THE
~M A. G N O L I A.
T. WF PARSONS.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSE'I'rs:
JOHN WILSON AND SON.
I866.








CONTENTS.
PAGE.
ON A MAGNOLIA FLOWER..............  I
A THRENODY......... 
FROM " VESPERS ON THE SHORES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN".. 13
MARY BOOTH...................  4
HER  EPITAPH................6
To   A   LILAC....................
HEALTH AND WEALTH AND LOVE AND LEISURE, AND A HAPPY
NEW YEAR, TO MY SWEET LADYE.......   22
EPITAPH ON A CHILD............ 24
FROM A LETTER..............26
DIRGE.....................  28
LIBERTY..................... 30
FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND........
To  J. M. B.............32
ST. PERAY. -A VINOUS ODE..........
THE LOST SHIP................36
CHARADE..............38
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.........      40
To A LATIN SCHOOL BOY........... 46
OUR AUNT............  49
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PEACOCK..........5
THE COCKLE-SHELL............
ALLE SORELLE.'  ae...-.*...... 54
ALLE SORELLE................. 56








ON A MAGNOLIA FLOWER.
M\   EMORIAL of my former days,
Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,
And on thy pallid beauty gaze,
I feel not far from death!
So much hath happened! and so much
The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!
Thy fragrance moves me with a touch
As from a hand divine:
So many dead! so many wed!
Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,
I pressed a gentle hand, and said
A word no more for me!
i




2
Lady, who sendest from the South
This frail, pale token of the past,
I press the petals to my mouth,
And sigh - as'twere my last.
Oh, love, we live, but many fell!
The world's a wreck, but we survive! -
Say, rather, still on earth we dwell,
But gray at thirty-five!




3
A THRENODY.
I.
ADIEU TO THE SHIP "ARABIA."
Sailed from Boston, Oct. 4, 1856.
G    OOD ship " Arabia! " this for thee:
God give thee good speed o'er the sea!
Among thy things of bulk and weight, 
The precious bales that make thy freight,
Thy casks and caskets, great and small,One treasure goes, outweighing all;
Richer than all that Hindostan,
Or that shy kingdom of Japan,
Could for a costly tribute send
To a king's crowning, - ay, a friend.
Henry, farewell! and He who reigns
O'er earth and ocean, He who chains




4
His lightnings to the cloudy car
That bears the storm to every star,
May He befriend thee on the deep,
And grant my sailor country-sleep.
O God! who carest for the dove
And little wren, regard our love!
Thou hast before to this dear child
Made thy sea smooth, thy breezes mild.
Watch o'er him as a tender bird;
And, when thy waves are roughly stirred,
Keep ache of limbs or heart aloof,
And make the good ship tempest-proof.
So, when beside November's fire
We read the triumph of desire,
When the first letter comes, O welcome guest!
We'll call that vessel " Araby the blest! "




5
II.
THE FIRST OMEN.
WE remembered thee in " Stein," my Henry,
When the welcome letter came,
As we sat beside the firelight,
Making pictures in the flame:
There we made the cliffs of Konigsberg,
And the many-castled Rhine;
And we saw the domes of Dresden,
And remembered thee in " Stein."
Then we stirred the fire, and Fancy
Changed the picture as we talked;
And we saw you there in Rome again,
And on the " Pincian" walked.
There we saw the black Pantheon,
And the shaft of Antonine,
And the faces at the " Lepre,"
And remembered them in " Stein."
When my friends were gone, I lingered
For a musing hour alone;




6
Neither sad nor cheerful-hearted,
But with fancies of mine own:
And still, within the embers,
As I watched the struggling spark,
Both at once, my fire and candle,
Died, and left me in the dark.
And I shuddered at the omen:
Though I smiled the while, I said,
"If a man must dream, his dreaming
Is better done in bed."
So I lit another taper, -
Ah, heavy head of mine!
But before I found my chamber,
I remembered him in " Stein."
III.
THE SECOND OMEN.
THERE came a casket with my name,
And "fragile" marked thereon:
I opened it, - oh grief! oh shame!
Neptune, what hast thou done?




7
Alas the sacred, laurelled head!
0 hopeless heap of dust!
" Frailty! " —'twas all the word I said, 
Thy name is poet's bust.
Again mine eye, if better skilled,
An omen might have seen;
But Hope still whispered,'Tis fufilled!
The ill presaged hath been!
Therefore I bade my flippant muse
Speak lightly of my loss;
So should the giver learn my news,
And lightly bear the cross.
And, veiling thus my discontent,
This missive o'er the main
Unto my friend at Rome I sent,
In the sunny " Square of Spain."




IV.
THE LETTER.
DEAR HAL, that marble from Leghorn
Came damaged to its destined home:
Poor thing! the image-man in scorn
Said, " Better send it back to Rome."
I'm vexed for you, such pains you took
To suit my taste; but, for myself,
In my own heart I'll rather look,
Than yonder, at the vacant shelf.
What if my marble be a wreck 
Its fragments calmly I survey,
And out of many a glittering speck
Gather one thought which makes me say: —
Unbroken still the friendship stands
That sent this pledge across the sea;
No further sigh my loss demands,
While such a friend remains to me.




9
V.
THE RETURN.
OCEAN! I come to stand beside thy shore,
And ask thee what new ruin dost thou bring:
I sent my bird forth joyful on the wing,
Bright with good hopes, and what dost thou restore?
Another broken, maimed, and marble thing,
Half of my life, that I shall have no more!
Ocean! thou takest on thy bosom those
Whom earth is glad to part with, and doth spurn,
Men of disordered lives, and many woes;
These round the globe, successful, and return.
Thou hast permitted on thy storms to ride
Fleets and their fortunes; through a thousand gales
Their valiant ribs thy fury have defied,
And they come back with triumph in their sails.
My friend went forth an innocent, like one
Bred in the service of some saintly shrine,
To spend his days in cloistered courts, and shun
All cares except scholastic and divine.
2




10
And we committed, tempering hope with tears,
Our Benedictine to the ways of men,
Thinking to hail him, in a few brief years,
Back to our abbey and his books again.
For he went forth with no ambitious end, -
A gentle scholar, on his mind's employ.
Ocean, what bring'st thou back  is this my friend?
Is this our brother, that went forth in joy 
Oh, idle grief, that fondly chides the waves!
Ocean received him; ocean brings him home,
To lay his head among his kinsmen's graves,Not there with strangers, at the gates of Rome,
Not there with strangers, at the gates of Rome.
VI.
A DIRGE.
SLOWLY tread, and gently bear
One that comes across the wave,
From the oppression of his care,
To the freedom of the grave.




11
From the merciless disease,
Wearing body, wasting brain,
To the rest beneath the trees,The forgetting of all pain.
From the delicate eye and ear,
To the rest that shall not see;
To the sleep that shall not hear,
Nor feel the world's vulgarity.
Bear him, in his leaden shroud,
In his pall of foreign oak,
To the uncomplaining crowd,
Where ill word was never spoke.
Bear him from life's broken sleep,
Dreams of pleasure, dreams of pain,
Hopes that tremble, joys that weep,
Loves that perish, visions vain, —
To the beautiful repose,
Where he was before his birth;
With the ruby, with the rose,
With the harvest, earth in earth!




12
Bring him to the body's rest,
After battle, sorely spent,
Wounded, but a welcome guest
In the Chief's triumphant tent.




13
FROM
"VESPERS ON THE SHORES OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN."
VIRGIN! when the landsman's hymn,
At vesper time, on bended knee,
In sunlit aisle, or chapel dim,
Or cloister cell, is paid to thee,
Hear us! that ocean's pavement skim,
And join our anthem to the raging sea.
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te nostra benigna stella.
And when the tempest's wrath is o'er,
And tired Libeccio sinks to rest,
And starlight falls upon the shore
Where love sits watching, uncaressed,
Though hushed the tumult and the roar,
Again the prayer we'll chant which thou hast blest.
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te nostra benigna stella.




MARY BOOTH.
W      ~ THAT shall we do now, Mary being dead,
Or say or write, that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the Spring-time write her epitaph?As it will soon, in snowdrop, violet,
Wind flower, and columbine, and maiden's tear;
Each letter of that pretty alphabet,
That spells in flowers the pageant of the year.




15
She was a maiden for a man to love;
She was a woman for a husband's life;
One that has learned to value, far above
The name of Love, the sacred name of Wife.
Her little life-dream, rounded so with sleep,
Had all there is of life, except gray hairs,Hope, love, trust, passion and devotion deep;
And that mysterious tie a Mother bears.
She hath fulfilled her promise and hath passed:
Set her down gently at the iron door!
Eyes look on that loved image for the last:
Now cover it in earth, - her earth no more.




16
HER EPITAPH.
T    HE handful here, that once was Mary's earth,
Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul,
That, when she died, all recognized her birth,
And had their sorrow in serene control.
"Not here! not here!" to every mourner's heart
The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier;
And when the tomb-door opened, with a start
We heard it echoed from within, -" Not here! 
Shouldst thou, sad pilgrim, who mayst hither pass,
Note in these flowers a delicater hue;
Should Spring come earlier to this hallowed grass,
Or the bee later linger on the dew, -




17
Know that her spirit to her body lent
Such sweetness, grace, as only goodness can;
That even her dust, and this her monument,
Have yet a spell to stay one lonely man, -
Lonely through life, but looking for the day
When what is mortal of himself shall sleep;
When human passion shall have passed away,
And Love no longer be a thing to weep.
3




18
TO A LILAC.
I.
/"O   LILAC, in whose purple well
Youth in perpetuo doth dwell,
My fancy feels thy fragrant spell.
II.
Of all that morning dews do feed,All flowers of garden, field, or mead, -
Thou art the first in childhood's creed:
III.
And e'en to. me thy breath, in spring,
Hath power, a little while, to bring
Back to my heart its blossoming.
IV.
I seem again, with boyhood's pace,
And happy, shining, morning-face,
Bound school-ward, running learning's race.




19
V.
Thou, too, recall'st the tender time,
After my primer, ere my prime,
When love was born and life was rhyme;
VI.
My morning ramble, all alone;
My moonlit walk by haunted stone;
My love, that ere it fledged was flown!
VII.
At noon, tired out with hateful task,
I fling aside my worldling's mask,
And for my bunch of lilac ask.
VIII.
At vesper-time, Celestial tea
Hath no refreshment like to thee,
Whose breath is nourishment for me.
IX.
At midnight, when my friends are gone,
And I sit down to ponder on
The day, what it hath lost or won,




20
x.
Thy perfume, like a flageolet
That once, by dark Bolsena's lake,
What time the sun made golden set,
I heard (and seem to hear it yet),
A thousand memories doth awake
Of busy boyhood's vanished powers;
Of young ambition, flushed with praise;
Of old companions, and of hours
That had the sunshine of whole days!
Of Italy, and Roman ways;
Of Tuscan ladies, courteous, fair,
And kind as beautiful - forbear
O Memory! - those impassioned eyes!
Beware! for that way madness lies!
XI.
O lilac, thou art come to June!
And all our orioles are in tune:
Thy doom is- to be withering soon.
XII.
And so, farewell! for other flowers
Must have their day; and mortal powers
Cannot love all things at all hours.




21
XIII.
Soon I shall have my flower de luce,
And the proud peony, whose use
It is to teach me pride's abuse.
XIV.
For I am proud as proud can be;
But when that scarlet gaud I see,
My modest lilac comes to me.




22
HEALTH AND WEALTH AND LOVE AND LEISURE,
AND A HAPPY  NEW  YEAR,
TO MY SWEET LADYE.
N the fair blank that now, like some new bay
In life's vague ocean, opens with to-day,
Couldst thou but write, dear lady, at thy will,
All thou wouldst choose of good, or shun of ill,
As on this paper thou mayst fill the space
With thoughts and wishes gentle as thy face,
Thou couldst not crowd the days that are to be
With happier fortune than I hope for thee.
For, if the saint that keeps the book above
Which holds the record of thy life and love,
Where at one view thy childhood and thine age,
Thy past and future, gleam upon the page,
Should trust his volume to my hand, and say,
Write for Augusta all you ask or pray,




23
All that twelve moons may bring of peace and bliss,
Then would I register some fate like this.
Health, first of all, that every morn may find
The same bright casket for the same clear mind,
And every night bring such repose, that care
May find no triumph in one altered hair.
Affection then, the same thou still hast known,
Such as would shudder at a careless tone;
And count it selfishness to have a grief
That in thy sharing did not seek relief.
Next golden leisure, to enjoy the sun
With one to worship, and but only one;
With him to tread the solitude, and then
No less securely try the ways of men;
To move in crowds, yet keep the calm within,
Still amid noise, and spotless amid sin.




24
EPITAPH ON A CHILD.
T    HIS little seed of life and love,
Just lent us for a day,
Came like a blessing from above,Passed like a dream away.
And when we garnered in the earth
The foison that was ours,
We felt that burial was but birth
To spirits, as to flowers.
And still that benediction stays,
Although its angel passed:
Dear God! thy ways, if bitter ways,
We learn to love at last.




25
But for the dream, —it broke indeed,
Yet still great comfort gives:
What was a dream is now our creed, —
We know our darling lives.




26
FROM A LETTER.
Tr   HINK not that this enchanted isle
Wherein I dwell, some days a king,
Postpones till June its tardy smile,
And only knows imagined spring.
Not yet my lilies are in bloom;
But lo! my cherry, bridal-white,
Whose sweetness fills my sunny room,
The bees, and me, with one delight.
And on the brink of Lanham Brook
The laughing cowslips catch mine eye,
As on the bridge I stop to look
At the stray blossoms loitering by.




27
Our almond-willow waves its plumes
In contrast with the dark-haired pine,
And in the morning sun perfumes
The lane almost like summer's vine.
Dear Poet! shouldst thou tread with me,
Even in the spring, these woodland ways,
Under thy foot the violet see,
And overhead the maple sprays,
Thou mightst forego thy Charles's claim,
To wander by our stream awhile:
So should these meadows grow to fame,
And all the Muses haunt our Isle.




28
DI RGE
FOR ONE WHO FELL IN BATTLE.
R  OOM for a Soldier! lay him in the clover;
He loved the fields, and they shall be his cover;
Make his mound with hers who called him once her lover:
Where the rain may rain upon it,
Where the sun may shine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
And the bee will dine upon it.
Bear him to no dismal tomb under city churches;
Take him to the fragrant fields, by the silver birches,
Where the whippoorwill shall mourn, where the oriole perches:
Make his mound with sunshine on it,
Where the bee will dine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
And the rain will rain upon it.




29
Busy as the busy bee, his rest should be the clover;
Gentle as the lamb was he, and the fern should be his cover;
Fern and rosemary shall grow my soldier's pillow over:
Where the rain may rain upon it,
Where the sun may shine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
And the bee will dine upon it.
Sunshine in his heart, the rain would come full often
Out of those tender eyes which evermore did soften:
He never could look cold till we saw him in his coffin.
Make his mound with sunshine on it,
Where the wind may sigh upon it,
Where the moon may stream upon it,
And Memory shall dream upon it.
"Captain or colonel," - whatever invocation
Suit our hymn the best, no matter for thy station, -
On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation!
Long as the sun doth shine upon it
Shall glow the goodly pine upon it,
Long as the stars do gleam upon it
Shall Memory come to dream upon it.




30
LIBERTY.
yT    O LIBERTY!- There is no dearer name
To our own country: and if any land
That shines before her on the list of fame
Pretend an earlier title to the grand,
The godlike attribute of being free;
If that proud city which o'erlooks the waves
Of Salamis, hard by Thermopyle, -
Or this, whose walls historic Tiber laves,
Point to the past, and say, " You learned of me! 
Yet from America the world receives
The lesson now; for there with larger blaze
The everlasting torch of Freedom lives:
She keeps the faith, and her example gives
Back to regenerate Rome its nobler days.




31
FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND.
ELL for that land whose greatest are her best!
Twice this hath been our fortune,    thou wert one,
Our country's Father and her noblest Son!
Whose birth to-day, North, South, and East and West
Honor alike, —a fame by all confessed.
Our second Washington hath yet to run
Some course of contest; but the day's begun
When one emotion this whole nation's breast
Shall thrill at mention of so good a name,
That leaves the greatness of old days gone by
At such a distance on the way to glory!
And men that -now behold his bust with blame
Shall feel the tardy truth bedim their eye,
Recalling Lincoln's words and acts and story.




32
TO J. M. B.,
IN RETURN FOR SOME PRAIRIE BIRDS.'T   IS a pretty fair arm, that of ours in the West;
And the poultry they raise there, it equals the best;
These hens of the prairie - I never have seen
A civilized capon more plump or as clean.'Tis a fine hunting ground the domain we possess,
Some thousand miles off, - sure it cannot be less;
For it took'em three days, in the mire and the snow,
To get these birds hither, - the rivers were low.
I have walked over England, and given a look
At all their great houses; but ne'er was a duke,
For all his French pedigree, all his fair crest,
That had such a park as our park in the West.




33
Gray bird of the wilderness! lucky for you
That you'scaped the fell shaft of the wandering Sioux!
Then the savage had gorged you, half burnt and half raw,
And tossed your sweet bones a bonne bouche to his squaw.
But now you shall grace an Athenian board,
And sparkling libations to you shall be poured;
If Iowa send game and Ohio send wine,
What's to hinder your poet? Why shouldn't he dine?
What have they at Windsor we cannot have here?
If we've no royal names, yet we'll have royal cheer:
This only is wanting, - that he were my guest
Whose friendship supplies me with birds from the West.
5




34
ST. PERAY. —A VINOUS ODE.
I.
T  I-IEY came in cloaks with cowls of tin,
Six friars, methought, " of orders gray,"
I took the gentle creature in,
For charity - and " St. Peray."
II.
So meek they looked, so thinly clad!
Yet, as I marked their modest mien,
Mine eyes grew dim, as'twere I had
A sudden stroke of drop serene.*
III.
And surely no serener drop
Did ever light on Hermon's Hill,
Or on Mount Tabor's flowing top
From the soft Syrian stars distil.
" So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs." -MILTON.




35
Iv.
Then those mild brethren unto me,
Each in their crystal chalice, brought
Great medicine for the mind, to free
The fancy and sublime the thought.
v.
And well I knew, in that fair guise,
Whose blessed messengers they were!'Twas this that so bedewed mine eyes,
This'twas that set my muse astir.
VI.
If but their aspect had this power,
What they will do, you cannot doubt,
Dear Tom, when comes the genial hour,
To let the imprisoned angels out.




36
THE LOST SHIP.
T  EHERE'S a gem in the goblet: Oh! drink it, and say
If its taste be not salt as the wild ocean spray.
Is't a pearl or a chrysolite? tell - as I sip,
What gives it this bitter that palsies my lip?'Tis the gem in the goblet.  I say, drink it down;'Twould outvalue the best in an emperor's crown;'Tis a pearl, but it never was born in a shell:
Such a pearl from that mother at Calvary fell.'Tis a crystal, but never was found in a mine!'Tis a diamond; but, ah, how it tastes of the brine!
)rink it down and have done, like the queen of the Nile:
Drink the pearl, - take the asp, - and be patient awhile.




37
Oh! tell me the name of this treasure of thine,
What jewel it was that you dropt in the wine;
What ruby or topaz, or what may it be
That makes the drink sparkle, and taste of the sea.'Twas a thing that fell from me, -a tear that I shed
For the good and the lovely and brave that are dead.
I look up to the Day, but the fog hides the sun,
And the sky of October is mournful and dun.
I look to the Night, but Arcturus is there!
And the name of that vessel it gleams in the Bear:
I read it in all things, that story of woe!
In the stars o'er my head, and the waters below.




38
CHARADE.
S  EATED I stand, nor lift my foot;
And yet no eagle soars like me:
I grow not, yet no elm hath root
To match with mine, nor any tree.
Guess my first syllable who can?
Just half a sovereign I require.
The Scotch corruption of a man,
And half of all the world's desire.
Now add thereto a serpent's part, -
I tell thee add, - but fling away
His tail, if you would have my heart, 
Or his conclusion, I should say.




39
Ever, before another's door
Is entered, gently give my third, -
A thing perchance he merits more,
Who cannot guess this Indian word.




40
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.
A MID the aisle, apart, there stood
A mourner like the rest;
And, while the solemn rites were said,
He fashioned into verse his mood,
That would not be repressed.
Why did they bring him home,
Bright jewel set in lead 
Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
And lay him with the mighty dead, -
With Adonais, and the rest
Of all the young and good and fair
That drew the milk of English breast,
And their last sigh in Latin air!
Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;




41
For many a lustre, many an aeon,
IHe might sleep well in the Pantheon,
Deep in the sacred city's womb,
The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
Lay him'neath Diocletian's dome,
Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
Near to that house in which he dwelt, 
House that to many seemed a home,
So much with him they loved and felt.
We were his guests a hundred times;
We loved him for his genial ways;
lie gave me credit for my rhymes,
And made me blush with praise.
Ah! there be many histories
That no historian writes,
And friendship hath its mysteries
And consecrated nights;
Amid the busy days of pain,
Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
Weary midnight, weary morn,
Years of struggle paid with scorn, 
6




42
Yet oft amid all this despair,
Long rambles in the Autumn days
O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
Bright moments snatched from care,
When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
We roved and dined on crust and curds,
Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
And then, returning late,
After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
Suppers and nights of gods; and then
Mornings that made us new-born men;
iRare nights at the Minerva tavern,
With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
Free nights, but fearless and without repoof,
For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
O Rome! what memories awake,
When Crawford's name is said,
Of days and friends for whose dear sake
That path of Hades unto me
Will have no more of dread''han his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice!




43
0 Crawford! husband, father, brother,
Are in that name, that little word!
Let me no more my sorrow smother;
Grief stirs me, and I would be stirred.
0 Death, thou teacher true and rough!
Full oft I fear that we have erred,
And have not loved enough;
But, 0 ye friends, this side of Acheron,
Who cling to me to-day,
I shall not know my love till ye are gone
And I am gray!
Fair women with your loving eyes,
Old men that once my footsteps led,
Sweet children, - much as all I prize,
Until the sacred dust of death be shed
Upon each dear and venerable head,
I cannot love you as I love the dead!
But now, the natural man being sown,
We can more lucidly behold
The spiritual one;
For we, till time shall end,
Full visibly shall see our friend




44
In all his hand did mould,That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!
When on some blessed studious day
To my loved Library I wend my way,
Amid the forms that give the Gallery grace
His thought in that pale poet I shall trace, -
Keen Orpheus with his eyes
Fixed deep in ruddy hell,
Seeking amid those lurid skies
The wife he loved so well, -
All that was in my Master's thought,
And, in that constant hand wherewith he wrought,
The eternal type of constancy.
Thou marble husband! might there be
M\Iore of flesh and blood like thee!
Or if, in Music's festive hall,
I come to cheat me of my care,
Amid the swell, the dying fall,
His genius greets me there.
O man of bronze! thy solemn air -
Best soother of a troubled brain 
Floods me with memories, and again




45
As thou stand'st visibly to men,
Beloved musician! so once more
Crawford comes back, that did thy form restore.
Well, - requiescat! let him pass!
Good mourners, go your several ways!
He needs no further rite nor mass
Nor eulogy, who best could praise
Himself in marble and in brass;
Yet his best momument did raise,
Not in those perishable things
That men eternal deem,The pride of palaces and kings, -
But in such works as must avail him there,
With Him who, from the extreme
Love that was in his breast,
Said, " Come, all ye that heavy burdens bear,
And I will give you rest! "




46
TO A LATIN SCHOOL BOY,
THE FIRST IN HIS CLASS.
I.
M  /Y boy, at morn thy violets came:
I took them with my tea;
And, when I read the giver's name,
It sweetened my bohea.'Tis true that violets give me joy,
My childhood they restore;
But, much as I love flowers, my boy!
I love good children more.
A lad like Clement or thyself
I cling to as a brother;
And here's a new book for your shelf,
That tells of such another.




47
II.
THE " Boy Inventor " it is styled;
A simple, faithful story
About a fair-haired English child
Who gained a little glory,
By being honest, and by work,
To which he still was loyal,
Deeming it base his task to shirk,
And counting labor royal:
All the day filing, at his bench,
With hands not much like satin,
By night he hammered hard at French
Or chemistry or Latin!
But little Matthew's midnight lamp
Fed not on oil alone;
But from his forehead sucked the damp,
And the marrow from his bone,
And the life-drop from his noble heart
That did itself consume
With its own working: so apart
We bore him - to his tomb.




48
III.
THE " application " Tom! is this:
Be temperate, ev'n in labor,
Who strives too much is like to miss,
And cannot serve his neighbor.
"Wisely and slow" is Shakspeare's word:
Slow may be sure at last:
Be a " slow coach" - stand the reproach:
"They stumble that run fast."




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OUR  AUNT.
NIL EGO CONTULERIM[ JUCUNDL2 SANUS AMICE.
W     E called her aunt, though she was none of ours,
And might have given her even a Mother's name,
Who seemed like summer-air, or light or flowers,
Still to belong to all where'er she came.
Dwelling with us, we deemed her more than kin,
For kindness made her so; and when she sighed
Her last farewell, we felt as she had been
Only called home, and that ourselves had died.
So much of life she took from us, that all,
When she departed, felt the bitter blight;
As when we take a picture from the wall,
Where it long was, and see but dust and white.
7




50
But in this blank we'll hang an ocean wreath,
Made by fond hands, of many-colored moss,
And write her name, and when she died, beneath,
Think of her gain, and speak no more of loss.




51
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PEACOCK.
T    HE peacock sits perched on the roof all night,
And wakes up the farmhouse before'tis light;
But his matins they suit not the delicate ear
Of the drowsy damsels, that half in fear
And half in disgust his discord hear.
If the soul's migration from frame to frame
Be truth, tell me now whence the peacock's came?
Say if it had birth at the musical close
Of a dying hyena, - or if it arose
From a Puritan scold that sang psalms through her nose?
Well: a jackass there was - but you need not look
For this fable of mine in old 2Esop's bookThat one complaint all his life had whined,
How Nature had been either blind or unkind
To give him an aspect so unrefined.




52
"'Tis cruel, he groaned, " that I cannot escape
From the vile prison-house of this horrible shape:
So gentle a temper as mine to shut in
This figure uncouth and so shaggy a skin,
And then these long ears! - it's a shame and a sin."
Good-natured Jove his upbraidings heard,
And changed the vain quadruped into a bird;
And garnished his plumage with many a spot
Of ineffable hue, such as earth wears not, —
For he dipped him into the rainbow-pot.
So dainty he looked in his gold and green,
That the monarch presented the bird to his queen,
Who, taken with colors, —as most ladies are, -
Had him harnessed straight in her crystal car
Wherein she travels fiom star to star.
But soon as his thanks the poor dissonant thing
Began to bray forth when he strove to sing,
"Poor creature! " quoth Jove, " spite of all my pains,
Your spirit shines out in your donkey strains!
Though plumed like an angel the ass remains."




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So you see, love, that goodness is better than grace;
For the proverb fails in the peacock's case,
Which says that fine feathers make fine birds too:
This other old adage is far more true, -
They only are handsome that handsomely do.




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THE COCKLE-SHELL.
I  CAME from the greenwood, I came to the sea,
But found on my table no cockle for me!
There were bills from the butcher, and billets from girls,
Things common as pebbles, and precious as pearls,
There were volumes of poetry, volumes of prose, 
By fifty new poets whom nobody knows;
There were things fair to look at, and things sweet to smell,
Engravings and nosegays, -but devil a shell!
Now, my lady, I teased her with many a prayer,
When she went to the ocean, to think of me there,
And to write me a letter at Sudbury Oaks, -
A page full of gossip, and all the best jokes 
This, indeed, she denied me,- but whispered, "Write me,
And then I will think of you, down by the sea."
"Oh, think of me everywhere, lady, -farewell!
But, to show that you think of me, send me a shell."




55
Then I went to the greenwood,- I slept in the shade
Of the midsummer branches that sang serenade;
There I breathed the fresh meadows, I drank the warm vine,
I tasted the perfume that weeps from the pine,
And I lay by the brookside, a listening the bee,
And was lulled by the locust, - but thought of the sea;
1 picked the green apples by chance as they fell,
And I fed me with berries,-but sighed for my shell.
Back and forth to the wood with no song on my lips,
Back and forth to the city to gaze on the ships, -
To eye the tall vessels and smell of the sea, 
But scallop or cockle comes never to me!
I wander at daybreak, I sit late at night, -
And I think many things, but have no heart to write;
No heart, dear, to speak of,'tis mute in its cell,Could Apollo make music, deprived of his shell 




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ALLE  SORELLE.
y OU nymphs that blossom in the shade,
If every flower that drinks the dew
The symbol be of some fair maid,
To what shall I resemble you?
Since not a fragrance nor a bloom,
That makes the glory of your fields,
But in its freshness or perfume,
Some likeness to your beauty yields.
One to a chaste magnolia's flowerSole bud upon the virgin tree -
I might compare; but scarce the power
To tell you why belongs to me,




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Save that her sunny presence wears
The radiant aspect of the South:
Long summer days and Southern airs
Shine in her eyes, play round her mouth.
But you, to one another vowed,
Who lead the sacred life, apart
From the vain clamor of the crowd,
From the wild tumult of the heart,
In your own groves your emblems grow,
Walled round with silence everywhere,
And lifted from the world below
To healthier soil and purer air.
For thou, of eye and soul serene,
Seem'st, lady whom I most adore!
A mountain laurel, ever green,
Sprinkling the hills with springtime o'er:
No matter whether summer's drought
A look of withering winter bring,
Or if December's blast be out,
Where thou art dwelling - it is spring.
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Thy sister is that modest, pale,
And sweetest nursling of the wood,
That men call lily of the vale
Because it dwells in lowly mood:
Under the laurel shade it grows,
Nestling itself so close thereby
That, when their blossoms fall, the snows
Of both together mingled lie:
And both in beauty seem so even,
That now I worship one, and now
Find in the other half my Heaven, -
Guess, O my dearest, which art thou 
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