the light winds flow and ebb 
 
 Along the open halls forlorn ; 
 See how the spider's dusty web 
 
 Floats at the casement, tenantless and torn ! 
 
 The old, old Sea, as one in tears, 
 
 Comes murmuring with its foamy lips, 
 
 And knocking at the vacant piers, 
 
 Calls for its long-lost multitude of ships. 
 
 Against the stone-ribbed wharf, one hull 
 Throbs to its ruin like a breaking heart : 
 
 Oh, come, my breast and brain are full 
 Of sad response — Grim Silence keep the mart ! 
 
THE WAY. 
 
 A WEARY, wandering soul am I, 
 
 O'erburthened with an earthly weight ; 
 
 A pilgrim through the world and sky, 
 Toward the Celestial Gate. 
 
 Tell me, ye sweet and sinless flowers, 
 Who all night gaze upon the skies, 
 
 Have ye not in the silent hours 
 Seen aught of Paradise ? 
 
 Ye birds, that soar and sing, elate 
 
 With joy, that makes your voices strong. 
 
 Have ye not at the golden gate 
 Caught somewhat of your song ? 
 
133 THE WAY. 
 
 Ye waters, sparkling in the morn, 
 Ye seas, which glass the starry night. 
 
 Have ye not from the imperial bourn 
 Caught glimpses of its light ? 
 
 Ye hermit oaks, and sentinel pines. 
 Ye mountain forests old and gray, 
 
 In all your long and winding lines 
 Have ye not seen the way ? 
 
 0! moon, among thy starry bowers, 
 
 Know'st thou the path the angels tread ? 
 
 Seest thou beyond thy azure towers 
 The shining gates dispread ? 
 
 Ye holy spheres, that sang with earth 
 When earth was still a sinless star, 
 
 Have the immortals heavenly birth 
 Within your realms afar ? 
 
 And thou, O sun ! whose light unfurls 
 Bright banners through unnumbered skies, 
 
 Seest thou among thy subject worlds 
 The radiant portals rise ? 
 
THE WAY. 133 
 
 All, all are mute ! and still am I 
 
 O' erburthened with an earthly weight ; 
 
 A pilgrim through the world and sky, 
 Toward the Celestial Gate. 
 
 No answer wheresoe' er I roam — 
 From skies afar no guiding ray ; 
 
 But, hark! the voice of Christ says, <' Come ? 
 Arise I I am the way !" 
 
THE MARSEILLAISE. 
 
 "Among every class of people who participated openly in the 
 Revolution, might be heard the Marseillaise hymn." 
 
 I HEARD, as in a glorious dream, 
 
 A clarion thrill the startled air, 
 xAnd saw an answering people stream 
 
 Through every noisy thoroughfare. 
 There were the old, whose hairs were few, 
 
 Or white with memory of the days 
 Of Egypt, Moscow, Waterloo, — 
 
 And now they sang the " Marseillaise /" 
 
THE MARSEILLAISE. 135 
 
 The aged scholar, pale and wan, 
 
 Was there within the marshalled line. 
 And jostled by the noisy van. 
 
 The poet with his voice divine : — 
 No more could tomes the sage beguile ; 
 
 The bard no longer wooed the praise 
 That dribbles from a monarch's smile. 
 
 For now they sang the '^ Marseillaise T^ 
 
 And there were matrons, who of yore 
 
 Had wept a son or husband slain, 
 Or chanted for their Emperor 
 
 A long and loud triumphal strain : — 
 Their wo inspired the song no more, 
 
 Nor yet Napoleon's crown of bays. 
 Which rankly sprang from fields of gore. 
 
 For now they sang the '^ Marseillaise T^ 
 
 The peasants, from their hills of vines, 
 
 Came streaming to the open plains ; 
 No more they bore their tax of wines 
 
 To stagnate in a tyrant's veins ; 
 France needed not the purple flood 
 
 To set her heart and brain ablaze, — 
 A wilder wine was in her blood. 
 
 For now she sang the ^' Marseillaise P^ 
 
136 THE MARSEILLAISE. 
 
 The Bourbon's throne was trampled down, 
 
 And France no longer knelt ; but now, 
 Struck with a patriot's hand the crown 
 
 From off the Orleans' dotard brow ; — 
 Released from slavery and tears. 
 
 She rose and sang fair Freedom's praise. 
 Till far along the future years 
 
 I heard the swelling ^^ Marseillaise T^ 
 
THE WITHERING LEAVES. 
 
 The summer is gone and the autumn is here, 
 And the flowers are strewing their earthy bier ; 
 A dreary mist o'er the woodland swims, 
 "While rattle the nuts from the windy limbs : 
 From bough to bough the squirrels run 
 At the noise of the hunter's echoing gun, 
 And the partridge flies where my footstep heaves 
 The rustling drifts of the withering leaves. 
 
 The flocks pursue their southern flight — 
 Some all the day and some all night; 
 And up from the wooded marshes come 
 The sounds of the pheasants' feathery drum. 
 On the highest bough the mourner crow 
 Sits in his funeral suit of wo : 
 All nature mourns — and my spirit grieves 
 At the noise of my feet in the withering leaves. 
 12* 
 
138 THE WITHERING LEAVES. 
 
 Oh ! I sigh for the days that have passed away, 
 When my life like the year had its season of May ; 
 When the world was all sunshine and beauty and truth, 
 And the dew bathed my feet in the valley of youth ! 
 Then my heart felt its wings, and no bird of the sky 
 Sang over the flowers more joyous than I. 
 But Youth is a fable, and Beauty deceives ; — 
 For my footsteps are loud in the withering leaves. 
 
 And I sigh for the time when the reapers at morn 
 Came down from the hill at the sound of the horn : 
 Or when dragging the rake, I follow^ed them out 
 While they tossed the light sheaves with their laughter 
 
 about ; 
 Through the field, with boy-daring, barefooted I ran ; 
 But the stubbles foreshadowed the path of the man. 
 Now the uplands of life lie all barren of sheaves — 
 While my footsteps are loud in the withering leaves ! 
 
L'ENVOI. 
 
 I BRING the flower you asked of me, 
 A simple bloom, nor bright nor rare, 
 
 But like a star its light will be 
 Within the darkness of your hair. 
 
 It grew not in those guarded bowers 
 
 "Where rustling fountains sift their spray, 
 
 But gladly drank the common showers 
 Of dew beside the dusty way. 
 
 It may be in its humble sphere 
 It cheered the pilgrim of the road, 
 
 And shed as blest an alms, as e'er 
 
 The generous hand of Wealth bestowed. 
 
140 
 
 Or though, save mine, it met no eye, 
 But secretly looked up and grew, 
 
 And from the loving air and sky 
 Its little store of beauty drew ; 
 
 And though it breathed its small perfumes 
 So low they did not woo the bee, — 
 
 Exalted, how it shines and blooms. 
 Above all flowers, since worn by thee. 
 
 And thus the song you bade me sing, 
 May be a rude and artless lay, 
 
 And yet it grew a sacred thing 
 To bless me on Life's dusty way. 
 
 And unto this, my humble strain, 
 How much of beauty shall belong, 
 
 If thou wilt in thy memory deign 
 To wear my simple flower of song ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S DAILY POETIC COMPANION. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. 
 
 THOUGHTS IN VERSE 
 
 FOR THE SUNDAYS AND HOLYDAYS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN KEBLE, M. A., 
 
 OF OXFORD. 
 
 One volume square 16mo., printed with large clear type, on 
 fine white paper, and bound in muslin, plain or gilt edges, or 
 Turkey morocco. 
 
 An illustrated edition of uniform size, with sixteen very 
 beautiful designs by Cope, and engraved on wood in the first 
 style of the art, is also published, and may be had in various 
 elegant styles of binding. 
 
 Of this beautiful volume, beautiful not only in its mechanical 
 execution, but in its exquisite thoughts, it is almost unneces- 
 sary to speak, as its unexampled sale, amounting to some 
 fifty or sixty thousand copies, will testify. In England it is a 
 household volume, where it has passed rapidly through edition 
 after edition in four or five different sizes. No one can read 
 these sublime thoughts without having better and more lofty 
 ideas. 
 
THE LESSON OF LIFE, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 BY GEORGE H. BOKER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "cALAYNOSj A TRAGEDY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 This new volume of American Poetry has thus far received 
 a large share of public favour. From the numerous flattering tes- 
 timonials by the press in all sections of the country, we select a 
 few as an evidence of the high opinion entertainea of its merits. 
 
 " Mr. Boker, in the principal piece, takes a high position, and 
 deals with his subject with a master hand. We follow with 
 pleasure the teachings of the verse, pleased with its smoothness 
 and attracted by its moral. He is not, like common writers, led 
 on by the tinsel of figures, the pleasure of rhythm, or the tinkling 
 of rhyme. With the author before us, they are the medium 
 of conveying thoughts ; thoughts matured, feelings highly nou- 
 rished, and views of lofty tendency. * * # * We derived 
 from every page a reward for the time bestowed, and an in- 
 ducement to continue the enjoyment.'" — Phila. North Am. and 
 U. S. Gazette. 
 
 " The longest piece has many passages of truly poetic de- 
 scription, and is nowhere marred by the affectations of style 
 which are the fashion of the day." — American Review. 
 
 " The poems are characterized throughout by a justness in 
 the sentiments, and a manliness in the expression of them. 
 # # * # There are, moreover, numerous passages which 
 will elicit special praise from all who love pure English, or 
 genuine poetry." — Phil. Am. Sat. Cour. 
 
 " The contents bear the distinct impress of original genius. 
 The " Lesson of Life" is written with a high moral purpose ; and 
 contains many passages which stir the inner soul of the reader, 
 and kindle the deeper and purer feelings of our nature. The 
 imagery has the rare merit of being fresh and truly American." 
 •—Scotfs Weekly Paper. 
 
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