THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A MEMORIAL FOR HER FRIENDS. 
 
 P i E R o ' s PAINTING 
 
 OTHER POEMS AND PAPERS, 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE SMITH. 
 
 1 I 
 
 EDITED 
 
 BY HENRY W. BELLOWS, 
 
 PASTOR OF ALL SOULS CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & COMPANY, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 
 
 654 BROADWAY. 
 
 1872.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 
 
 BY SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 POOLE & MACLAUCHLAN, PRINTERS, 
 205-213 East Twelfth Street,
 
 3S51 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 FLORENCE SMITH, daughter of Augustus F. Smith and 
 Lucy Elliot, was born in New York, March u, 1845, and 
 died after a sudden illness, in her father's house at Fort 
 Washington, July 19, 1871. 
 
 A brief memorial by her Pastor, published 1 shortly aftf r 
 her decease, and reprinted here, will sufficiently introduce 
 the poems and few prose papers now offered her friends 
 which may safely be left to make their own impression. 
 
 [From the "Liberal Christian" of August 10, 1871.] 
 
 " The death of this lovely young woman, so lately moving 
 in beauty and promise through the wide circle of her ac- 
 quaintances, has naturally aroused an intense feeling of sor- 
 row and sympathy. Although slight in frame and delicate 
 in appearance, she had been accustomed to such an earnest 
 and varied life, and was so capable of mental labor and 
 
 1051878
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 social activity, that few persons could have imagined hei 
 either frail in constitution or liable to be taken off by sudden 
 illness. Doubtless the recent loss of a beloved mother and 
 an aunt almost equally dear (both dying within one month) 
 had given a dangerous shock to her system. Still more, the 
 responsibilities of an elder sister, called to take the place of 
 a most capable and devoted mother, had wrought upon her 
 serious and conscientious nature with perilous force, and 
 thinned away her power of resistance, until the assault of 
 typhoid fever, raging with unaccountable violence in her 
 system, found no reserved strength there to oppose it. A 
 few days did the usual work of weeks of sickness in breaking 
 up her constitution, and she died after being almost during 
 the whole of her severe illness in an unconscious or delirious 
 condition. Even in this state her habitual thoughtfulness 
 for others, sweet submission to pain and distress, and acqui- 
 escence in the wishes of those in care of her, triumphed 
 over an enfeebled and wandering mind. She even seemed 
 to know that her end was approaching, and once breathed, 
 as if to herself, the words, " There is a haven of rest at hand 
 after a hard battle." She asked after her sister, and ac- 
 quiesced in her inevitable absence ; breathed the names of
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 her pastors, and showed the tenderness, dignity, and dutiful 
 ness of her character, even in that state when human re- 
 sponsibleness ceases, and ordinary persons are so often made 
 the very reverse of their proper selves. 
 
 " This will not surprise any of those who knew best this 
 self-disciplined, high-toned and accomplished young woman. 
 For although at an age when maturity of powers and finish 
 of character are not expected, there was in her nothing 
 crude, incomplete, or unsettled. Under the inspiration and 
 guidance of a mother only too anxious to secure variety and 
 fulness, thoroughness and harmony in her education, and 
 who had devoted equal attention to her mind and heart, this 
 sensitive and receptive girl, endowed with unusual weight of 
 understanding, with exquisite moral sensibility, and a taste 
 for everything beautiful or artistic, had attained a culture 
 and discipline almost unexampled in women of her years. 
 Exact and thorough in her elementary scholarship ; reading 
 with system only the best books ; methodical in the storing 
 and order of her mind ; devoting certain hours of the day to 
 solitude and study she had laid up a rare amount of know- 
 ledge, and acquired a rarer habit of digesting what she 
 learned into wisdom. To her fine acquirements in English
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 history and literature she had added such a knowledge of 
 German,' French, and Italian as enabled her to profit by the 
 classical works in those languages. No difficulties daunted 
 her in coping with anything she wished to acquire. Patient, 
 persistent, courageous, she conquered what might be repug- 
 nant to her aptitudes by the force of her will and the inde- 
 fatigableness of her attention. 
 
 " Yet her solid studies had a perpetual rival in her aesthetic 
 taste. She had the temperament of a poet and the disposi- 
 tion of an artist. Sensitive to the beauties of nature, the 
 charms of solitary walks and lonely meditations, she found 
 the banks of the Hudson and the woods of Washington 
 Heights sources of inspiration, and fed her soul upon the 
 ripples of the river, the vistas that let in the morning and 
 evening sky, the budding trees, gay insects and wild flowers, 
 until the divine beauty of God's world had fashioned her 
 spirit into its own loveliness. The feelings thus inspired she 
 could pour out shyly in mellifluous and highly imaginative 
 verse, reserved for the eye of her choicest friends. She 
 celebrated her friendships with the offering of her graceful 
 muse. Had she lived to acquire a little more confidence in 
 her own genius and a little less reserve, we cannot doubt
 
 PREFACE. v 
 
 that she might have taken a public place among the acknow- 
 ledged poetesses of the land. But poetry was not more a 
 necessity of her nature than pictorial art, which she not 
 only felt the appetite to enjoy but the longing to create. 
 
 "The chief charm of the new Home in New York 
 darkened over by the absence of the mother that had ex- 
 pended so much thoughtfulness and taste in preparing it for 
 her children was, for Florence, her own studio, hung about 
 with her own productions, and where she found a rare 
 pleasure in applying the knowledge and skill she had dili- 
 gently sought in the studios of professional artists. The 
 pencil and the brush, familiar to her hands from an early 
 age, were every day becoming dearer ; music, too, although 
 not perhaps the most attractive and easy of the arts to her, 
 she had mastered to a rare degree, reading classical authors 
 with a facility, and rendering them with a correctness and 
 ease, which only the persistency of her unconquerable will 
 and the habitual thoroughness and aspiration of her nature 
 could have made possible. Lovely and lofty in person and 
 bearing, she achieved all that so dignified and spiritually- 
 minded a girl could have desired in social accomplishments 
 or successes. Incapable of seeking the vulgar triumphs of
 
 Vlll PREFACE 
 
 mere beauty, or of using the frivolous arts of thoughtless 
 men-pleasers, she had gained a place in the admiration, re- 
 spect, and affections of all refined and competent judges of 
 womanly charms and worth such as very few girls attain. 
 With all the celestial delicacy and spiritual expression of a 
 maiden who has lost nothing of the innocency and freshness 
 of girlhood, she had the established dignity and weight of an 
 experienced woman, familiar with the serious problems of 
 life, schooled in perfect self-control, and settled in sober and 
 devout principles. 
 
 "This was largely due to the essential piety of her nature. 
 From childhood, aspiring, reverential, and addicted to musing 
 and meditation, her faith had been cultivated, until in the 
 strength of it she lived above the world while much in it, 
 and made her religious convictions and aims a solid and 
 ever-present part of her daily existence. Her mind was so 
 reasoning, in spite of its intuitive character, so sensible as 
 well as sensitive, so largely informed as well as imaginative 
 and poetic, so strong although so gentle, that her feelings 
 never ran away in mere sentiment, or exhaled in bright 
 clouds. What she saw, she heeded and walked by ; what 
 she believed, she lived out ; and what she was at any time,
 
 PREFACE. IS 
 
 she seemed capable of being at all times. Not without 
 some of the moodiness of the poetic and artistic tempera- 
 ment, she had no moods of action or principle. Steadiness, 
 consistency, settled power, marked her character and influ- 
 ence. The dignity, elevation, and purity of her soul, illu- 
 minating her face and informing her carriage, gave her a 
 special place in the respect, we had almost said reverence, 
 of her companions. She seemed almost incapable of 
 descending to the level of girlish pleasantry and nonsense, 
 and can hardly be conceived of as falling below herself even 
 in the intimacies of female friendship. She loved better to 
 discuss some speculative theme in morals, religion, art or 
 literature, than to gossip or chat idly about social trifles. 
 If she did that at all, it must have been in condescension to 
 weaker tastes and humbler capacities. 
 
 "Yet her high pursuits and ideals did not dwarf her 
 sense of the importance of ordinary domestic cares and 
 household duties. She had a great idea of a woman's 
 domestic virtues and victories in the charge of servants, 
 the comfort of the home, the training of growing children, 
 the use of the needle. Indeed, all things that came to 
 her in the holy name of duty were at once accepted
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 and became dignified. No pleasures, no allurements oi 
 society, no opportunities of improvement, could have torn 
 her away from any positive duty, however humble its 
 form or drudging its performance. 
 
 *' What an ideal is this for a girl born and bred in 
 luxury, brought up in New York society, who had seen 
 life at home and abroad, had been courted and admired, 
 and might have chosen almost any kind of life that 
 suited her ! Perfection ! intellectual, moral, spiritual per- 
 fection ! in attainments, culture, character, had seized 
 her heart, captivated her imagination, subdued her will, 
 and became the absorbing passion of her soul ! Nor was 
 her ideal self-chosen or a form of self-worship. God 
 Himself, seen in the face of Jesus Christ, was the original, 
 the inspirer, the ever-present nourisher of the Ideal she pur- 
 sued. Her own culture was the worship she rendered her 
 Maker with the conscious purpose of honoring and glori- 
 fying God. Her faith, inquisitive and rational, was not the 
 skeptical, shadowy, and sentimental faith of many, but well 
 grounded in knowledge, deepened by experience, and rip- 
 ened in prayer ; it was positive and practical and settled for 
 daily use and daily support. In short, she was a serious,
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 devout, and eonsecrated Christian, who had laid hold of 
 "the powers of the world to come," and found them full 
 of peace, comfort, hope, and inspiration. Let others tell 
 what Florence was as a daughter, a sister, a friend : I 
 can only tell what she seemed to me as a pastor, con- 
 sidering her as a woman and a daughter of God. 
 
 " Now that this lovely and lofty girl has passed on, we 
 seem all at once to feel that we ought never to have expected 
 her to stay long in this world. A natural vestal, we feel that 
 she fulfilled her mission more completely in dying without 
 any other ties than those to which a maiden is born. And, 
 really, what had this life left to do for her or with her ? We 
 could not have wished her changed or other than she was. 
 More would have made her less. She had attained an excep- 
 tional kind of perfection. It was her own, unlike that 
 of any other, as her looks were all her own except in 
 her coffin, where she looked as if her mother had re- 
 turned to die in her place ! Whose eyes opened such a 
 depth of celestial purity ; whose brow wore such heavenly 
 calmness ; whose hair was touched with such angelic gold, 
 or fell into a purer and more consecrated bosom? Who 
 more than she rebuked by her presence every ill-timed or
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 less dignified thought or feeling? What has this world to 
 offer but descent for those who have attained such snowy 
 heights of character ? Heaven opens naturally before foot- 
 steps that must sink if they advance further upon earth. 
 God's time is always best. And He has taken our Florence 
 " like a lily in bloom," before its fragrance had lessened, or 
 its petals received one stain, but not before it had opened in 
 all its beauty, and been recognized as among the rarest, 
 sweetest, whitest of flowers !"
 
 POEMS. 
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Dedicated to my Cousin Edith, who once asked me to write a story 
 
 IN Michael Angelo's house in Florence there is a little room which not 
 everybody enters. There is kept sacred his writing-desk, with some auto- 
 graph verses, and there hangs the picture of a lovely youthful face, golden- 
 haired, with down-dropped lids, simply painted, but a face one never can 
 forget. They call it Vittoria Colonna, but the master never saw his friend 
 till she was long past that early bloom. It was strange and touching 
 to see it there ; but, though no one ever told me, I think my " Piero " 
 must have painted it ! The story is all my own, except the anecdote of 
 the child's request, which I found in Grimm's " Life." 
 
 A TALE of one who lived and loved in Rome ; 
 
 Not long, nor sad, although it ends with death 
 
 For all lives touch the River at the last. 
 
 The other shore we see not, but I think 
 
 This life, though short, could not be wholly sad, 
 
 Because an Angel came to end it. Yes 
 
 If the young eyelids closed from stress of light, 
 
 They opened not on darkness afterward !
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 There is no face in Rome now, like to his, 
 My Piero's, whose deep eyes, half light, half gloom, 
 Shine still upon me through three hundred years ; 
 No matter where I saw them, some dim sketch 
 By Raphael's hand, blurred by an afterthought 
 Of heavenly babyhood, but shining so, 
 Behind the darkness and the dust of years, 
 Methinks they live yet. Therefore I, as one 
 Who knows their story, should not let it die. 
 
 If you could see him as I see him now ! 
 Brown cheeks, sun-touched to crimson, mouth and 
 
 eyes, 
 
 Through possibility of sadness, sweet 
 Enough ! I told you he was beautiful. 
 This gift had Nature given him, and one more 
 To know her beautiful who gave him this, 
 And find her beauty out in everything. 
 'Twas much yes, truly ! yet men called him poor. 
 
 Down the steep hill where stands the Capitol, 
 There winds a street where low huts hide their heads, 
 Shells clinging to a wreck of palaces, 
 And there dwelt Piero. 'Twas in the old days, 
 And gardens trailed their glories down the slope, 
 Where modern Rome now treads with busy feet.
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 9 
 
 'Twas lovelier then. There day by day the boy 
 
 With his young sister Lucia gathered flowers, 
 
 And twisted posies for the dames of Rome. 
 
 Light food they needed, slept light sleep, but calm, 
 
 And knew no care, nor lived but for the hour. 
 
 A boy I called him, ay ! but so much man, 
 
 That clouds to children were as storms to him, 
 
 And mere warm sunshine filled his veins with flame. 
 
 Life's blossom yet was folded in the bud 
 
 It needed but a touch to burst in bloom ! 
 
 Art ruled in Rome then, and Rome ruled the world. 
 
 What wonder if her children stepped as kings, 
 
 When Beauty stooped from heaven as handmaiden 
 
 To do the bidding of the lowliest, 
 
 And princes knelt while beggars were divine 
 
 The crown cast down before the aureole ! 
 
 Not perfect times those, neither. Let that pass 
 
 I have to do with Art ; she much with heaven ! 
 
 Those were the days of Michael Angelo 
 
 Man, sculptor who in cool Firenze strove 
 
 With life as with the marble, moulding it 
 
 By master-strokes to more than mortal. He 
 
 On Rome's horizon like a mountain stood, 
 
 Not dim, but grand in distance, rugged, vast,
 
 IO PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Like that Carrara, which his soul was fain 
 
 In hollowing out to set on giant feet, 
 
 A mighty statue, frowning on the sea. 
 
 So stood he by the Arno. Raphael, 
 
 A rippling lake, that mirrored heaven and him 
 
 O'erflowing with Italian sunshine, poured 
 
 His warm soul forth upon the dazzled world, 
 
 And garlanded with flowers the feet of Rome. 
 
 The air was steeped in beauty, as those groves, 
 
 In fair Sorrento, by the southern sea, 
 That palpitate with perfume through green gloom, 
 Dropping their sphered gold from branches, white 
 With sprinkled stars the new Hesperides ! 
 Mere breath was living then, and life was joy, 
 Unless transfused by love's more poignant bliss,. 
 That knows death best, because itself is life ! 
 So lived this one I write of, and so died 
 So loved, and therefore, dying, conquered death ! 
 When the dew faded from the gathered flowers, 
 And hot noon filled the streets, they wandered forth, 
 Piero and Lucia, where some shadowed church 
 Gave back cool echoes to their footsteps. Dim 
 With incense, stirring with low organ-swells, 
 And luminous with dusky bars of light,
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. II 
 
 'Twas an enchanted air. Far down the aisle 
 The tapers flickered o'er the altar white, 
 And a sweet, shadowy maiden-face looked down, 
 Lit up with sudden glory ; martyred saints 
 Smiled from the pictured walls and startled them ; 
 While here and there a kneeling worshipper 
 Told o'er his beads with downcast eyes, nor recked 
 Aught of those radiant forms that filled the church, 
 Down floating from the walls like wreaths of mist ! 
 So passed the mid-day, till the afternoon 
 Grew golden on the lone Campagna. There, 
 Beneath some broken archway, grown with vines, 
 They lay and watched the shadows lengthening, 
 And over the blue Alban hills the sun 
 Down-dropping dreamily to his warm couch, 
 Grown splendid, purple-curtained, in the West. 
 Then, with the glow upon their faces, turned, 
 And homeward went, through twilight streets astir. 
 Sometimes as models in the studios 
 They spent long days, and listened to the talk 
 Of artists and young students, grave or gay, 
 Light chatter : who was fairest at the feast, 
 What doublet best became Aurelio, 
 And whether Giulia smiled when Cosmo sighed !
 
 12 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 But this was little. Hours on hours went by, 
 
 While silence filled the room the soft light came 
 
 Warm through the curtain, while young Piero stood 
 
 With arms uplift, breast bared for piercing, hair 
 
 Tossed back from forehead, and deep eyes alight 
 
 With mingled pain and rapture, as he deemed 
 
 Himself in very truth the hero-saint, 
 
 The beautiful Sebastian, waiting death ! 
 
 As Stephen he had knelt, as David touched 
 
 A harp of gold, and dreamed what it might be 
 
 To make such music as the poet king, 
 
 While he, alas ! so near the strings, was dumb ! 
 
 So the saints' stories grew familiar things, 
 
 Though sacred none the less, and some sweet tales 
 
 Of heathen love and longing mixed with them, 
 
 Until he had two worlds, and that less near 
 
 Was fairest. Sometimes, with grave, reverent words, 
 
 The master talked of Art, whose height supreme 
 
 No man might reach this side of all-wise Death. 
 
 But who in this life most attained, was he 
 
 Whose heart reached for the unattainable ! 
 
 Some days were broken when the patron came 
 
 Some rich-robed lord, or crimson cardinal 
 
 And praised, or dared to blame the picture ; told
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 13 
 
 Of the last statue on the Palatine, 
 Found in the diggings ordered by the Pope 
 An emperor's bust, a scornful, conquering god, 
 Or foam-white Venus of Praxiteles. 
 Listening behind the master's easel, then 
 The boy would watch the canvas, growing warm 
 Beneath the heaped-up touches of the brush, 
 And strive to ravel out the mingled hues. 
 Sometimes they spoke of wars or politics, 
 But that passed by unheeded, till the talk 
 Fell on some word of Michael Angelo's 
 To Julius, or the Emperor's answer, made 
 To taunting courtier : " Dukes are mine, 
 To make or unmake ; but the artist, God's ! " 
 Then glanced the tide of converse yet aside 
 With richly-flowing words, to tell of feasts 
 In Florence, or of looked-for pomps in Rome, 
 And so back to the common world again. 
 
 Yet so glowed in his breast the artist-soul, 
 That all these things had meanings ; and the blare 
 Of trumpets, and the swaying, measured steps 
 Of incense-bearers, and the gleam of gold, 
 And glory of great banners overhead, 
 Thrilled through him in hot bursts of pulsing life
 
 T4 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Only in watching a procession. Well, 
 There came a day when some high festival 
 Had set the city stirring with the morn. 
 Crowds met in the piazza. Peasants, priests, 
 None talked but of the pageant. I forget 
 What was the special reason of the pomp 
 Perhaps a noble marriage. This at least 
 I know all Rome knew that the fairest dames, 
 And proudest from among the splendid court, 
 Granting unwonted grace, had deigned to shine, 
 The cynosure to-day of all the show. 
 
 Great stir of rustling garments moved the air, 
 And murmur of hushed voices, when the noon 
 Rained down from thousand bells a shower of sound, 
 And the sharp sunshine smote the air to gold. 
 On through the streets the gorgeous pageant rolled ; 
 Wave after wave of music and of light 
 Rose high, and passed ; while Piero stood athirst, 
 Waiting and watching, with his kindled eyes 
 Upraised in expectation, lips apart 
 With panting, breaths, and careless hands down- 
 dropped, 
 
 With their sweet burden of forgotten flowers. 
 He knew not what he looked for, but his heart
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 15 
 
 Was nigh to breaking with a boding joy. 
 Life, one long passion for the beautiful, 
 Struggling within him toward this perfect hour, 
 Stood up full-statured, stretching out its arms 
 Full-blossomed manhood, reaching for its crown. 
 Not much, perhaps, to move him, and yet all 
 Sound, sight, breath, being perfectly attuned, 
 Waiting one touch, divine, invisible, 
 To find a conscious self in harmony ! 
 So the young lyre, before Apollo woke 
 The soul that slept within it, must have dreamed, 
 The gold strings tense with longing life astir 
 Beneath the pulsing chords that felt his breath, 
 Leaping to meet his fiery finger-tips 
 Not yet quite music, but the joy of it ! 
 
 On swept the stream of color and sweet sound, 
 Till the flood rose into a dazzling crest 
 Of blinding white, while uptossed flowers, like spray, 
 Made rainbows all around. High o'er the crowd, 
 Enthroned on a car of ivory, 
 
 Shell-shaped, gold-blazoned, clust'ring in warm shade 
 Of curtains rose-streaked like the nautilus, 
 With fair arms wreathed as for the dance, they stood, 
 Like sea-nymphs bathed in sunrise. Radiant
 
 l6 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Each form, from bright hair, seaweed-garlanded, 
 
 To pearly feet, kissed by the floating hem 
 
 Of garments shining like the tinted dawn. 
 
 So, slowly, twined in swaying harmonies 
 
 Of movement that was music, on they came. 
 
 A crowd of mimic Tritons danced before, 
 
 Blowing their conchs ; while hidden instruments, 
 
 Clear pipes, and throbbing viols, choked with joy, 
 
 Dissolved their souls, like Cleopatra's pearl, 
 
 Filling with perfect beauty Life's full cup, 
 
 To overflow in rapture that was pain ! 
 
 And Piero stood and waited by the way, 
 
 Like that blind one who cried aloud for sight, 
 
 When the irradiate Presence, passing by, 
 
 Smote his dull orbs with light's presentiment ! 
 
 It came at last, long looked-for, but not seen 
 
 The joy that should be his for evermore 
 
 Hidden by veiling moisture of dim eyes, 
 
 That through the dazzle set a crown of rays 
 
 On every head, and saw the crown, no face ! 
 
 So blazed the splendor on him through quick tears. 
 
 Nearer they came, and clearer grew his sight, 
 Till close upon him beamed one lovely face, 
 Fairest amid the fair, and noblest far
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. I/ 
 
 Where all were noble. Ay, a queen she seemed, 
 By the white brow, wreathed with rare hair of gold, 
 And the pure arch above the regal eyes, 
 Calm through sweet strength, that could command 
 
 with smiles ! 
 
 A queen she was, and born to rule all hearts 
 Worshipped already at whose feet the great 
 Had knelt, should kneel, till one, most great of all, 
 In after days her prince and peer should come, 
 And lead her forth from flowery paths, to sit 
 On a pure throne with him, above the world. 
 Vittoria Colonna, sovereign soul 
 That dared to claim its equal, dared to love 
 As angels love, beloved by angels ! 
 A glorious face, yet very woman's too 
 With tender lips, within whose dainty curves 
 Joy nestled dreamily ; proud too, but sweet 
 So sweet one wondered if their smile could need 
 The touch of pain to make it holier. 
 (That last grace too was hers, but afterward.) 
 Within the rosy shadow bright she stood, 
 Like morn's fair star, half hid in veiling mist, 
 A promise of the glory yet to be ! 
 So broke the dawn upon him through her face. 
 
 2
 
 l8 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Like mystic Aphrodite, from the sea 
 
 Of troubled longing, vague, and vast, and dim, 
 
 Where lay a world yet uncreate, she rose 
 
 Beauty from chaos, bringing love. His heart 
 
 Waked with the sudden raising of her lids, 
 
 And the sweet pain was life. Somewhat apart 
 
 She had been standing, till she felt his look, 
 
 And half she stooped to reach the wealth of flowers 
 
 He lifted with his trembling hands to hers. 
 
 A little flushed before so many eyes, 
 
 Yet queenly still, she rose and turned, then smiled ; 
 
 And while he stood entranced, the spell was sealed 
 
 By the sweet sudden magic of her voice. 
 
 " Grazia, son belle" some such gracious words, 
 
 Sweet Tuscan, nobler in her Roman mouth ! 
 
 He went away and loved her. That was all. 
 
 What matter if the pageant passed him by, 
 
 Leaving him there a moment motionless, 
 
 With outstretched arms, as groping for lost light 
 
 Blind ? ay ! but blind as one who sees the sun, 
 
 And having dared to look so high, no more 
 
 Sees any brilliancy in earthly bloom, 
 
 But that one image floats before his sight, 
 
 A haunting glory, dimming the low world !
 
 PIE RO'S PAINTING. 19 
 
 Back through the crowd with faltering steps he went, 
 And sought the lowly cabin where he dwelt. 
 Far from the surging murmur of the streets, 
 Quiet it was, but lonely nevermore. 
 One presence filled the air, one silver voice 
 Made rich the silence, and one lovely face 
 Startled the sunshine with a sweet surprise. 
 Still was the house, and bright with afternoon. 
 Lucia had lingered till the show was past, 
 Cared for by some kind neighbor. On the floor 
 His footsteps echoed strangely, and his breath 
 Seemed loud there, in the hush that was not calm. 
 Something had entered and possessed the place, 
 And, like a subtle scent invisible, 
 Flooded his senses with a vague delight. 
 It had come in before him, the new joy, 
 Transfiguring the old life with sense of change ! 
 And he sank down, his face between his hands, 
 O'erwhelmed with a strange languor, while his dream 
 (If dream it was) worked all its will with him. 
 Long did he sit there, till the darkness fell, 
 And the short twilight blossomed into stars ; 
 Then roused him suddenly at sound of feet, 
 And a young, joyous voice without the door.
 
 20 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 He rose and let the prattling Lucia in, 
 And smiled, and listened to her merry talk. 
 But the words seemed to come from far away, 
 And he smiled absently, with eyes that looked 
 Beyond into the distance, seeking still 
 The beauty of that vision he had seen ! 
 From that day forth a shadow filled his life, 
 Fallen from too much brightness. 'Twas a veil 
 Between him and the glitter of the world 
 Scarce seen of men, and yet it shut him in 
 Alone with that one glory of his dream ! 
 One vivid moment leaped up in the past, 
 And, contradicting earth and time with heaven, 
 Made an eternal Now of memory ! 
 One might have called him sorrowful, and yet 
 Such woe as his was nigh of kin to bliss. 
 The world around him faded to a dream ; 
 His dream became a world. Therein he lived, 
 Silent among the smiling, although fain 
 That others should be happy ; but sometimes, 
 When the gay faces round him had grown grave, 
 Tired out with too much laughter, his still gaze, 
 Burning with steady brightness, drew down joy 
 From heights they knew not of, and smiled indeed
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 21 
 
 Tender he was to the fair little one 
 His sister, whom he cherished till he died 
 But restless at the heart, so that his life, 
 And e'en his loving cares, grew wearisome. 
 The days passed slowly, lengthening hour by hour, 
 Until he scarce was 'ware of day or night, 
 Nor anything but one great panting pause, 
 Wherein the whole'world seemed to hold its breath ; 
 Not death, nor sleep, but the strange darkling trance 
 Wherein life circles slowly, with great wings 
 Brooding, and from the shadow comes the Birth. 
 So in a mystery long while he walked, 
 Encompassed with dull pain, till in his soul 
 A something stirred, a passionate dumb ache, 
 That woke one day and cried ; so, finding voice, 
 The hidden yearning grew the conscious Love. 
 Men say there is no love where hope is not. 
 It is not so for verily he loved, 
 This simple youth in Italy that time, 
 Pouring his soul out at her royal feet, 
 )Who smiled, and then forgot him. Ay, no hope, 
 But endless longing had he, endless love ! 
 A flame had dropped from heaven upon his heart 
 As on an altar, burning self away
 
 22 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 On fiery pinions snatching up his life, 
 
 To burn, one glory more, amid God's stars. 
 
 Ah ! tell me whether in the courts of heaven 
 
 The seraphs and the crowned cherubim, 
 
 With rapturous voices tuned to one hymn, 
 
 'Twixt love and worship know of difference ! 
 
 'Tis the grand angels nearest to the Throne 
 
 That bow the lowest. Man thinks" otherwise. 
 
 But to my tale. There's truth, too, in those words, 
 
 So very human : " Without hope, no love ! " 
 
 There must be some fruition for desire 
 
 Some visible height, beneath the clouds, to climb, 
 
 Or aspiration might become despair. 
 
 Love is not love till something's born of it. 
 
 Therefore this kindling joy that filled his soul 
 
 Must find an outlet though in catching air 
 
 It burned him with it ! Shining still, one face 
 
 Made a great radiance in him, till at last 
 
 He needs must give that beauty to the world. 
 
 Not that the world cared could it ever know 
 
 The innermost sweet secret of those eyes, 
 
 Into whose depths he looked, as day by day 
 
 He strove to paint her portrait ! She did seem 
 
 More gracious ever turning not away
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 23 
 
 The while he gazed she even looked again, 
 Drinking his eyes up into hers. Almost 
 At times a faintness seized him, and the brush 
 Dropped from a hand that trembling did not dare 
 To give such loveliness an earthly mould ! 
 Before his easel rapt, so passed the days. 
 His mood grew silent ever, and his sleep 
 Went from him. Scarce he touched the simple food 
 That Lucia brought him marvelling with wide eyes 
 At the fair lady with the golden hair, 
 Whom Piero had such wondrous skill to put 
 On the rough canvas that he looked at so ! 
 'Twas like that one in the procession ! Thus 
 She talked, a childish chatter, falling light 
 Upon his ears, like babbling foam that comes 
 Against a shore that trembles at the shock 
 Of the huge thunderous undertone of waves. 
 No more in the fair gardens 'neath the sun 
 He twined the dewy flowers, no more he went 
 At evening to the solitary fields 
 Of the Campagna, where the herdsman's staff 
 Guided the tinkling flocks to the still fold. 
 "What's come to Piero?" asked his bright-eyed 
 mates,
 
 24 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Who missed him at the vintage and the dance. 
 
 In blue Albano, 'mid the hazy hills, 
 
 They plucked the purple grapes, and, crowned with 
 
 leaves, 
 
 Sang merry songs with intertwined arms, 
 And kissed the glowing cheeks of sunburnt maids. 
 " What's come to Piero ? " Then there grew a talk 
 About the picture. 'Twas so beautiful 
 That it could speak, some said and half they feared 
 To talk about it. Very few had seen. 
 They came away with hushed steps and held breath, 
 For, faith ! there came a radiance from the hair 
 And Piero looked so strangely pale and wild. 
 Then, Piero was no artist. Did they know 
 Any among the talkers of a sketch 
 That he had ever made ? It was quite true 
 That he had sat oft in the studios, 
 And might have caught some trick of color there, 
 But that would not account. 'Twas something 
 
 strange 
 
 Some magic, that had wrought the wondrous thing ! 
 I tell not what they guessed, but 'twas the truth 
 Their words the shadow of it. From his lips 
 The color went to brighten hers ; his cheeks,
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 2$ 
 
 While the blood mantled up in hers, grew pale ; 
 And while the light went slowly from his eyes, 
 Those in the picture, 'neath their half-dropped lids, 
 Needed that shadow, lest you dared not gaze ! 
 So his face faded while the canvas glowed 
 And so his life was wrought into his work. 
 
 My tale is almost done. How long it was 
 He labored so, while the bright marvellous tints 
 Grew to unearthly beauty 'neath his hand, 
 The story saith not but for him at last 
 It came " the fulness of the time " when death 
 In one more hour should crown his work and him ! 
 
 O'erworn at last with utter weariness, 
 He sat before his easel the strong flame 
 That until now had lifted up his soul 
 Grew faint within him nigh to sink, at last, 
 In the sad embers of his burnt-out youth. 
 Full precious were the gifts myrrh, frankincense, 
 And balm, and rich red gold that he did cast 
 Upon that altar-fire, when life was his, 
 And hope, and brave ambition, scorning death. 
 And now, what was there more ? Yet there did lack 
 One touch divine to bring the living breath 
 Into that picture that he loved as life.
 
 26 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Too weak, too weak ! his very heart cried out 
 Death hung above him, stifling out the sun 
 So dark, so dark ! O God, was this the end ? 
 " I cannot die ! " he moaned " Not even this 
 Not this for all the life that might have been ? 
 Give me one moment I can call supreme 
 One joy in this being perfect, if naught else ! " 
 He fell upon the floor, and a deep swoon 
 Held him, with lids too close for the last sleep. 
 Yet so behind him Death had closed for aye 
 The gate of Pain, that grated with harsh bolt, 
 Leaving him there to wait a little space 
 Between the anguish and the Silence. Then, 
 Within that trance enfolded, came once more 
 His love, and nearer, till he felt her breath 
 Upon his face, grown cold with gathering dew 
 Of the last Night when heaven shall open up 
 Its depths on depths of unimagincd stars ! 
 She smiled, and he could watch her smile, so calm, 
 So strangely calm had grown his heart, the while 
 She looked on him with passionless pure eyes, 
 So deep the world seemed sunk in them and lost. 
 More heavenly was she, and he less afraid ! 
 He felt a voice about him, though her mouth
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 2/ 
 
 Moved not, she was so still. " I know," it said 
 
 " 'Tis much that thou hast given youth, hope, 
 
 And young ambition thou didst consecrate 
 
 Unto one service mine, and Love's. Almost 
 
 The sacrifice is finished. Wilt thou give 
 
 Thy life to crown the offering perfect ? Nay 
 
 Look on me once, and speak not. Now farewell. 
 
 One hour is given thee before thou die 
 
 One hour but one and thou shalt live ! Farewell." 
 
 He rose, with a strange calmness on his lips, 
 
 Set closely in the wonderful last smile 
 
 And painted silently. No sound was there 
 
 'Twas early morning, and the birds began 
 
 To carol, shrilly -sweet, without the door 1 . 
 
 He heard them not he knew not it was dawn, 
 
 But in his eyes there stood another Sun 
 
 And his face blazed a moment, ere 'twas white. 
 
 Look, look ! had you forgot the picture ? See, 
 
 It stirs the lips are parting a quick flush 
 
 Runs o'er the forehead like a shadow. Wait ! 
 
 Those lids are lifting can it be she breathes ? 
 
 No, no ! it was the flutter of the wind 
 
 That shook the canvas. It is morn, you know! 
 
 Hark ! now the breeze has sunk 'tis very still
 
 28 PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 I hear no bird even ah ! is that his face ? 
 
 The ashy veil has fallen quick, he swoons ! 
 
 But soft ! a gleam has come into his eyes 
 
 Did you hear nothing ? 'Twas a shuddering sigh, 
 
 As when one wakes from sleep the picture, see 
 
 I dare not look but I do think she smiled ! 
 
 " Vittoria ! " a sudden cry he falls, 
 
 And all is silent, save the piercing pain 
 
 That echoes from that joy, too sharp for earth. 
 
 Dying, he snatched down victory dying, too, 
 
 He spoke her name, and knew not it was hers ! 
 
 YEARS passed away, and o'er a quiet grave 
 The violets blossomed thicker every spring 
 Like memory, grown sweeter for past pain ! 
 Yet the short life had almost been forgot, 
 So long ago it was when on a day 
 It chanced that Michael Angelo, being then 
 In Rome, and old, and drawing near his end, 
 With slow steps, wrapped in mighty musing, walked 
 At evening homeward through the narrow street 
 That led, past gardens, from the Capitol.
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 2Q 
 
 Let none dare tell what thoughts were his that day 
 
 What dream of his grand work, already great 
 
 Forever incomplete, yet so sublime 
 
 The world's last Temple, and his monument ! 
 
 In that stern lonely heart what thoughts of death, 
 
 What memories of life what yearnings vast 
 
 After that heaven, that was to him so deep ! 
 
 Let none dare tell for with that mighty soul 
 
 Never but one could hold companionship 
 
 His Friend, loved as no woman e'er was loved, 
 
 His guide, his counsellor, and worthy all. 
 
 Perchance of Her he mused, for she was dead. 
 
 Let us be mute that thought is sacred most ! 
 
 So passed he down the steep path silently, 
 
 With head a little bent, nor heeding aught 
 
 Of passers-by, who whispering pointed out 
 
 With awe the Master till he was aware 
 
 Of a small sudden voice, that broke from lips 
 
 Of dainty red, beneath a child's wide eyes, 
 
 That gazed, and wondered, yet were not afraid. 
 
 " Are you the Messer Michael Angelo ? " 
 
 Then with the simple faith that knows no fear, 
 
 And " moveth all things," did it speak again. 
 
 " It is a long time I have waited, Sir
 
 3O PIERO'S PAINTING. 
 
 Yet I was glad to wait, because I thought 
 
 So much about the thing that I would ask 
 
 Yet now I think I am afraid ! Perhaps 
 
 You'd make a little picture for me, Sir 
 
 Just standing here yes, something beautiful ! " 
 
 And his eyes shone with hope, and his round cheeks 
 
 Dimpled with innocent smiles that came and went. 
 
 An answering smile lit up the old man's face, 
 
 And the sweet trustful heart made his heart warm. 
 
 Together, silent, in the sunny street, 
 
 With the slant rays behind them, stood the two 
 
 One looking upward, waiting, somewhat awed, 
 
 The other stooping, while upon his knee 
 
 He sketched an outline of the lovely thought 
 
 The child's eyes waked within him, while he drew. 
 
 'Twas a Madonna, and the face was hers, 
 
 His own Vittoria's, in heavenly guise, 
 
 With the fair Child asleep upon her arm, 
 
 While the young, large-eyed John, with gaze intent, 
 
 Knelt close beside her, looking in her face 
 
 With this same loving reverent childlikeness. 
 
 " Ah, 'tis so like ! " the little one cried out 
 
 " So very like ! and have you seen her then ? 
 
 The lady Piero painted long ago,
 
 PIERO'S PAINTING. 31 
 
 And loved though he had seen her only once ? 
 So long ago it is, my mother scarce 
 Remembers it she was so young but sure 
 'Tis true, for many people heard of it 1 
 He was my mother's brother, and he died 
 In painting her. He loved her, Sir, too much - 
 My mother said. Will you not come and see ? " 
 " Where is it, child ? " the Master said, and went 
 Where the small footsteps led him, to the house, 
 And heard the story from the mother's lips, 
 And saw the picture. Much his soul was moved, 
 Seeing her face so young whom he had known 
 Past springtime's flush most fair, but different ! 
 His eyes grew moist with unaccustomed tears 
 Looking upon her, knowing her so loved, 
 And loving her himself unto the end. 
 So the old tender tale of love and death 
 Was new again, through love that never dies ! 
 
 They gave the picture to him. It is yet 
 In Florence, where I saw it in his house. 
 
 Written between Aug. 4th and Oct 23d, 1870, 
 at Fort Washington and Lenox.
 
 32 SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT A WORD. 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT A WORD. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY 
 
 The Sanskrit name for love is smara : it is derived from smar, to re- 
 collect, and the same root has supplied the German schmerz pain, and 
 Eng. smart. MAX MULLER, Science of Language, 
 
 An amor dolor sit, an dolor amor sit. 
 
 Utrumque nescio 
 
 Hoc unum sentio, 
 Si amor dolor est, jucundus dolor est. 
 
 (From a Latin mystical hymn to the Virgin^) 
 
 " If love be pain, pain, love, I may not guess 
 
 But this I know 
 If love be pain, then pain is happiness ! " 
 
 So sang the framer of an antique rhyme, 
 
 Who long ago 
 Loved as each dreams he loves for the first time ! 
 
 For who loves most, remembers : and who weeps 
 
 Is less unblest, 
 That he the memory of loving keeps.
 
 SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT A WORD. 33 
 
 It is a twofold life, part joy, part pain 
 
 This sweet unrest 
 That we name Love, nor, naming, 'call in vain. 
 
 Where present joy and absent longing meet, 
 
 Ah ! who can tell 
 While each without the other were less sweet. 
 
 Pale Memory treasures what warm lips may miss- 
 He loves not well 
 Who loves no longer than the parting kiss ! 
 
 And what is sorrow's sting the pain of tears, 
 
 The burdened sigh ? 
 'Tis to remember dead hopes turned to fears. 
 
 The present is not all of love, nor yet 
 
 Can sorrow die 
 Till those, at last, who suffer may forget ! 
 
 The poets dreamed of Lethe in old days, 
 But older still 
 
 Those wise word-framers, singing without praise, 
 3
 
 34 SONNET. 
 
 Who, taught by life what sages cannot teach, 
 
 With gold did fill 
 This casket in the treasure-house of speech 
 
 This strange old word in a forgotten tongue, 
 
 That echoed wide, 
 Till nations caught the scattered notes it rung 
 
 Scarce knowing how the great half-truths to blend, 
 
 Till souls are tried, 
 And Pain and Memory in Love shall end ! 
 
 Afril ii, 1870. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 On the blossoming of a certain bed of white flowers. 
 
 ON a cold Autumn day of clouds and wind, 
 With hearts too full for tears, we clasped again 
 Our withered flowers: the ground was soft with 
 rain, 
 
 And the brown sod with grass roots intertwined,
 
 CARISSIMA ZIA MIA. 35 
 
 Upturned, lay waiting till we should unbind 
 
 Our cherished wreaths, and with the late-sown 
 grain 
 
 Lay them to sleep beside our buried pain, 
 Not lost, but hidden, though our eyes were blind ! 
 
 Together tenderly we laid them there, 
 Cross, harp, and crown, and near, Hope's symbol 
 sure 
 
 In the dark earth the blossoms looked so fair ; 
 Dead though we knew them, yet they must endure ! 
 And when Spring came at last, with quick'ning breath, 
 Our lilies rose again Life bloomed from Death ! 
 
 May, 1871. 
 
 CARISSIMA ZIA MIA CON UN ANGIOLO- 
 DA CORREGGIO. 
 
 SOMETIMES the muse has looked on me, 
 And smiled a little, giving grace, 
 
 With some short rhymings, sweet or sad, 
 To do her honor for a space.
 
 36 A BROOK FANTASY. 
 
 Some days I dream that I can sing, 
 And yet some notes I dare not touch, 
 
 With lips so little used to art, 
 
 Lest where I love I praise too much. 
 
 So now I'll e'en be silent, dear ! 
 
 Some words are sweetest left unsaid ; 
 But if you want the song some day, 
 
 I've sent an angel, see ! instead. 
 
 " FlRENZE. 
 
 Oct. 12, 1870. 
 
 A BROOK FANTASY. 
 
 DID you ever think how a brook must feel ?- 
 A young little brook that dances and shimmers, 
 Leaping and singing down from the hills, 
 Hand in hand with a thousand rills ; 
 Dreamily gliding through forest glimmers ; 
 Tossed into sparkles, scattered in spray, 
 Struggling now through its rocky way ; 
 Silent a moment on edge of the steep, 
 Broken and torn in its hurrying leap ;
 
 A BROOK FANTASY. 37 
 
 Spanned by the rainbow, blown by the storm, 
 Urged by a ceaseless desire for the ocean 
 
 Creeping through cavernous glooms without form, 
 Thundering, shouting, in joyful commotion, 
 
 Onward and downward through shadow and sun : 
 Have you thought how 'twould be with the restless 
 
 one, 
 
 Weary with struggling, weary no less, 
 Ah me ! with its own light-heartedness 
 
 When it came to a place where it could be still, 
 Where it need not think of to-day or to-morrow, 
 
 But under the tranquil sky fulfil 
 Its longing with rest, find peace for its sorrow ! 
 
 With sparkle and spray, 
 With smiles and tears, 
 
 It fashions its way 
 
 Mid hopes and fears, 
 
 Till the channel, broken by many a stone, 
 On a sudden strangely has wider grown, 
 
 And deep and still, and quiet and cool, 
 
 It sinks at last in a mossy pool. 
 As clear as heaven, it drinks the sky, 
 Yet dark with a fathomless mystery.
 
 38 A BROOK FANTASY. 
 
 Ah ! the joy that has come to its changeful lot 
 Ah ! the peace that it knows, which we know not ! 
 One little brooklet to hold the sun ! 
 A tiny mirror, where every one 
 
 Of the great proud trees in the forest space 
 
 May stoop, and be glad to see his face ! 
 A lakelet scarce fit for a fairy's boat, 
 Yet deep in its bosom the white clouds float, 
 As it were a pearl-built armament. 
 When the sunset pitches his radiant tent, 
 
 What splendors rain down from under his feet ! 
 
 And where the dark and the twilight meet, 
 
 What shimmering glory that grows into stars, 
 
 What planet stillness of Venus or Mars, 
 
 Sinks deep and is hidden in one still breast, 
 And the soul grows larger for holding God's rest. 
 
 Just to be still, and wait for heaven ! 
 
 To open the heart, where all is given 
 
 And midst of the struggle, the toil, the care, 
 
 To chance on the calmness unaware 
 Oh ! it must be happy to be a brook ! 
 
 March 27, 1871.
 
 ILLUSIONS. 39 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 (not needing to be written). 
 
 To my Mother 
 
 (who is asleep), 
 
 Not in Memory only not in Hope only 
 
 But in Love, 
 Whose eternal Now embraces both. 
 
 Jan. i, 1871. 
 
 ILLUSIONS. 
 
 LAST night they said all dreams were false 
 In my innermost heart I know 'tis true, 
 
 And the beautiful endings we fashion out 
 
 In the starlight's sheen dissolve with the dew. 
 
 I would not tell them what I thought, 
 
 Though they asked me, and deemed me wise as 
 
 they 
 For the night of visions is holier far 
 
 Than the harsh, hot gleam of the barren day.
 
 4O L O R E - L E I . 
 
 And if to some uplifted hearts, 
 
 In the old tale-telling, the angels came 
 
 Whisp'ring sweet words, might they not come now, 
 Though they fade when we give them a mortal name ? 
 
 What though we mourn, we have rejoiced ! 
 
 (Ah, the dreams ! the dreams that never come true !) 
 And Youth must still lift its ladder of light, 
 
 Though it rest against naught but the sky's thin blue ! 
 
 Perhaps the angels wait somewhere, 
 
 That fled so fast at the break of the day 
 
 Perhaps they may give us their blessing yet 
 I say not they will, but they may, they may ! 
 
 Oct. a?, 1869. 
 
 LORE-LEI. 
 
 AND do ye mock at me ? ye nymphs with clear trans- 
 parent eyes, 
 
 Round which fire flickers fitfully, within as cold 
 As midnight seas, deep, treacherous, beautiful, 
 Lit up with phosphorescent gleams of fleeting flaming 
 gold!
 
 LORE-LEI. 41 
 
 It is not that I fear you in your scorn those curling 
 
 lips, 
 
 And the white radiance of the deathly smile ye bear, 
 Are terrible, yet I can scorn you, while ye gaze, 
 And mock me that I lost the crown that ye could 
 never wear ! 
 
 I thrust it from me ! Nay, I would not keep my hu- 
 man soul 
 
 With its crushed power of loving trembling under- 
 neath 
 The breath of sweetest memories, shrivelled, scathed 
 
 in pain, 
 
 On the hot iron cross changed love in penance chose 
 to wreathe ! 
 
 I could not be as meek as one frail maiden that I 
 
 knew 
 
 So long ago life has been very long since then 
 Who faded from the world when love and light 
 
 went out, 
 
 And ever since has lived a tender thought in hearts 
 of men.
 
 42 LORE-LEI. 
 
 I did not love so : nor as she died had I power to die, 
 But needs must live the sweetness in my own 
 
 heart turned 
 To bitterness must crush from other hearts the 
 
 fragrance out 
 
 To make one draught of bitter sweet to cool my lips 
 that burned. 
 
 From loving one too much at last I learned the way 
 
 to hate, 
 And, craving your malignant beauty, gave my 
 
 soul, 
 That, naught of spirit mingling with the passionate 
 
 blood, 
 
 I might burn men to ashes with a love beyond 
 control. 
 
 Why do ye mock me, pointing with white, tossing, 
 
 shadowy arms, 
 From your foam-girdled seats upon the gray harsh 
 
 shore ? 
 
 Ye cannot envy me the beauty that ye gave, 
 Dark with the shadow of the human woe that went 
 before ?
 
 MOON-PHASES. 43 
 
 Yet know, that while I died to heaven to save earth's 
 
 span of pain, 
 
 You, that have never suffered, I can dare despise 
 The crown I wore, and lost, has scarred my brow 
 
 too deep, 
 
 Not to have left the memory of its radiance in my 
 eyes ! 
 
 Cold lips, deceiving with mysterious smiles, so slow, 
 
 so sweet 
 
 Cold voices, merciless in your perfection, tuned 
 To break the heart with longing cold soft hands 
 
 that clasp 
 Cold arms that cling like winding snakes, embracing 
 
 but to wound 
 I am your sister 
 
 (Unfinished.) 
 Feb., 1870. 
 
 MOON-PHASES 
 
 MOST like a thread dropped from a golden curl, 
 On the warm breast of evening lies the moon 
 
 The tender crescent sinking with the sun. 
 Night after night the twilight's mystic rune
 
 44 MOON-PHASES. 
 
 Grows clearer, written in the deep'ning stars. 
 
 Eve after eve the tossing golden spray 
 From waves of sunset fills the pearly shell 
 
 Left on the shore of heaven by ebbing Day. 
 
 With all sweet names to greet thee are we fain, 
 Beautiful with young beauty, past compare ! 
 
 Men gaze on thee as men look on young Love, 
 And smile and say Tis verily most fair ! 
 
 Ah, lovely promise of the midnight's crown ! 
 
 Thou mayst not linger Time, all-ripening One, 
 
 To full-orbed passion heaps thy flame-rimmed vase- 
 Love's symbol, filled full with the vanished sun ! 
 
 The crescent rounds into the perfect sphere, 
 And rains down glory thro' the flooded skies ; 
 
 Earth is transfigured, heaven itself more bright, 
 But thou too lovely for our dazzled eyes ! 
 
 'Tis what thou shinest on, not thee, we praise 
 Thy veiling radiance is enough for thee ! 
 
 Lonely in brightness, quenching the faint stars, 
 Supreme in thine unshadowed majesty.
 
 HONEYSUCKLE-BREATH. 45 
 
 It is not that thou art less beautiful, 
 
 But Earth more glorious lake and grove and mount 
 Are part of thee thou givest all, life, light 
 
 Love's type, self-radiant, self-hidden fount ! 
 
 August 2, 1870. 
 
 HONEYSUCKLE-BREATH. 
 
 DOES it come the first time with the warm gold moon, 
 Or in dreams on a drowsy afternoon 
 When May is melting away into June, 
 
 And the blossom-trees have done snowing ? 
 
 'Tis the spirit of summer on flying feet, 
 
 'Tis a nameless Something, namelessly sweet, 
 
 A voiceless music the birds repeat 
 
 As they soar and sing without knowing ! 
 
 'Tis a vision that vanished and left no trace, 
 'Tis a kiss without lips a shadowy face 
 That Fancy caught smiling an empty space, 
 Where we stretch fond arms out for clasping !
 
 46 MY STUDIO KEY. 
 
 And I know it is mine by the love alone, 
 'Tis a promise no more yet 'tis my own, 
 Fair beyond sight, but I make no moan 
 Can Life's gifts be sweet as Youth's asking ? 
 
 In the glimmering night, 'neath the starlight sheen, 
 With a rustle of fairy wings, I ween, 
 It hovers the stars and the dark between, 
 Till it findeth my window lonely. 
 
 Creeping in through the gloom with the silent dew, 
 It brings the old joy that is always new 
 Mine ! mine by that token and yet to you 
 It may be 'twas a perfume only ! 
 
 June, 1870. 
 
 MY STUDIO KEY. 
 
 (University Building.) 
 
 You poor, dear little, ugly thing 
 How tenderly I put you by ! 
 
 'Tis but a homely theme to sing 
 I can but smile, and yet I sigh !
 
 MYSTUDIOKEY. 47 
 
 This little twisted bit of brass 
 
 I hide away, lest wise eyes see, 
 Is poetry now, because, alas ! 
 
 It wears the charm of Memory 
 
 It tells of hours in restless days, 
 
 Cool, calm amid the city's din 
 Of open paths down shady ways, 
 
 Where who " loved much " might enter in. 
 
 It set the magic portals wide 
 
 Through which, a child, I looked and yearned 
 Art smiled, and called me to her side, 
 
 And touched my brow with lips that burned ! 
 
 And by the fiery chrism sealed, 
 
 I am her own, though worlds should part 
 The beauty has been once revealed, 
 
 It cannot die, while lives my heart ! 
 
 When shall I worship as I would ? 
 
 Is life too short for what we dream ? 
 Ay ! and the humblest work is good, 
 
 Judged by the thing we are, not seem !
 
 48 MY STUDIO KEY". 
 
 The old, sweet thoughts ! their echo falls 
 
 Down the gray aisles, remembered well 
 
 Past the blank doors, through silent halls, 
 The sweet heart-murmurs sink and swell. 
 
 Ah ! life has many a closed door 
 
 We pass unheeding, dare not ope : 
 
 " Faint light ! " we say, and long for more 
 Faint heart it is, that lacketh Hope. 
 
 Tiny magician, teach me still ! 
 
 My path grew bright at thy meek touch. 
 One unbarred door dim life could fill 
 
 With happiness almost too much ! 
 
 Ah, be the lowly lesson mine ! 
 
 'Tis naught to others, much to me 
 " Patient in hope," those words divine 
 Have turned to gold my studio key ! 
 
 FORT WASHINGTON, May 2, 1870.
 
 DEDICATION TO" RAINBOW SONGS." 49 
 
 DEDICATION TO 
 
 "RAINBOW SONGS." 
 
 (Mamma's Birthday, September 26, 1869.) 
 
 O MOTHER-LOVE ! purer than all love else, 
 Like the white light of heaven, passionless, 
 
 Yet blending, by a sympathy divine, 
 The wayward colors into perfectness. 
 
 To thee is nothing hopeless naught is dark 
 The poet's rapture, careless of its pain ; 
 
 The maiden's reverie, too sweet, too short ; 
 The thirst for glory, and death's high disdain ; 
 
 The lover's fervor, burnt-out with short life ; 
 
 The saint's parched longing in earth's waste for 
 
 peace ; 
 E'en the self-love thou canst but pity, find 
 
 In thee their passion ended in thee cease 
 
 Each one to struggle for a separate aim, 
 And thro' thy perfect self-forgetfulness, 
 
 Tuning all other loves to harmony, 
 
 Learn that the end of living is to bless !
 
 5O DEDICATION TO "RAINBOW SONGS." 
 
 When to the dazzle of the world I woke, 
 
 Heaven's light came to me softened in thy smile ! 
 
 Thine eyes were stars, guiding my soul aright 
 Through earth's dark paths, that would my feet 
 beguile. 
 
 Through thee I learned to know the higher Love 
 Of which thou art the type, that ruling serves, 
 
 Shining, as doth the sun, on all alike, 
 
 Loving who needs most, not who most deserves ! 
 
 Blending the discord of my changing moods, 
 Thro' darkness and thro' light I feel thy power ; 
 
 Thou hast a charm for sorrow, as the sun 
 
 Weaves rainbows on the dark woof of the shower. 
 
 To thee I bring this faint-hued tracery, 
 By fancy's loving fingers feebly wrought. 
 
 Smile on this too, and in thine own heart find 
 What deeper beauty underlies my thought ! 
 
 Sept. 23, 1869, DOBBS FKREV.
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 5l 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS 
 
 Red. I. 
 THE WARRIOR. 
 
 MY love has sent me from the wars 
 My love he is a gallant knight ! 
 
 Token of one more shivered lance, 
 A scarlet pennon, won in fight. 
 
 The vivid scarlet, how it burns 
 In the cool shadows of the room ! 
 
 I hear the clang of hurtling arms, 
 I see the warrior's streaming plume ! 
 
 My true love spurs him through the press 
 He strikes for fame, he strikes for me ! 
 
 His gallant charger bears him well 
 A noble steed, more noble he ! 
 
 The dazzle blinds my eyes with tears 
 
 Away ! these drops but shame my knight ! 
 
 Is it not strange this idle rag 
 
 Should bring such visions to my sight ?
 
 52 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 'Twas told me of a blind old man, 
 A minstrel he, to whom in song 
 
 All Beauty came, Light's crystal gates 
 Being barred to him Life's journey long 
 
 That he translated into sound 
 All color, touching it. The Red 
 
 Thrilled thro' his pulses in the dark. 
 
 " Tis the shrill Trumpet's voice," he said ! 
 
 Here 'tis so silent while I dream, 
 So lonely while his voice I wait 
 
 And yet I hear the battle's din 
 Shrinking, I share the battle's fate. 
 
 Ah, how he clasped me for farewell, 
 
 What brave words whispered in my ear ! 
 
 I hardly trembled then, the flush 
 
 That tinged my cheek was not from fear. 
 
 I sped him on his high emprise, 
 And now I sit and watt not weep ! 
 
 No, no ! he gave me all his love 
 I have his honor, too, to keep !
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 53 
 
 I tied my favor on his helm 
 
 What though the scarlet scarf be stained 
 As this he sends, lest I forget 
 
 Through what hard ways is glory gained ! 
 
 I live for him, he die's for me 
 
 I share his love, I share his fame. 
 Shall I not bear a hero heart 
 
 Worthy to wear a hero's name ? 
 
 1869. 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 Red. II. 
 
 THE WARRIOR. 
 
 MY love, my life, my own ! 
 Press thy red lips against my cheek 
 Kiss back the color hasten, Sweet ! 
 
 Thy love, not life, I seek.
 
 54 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 But this once more my own ! 
 Breathe into mine thy living breath 
 Close, close ah ! Life is all too sweet, 
 
 But glory comes with death. 
 
 Ay, 'twas thy scarlet scarf 
 They used to stanch the wound with dear ! 
 Thou dost not care I stained it so ? 
 
 My love, my pride, my peer ! 
 
 Thro' tears thy queenly smile ! 
 And art thou proud I loved thee, Sweet ? 
 The laurels that I died to win, 
 
 Are honored at thy feet ! 
 
 Ah, Death ! this moment more 
 Come, Love, one silent, long, last kiss ! 
 My darling, is the victor's meed 
 
 In heaven more sweet than this ? 
 
 This rapture is my last 
 The earth has naught beyond to give : 
 While Glory melts in. Love's pure flame, 
 
 Dying, I only live ! 
 
 SAND'S POINT, L. 1.,-SV/V. n 1869.
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 55 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 Yellow. 
 
 THE MISER. 
 
 THE beautiful color ! the color of gold ! 
 How it sparkles and burns in the piled up dust ! 
 The poets ! they know not, they never have told 
 Of the fadeless color, the color of gold 
 Of my god, in whom I trust ! 
 
 Deep down in the earth it winds and creeps 
 
 In her sluggish old veins 'tis the warm rich blood 
 
 The old mother-monster ! how soundly she sleeps ! 
 
 Come ! nearest her heart, where the strong life leaps 
 
 We drink, we bathe in the flood ! 
 
 Ah, the far-off days ! was I ever a child ? 
 My brain is so dark, and my heart has grown cold. 
 Those fields, where the golden-eyed buttercups smiled 
 Lo'ng ago did I love them with heart undefiled ? 
 Did I seek the flowers for the gold ?
 
 *6 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 Be still ! O thou traitor Remorse, at my heart, 
 Whining without in the dark at the door 
 I know thee, the beggar and thief that thou art, 
 Lying low at my threshold I bid thee depart ! 
 Thou shalt dog my footsteps no more. 
 
 Wilt thou bring me the faded flowers of my youth 
 With hands full of dead leaves, and lips of lies 
 For these shall I yield thee my treasure, in sooth ? 
 Are the buttercup's petals pure gold say truth ! 
 Wilt thou coin me the daisy's eyes ? 
 
 I hate them ! the smiling flowers in the sun, 
 And the yellow smooth rays that they feed on at 
 
 noon 
 
 'Tis the hard cold gold I will have, or none ! 
 Come, pluck me the stars down, one by one, 
 
 Plant me the pale rich moon ! 
 
 * * * . * * * 
 
 Ah ! the mystical seed, it has grown, it has spread ! 
 But the sharp star-points they are piercing my brow, 
 And the rosy home-faces grow livid and dead 
 In the terrible color the fire-blossoms shed 
 I am reaping my harvest in now !
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 57 
 
 The horrible color the color of flame ! 
 The hot sun has o'erflowed from his broken urn 
 O thou pitiless sky ! wilt thou show me my shame ? 
 While the cursed gold clings to my fingers like flame- 
 And glitters only to burn ! 
 
 (Begun at Turin finished at home CATSKILL, Aug., 1869.) 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 Green. 
 
 THE MAIDEN. 
 
 THE Spring has come, with wealth of downy buds, 
 And promise of sweet Summer in her breath ; 
 
 The world wakes dreamily, at bright Hope's touch. 
 From the pale sleep forgetful men call death. 
 
 The faint sun shines down thro' the flickering green, 
 Here in the shadows, where I love to sit ; 
 
 The young leaves flutter, and the breezes blow 
 Ah ! Life is sweet, and Hope is half of it !
 
 $8 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 Dim, lovely fancies, how they come and go 
 Betwixt the sunshine and the April rain ! 
 
 What is it that has crept into my heart, 
 This vague unrest, that is not wholly pain ? 
 
 I shun the dazzle of the smiling sun, 
 
 Half sad my sadness half a strange delight ' 
 Hope's flickering pinions fan me like warm breath 
 
 I would not be more happy, if I might ! 
 
 Down the dim alleys of the whispering wood, 
 Heard I the rustle of approaching feet ? 
 
 Ah, Love ! the summer is so near : not yet ! 
 Not yet the end the promise is so sweet ! 
 
 A little longer in the veiled light, 
 
 In this sweet lingering doubt 'twixt hope and fear ! 
 Ah ! might I wait thee, Love, forever thus, 
 
 'Mid these first shadows of the early year ! 
 
 Sej,t. 3, 1869.
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 59 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 Blue. 
 
 THE SAINT. 
 
 HOT noon amid the barren sands 
 In Egypt's silent waste of sepulchres 
 Alone, between the stark cliffs and the sun 
 In this parched air no breath of being stirs ! 
 
 Beneath, the river flows, and burns 
 A sheet of white-hot gold while wearily 
 I turn mine eyes from the dead sultry glare 
 Toward the cool azure splendors of the sky. 
 
 So pure ! so far ! I fain would soar 
 In the blue depths of that immensity ! 
 I thirst, I languish, till my spirit sinks 
 Wrapped in the endless calm of that still sea. 
 
 Until life's fever frets no more 
 Until my sin-stained soul is washen clean, 
 In that great flood that pours around the Throne, 
 And passion fades in that pure light serene.
 
 6O RAINBOW SONGS. 
 
 As in that holy perfect blue, 
 The garish colors of the common day 
 Dissolve their passionate part, and lose themselves 
 In the one glory cannot pass away 
 
 So might I utterly forget 
 This weary earth, and live in Him alone, 
 Whom through the open sky the prophet saw 
 " In likeness like unto a sapp> hire- stone ! " 
 
 Might I but draw the vision down, 
 With mine own eyes, that look, and long, and wait ! 
 It floats, it fades, before my aching sense 
 Heaven is too deep, the glory is too great ! 
 
 I am not worthy, Lord I shrink ! 
 The veiling splendors of the lower Day 
 Would hide Thee from me nay, I gaze no more ; 
 Lips low, eyes darkened in the dust, I pray 
 
 Until the longed-for Shadow comes, 
 Till Death throws wide the sunset's golden bars 
 One more earth-flush ! one passion more ! and then 
 Cool night, heaven's calm eternity of stars ! 
 
 Sept. 25, 1869.
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 6l 
 
 RAINBOW SONGS. 
 Purple. 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 PURPLE, the passionate color ! 
 
 Purple, the color of pain ! 
 I clothe myself in the rapture 
 
 I count the suffering gain ! 
 
 The sea lies gleaming before me, 
 
 Pale in the smile of the sun 
 No shadow all golden and azure 
 
 The joy of the Day has begun ! 
 
 Throbbing and yearning forever, 
 With longing unsatisfied, sweet 
 
 Flushed with the pain and the rapture, 
 Warm at the sun-god's feet 
 
 In the glow and gloom of the evening 
 The glory is reached and o'er-past ; 
 
 Joy's rose-bloom has ripened to purple 
 'Twill fade, but the stars shine at last !
 
 62 THE RIVER OF THE PAST. 
 
 Purple, the passionate color ! 
 
 Robing the martyr, the king 
 Regal in joy and in anguish, 
 
 Life's blossom, with ah ! its sting- 
 Give me the sovereign color 
 
 I'll suffer, that I may reign ! 
 The poet's moment of rapture 
 
 Is worth the poet's pain ! 
 
 ITALY, CORNICE ROAD, Jan. 8, 1869. 
 
 THE RIVER OF THE PAST. 
 
 ON the broad and slumbering river 
 Ancient, mystery-brooding Nile 
 
 Eating the forgetful lotus, 
 Dream we all the while 
 Floating up the stream. 
 
 All the present sleeps behind us, 
 Buried 'neath the tranquil flood , 
 
 While the rippling, whispering waters 
 Cool the young warm blood, 
 Float we up the stream.
 
 THE RIVER OF THE PAST. 63 
 
 Lethe-like, it folds around us, 
 
 Wave on wave, the river dim, 
 While, beneath our half-closed eyelids, 
 
 Visions sink and swim, 
 Floating up the stream. 
 
 Sailing in a world of shadows, 
 
 Leaving Life and Care behind, 
 Toward the dead Past's mighty kingdom 
 
 Gliding with the wind, 
 Float we up the stream. 
 
 Noontide floods the river slowly, 
 
 From his brimming golden urn, 
 'Neath Cleopatra's silken awnings 
 
 Torrid glances burn 
 Floating up the stream. 
 
 And the Old World grows in splendor, 
 
 Nearer with the sinking sun, 
 As we pass the buried cities 
 
 Pass them one by one 
 Floating up the stream.
 
 64 THE RIVER OF THE PAST. 
 
 In the sudden tropic twilight, 
 Statue-like against the gold, 
 
 Stand the palm-trees, dark and lonely/ 
 Monuments of old 
 Floating up the stream. 
 
 Upward toward the solemn temples, 
 Carved by dust, in living stone, 
 
 Past Antiquity's dread treasures, 
 
 Toward the dim Unknown, 
 
 Float we up the stream. 
 
 'Neath the starlight's dreamy glory 
 Flooding heaven's eternal span 
 
 " Sons of God " that sang together 
 At the birth of man, 
 Float we up the stream. 
 
 'Tis the mighty tide of ages, 
 
 Flowing on while Time shall last, 
 
 And we seek its hidden sources 
 In the mystic Past 
 Floating up the stream ! 
 
 OH THE NILE, Feb. 15, 1869.
 
 THE COLOSSI. 65 
 
 THE COLOSSI. 
 
 GRIM monarchs of the silent plain, 
 
 Seated in motionless, sublime repose, 
 With faces turned forever toward the dawn, 
 
 With eyes that sleep not, lips that ne'er unclose 
 
 While kingdoms crumble round their thrones, 
 In lonely state they keep their ancient seat ; 
 
 Time's ocean ebbs and flows, with drifting sands, 
 Like the mysterious River at their feet. 
 
 The blithe birds sing their morning song 
 
 Where Memnon's voice once rose to greet the sun ; 
 
 The shadows lengthen nightly toward the west, 
 The stars shine down, the days pass one by one. 
 
 Still side by side they sit, with hands 
 
 Laid idly on their mighty knees of stone 
 What thoughts pass through their dim brains, silent 
 
 thus, 
 
 Companions, yet through centuries alone ? 
 s
 
 66 THE COLOSSI. 
 
 Mourn they their kingdom's vanished might, 
 Their broken altars, heaped with dust of death ? 
 
 Or search they the dread future with blank eyes, 
 Kings, priests, and gods of a forgotten faith ? 
 
 * 
 
 Rock-hewn, they last while time shall last 
 The hills shall leave their seats as soon as they ; 
 
 But there is One who brooks no rival thrones, 
 And breaks all sceptres at the last great Day. 
 
 Mid ruins of a passing world, 
 
 To their slow height those giant forms shall rise ; 
 With solemn steps they move to meet their doom, 
 
 From the dread Presence passing with veiled eyes, 
 
 Beneath the gate of an eternal Death 
 
 They enter, and are lost among the shades 
 
 In the dim region of perpetual sighs, 
 
 Where earthly glory, earthly greatness, fades. 
 
 THEBES, Feb. 23, 1869.
 
 LINES. 67 
 
 LINES 
 
 Written on approaching Florence, April 28, 1869. 
 
 FLORENCE ! the name sounds sweetly to my ear 
 Familiar and yet strange ; on dear home lips 
 'Tis music, and from Tuscan tongues it slips 
 
 Like dropping honey, syllabled and cleat. 
 
 My name, yet not my name ! Myself forgot, 
 
 Hither I turn my eager steps, to seek 
 
 The air those great ones breathed, whom I, though 
 
 weak, 
 May follow worshipping, attaining not ! 
 
 What is there home-like in the flower-girt place ? 
 Why smiles the Arno, while th' encircling hills 
 Enwrap me closer, and my spirit thrills 
 
 With a vague joy whose springs I cannot trace ? 
 
 Oft have I mused on the old glorious time, 
 
 When painters drew with pencils dipped in flame ; 
 When Genius reigned, and tyrants writhed in shame 
 
 'Neath Dante's twisted scourge of threefold rhyme.
 
 68 LINES. 
 
 And, meditating thus, while reverence grew 
 To love, and love to self-forgetfulness, 
 While Fancy wandered, may my steps no less 
 
 Have followed, dreaming, farther than I knew ? 
 
 And yet not so. This is no foreign air, 
 
 That once I breathed, then left, again to roam ! 
 Thy fragrant breezes whisper, " This is home " 
 
 My namesake city, Florence, called the Fair ! " 
 
 Sometimes in music comes a sudden strain, 
 'Mid unfamiliar melodies most sweet ; 
 The heart leaps forth the welcome tones to greet, 
 
 But its past echo Memory seeks in vain. 
 
 New, and yet old, it lingers on the mind 
 As with remembered sweetness, and it fills 
 The soul with longing for the heavenly hills, 
 
 And angel harmonies it left behind. 
 
 Perchance 'twas wafted o'er the ocean dim 
 That lies beyond the mystery of birth ; . 
 And the young spirit, 'mid the songs of earth, 
 
 Could not forget the seraph's cradle hymn !
 
 LINES. 69 
 
 Whate'er the heart is tuned to is its own, 
 And loving, we claim kinship. So I love, 
 O land ! whose distant glories thus could move 
 
 My heart until, unseen, I deemed thee known ! 
 
 In other climes thy skies have on me smiled 
 The Beautiful to me has borne thy name ; 
 O city of my heart, thy love I claim 
 
 I am not worthy, but I am thy child ! 
 
 LINES 
 
 Written between Venice and Milan, after seeing Lake Garda and the 
 distant Alps. 
 
 VENICE lay dreaming in the morning light, 
 Her fairy towers reflected in the wave ; 
 As the dim islands faded from our sight, 
 One backward look we gave 
 
 Then on ! where duty calls, and smiling home 
 Her arms spreads forth the errant ones to greet ! 
 Dear faces rise beyond the ocean foam, 
 And rest and peace are sweet.
 
 7O LINES. 
 
 But I must leave thee, Italy ! To-day 
 Thou didst put on thy brightest smiles for me 
 Mountain, and lake, and vine-clad valley lay 
 Wrapped in "an azure sea ; 
 
 While, floating in the magic atmosphere, 
 Like a mirage I saw thy beauty rise 
 And loveliest as the parting hour drew near, 
 Thou didst enchant mine eyes ! 
 
 Thus in my heart I bear thee, stamped in light, 
 Thine image leaves me not, where'er I go 
 The shimmering lake, the mountains, height o'er height, 
 Heaven-crowned with radiant snow. 
 
 Those Alps ! whose secrets I shall never see, 
 In whose blue depths such hidden glories lie 
 Like the calm summits of futurity, 
 They rise agarinst the sky ! 
 
 On the horizon of my thought they stand 
 A barrier, yet an inspiration too ! 
 Beyond those heights there lies a lovelier land 
 Than poet ever drew.
 
 HANDEL'S HARPSICHORD. 
 
 Beyond ah yes ! I linger on the word 
 Whate'er of earthly happiness we miss, 
 Still is the yearning soul more deeply stirred 
 By hopes of 'future bliss ! 
 
 I seek not to attain I but aspire ! 
 I yearn for joy no fleeting moment gives 
 The soul grows great through infinite desire, 
 In what it longs for, lives ! 
 
 May 12, 1869. 
 
 HANDEL'S HARPSICHORD 
 
 (And an inscription read backwards). 
 
 SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, LONDON. 
 
 WHENCE come these vague emotions of the soul, 
 Like the invisible airs the wind-harp waking 
 
 From hovering mystery of near angels' wings, 
 Perchance their tremulous faint impulse taking ? 
 
 I know not why, but in this rich Old World, 
 Wandering 'mid relics of a former splendor, 
 
 Naught moves me as these broken instruments 
 No more to thrill with accents sad or tender !
 
 72 HANDEL'S HARPSICHORD. 
 
 Life throbbed beneath those silken draperies, 
 That hang so near, scarce faded in their glory ; 
 
 Valor lent lustre to those arms of steel, 
 This gold, these gems, have their unwritten story. 
 
 But o'er these strings, now dumb, the poet mused, 
 In joy's pure stream was their first utterance chris- 
 tened ; 
 
 The lover's sorrows sighed among the chords, 
 While with bent head, sweet-eyed, the lady listened ! 
 
 So dreamily I pondered, as to-day, 
 
 By melancholy's nameless sadness smitten, 
 
 Down the long-vistaed galleries I saw 
 
 Sic transit gloria mundi, quaintly written, 
 
 On the old casing of a harpsichord, 
 
 Grown brown with age, the delicate strings all 
 
 broken, 
 Wreathed in fantastic tracery ran the words : 
 
 Two centuries ago my thought was spoken ! 
 
 " Thus passes all the glory of this world 
 
 I stood and gazed, sad, but not heavy-hearted, 
 
 For something whispered, " Are these strings all dead, 
 Because the soul that stirred them has departed ? "
 
 HANDEL'S HARPSICHORD. 73 
 
 And yet the hand is dust that touched these keys, 
 The spirit is dissolved in far-off spaces ; 
 
 The ears that hearkened then, hear other sounds, 
 Another rapture fills the listening faces ! 
 
 " Tis past, all past ! " I said, and speaking paused 
 For while my sad sweet mood I fain would cherish, 
 
 Musica donum Dei, sweeter still, 
 
 1 read, and knew God's gifts can never perish ! 
 
 One word remained at last to crown my thought 
 A name so high that praise is desecration 
 
 The name of one whose mortal fingers touched 
 
 These chords, and in their touch gave consecration. 
 
 While HandeFs spirit lives in glorious sound, 
 Can I deem Music dead, or dream of weeping ? 
 
 Ah no ! it waits but for the Master's voice 
 The Beautiful dies not, 'tis only sleeping ! 
 
 June 14, 1869.
 
 74 SONG. 
 
 II 
 
 SONG. 
 
 How pleasant it is that always 
 
 There's somebody older than you 
 
 Some one to pet and caress you, 
 Some one to scold you too ! 
 
 Some one to call you a baby, 
 
 To laugh at you when you're wise ; 
 
 Some one to care when you're sorry, 
 To kiss the tears from your eyes. 
 
 When life has begun to be weary, 
 And youth to melt like the dew, 
 
 To know, like the little children, 
 Somebody's older than you. 
 
 The path cannot be so lonely, 
 For some one has trod it before ; 
 
 The golden gates are the nearer, 
 That some one stands at the door !
 
 SONG. 75 
 
 I can think of nothing sadder 
 Than to feel, when days are few, 
 
 There's nobody left to lean on, 
 Nobody older than you ! 
 
 The younger ones may be tender 
 
 To the feeble steps and slow ; 
 But they can't talk the old times over 
 
 Alas ! how should they know ! 
 
 'Tis a romance to them a wonder 
 
 You were ever a child at play ; 
 But the dear ones waiting in heaven 
 
 Know it is all as you say. 
 
 I know that the great All-Father 
 Loves us and the little ones too ; 
 
 Keep only child-like hearted 
 Heaven is older than you ! 
 
 Seft. 24, 1869, DOBBS FERRY.
 
 <> SPENSER. 
 
 SPENSER. 
 
 THE POET'S POET. 
 
 "WHY do I love this Spenser so ? " 
 
 My sweet child-poet, crooning dreamy rhymes, 
 Like the bees' song, mid beds of violets low, 
 Far from the echo of the stormy times ! 
 
 Ask rather why faint-smiling Spring 
 
 Scatters the soul of gladness everywhere ; 
 
 Ask rather of the birds why they should sing 
 At morning, from the pure joy of the air ! 
 
 Why do wood-lilies grow in May ? 
 
 Why bloom the roses sweeter in the sun ? 
 What is the happiness of living say ! 
 
 Come, answer me my questions, every one 
 
 And I will tell you why at noon, 
 
 Drinking the sky in through the flickering leaves, 
 I lie and listen to the drowsy tune 
 
 That memory with my fancy interweaves
 
 SPENSER. 77 
 
 While legends of the olden time, 
 
 Of peerless knights, and ladies without stain, 
 Murmured by smiling lips in words that chime, 
 
 Keep music with the pulses of my brain. 
 
 Snatches of fairy minstrelsy 
 
 Echo the forest's glimmering shades among ; 
 Far from the tired-out world I draw more nigh, 
 
 Through Spenser's heart to Nature's, ever young ! 
 
 Dreams are so sweet ! I dare not think 
 Myself into more conscious happiness ; 
 
 It is enough for me that I can drink 
 Deep at the poet's fount of loveliness ; 
 
 That I can kneel where Spenser knelt, 
 
 Bowing his lips to quaff life's current clear 
 
 Love where he loved, and let my dreamings melt 
 Into the circle of his wider sphere ! 
 
 My thoughts are Nature's more than mine ; 
 
 He the child-priest, her pure interpreter, 
 Who, in the shadow of her inmost shrine, 
 
 Forgetting self, breathes, feels but only her !
 
 78 THE SILENT SPHINX. 
 
 The world grows older as it moves 
 
 Men may be wiser are their hearts as great ? 
 
 We have too many reasons for our loves 
 We analyze, we study, not create ! 
 
 The age of innocence is past 
 
 It fled with youth, and will return no more ! 
 Unconscious Beauty knows herself at last 
 
 But is she fairer than she was before ? 
 
 Ah ! let me love the golden days 
 
 In guileless reverence still my spirit bow. 
 
 The " little ones" who know the voice of praise, 
 They are the true, the only poets now ! 
 
 Oct. 29, 1869. 
 
 THE SILENT SPHINX. 
 
 'Mm Egypt's shifting wastes of sand, 
 
 'Neath the blank gaze of the monotonous sun, 
 
 Guarding the gates of Silence, she doth stand 
 The ancient, the unutterable One.
 
 THE SILENT SPHINX. 79 
 
 What sees she with those great, fixed, open eyes 
 Looking across the desert toward the East ? 
 
 What do those still lips, making no replies ? 
 Will the dread secret never be released ? 
 
 In restless billows round her feet have surged 
 The nations, self-devouring in their strife 
 
 Those hollow echoes sleep still man has urged 
 The terrible question, Tell me ! what is Life ? 
 
 Dost Thou not know ? Thou, with thy mighty front 
 Upreared against the everlasting sky 
 
 Through generations hast thou borne the brunt 
 Of Time, yet canst not tell of Destiny ? 
 
 Thou sister of the hoary Pyramids ! 
 
 Has the Past taught thee nothing didst thou not, 
 Watching from underneath thy sleepless lids, 
 
 See the first germs of Man's creative thought ? 
 
 Thou know'st his greatness, knowest, too, his guilt, 
 His griefs, and near, the chambers of his rest 
 
 He left thee guardian of his tombs, and built 
 His temples in the shadow of thy breast.
 
 80 THE SILENT SPHINX. 
 
 And yet thou answerest not ! Hast thou not heard 
 
 The aspirations, seen the emptiness ? 
 Art thou so utterly of stone, no word 
 
 Can stir thee to the depths of our distress ? 
 
 What seal has closed thy lips that strange wise smile, 
 What icy touch its dawning sweetness chilled ? 
 
 Through centuries of the rising, falling Nile, 
 Forever sleeps the Promise unfulfilled ? 
 
 Ah no ! Amid thy vigil nights and days 
 
 Of solemn brightness, when the world lay bare 
 
 Before thy searching, all-embracing gaze 
 Once fell a breathless hush upon the air, 
 
 That broke in distant music swelling soft, 
 Till on its rising waves a Star upborne 
 
 Kindled the East : the signal flashed aloft, 
 And thousand voices heralded the Morn ! 
 
 What Day had dawned ? what Finger on the skies 
 Had traced the motto of the heavenly song ? 
 
 Awake ! blind world, awake ! and lift thine eyes 
 Lo, in the East the Answer, waited long !
 
 THE SILENT SPHINX. 8l 
 
 And did the revelation pass Thee by ? 
 
 Thee, the All- Wise, whom mortals named All-Great ! 
 Thee, Nature's Self, embodied Mystery, 
 
 Whose Type did the creation antedate ! 
 
 Ay, to thy heart it pierced ! the Sword of Light 
 Flashed from that splendor forth, as from a sheath 
 
 It cleft in sunder the black veils of Night, 
 
 And brake the shrine of Silence underneath 
 
 Shivered the Temple's walls ; then hadst thou found, 
 Then, when 'twas given thee, at last, thy voice 
 
 The earth had thrilled, the sky had caught the sound, 
 The rocks, and hills, and stars had cried, Rejoice ! 
 
 Thou mystical Two-Formed One ! earth was thine. 
 By the great Lion-strength that crouched and clasped, 
 
 And to thy Human higher form divine 
 
 All heaven was possible hadst thou but grasped 
 
 The gift of utterance, that moment when 
 
 The Soul, full-formed, had crowned thee couldst 
 
 thou bow 
 
 Thy haughty front, and render unto men 
 The Answer that a Mightier than thou 
 6
 
 82 TO A. L. B. 
 
 Vouchsafed to human weakness, human pain ! 
 
 While thou wert silent, God was glorified 
 Through the meek Christ of the Judsean plain ; 
 
 The kingdom has passed from thee in thy pride ! 
 
 Forever dumb ! a curse is on thy lips ! 
 
 Forever blind ! a blackness smote thine eyes, 
 When fell the darkness of the dread eclipse 
 
 That veiled the mystery of Sacrifice ! 
 
 TO A. L. B. 
 
 (On sending her my verses on " THE SILENT SPHINX"). 
 
 MY friend ! you asked of me a mighty thing 
 Smiling farewell, with sweet words like gold links 
 
 To chain me to my promise saying, " Bring, 
 And faithfully, the answer of the Sphinx
 
 TO A. L. B. 83 
 
 The words she whispered soft to you alone, 
 
 List'ning with warm ear at her frozen mouth ! " 
 
 I hearkened, but the oracle was stone, 
 
 And the hot simoon swept up from the south, 
 
 Blinding and choking, and all things seemed dead. 
 
 What needed it to send me hence so far ? 
 From the old thrones the kingly Shape has fled, 
 
 Shrouded in dust the ancient glories are ; 
 
 The desert has no voice : but not in vain 
 
 The search for Truth, e'en though we find it not 
 
 Weakness is power sometimes, and loss is gain 
 The seeker greater than the thing he sought. 
 
 What though Life's problem be as stern as fate ? 
 
 The labyrinth lies open from above 
 God's sun illumes the windings intricate 
 
 We know not where we go, but God is Love. 
 
 And in forgetting self, and knowing Him, 
 
 Living for others, gaining but to give, 
 In our own homes we read the riddle dim 
 
 We do not live to die, we die to live ! 
 
 Dec. 7, 1869.
 
 84 TO A. L. B. 
 
 TO A. L. B. 
 
 (On her return from Europe and the East, August, 1868.) 
 
 IN fairer, yet familiar guise 
 
 I greet thee, fresh from foreign lands ! 
 Once more I read thy earnest eyes, 
 
 Once more we meet with clinging hands. 
 
 I listen to thy eager voice, 
 
 Grown richer with its glowing themes 
 And in my heart of hearts rejoice 
 
 That one of us has more than dreams ! 
 
 That one of us has trod in truth, 
 
 Where round her feet the elder world 
 
 Her torn, but radiant robe of youth 
 
 Trails, splendid, with Art's gems impearled. 
 
 That on the shining Midland Sea, 
 
 " Whose waters throb with memories," 
 
 'Neath the warm skies of Italy, 
 
 On Hellas' honey-scented breeze
 
 TO A. L. B. 85 
 
 In the beloved Holy Land, 
 
 Or where, amid her ruins vast, 
 Enshrouded in the desert sand, 
 
 Sleeps Egypt, Mother of the Past ; 
 
 To thee has come, by land and sea, 
 
 Fruition fair of joy foretold 
 Life's Alchemist, Reality, 
 
 Has turned our web of dreams to gold ! 
 
 And while, O friend, rejoicing so, 
 Once more I press thee to my heart, 
 
 'Tis sweeter far than all to know 
 
 We grew more near, when far apart ! 
 
 On hoary mount, in Alpine glen, 
 
 Thou, wandering, felt'st my hand in thine, 
 
 And while I mused o'er book and pen. 
 From the fair page thy smile would shine. 
 
 Together thus we roamed, and stayed 
 In different airs we breathed one breath 
 
 And thus together, unafraid, 
 
 We wait the great Divider, Death !
 
 86 TRANSLATIONS FROM MUSIC. 
 
 Upon one upward journey bound, 
 Together, though apart, we trod 
 
 Through devious ways one path we found 
 And, soon or late, it ends in God. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM MUSIC. 
 
 Nocturnes. 
 
 (CHOPIN No. III.) 
 
 IN the garden at night ! the air is dank 
 With the heavy scent of the lily-bank ; 
 The shrouding mists rise out of the sea 
 Is the darkness over the earth, or me ? 
 
 I tread the old path, and I stretch my hands 
 
 To feel for the clinging jasmine-bands, 
 
 That clustered yesterday round Her curls, 
 
 With their white, sweet blossoms, fairer than pearls.
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM MUSIC. 87 
 
 They droop, they are trembling under my touch 
 Ah, but one step farther. I ask not much 
 Where the faint, crushed rose-leaves kiss my feet, 
 To die with the Summer, when death is sweet ! 
 
 In the dim West breaketh a struggling light, 
 The Love-star is sinking down thro' the night 
 My life glides with it out toward the deep. 
 I am weary with joy oh, let me sleep ! 
 
 At twilight she told me, under the vine 
 I am hers forever, as she is mine ! 
 We have loved each other that is best 
 Though we died together, she on my breast ! 
 
 Is there one dark thought to ruffle my dream ? 
 The midnight feast after, the strange hot gleam 
 That lit her father's eyes, as he filled 
 My cup with the red wine until it spilled 
 
 And I drank to him with my voice, by name, 
 And I drank to her with my heart aflame, 
 In silence that speaks more loud than breath 
 And she drank with me. but we both drank death !
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM MUSIC. 
 
 She lieth so still and white in the room 
 And I faint out here, in the perfumed gloom ; 
 Between us there lies the castle wall 
 I leaped over once now barriers fall 
 
 With the last struggling, human, long-drawn sigh : 
 We are drifting together, she and I, 
 Soul clasped with soul, toward eternity 
 The hand that would chain us has set us free ! 
 
 Ah, the clouds are breaking, 'tis almost dawn 
 The fresh breeze comes whispering up from the lawn, 
 The dew falls cool on valley and hill 
 It touches my forehead, and I am still. 
 
 Where the roses have fallen, lay me low 
 Life's fever-flush over 'tis holier so ! 
 Crown me with lilies, calm after strife 
 The passionate perfume exhales with life ! 
 
 The calm grows deeper I close my eyes 
 Do I hear the heavenly harmonies ? 
 Joy's undertone through my heart pulsates 
 The love is divine that death consecrates !
 
 UNREQUITING. 89 
 
 Peace broods o'er the earth, peace reigns in the sky 
 It was Love, to live 'tis Heaven, to die ! 
 Peace ! upon angels' wings upborne, 
 In the strange dark hour before the morn ! 
 
 Nov. 18, 1869. 
 
 UNREQUITING. 
 
 I CANNOT love thee, but I hold thee dear 
 Thou must not stay I cannot bid thee go ! 
 
 I am so lonely, and the end draws near 
 Ah, love me still, but do not tell me so ! 
 
 'Tis but a little longer keep thy faith ! 
 
 Though love's last rapture I shall never know, 
 I fain would trust thee, even unto death. 
 
 Ah, love me still, but do not tell me so ! 
 
 I am so poor I have no self to give, 
 And less than all I will not offer, no ! 
 
 I die, but not for thee fain would I live 
 Ay ! love me still, but do not tell me so 1
 
 9O UNREQUITING. 
 
 Like a strange flower that blossoms in the night, 
 And dies at dawn, love faded long ago 
 
 Born in a dream, it perished with the light 
 Lov'st thou me still ? ah, do not tell me so ! 
 
 Let me imagine that thou art my friend 
 No less no more, I ask for here below ! 
 
 Be patient with me even to the end 
 Loving me still, thou wilt not tell me so ! 
 
 Those words were sweet once never more again ! 
 
 I thought my dream had vanished, let it go ! 
 I dreamed of joy I woke, it turned to pain 
 
 Ah, love me still, but never tell me so ! 
 
 I cannot lose thee yet, so near to heaven ! 
 
 There with diviner love all souls shall glow ; 
 There is no marriage bond, no vows are given 
 
 Thou'lt love me still, nor need to tell me so ! 
 
 Ah ! I am selfish, asking even this 
 I cannot love thee, nor yet bid thee go ! 
 
 To utter love is nigh love's dearest bliss 
 Thou lov'st me still, and dost not tell me so ! 
 
 Dec. 3, 1869.
 
 TO ROSALIE. 91 
 
 TO ROSALIE. 
 
 On sending her a bud from a bouquet of roses, which, being absent, she 
 did not receive, Friday evening, January \$th, 1870. 
 
 AMONG the brilliant faces yester eve, 
 The rippling voices and the laughter gay, 
 I knew not what I missed that made me grieve 
 My rosebud was not there, queen-flower of the 
 bouquet ! 
 
 Glad were the others, as at other times, 
 But I, from knowing sweeter might have been, 
 Was scarce attuned to the music's chimes, 
 Nor fain, as oft, to join the dancers' merry din. 
 
 Something there was that touched the conscious air 
 With faint suggestion of thy presence still 
 Thy breath, thy smile, were near me everywhere, 
 As scent of unseen flowers the longing sense may 
 thrill. 
 
 Perhaps this creamy tinted pile' of bloom, 
 With violets for shadows, that all night 
 Stood near me, through the dazzle of the room, 
 Filled the void I felt, not saw, with vague delight !
 
 92 FROM WITHOUT. 
 
 The flowers are withered now, and all is past. 
 They had been lovelier in thy hand, my sweet ! 
 But still the perfume lingers to the last, 
 As the invisible soul with sense and death doth meet. 
 
 The Near is no more ours than the Beyond ; 
 But that fades with the touch, the other lives ; 
 And the Ideal, by a mystic bond 
 Above, yet one with us, still in withdrawing, gives. 
 
 So this, the fragrance of a joy that's fled, 
 May I still send embalmed in memory ; 
 To living love no absence can make dead ; 
 And though thou know it not, this bud is part of thee ! 
 
 Jan. !6, 1870. 
 
 FROM WITHOUT. 
 
 AH ! let me lie the livelong summer day, 
 Breathed into, but not breathing touched and stirred 
 By careless sunshine's wandering ray, 
 Chance song of bird
 
 FROM WITHOUT. 93 
 
 Half waking to the warm wind's soft caress, 
 Dreaming, while light the velvet-footed hours go by, 
 Happy in Nature's happiness, 
 Nor knowing why ! 
 
 No poet am I though perhaps of such 
 Who sipped the vintage of immortal youth 
 In olden days, and, loving much, 
 Knew most of Truth. 
 
 I cannot make the beauty that I love, 
 Nor even sing it of my own free will ; 
 The glory rains down from above, 
 And I lie still. 
 
 Like the ./Eolian harp, that lives alone 
 In music, and without the wind were dumb, 
 I wait a rapture not my own, 
 And it will come. 
 
 E'en now the viewless power my heart-strings 
 
 sweeps : 
 I am the harp, heaven sends- the melody. 
 
 What breathes ? what stirs the soul that sleeps ? 
 The wind not I. 
 
 Ftb. 13, 1870.
 
 94 LINES. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Written after reading GEORGE ELIOT'S " Spanish Gypsy," 
 
 PANTING, oppressed, with aching heart I come 
 From the dark depths where a pale Genius stands, 
 Holding with steady hand the heaven-lit torch 
 Whose light reveals naught but the caverns vast 
 That wind through endless regions of despair ! 
 A form in woman's garments dressed, but stern 
 And terrible as some old heathen god 
 Frozen to marble by a cold-eyed Fate 
 A solemn sovereign, there she holds her state. 
 Crowds bend in homage at her awful shrine, 
 And gaze with hungry eyes upon the flame, 
 Sun-bright, she raises in her sceptred hand 
 Her kingdom's sign, revealer of her woe. 
 Down the dim paths the human multitude 
 Press, eager, till they reach their dazzling goal ; 
 Then, blind, bewildered, wander aimless on, 
 And lose themselves forever in the dark. 
 
 From forth those tomb-like vaults, where Hope lies 
 
 dead, 
 Love suffocates, and Faith has lost her wings,
 
 LINES. 95 
 
 With lightened breath I come to upper air. 
 O God ! the woods are green, the meadows soft; 
 The great sea clasps the earth round lovingly ; 
 Light tips the waves with changing opal glow, 
 Light glimmers in the forest 'neath the shade, 
 Light tints the flowers, and on the mountain tops 
 Sits glorious, and makes them crystal thrones ! 
 Thy thunders crash in brilliancy Thy clouds 
 Shed living diamonds on the thirsty earth, 
 And, far above the changing, rolling world, 
 The vast concave of space, filled full of Light, 
 Enwraps the universe with veils of stars ! 
 And can it be, that darkly-gleaming torch, 
 That only burned to light a sepulchre, 
 Claims with the sun divine affinity, 
 And with its upward flame aspires to Heaven ? 
 Like to an eagle, moved with grand unrest, 
 Beating with mighty wings the trackless air, 
 But with the piercing orbs all sightless dark 
 So Genius, yearning toward the Infinite, 
 Winged with divine aspiring, helplessly 
 Struggles toward heaven to seek its kindred sun, 
 And sinks at last, in aching darkness lost 
 Genius, God-gifted, but forgetting God ! 
 
 Aug. 22, 1868.
 
 96 RESTLESS. 
 
 RESTLESS. 
 
 I THOUGHT I had buried it fathoms deep 
 But it stirs in its sleep, it stirs in its sleep ! 
 The beautiful thing with its angel's eyes 
 I have buried it once, and it never shall rise 
 With the heart of a fiend for tempting ! 
 
 I never can go to its grave to weep, 
 
 For it stirs in its sleep, it stirs in its sleep 
 The warm tears pierce thro' the piled-up mould, 
 And they wake with their dropping the ashes cold 
 That the grass has long since grown over. 
 
 'Neath the years I buried it close and deep, 
 But it stirs in its sleep, it stirs in its sleep ! 
 I thought it was hidden beneath the flowers 
 That once bloomed in the sun of a few short hours 
 When I dreamed that I could forget ! 
 
 The dead love lies buried, my watch I keep 
 Lest it stir in its sleep, lest it stir in its sleep 
 
 It died in its innocence, young, so fair ! 
 
 But 'twould waken with snakes in its golden hair 
 And Medusa's talons to rend me ! 
 
 Sett., 1868.
 
 WUD-AN-WATHA. 97 
 
 Wto-AN-WATHA. 
 
 Extract from a joint poem, -written with E. J. D., and sent to the 
 Adirondac party, July, 1 868. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WELL, they found him, Wud-an-Watha, 
 Found him to their hearts' contentment, 
 For he was a jolly fellow, 
 Bronzed and ruddy, clothed in bear-skins, 
 With a breezy voice and greeting, 
 Strong, and somewhat fierce, but kindly. 
 Where they sought him there they found him 
 In the Ad-I-Ron-Dac country, 
 Where he fled in days long by-gone 
 Fled to hide himself from plough-shares. 
 Mill-wheels, and grass-cutting patents. 
 Means by men contrived for torture ! 
 Need we wonder that he shunned them 
 When they sought his hiding-places, 
 And that when our party sought him, 
 He rebuffed them with a growling, 
 As of thunder in the mountains ; 
 7
 
 WUD-AN-WATHA. 
 
 Sent his scouts, the teasing black-flies, 
 
 His guerrillas, the mosquitoes, 
 
 From his haunts to bid them hasten ? 
 
 Or that in his wayward moments 
 
 He would treat them to adventures 
 
 Hairbreadth 'scapes by Wiid-an-Watha 
 
 Tipping them into the rivers 
 
 From the vessel called the Dug-out, 
 
 Wetting clothes and spoiling tempers, 
 
 Tearing dresses with his bmmbles ; 
 
 And the dainty-footed women, 
 
 Shod with shoe surnamed Bal-Mo-Ral, 
 
 Sticking in the mud for mischief 
 
 Mud, much like to Lasses Kan-Dee. 
 
 But they found him, Wud-an-Watha, 
 
 Found him in his cabin lonely, 
 
 Roofed by sky and arched with tree-boughs, 
 
 With no walls but flowing streamlets, 
 
 Flowing, gurgling all around him. 
 
 And they learned to love the fellow, 
 
 With his wayward, teasing nature, 
 
 With his roughness and his shyness. 
 
 So at last he bade them kindly 
 
 Welcome to his woodland region ;
 
 WUD-AN-WATHA. 99 
 
 Showed them pictures, sunlight painted, 
 Or at night-time sculptured beauties, 
 Dark and moveless as the woods are 
 Turned to marble by the moonlight. 
 And the music that he gave them 
 Dare I spoil it in my versing, 
 Adding words to what was only 
 Music in its purest essence ? 
 Telling how among the pine-trees, 
 Wud-an-Watha's "organ splendid, 
 Sang the wind, and sighed, and rustled, 
 Made a booming, Availing music 
 Telling how the murmuring waters 
 Rippled, danced, and talked together 
 In an undertone of sweetness. 
 But I cannot tell the story, 
 Save to those who know my hero, 
 Know and love him in his wildness. 
 Those who ne'er have been to seek him, 
 Or have sought him, feeble-hearted, 
 Those he hates, and treats them roughly, 
 Naming in contemptuous manner 
 In his language, Si-Ti-People. 
 And to those who know and love him,
 
 IOO GOD DEFENDS THE RIGHT. 
 
 Love him in his simple wildness, 
 Need is none to draw his portrait, 
 For upon their hearts 'tis painted 
 Need is none to tell his story, 
 But they know his secrets wholly, 
 For he told them in the mountains ! 
 
 Dec. 23, 1868. 
 
 GOD DEFENDS THE RIGHT. 
 
 OUR country is divided and we weep, 
 But patriots all have risen from their sleep, 
 Their hearts are strong, their eyes are bright, 
 Their shout of battle : God defends the Right ! 
 
 We may despond we cannot do so long, 
 We trust in Him who's stronger than the strong ; 
 We know that He will save us in His might ; 
 Our cause is righteous : God defends the Right. 
 
 Behold ! they come, a fratricidal band, 
 Their mother's blood upon their lifted hand ! 
 Their knees will tremble, and their brows grow white 
 Before that war-cry : God defends the Right !
 
 THE WILD ROSE. IOI 
 
 We need not fear. We do not, we are strong ; 
 We'll surely triumph ; they are in the wrong ; 
 We'll hope, and trust, and bravely fight the fight, 
 And win at last, for God defends the Right ! 
 
 THE WILD ROSE. 
 
 " ROSE ! by the wayside blooming ; 
 
 Sweet flower, elfin-wild, 
 Whence cometh all thy beauty, 
 Thou fairest Nature's child ? " 
 
 The rose blushed and was silent ; 
 
 Then raised her timid eye, 
 And looked up to the heavens. 
 
 That was her sole reply. 
 
 May 31, 1862.
 
 102 AMY. 
 
 AMY. 
 
 RAVEN tresses round her forehead, 
 Dark eyes closed in peace, 
 
 Hands folded on her bosom 
 For her all sorrows cease. 
 
 Of earth's turmoil she was weary, 
 She longed to be at rest : 
 
 She sleeps now, like an infant 
 Upon its mother's breast. 
 
 She ill could bear the sorrows, 
 The pains and cares of life ; 
 
 And God in mercy took her 
 Where there's an end of strife. 
 
 Place in her hand a lily, 
 
 A lily pure and fair, 
 Its perfume heavenward rising 
 
 Like an unuttered prayer. 
 
 Of purity meet emblem 
 White as the driven snow 
 
 Tis fit that she should bear it 
 When leaving all below.
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL. IO3 
 
 For 'tis a holy token 
 
 Of pardon and of love. 
 It images the garments 
 
 In which the blessed move. 
 
 For her there's now no weeping ; 
 
 Tears no more dim her eye ! 
 She wears those robes of glory 
 
 And walks with saints on high ! 
 
 September 20, 1862. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL. 
 
 A LITTLE stone lay on the ground, 
 
 A poor despised stone, 
 And everywhere, above, around, 
 
 The soft air stirred, the sunbeams shone, 
 And all was light and life. 
 
 All lustreless and dark it lay, 
 Its gaze turned toward the sun. 
 
 It longed, down-trodden in the way, 
 
 For but one sunbeam, only one, 
 
 To rest upon its heart.
 
 IO4 DUMB MUSIC. 
 
 It lay there, yearning toward the light, 
 
 Absorbed in one desire : 
 To be no more enwrapped in night, 
 
 But with baptism of heavenly fire 
 To pass from death to life. 
 
 The sun went down in brilliant glow, 
 All crimson burned the west, 
 
 The stone's heart thrilled with joy, and lo ! 
 The sunset lingered in her breast ! 
 She lived, a gem of price. 
 
 LENOX, Sept. 10, 1863. 
 
 DUMB MUSIC. 
 
 THE night broods o'er the waters, faint and sweet 
 As scent of blossoms, by the balmy feet 
 Of Day, departing, pressed. 
 
 The dim young moon sinks slowly through the mist, 
 Leaving a lingering smile behind, while, list ! 
 Love-charmed, the wavelets sigh.
 
 A VASE OF LILIES. 1 
 
 My heart throbs with the throbbing waves, and fain 
 Would flutter upward to yon star in vain ! 
 'Tis a caged bird, and dumb 
 
 The Beautiful, with fingers touched with fire, 
 Has swept the chords that tune my spirit's lyre, 
 But, thrilling, they are mute. 
 
 Oh ! joy, to feel ! Oh ! pain, to songless pant ! 
 This earthly air is close, and I am faint 
 
 For one pure breath from Heaven ! 
 
 There angel harps stir echoes full and clear ; 
 There sounds shall wake that slept to human ear, 
 And there my lyre find voice ! 
 
 LAKE ONTARIO, August 6, 1864. 
 
 A VASE OF LILIES. 
 
 A CRYSTAL vase, with slender stem, 
 All clear and sparkling, like a gem ; 
 
 And from its lucent depth 
 Fair lilies rising, pure as air, 
 
 And sweet as Summer's breath.
 
 106 A VASE OF LILIES. 
 
 Ethereal blooms ! they seem to grow 
 From the transparent stem below, 
 
 Too pure to touch the earth, 
 And, skyward turning, e'en would claim 
 
 Its cloud- wreaths as their birth. 
 
 I musing gaze, and, while I dream, 
 The sun has dropped a wavering gleam 
 
 And lit their foreheads pale, 
 As saints are crowned by angel hands 
 
 When passed beyond the veil. 
 
 And now they glow, all filled with light, 
 Until, transfigured, heavenly bright, 
 
 Their substance melts away, 
 And in the glory visions rise 
 
 Visions more fair than Day. 
 
 Cecilia's soul of song, with eyes 
 Upturned to the melodious skies, 
 
 Meek Agnes' smile of love, 
 The martyred saints, who triumphed once, 
 
 Now rest serene above.
 
 DISENCHANTMENT. IO/ 
 
 In purity they conquered then, 
 And since, on the abodes of men, 
 
 With pitying smile look down : 
 And if their lilies now we bear, 
 
 We may attain their crown ! 
 
 Ah ! they are fading, blossoms frail, 
 But still they leave a ling'ring trail 
 
 Of sweetness on the air, 
 And so within my soul there rest 
 
 Those visions pure and fair. 
 
 Aug. 30, 1864. 
 
 DISENCHANTMENT. 
 
 BY the shore of Life's ocean I linger, and dream 
 Dreams, ah ! so surpassingly fair ! 
 
 While the opaline waters so restlessly gleam, 
 And quivers in sunshine the air.
 
 108 LINES. 
 
 But, entranced while I stand, as my visions arise, 
 And wrap me, bewildered, around 
 
 In a tissue of sunlight and irident dyes ; 
 And fairy-like melodies sound 
 
 The tide has advanced ; a wave breaks at my feet, 
 And, sobbing, ebbs back to the deep : 
 
 In a shower of tears my imaginings sweet 
 Have vanished and left me to weep. 
 
 Nov. 2, 1864. 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO A CHILD, 
 
 Standing absorbed before GUIDO'S "Michael and the Dragot 
 (L. S.) 
 
 LITTLE one, why fades the smile 
 That dimpled in thy cheek erewhile ? 
 What depths are these within thine eyes, 
 And what the shadowy thoughts that rise 
 Within them, gazing rapt ?
 
 LINES. 
 
 That wondrous painting on the wall 
 The Arch-Fiend, 'writhing in his fall, 
 The Angel, terrible and calm, 
 God's vengeance in his lifted arm, 
 God's pity in his face 
 
 I see it now ; 'tis there the spell 
 That in thy heart's fresh, limpid well 
 Has stirred the waters, as the spring 
 Was ruffled by a spirit's wing 
 In the old, holy time. 
 
 Gaze not too closely, gentle one ! 
 A little while to play return ; 
 For soon, ah, soon ! thy soul must feel 
 The meaning of the strife, and steel 
 Itself to meet the foe. 
 
 Thou canst not always sweetly dream, 
 Soothed by the rippling, murmuring stream 
 Thou deemest Life to be. Ere long 
 A deeper rhythm will swell its song, 
 The brook will near the sea.
 
 IIO HIDDEN STARS. 
 
 Hark to the solem minor strain 
 Its music melts in ! Joy and pain, 
 The victor's chant, the mourner's wail, 
 Come, blended by the ocean gale 
 In one grand symphony. 
 
 Hush ! 'tis Life's harmony I hear ! 
 No purling brook can charm mine ear, 
 For, though the battling billows roar, 
 At last, upon the farther shore 
 They chime with angel songs. 
 
 Dec. 25, 1864. 
 
 HIDDEN STARS. 
 
 MY soul, where is thy faith ? 
 
 God is, rest thou in Him ! 
 His glory shineth yet ; 
 
 'Tis that thine eyes are dim. 
 
 "The sky seems void," thou sayst, 
 "That heavenly light beams far ; 
 
 I could look upward once, 
 
 But He has quenched my star."
 
 HIDDEN STARS. Ill 
 
 My soul, look up ! look up ! 
 
 Worship, unknowing still ! 
 Gaze, till celestial light 
 
 Doth all thy being fill ! 
 
 God hid her in Himself, 
 
 As veils the stars the moon ; 
 Gaze on the greater orb, 
 
 Thou'lt see the lesser soon. 
 
 As when the crescent fair 
 
 Beams in the sunset sky, 
 Intent we look, nor deem 
 
 The star of eve so nigh, 
 
 A momentary glance 
 
 Reveals the quiv'ring light, 
 Which, had we sought, were hid 
 
 From our too straining sight 
 
 So God would have us fix 
 
 Our hearts on Him alone, 
 And in His glory see 
 
 Our loved ones round the throne. 
 
 Jan. i, 1865.
 
 112 C. A. H. 
 
 C. A. H. 
 
 (May 7, 1865). 
 
 I HAD a dream last night a happy dream, 
 
 I write it now with tears. Might I recall 
 
 That vision fair, and clasp it to my breast ! 
 
 Methought she came, the friend so lately lost, 
 
 Came in as bright a guise as last she wore 
 
 When we two met and parted : and we talked, 
 
 And looked into each other's eyes, and sweet 
 
 Was our communion strangely sweet, but sad ; 
 
 Her eyes burned with a solemn radiance, 
 
 And mine grew full of tears, I knew not why, 
 
 Save that she seemed far-off, and different. 
 
 "Why shouldst thou weep? " she said, and pressed 
 
 me close 
 
 In one long, sweet embrace. Oh ! I can feel 
 Her arms about me still, and I do think 
 It must be that her spirit came to mine 
 When earthly things were hid from me in sleep. 
 I could not bear such happiness for long, 
 And so she left me ; but she said : "I came 
 To tell thee that I love thee still, and wait / "
 
 THE PSYCHE-BIRD. 113 
 
 And in a moment, lifting up my eyes, 
 
 I saw her in the distance, and her face 
 
 Transfigured with the dazzling light that streamed 
 
 From a half-opened gateway, where she stood. 
 
 And thus I woke. Did I awake in sooth, 
 
 Or dream I now that she is dead, and I 
 
 Am left to tread alone Life's rugged path 
 
 Of hard realities ? Realities ! 
 
 Nay, Life's vain phantoms pass, but what we see 
 
 With spiritual eyes is deathless, real, 
 
 And glorious far beyond what tongue can tell. 
 
 FT. W., May 15, 1865. 
 
 THE PSYCHE-BIRD. 
 
 ONCE through the crystal gates of Paradise 
 That land of snowy mounts and gardens fair, 
 
 We dream of, gazing in the sunset skies 
 A little bird strayed forth, all unaware. 
 8
 
 114 THE PSYCHE-BIRD. 
 
 Afar it flew, and sang its heavenly lays, 
 
 While the harmonious spheres stood dumb to hear, 
 Until, too faint its weary wings to raise, 
 
 It saw the Earth, an isle of rest, lay near. 
 
 And there stood one, with happy, steadfast gaze, 
 And thoughts lost in the boundless, -blue abyss : 
 
 A brow to wear the Poet's wreath of bays, 
 A heart to suffer and to love were his. 
 
 With rainbow pinions folded round its breast, 
 As drops a falling star, it downward slid, 
 
 And nestled where it might at last find rest ; 
 For in the Poet's heart of hearts 'twas hid. 
 
 Thenceforth, thro' all his many wanderings, 
 
 He cherished close and warm that heav'nly guest, 
 
 And felt the restless fluttering of its wings, 
 While throbbed unuttered music in his breast. 
 
 Ofttimes he sang, and, when his song rose high, 
 It thrilled with nameless joy the souls of men. 
 
 They knew not 'twas a heaven-born melody, 
 That sighed to reach its starry home again.
 
 THE WATER-LILY. 11 
 
 But still the loveliest songs were left unsung, 
 
 For when his heart with highest rapture swelled, 
 
 Struggling within he felt, while mute its tongue, 
 The home-sick pris'ner that his bosom held. 
 
 From heav'n it came, to heav'n it still aspired 
 Within his breast it spread its wings to fly ; 
 
 But he, whose spirit it had once inspired, 
 
 Cried "No, thou shalt not leave me till I die ! ", 
 
 And when at last the happy moment came, 
 And from its mortal part his soul was freed, 
 
 That cherished bird spread forth its wings of flame, 
 And soared with him, where song is song indeed ! 
 
 July 8, 1865. 
 
 THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 FAIR Water-Lily, floating calm 
 Upon the glassy stream, 
 
 Too beautiful for flower of earth 
 Thy birth was in a dream !
 
 Il6 TO A * * * *. 
 
 For on a balmy summer night, 
 
 In golden days of yore, 
 Peaceful, as wrapped in slumber sweet, 
 
 Lay sky, and lake, and shore. 
 
 And drowsy grew the stars ; but one, 
 
 Arousing in her sleep, 
 Saw, far below, an image fair 
 
 Reflected in the deep ; 
 
 And, smiling, dreamed again of Love. 
 When rose the sun that morn 
 
 He kissed the smile-touched wave to life, 
 And lo ! the flower was born ! 
 
 Aug. 12, 1865. 
 
 TO A * * * *. 
 
 YOU would not tell me, darling, 
 But I saw it in your eyes 
 
 As shineth in the brooklet 
 The light of summer skies.
 
 CRYSTALLIZED MOONLIGHT. II? 
 
 The depths that once in shadow 
 Their treasures hid from sight, 
 
 Now flash with living diamonds, 
 And quiver in the light: 
 
 And tho' the brooklet babbles 
 
 Its nothing in my ear, 
 I see the sunlight smiling 
 
 I know your secret, dear ! 
 
 Dec. 30, 1865. 
 
 CRYSTALLIZED MOONLIGHT. 
 
 TO-DAY the streets look dreary, but last night 
 The sky was clear as crystal, and the earth, 
 
 Wrapped in a robe of moonlight, glistened white, 
 And seemed as pure as on its day of birth. 
 
 I looked before I slept, and thought " Alas ! 
 
 'Twill fade, as dreams fade, with the morn " but 
 
 no ! 
 Not thus that heaven-born loveliness did pass 
 
 But the white moonbeams turned to starry snow !
 
 Il8 CLARCHEN'S SONG. 
 
 Like to that dreamy light that floods the skies 
 Are the fair thoughts to poet-spirits given 
 
 Thoughts that in "winged words" do crystallize, 
 And leave on earth some fleeting trace of heaven 
 
 NEW YORK, March 3, 1866. 
 
 CLARCHEN'S SONG. 
 
 From the German of Gothe. 
 
 JOYFUL, 
 And tearful 
 
 In dreaming how blest ! 
 Yearning, 
 Yet fearful 
 
 In doubt, how distrest ! 
 
 To the skies now exalted 
 
 To death now thrust down 
 The spirit that loveth 
 Is happy alone ! 
 
 March at, 1866
 
 A DREAM. 119 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 As one who sleeps and dreams a wondrous dream, 
 
 Then, starting, wakes, and says : "It was not so! " 
 
 But still his thoughts take up the broken thread 
 
 And weave it on thro' fitful slumbers, till 
 
 The golden tissue is complete, and shames 
 
 The glories of the ever-bright'ning Day 
 
 So thro' my life a vision runs, that grows 
 
 More beautiful the longer that I live, 
 
 Until I know that it alone is Truth, 
 
 And I but dream while thinking that I wake. 
 
 My happy childhood dwelt within a vale, 
 So sunny, warm, and dewy-fresh, with trees 
 Of murmurous foliage singing drowsy tunes, 
 And silver-dropping waves, and velvet turf, 
 It seemed a cradle fit to sleep a life away. 
 But round about, grand mountains lifted high 
 Their snowy pinnacles, that, crowned with light, 
 Floated in glory 'mid the liquid air. 
 O beautiful, O changeless ! Thro' my dream 
 I see ye still, and still your solemn heights 
 Celestial, radiant, in eternal calm
 
 I2O A DREAM. 
 
 Draw up mine eyes, brimming with yearning tears, 
 Where fain my feet would follow ! Then, as now, 
 Such longing filled my soul. I could not rest, 
 And, all the beauty of that vale forgot, 
 I set my feet to climb the barren steep. 
 Painful each step, but still the end in sight, 
 I climbed unweariedly, till storms arose ; 
 And whirling gales, and floods, and darkness dire 
 Blinded mine eyes, and beat me to the ground : 
 Yet still I struggled on ... . And now, methinks, 
 I dream as then, and with my closed eyes 
 I see the shadowy shape, that thro' the storm 
 Hovered above me, robed in shifting white, 
 Pointing the way, and sometimes bending down 
 As though to lift me in its cloudy arms. 
 
 I feared it then, mysterious Messenger ! 
 And, trembling, shrank, as from a cold embrace : 
 I thought it some dread spectre of the night, 
 And named it Death. Oh ! ignorant ! 
 For now I know it for an angel sent 
 From heav'n in love to guide my weary feet ; 
 And what, in vague affright, seemed terrible, 
 Has grown, with time, to be the dearest hope ! 
 
 And so I tread the stormy path of life,
 
 LINES. 121 
 
 And as in dream I pass through shade and sun, 
 With heart still lifted to those heights sublime : 
 And still the cloud-robed One attends my steps. 
 From day to day more lovingly he looks, 
 More radiant his eyes, as sun thro' mist, 
 The heav'nly light grows nearer half I wake 
 Oh ! vision, leave me not ! Oh ! Angel, come ! 
 Bear me aloft upon thy snowy wings, 
 Gaze down into my soul with look serene, 
 And I will close my eyes once more, to wake 
 Where dreams become reality in Heaven ! 
 
 FT. W., Afril 29, 1866. 
 
 LINES 
 
 With thanks for some ivild-fl<rwers. 
 (H. E.) 
 
 COME, tell me, tell me, blossoms fair, 
 And do ye no sweet message bear 
 From one who loves me well ?
 
 122 LINES. 
 
 She sends no written word, and yet 
 This sweetly scented floweret 
 It is not dumb to me. 
 
 For words alone are hard and cold, 
 The fervid spirit scarce can mould 
 Them into breathing forms. 
 
 A look, a tone, a smile, tell more 
 Of all the heart's strange, hidden lore 
 Than many a gilded tome. 
 
 A faded flower, whose perfume still 
 Doth faintly linger, oft will fill 
 
 The heart with mem'ries sweet. 
 
 Tho' form and hue are crushed and gone, 
 The soul remains, and still lives on 
 More beautiful than they. 
 
 Ah, yes ! when earthly blooms depart, 
 There lives a perfume of the heart 
 Embalming withered joys !
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 123 
 
 And so I keep these blossoms fair, 
 For on their honeyed breath they bear 
 The love they cannot tell ! 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 c. s. E. 
 
 (May 17, 1866.) 
 
 OUR dear one, fading from our sight away 
 Till but a shadow of herself, still kept 
 
 Her loving heart, that grew, from day to day, 
 Thro' pain more loving, till at last she " slept," 
 
 Like some meek blossom, 'neath the heel of Death, 
 Whose fragrance, richer that 'tis bruised, is given, 
 
 So, smilingly, she yielded up her breath, 
 
 And, leaving Earth the sweeter, rose to Heaven.
 
 124 THE LYRE AND THE CROSS. 
 
 THE LYRE AND THE CROSS. 
 
 (Aspiration and Peace a Dream by Starlight. ) 
 
 'TlS a most lovely night ! a night when dreams, 
 Like summer fire-flies, light with fitful gleam 
 The dark, mysterious chambers of the soul. 
 Half dreaming, and half waking, while the stars 
 Shine thro' my closed lids into my heart, 
 And fill it with a shimmering radiance, 
 Like some calm, glassy lake at eventide, 
 Two pictures rise before me both most fair. 
 
 The first a youth with glowing, eloquent eyes, 
 Pale cheek, and restless mouth, whose smile is sweet 
 The sweeter for the sadness underneath. 
 The night-wind sighs among the distant pines 
 With a low, wailing music ; rustling leaves, 
 The cricket's chirp, and all the nameless sounds 
 That haunt a summer's night, make melody, 
 While throbbing perfume fills the pauses in, 
 And, brimming o'er with happiness, a bird 
 Trills, in its sleep, a broken roundelay. 
 With that same quiv'ring smile, 'twixt joy and pain,
 
 THE LYRE AND THE CROSS. 125 
 
 He hearkens, while on high his gaze is fixed 
 Where Lyra burns amid a myriad stars. 
 Deeper and darker, with a troubled gleam 
 Shooting intensest radiance, beam those eyes, 
 As lightning glances o'er a storm-tossed sea, 
 And thus his words break forth : " Oh ! beautiful, 
 Too beautiful for mortals dumb and deaf ! 
 This glorious harmony of singing spheres 
 That echoes from thy strings, O heav'nly Harp ! 
 These sweet earth melodies that blend, and flow 
 Like rippling streams into the billowy sea 
 We know them by a broken chord or two 
 That strike upon our heart-strings out of tune 
 And oft-times make a discord. Or, if more, 
 The strained, frail instrument is snapped in twain, 
 Like to a wind-harp in a hurricane, 
 And thrills into an ecstasy of death ! 
 Oh ! why these longings unfulfilled ! this strife 
 Of limitless desire, that breaks in waves 
 Against the hard and stony shore of Time, 
 With an unsatisfied murmur ebbing back ? 
 O God, unloose these trammels, set me free ! 
 This soul within, this spark of heav'nly fire, 
 Burns thro' the casket where 'tis prisoned up,
 
 126 THE LYRE AND THE CROSS. 
 
 And would flame upward, to the Source of Light ! " 
 Once more the shining of those eyes I see, 
 Then, in an instant, quenched in tears, they fade, 
 One picture vanishes, another comes. 
 
 And this time, Age stands musing 'neath the stars. 
 With hoary locks, and leaning on a staff, 
 He gazes upward, lost in peaceful thought : 
 And though the Lyre still shines, his eyes are fixed 
 Upon a constellation that but now I see 
 A Cross, half-veiled beneath a mist of stars. 
 And now I see it is the self-same face, 
 But with a wondrous change the poet then, 
 And here but now merged into the saint 
 Both those, and this the fiery eye not quenched, 
 But burning like a holy altar-flame ; 
 The lips closed in such sweet serenity 
 God's seal seemed set on them, a pledge of peace. 
 
 Here would I cease, in meditation wrapt, 
 And read this lesson in the tranquil stars : 
 " 'Tis vain to struggle with mortality, 
 And tear the spirit's wings against its cage. 
 To wait in patience, and with faith endure, 
 Is, in God's sight, sublime and beautiful. 
 Sorrow must purify the soul from dross,
 
 A ROSEBUD IN A LETTER. I2/ 
 
 And Faith give wings to Aspiration's self, 
 Before it finds rest in the Infinite. 
 The cross must first in lowliness be borne, 
 And then in triumph shall the Harp resound ! " 
 
 July 8, 1866. 
 
 A ROSEBUD IN A LETTER. 
 
 A KISS I'd send thee, dearest one, 
 
 But send a rose instead ; 
 For kisses fade in letters, love ! 
 
 But this is sweet, tho' dead. 
 
 This morn I plucked it, bathed in dew, 
 
 Bright as a smile thro' tears : 
 Now, while I gaze, amid the leaves 
 
 A face more bright appears. 
 
 The blushing cheek, the perfumed breath 
 Ah, me ! I thought 'twas you ! 
 
 . . . Nay, don't be angry, sweet ! methinks 
 You'll find the kiss there too ! 
 
 Sept. 19, 1866. v
 
 128 SONG OF THE SEEDS. 
 
 SPRING YEARNINGS. 
 
 THRO' Nature breathes some subtle influence 
 
 That wakes within the soul a clearer sense 
 
 Of the invisible truths that haunt our lives, 
 
 And, deeper than the coral-seeker dives 
 
 In Indian seas, lie, beautiful and strange, 
 
 Far down beneath the passions' ceaseless change. 
 
 Often it seems, in the first days of spring, 
 As if the very grass were murmuring 
 A whispered song, mysteriously sweet, 
 And the brown seeds beneath our careless feet 
 Say the same language that our souls would speak, 
 And strive to find the very things we seek. 
 
 SONG OF THE SEEDS. 
 
 'Tis so dark, so dark here under the ground ! 
 
 We reach and we struggle we know not where ! 
 We long for something we have not found, 
 
 We seek and we find not, but cannot despair !
 
 
 SONG OF THE SEEDS. I2Q 
 
 It is warm and sweet here under the earth, 
 And so peaceful too why cannot we stay ! . 
 
 What is this change that is named a birth ? 
 
 And what is that wonderful thing called the Day ? 
 
 But a power is on us : we may not wait ; 
 
 Within us we feel it struggle and thrill 
 While upward we reach to find our fate, 
 
 And this ceaseless, mysterious want to fulfil. 
 
 They say that at last we shall reach the Air 
 Will breathing be freedom, and Light be Life ? 
 
 What mystic change shall we meet with there 
 
 When the blossom shall crown this mute, strange 
 strife ? 
 
 So, ending answerless, the song is done 
 The song so oft upon the earth begun, 
 Whose closing and triumphant harmonies 
 Shall ne'er be sounded but beyond the skies. 
 
 May 26, 1867.
 
 130 LINES. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Suggested by EDWIN WHITE'S study for a picture of " Fra Angelica 
 at Prayer" 
 
 Go forth, meek picture ! speak unto the world ! 
 
 Thy sober tints refresh, amid the glare 
 Go, tell the restless shallow-hearted throng 
 
 The story of the artist-monk at prayer. 
 
 Mayhap 'twill listen : though the tale be old, 
 'Tis sweet as faded violets, and will last 
 
 Like the Fra's angels, clad in vestments quaint, 
 Whose tender, rapturous faces have no Past. 
 
 Ah ! might these pictured forms impress the heart, 
 And this pale, humble figure at the shrine 
 
 Draw down upon the age what for himself 
 
 He sought, and found Love's effluence divine ! 
 
 The world, a Titan, with its hundred hands 
 
 Struck blind by Pride beneath the blaze of noon 
 
 Reaches out wearily, and longs for light 
 In its own darkness, void of stars or moon.
 
 TO A. D. 131 
 
 Restless, unsatisfied, aspiring ? yes ! 
 
 But seeking Self self-hating while it seeks 
 To such, a quick'ning fount 'mid desert sands, 
 
 This picture, in its pure, cool beauty, speaks. 
 
 Oh ! might all learn of him whom Art so blessed ! 
 
 Might all the ignorant, faithless, and afraid, 
 The frail, fame-loving, disappointed, proud 
 
 Know, that before he dared to paint, he prayed ! 
 
 June 18, 1868. 
 
 To A. D. 
 
 With a Wedding-Present of a Clock. 
 
 GIFTS are the language that we give our love ; 
 
 Words perish, but the soul that speaks them, never I 
 So, Addie ! take my gift, remembering still 
 
 This is for Time, but friendship lasts forever ! 
 
 LENOX, June 25, 1868.
 
 I3 2 A SONG. 
 
 A SONG 
 
 DEDICATED TO L. L. 
 
 Suggested by an incident during a country walk. 
 
 MY Psyche, with dreamy eyes, 
 
 Half woman, half a child, 
 Once caught a butterfly by surprise 
 
 Smiling nor knowing she smiled ! 
 
 He hovered about her mouth, 
 
 As 'twere a rosebud red ; 
 Her breath was the breath of the south, 
 
 Sunshine the hair of her head. 
 
 She wooed him not, but he came 
 She knew not she was fair 
 
 But he brushed by her cheek like a flame, 
 Leaving the blush-stain there ! 
 
 Alas ! for the fluttering thing, 
 
 His plumage all despoiled ! 
 Alas ! for the butterfly wing, 
 
 Rainbow-hued once, now so soiled 1
 
 A SONG. 133 
 
 But ah ! for the lily-cheek, 
 Flushed into sudden bloom ! 
 
 For beauty she thought not to seek, 
 Ripened through others' doom. 
 
 LEBANON, Aug. 5, 1868. 
 12
 
 PROSE.
 
 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 
 
 IT is better put into prose yes ! Who would 
 think of making rhyme-cages to hold those evanes- 
 cent sweetnesses, gilt be the bars ever so finely with 
 dainty adjective or cunningly twisted metaphor a 
 fretwork of shining words to shut in the invisible ! 
 Rhyme the orange-blossom with the rose, the violet 
 with the mignonette, but let the poetry stay in your 
 heart, and not scatter its hidden beauty from your 
 lips, too rude to know under what seal of delicate 
 kissing petals was solemnized that mystical marriage 
 of the essences ! 
 
 Truly, the flowers have secrets that we know not 
 of, and it is not strange we woo them with murmured 
 songs to disclose their sweet magic, as the sorcerers 
 of old crooned rhythmic snatches of cabalistic lore to 
 evoke the shadows of coming days from their weird 
 caldron-smoke ! Charms of music are always the 
 most potent it may be because in every song there 
 are woven some few threads of the great under-har-
 
 138 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 
 
 mony that sways the universe into a sympathy of 
 spheres. Yes, music, music ! What a panting for 
 expression stirs through the earth-silences ! What a 
 longing for the voice ! Strange that perfume, mute 
 that it is, should have this musical echo ; though the 
 answer be not in speech, but in yearning ! But this 
 very perfume an up-breathing, an aspiration is the 
 true flower-utterance, and melts so into the divine 
 harmony, where waves of sound and sight and breath 
 mingle their varying chords in a glad sympathy of 
 life and motion, and the solemn dance of the stars is 
 its own music ! Yes, perfume is the voice of the 
 flowers, and they sing their own song amid the mighty 
 chorus, perhaps the sweeter that no mortal ears can 
 hear the low pulsing of their harmonious breath ! 
 
 But for the prose. Ah, the poetry says so little, 
 the brilliant words crowd close to hide the meaning, 
 and claim the admiration for themselves. Just to 
 forget the saying for the meaning, or to find the say- 
 ing that shall forget itself. Let us be silent, like the 
 flowers, and breathe, not speak, living only, drawing 
 in strength and beauty, like them, from sun and rain 
 and warm enwrapping earth, and leaving our songs to 
 the birds, who were made for melody not knowing,
 
 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 139 
 
 ourselves, that in that very breath which we draw lies 
 the great gift of utterance ; that while we think our 
 dumb lives are but receivings, they are also givings. 
 We inhale, but we also exhale, there is no real living 
 without both, no opening of the soul-corolla to God's 
 glad gifts from heaven, without the answering incense 
 of a perfume though to the heart that breaks be- 
 neath the burdening sweetness of the blessing it be 
 only a longing, forever unexpressed that offered and 
 accepted prayer ! 
 
 People do not write much about perfumes. It 
 must be because they say themselves. But there 
 are many beautiful things that might be said about 
 them. Alas ! all our saying is about something 
 to utter the thing, that is what we cannot do. It 
 utters itself again : and that is the reason of the 
 creating in separateness "one glory of the moon, and 
 another of the sun, and another of the stars" each 
 an individuality, though all the utterance of God : all 
 made by one Word, yet each with its own language. 
 Therefore the Spirit gave many tongues to the apos- 
 tles by one Divine inbreathing. There is room for all, 
 and a need, moreover, for every one. 
 
 Thus high does the theme lead us ; and we cannot,
 
 I4O THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 
 
 if we would, draw back from the thoughts that rise 
 like the very perfume that we write of, an aspiring 
 incense toward the throne of the Invisible. 
 
 Did you ever think of it before how beautiful it is, 
 the " offering of a sweet-smelling savor" in the sight 
 of God ? How much it means, this symbol of a 
 silent aspiring, an ascending smoke of sweetness, the 
 essence of a burning heart ! 
 
 There is an intoxication in perfume : even while 
 I write, the sprig of honeysuckle I gathered half an 
 hour ago fills the room with its drowsy spiciness, and 
 I can hardly think. I close my eyes, and existence 
 seems merged in one dreamy Now, where being takes 
 the place of doing, and the joy of consciousness, like 
 that trance-like pause between sleeping and waking, 
 is in knowing you are on the verge of the uncon- 
 scious. I wonder if the Brahmins found their first 
 type of the bliss of annihilation in the over-mastering 
 fragrance of some dream-compelling tropic bloom ! 
 
 So perfume gives a symbol of two opposites : one a 
 worship which arises out of life, its true essence and 
 aroma, a religion which acknowledges the actual, find- 
 ing in faith the complement of life, not its substitute ; 
 the other a worship too, but a mystic ecstasy, where
 
 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 141 
 
 prayer is the* All, and life and life's work a fading film, 
 obscuring the glory of the unnamable Ideal. 
 
 But no more of this now. The lotos-scent is too rich, 
 too subtly sweet its dreamy atmosphere too irresist- 
 ible. Forgetfulness is not Elysium, spite of the fabled 
 Lethe. Who stoops beside those dark waves, shudders ; 
 for then only does he taste the utter deep of Death. 
 Worse a thousand times than the fiery waves of Phle- 
 gethon, the slow-sliding, engulfing blackness of the 
 river of Oblivion ! 
 
 Thank God we are not heathens, and our heaven 
 shuts not love and memory out ! 
 
 Thus far the heavy odors of the East have led our 
 wandering imaginations. Poor spirit of staid prose, 
 how vainly wert thou invoked ! Fancy's warm breath, 
 whispering in thine ear, has bewitched thy senses, and 
 vainly dost thou strive to speak in her melodious 
 tongue ! Thou art a sober Western fairy, dwelling in 
 the clovered fields, drinking no richer draughts than 
 the dew distils from clustering sweet-fern or wild eg- 
 lantine ; and claimest for thy domain no crimson wil- 
 derness of Persian roses ! Of such things hast thou 
 heard, perhaps, and in some dainty crystal casket hast 
 beheld the precious drop of attar, the essence from
 
 142 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 
 
 the crushing of a thousand flowers a sovereign gift, 
 truly, the embodied spirit, indestructible, of so many 
 fleeting lives that died to perpetuate their own sweet- 
 ness but thine own is thine own, nevertheless, O 
 shrinking, tender, veiled genius of the North ! 
 
 What the world means by perfume is that evident, 
 substantial thing which can be poured in luscious 
 drops upon the heavy air, faint with a smoke of 
 sandal-wood and precious gums, as in Cairo, where 
 the swarthy Arab, sitting cross-legged in his nar- 
 row booth, smiles, and burns for you his dainty 
 store myrrh and frankincense for you, and gold for 
 him a costly incense before your desiring nostrils, 
 while the donkeys push past you in the crowded 
 street, and the motley throng in the bazaar gaze at 
 your Prankish countenance with curious eyes ! The 
 air is dim with smoke and slanting sunshine, and 
 you stand a moment longer, when the shrill bar- 
 gain is concluded, drinking in with every breath the 
 seductive atmosphere of the warm South ! But the 
 air grows stifling after a while, and you are glad to 
 escape, and seek the shelter of some garden court, 
 where the cool plash of a fountain soothes the over- 
 loaded senses, and a faint fragrance of invisible acacia-
 
 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 143 
 
 blossoms comes and goes with the rising and falling 
 of the breeze. There is a tree near you with a flock 
 of scarlet birds perched on it. Whisht ! they do not 
 move, though you stretch out your hand to make them 
 fly. They are only the blossoms of the euphorbia 
 which in our conservatories grows on a low bush, and 
 is even then so splendid. It was a bird with flaming 
 wings, yet songless, and now it is a dazzling flower, 
 but without a fragrance. Breathless, soulless, it is like 
 a tropic noon, crushing life to silence under the inten- 
 sity of its own acme of existence. It is the hush that 
 comes in the very centre of the tumult of sensation, 
 the inevitable reaction of the extreme. Strange as 
 the contrast may seem, it is but natural that some of 
 the most gorgeous blossoms of the East should have 
 no soul of perfume. 
 
 I said the world puts its perfumes into bottles, and 
 labels them, and pours an amber drop upon fine linen, 
 and thinks it has caught the winged charm of sweetness. 
 The world labels many things, and thinks it has got 
 the essences, loves and griefs, tied up in separate par- 
 cels, and marked "So much a dose, Miss Miihlb.ach," 
 " So many drops fine distilled dangerous Guy Liv- 
 ingstone " but the true sentiments are not to be shut
 
 144 THE POETRY OF PERFUMES. 
 
 up in novel-bindings, nor the pure perfumes to be found 
 among Lubin's extracts. Not to speak of musk and 
 patchouli vulgar scents the yellow-covered Brad- 
 don type there is no danger in carrying out the fig- 
 ure. Beautiful as are the delineations of the heart in 
 the plastic hand of genius, there is no poetry to match 
 the aspirations of a single soul, no drama and no ro- 
 mance equal in intensity to life, and art has no possi- 
 bilities equal to those of being. 
 
 So we come back to the sweet field-perfumes that 
 cannot be caught charm the charmer never so wise- 
 ly. Their beauty is in their shyness.
 
 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 April 9. I have been reading lately the Prose Edda, 
 and it is not without awe that, even in so obscure a 
 form, one traces the outline of the primal conception 
 of a God and a religion in the instinct of a race. Like 
 a giant-statue, half-hewn out of a rugged mountain, it 
 stands sublimely in the background of the Scandina- 
 vian history, gathering about its head the clouds and 
 thunder ; wrapped in brooding mists one day, another 
 stern and cold against the wind-swept sky ; hoary with 
 snow and bearded with ragged pine, yet flushing some- 
 times with an evanescent tenderness in the rare glow of 
 sunrise or of sunset. Alas ! now but a heap of sense- 
 less stone, overgrown with superstition,, shrouded in 
 decay, crumbled into forgetfulness ; it was once the 
 image of a God, it breathed once with the inspiration 
 of a faith ! A blind groping, after all, it was, that 
 caught but at the cloudy skirts of His enfolding robe, 
 the universe ; and felt Him for a little while within the 
 mystery ; then, keeping the mystery, lost Him !
 
 146 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 Ah, so it runs through all the religions of the world ! 
 Many forms, but the same Spirit many glimpses, and 
 in the end one Revelation. The Spirit is too great 
 for the forms it shatters them, and overflows them, 
 and casts them utterly away at last, but still some im- 
 press lingers on the broken shells of the glorious shap- 
 ing influence. So may we wander on the shores of a 
 spent ocean, and not unprofitably study the fragments 
 of a forgotten age ! 
 
 This religion of the Scandinavians, as it is perhaps 
 the grandest, is the saddest of the mythologic dream- 
 weavings of the world. Yet in its very sadness there 
 is something prophetic, and so with a locking-forward 
 and an aspiration, it cannot be all sad ! Wonderfully 
 in both does it show the inner sentiment of a people. 
 These Northerns, from whom we draw some of the 
 most precious drops of our heart-blood ; these wild 
 old Vikings of the seas ; these fair-browed, blond- 
 haired heroes, ice-bound in rock or island fastness 
 through the gloom of tardy winters, with harp and 
 song and feast celebrating past triumphs of adven- 
 turous summers, when, with swords for sickles, they 
 reaped a golden harvest from the flashing, perilous 
 waves ; these rough and hardy men, warriors by whom
 
 THE PROSE EDDA. 147 
 
 no right of nations was respected, yet lawgivers whose 
 code is the wonder of a later, hardly more perfect 
 civilization ; defenders of the poor, respecters of wo- 
 men, steadfast in friendship, implacable in enmity; 
 with a passion for war, and an insatiate thirst for con- 
 quest, yet looking with cold blue eyes disdainfully 
 upon the gorgeous luxuries of the seductive South ; 
 this strange people, full of contradictions, yet always 
 consistent in the stern virtues of a stoical heroism, 
 struggled, amid the blindness of their northern snows, 
 towards a religion which the symmetrically-minded 
 Greek could scarce conceive, even while, with delicate 
 chiselings of marble and of ivory and gold, he strove 
 to fashion out an image of the Thunderer. In clear- 
 cut, classic verse he shapes a temple to his pleasure- 
 loving gods, and men admire the columns and the 
 architraves, but enter to find an emptiness ! Only by 
 the yearning, mournful music of the hidden " chorus " 
 do we know there was a worship, do we believe must 
 have been once indwelling the shadow of a God ! 
 
 This other, too, is fallen this mightily- conceived 
 ideal of which I speak, but it is a grand ruin still, and 
 I propose to linger for a while among its lonely arches, 
 and in the pale Northern moonlight, cloud-disturbed,
 
 148 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 to watch the flitting of some ghostly shape, and re- 
 people for -a time the hollow-sounding vistas of the 
 Past. 
 
 The race of ^Esir, strong and brave and beautiful, 
 ruling within the golden halls of Asgard, the shadowy 
 Giant-brood, lurking in cavernous glooms of the 
 abyss ; the heroes gathering with joyful clangor of 
 arms in shield-roofed, glittering Walhalla ; the strug- 
 gling earth-nations, over whose crimson battle-fields 
 hover the dark Valkyrior, choosing whose shall be the 
 souls of the slain ; the elf-world, whose transparent 
 mystery envelops all with a permeating consciousness 
 of spirituality ; these vast, vague peoplings of the 
 universe are at one with the grandeur of the cosmo- 
 gony. 
 
 A shadowy abyss, " full of whirlwinds and fleeting 
 mists; " a darknesa lit up by " sparks and flakes of 
 fire," a clangor of confused and mighty sounds, echo- 
 ing as from a whirlpool-caldron underneath this is 
 chaos. Twelve rivers flow from the shadowy region 
 one, "the resounding," pouring its dark waves past 
 the gate of the abode of death. By some mysterious 
 dividing force, the frozen vapors gather toward a 
 vague, vast, gloom-encompassed North ; on the other
 
 THE PROSE EDDA. 149 
 
 verge there stands a flaming, radiant region, and be- 
 tween, a space " as calm and light as wind-still air." 
 Concerning this fiery kingdom which stands without 
 the cosmogony ' ' First of all, there was in the south- 
 ern sphere the world called Muspell " we have no 
 explanation we cannot go behind its fiery veil, 
 "none can enter but those whose home is there." 
 Even this mighty mythologic intuition dared not pene- 
 trate into the darkness of the Genesis, when as yet 
 Light was not and the Hebrew Moses only knew 
 and told of that sublime first birth of Creation, 
 when " the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
 waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there 
 was light." 
 
 But here in the Edda, " at the beginning," which 
 was not a beginning, we have the foreshadowing of an 
 end which is not an end ! For with a flaming fal- 
 chion sits at the entrance of this dazzling impenetrable 
 region a dark shape, who waits and lowers, till in the 
 " Twilight " of destruction he shall issue forth to com- 
 bat, and before him shall fall the vanquished armies 
 of the gods, and the shattered fragments of a universe 
 in flames ! But of this again. From the meeting of 
 
 opposing forces, in the first drops of condensing vapor, 
 13*
 
 ISO THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 comes forth the germ then the gigantic Power per- 
 sonified of Nature ; in the form of Ymir, father of 
 the giant-brood, crouching their huge limbs, swathed 
 in frost and darkness, in the hidden places of the uni- 
 verse. This Ymir, from whose bones the earth was 
 fashioned, whose blood furnished forth the sea, as he 
 fell with his mighty bulk, slain by the arrows of " the 
 blithe gods," into the abysmal deep wherein floated 
 the first shadow of a creation is he not with his off- 
 spring the embodiment of the material forces, subdued 
 by the spiritual, indeed, but mighty even when van- 
 quished, and underlying the visible world-forms with 
 a power not less great for being obscure? They have 
 a great charm for the imagination these old monsters 
 lurking in mysterious depths of confusion and of 
 nothingness, their huge limbs, formless and vast as 
 chaos, instinct with a half-conscious vitality, the more 
 tremendous that it is unexercised : Strange primeval 
 stirrings of the elemental life-essence ! Unshapcn, 
 immense, inexplicable, they lie at the bottom of the 
 bottomless, bound with the chains of sleep. Like the 
 wolf Fenrir, one of their mighty brood, conquered, yet 
 not overcome, they wait for the time which shall 
 break the fetter woven of silence, "smooth and soft
 
 THE PROSE EDDA. 151 
 
 as a silken string," yet strong with the strength of 
 the god-like. 
 
 The old story the evil and the good in contest, 
 Nature and Divinity at war. Here there is no recon- 
 ciliation strife to the bitter end a purification, dimly 
 dreamed of, yet "so as by fire " a new heavens and 
 a new earth to come but what a vast destruction ! A 
 religion of war : there is but one religion of peace ! 
 And, in that, matter and mind are not at variance, 
 body and spirit are as one, joined, not severed, in the 
 holy bond of being ! Ah, I fear me much that there 
 are many heathens among us still ! 
 
 But to return. In this sketch of mine, where I 
 draw the shadows first, there must be mention made 
 of Loki, the deceiver, and of his terrible offspring, 
 Fenrir, Hela, and the Midgard serpent. His name 
 means Light, or rather Flame strange likeness this 
 to the Lucifer myth. Beautiful, yet sad ! The genius 
 of evil is but fallen light the Son of the Morn- 
 ing becomes the leader of the hosts of darkness ! The 
 brothers of Loki are the Destroyer, and the Death- 
 blind. By his wife, Foreboding Anguish, he has 
 three children, of whom the monster-serpent, encir- 
 cling the world, is one ; another, Fenrir, the " dwel-
 
 152 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 ler in the abyss; and the third is Hela, or Death." 
 Her hall is the Wide-Storming ; Hunger is her table ; 
 Starvation, her knife ; Delay, her man ; Slowness, 
 her maid ; Precipice, her threshold ; and Burning An- 
 guish, the hangings of her bed. The one half of her 
 body is livid, the other half the color of human flesh. 
 She may therefore easily be recognized, the more so, 
 as she is of a dreadfully stern and grim countenance. 
 So runs the Edda, in its quaint and terrible simpli- 
 city. 
 
 Gladly turn we from the gloomy Niflheim to the 
 shining-roofed Asgard, where dwell the glorious race 
 of JEsir, with Odin, the All-Father. He, the King 
 and Leader of Armies, "who bindeth together all 
 things," " on whom all things depend," sits aloft in 
 his golden mansion, and from his throne seeth all 
 things, and, looking, comprehends ! 
 
 "What is the way from earth to heaven?" asks 
 the wandering mortal, to whom in the allegory all the 
 marvellous tale of gods and men is told. " Knowest 
 thou not that ? simple is it to answer ! Bifrost, the 
 rainbow ! " A slender bridge, thou thinkest ; but 
 strong, for over it the gods ride daily to judgment, 
 with a trampling of many-footed steeds. Thor, only,
 
 THE PROSE EDDA 153 
 
 rides not. His lightning-shod courser would break the 
 tremulous arch, and scatter with fierce hoofs the deli- 
 cately-woven hues into a tempestuous cloud of angry 
 sparks. Cunningly-built it is, and strong, this three- 
 fold bridge of light, and with the crimson flaming of 
 its deepest fire, it burns impassable to all save the 
 profane feet of the giants those of heavenly origin. 
 
 The meeting-place of the gods is under the ash 
 Iggdrasyl. The mystic tree of existence has three 
 roots, one penetrating to the abode of death. Under 
 this raves unceasingly the "clanging whirlpool" of 
 the gulf of chaos. A shapeless, shadowy monster, 
 Nidhogg, gnaws at this root, and a venomous cluster 
 of serpents hangs about it, striving to destroy the un- 
 destroyable. The Tree of Life rises above all enemies 
 victorious, with the "splendor of its verdure" un- 
 harmed, even in the midst of the last consuming, and 
 shall outlive the gods ! The principle of Life, im- 
 perishable, ever vernal, draws its substance even from 
 death, and evolves a glory and a beauty from dark- 
 ness and horror and confusion. 
 
 The second root is over the abode of the Frost- 
 Giants, and is fed by Mimir's well, the fount of Wis- 
 dom. Here, amid the vast hidden powers of Nature,
 
 154 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
 the Tree of Life drinks deep of the secret source of 
 knowledge. Wisdom, underneath the elements, an 
 ever-living spring, supplying sustenance to Life itself 
 it is a grand idea ! The ancient Mimir sits beside the 
 well and quaffs daily of its waters gray-beard oracle 
 of the gods ! There is a myth that Odin came once 
 to the wisdom fount ! and desired a draught, but none 
 could he have till one of his eyes was left in pledge 
 for it. Therefore at the bottom of this well lies one 
 of the eyes of the All-seeing. What a brightness 
 there must be there, shining up out of soundless depth 
 of dark and what a divine drink that must be, in 
 which was dissolved that mystic treasure a richer 
 than Cleopatra's pearl ! 
 
 Up to heaven reaches the third root of Iggdrasyl, 
 over the holy Urdar fount, where sit the three Noras, 
 who fix the lifetime of all men. Daily they sprinkle 
 the tree of Life with water from the fountain of Eter- 
 nity, and it sheds the moisture down in clear-dropping 
 dew upon the dales of earth.
 
 FRO MA LETTER. 155 
 
 FROM A LETTER 
 
 TO A. L. B. 
 
 So you are reading Swedenborg ? I am glad you 
 told me, because you know how I was fascinated by 
 the glimpse of Symbolism that came across me last 
 winter. And yet you have read him first ! Perhaps 
 I had better not, now ; for although I don't expect to 
 believe in him, I shrink a little from being disen- 
 chanted. I have a sort of ideal Swedenborg in my 
 mind, built up, perhaps, out of my book of "Colors," 
 and I am a little afraid of a ray of sober sunshine ! 
 He would never be a seer for me, but I should like to 
 fancy him a seer, in some part, for himself! Cer- 
 tainly there are wonderful analogies in nature, figures 
 of speech, whereby day and night "show knowledge" 
 to the mind that seizes the inner meanings. Things 
 that seem utterly material, so often by a poetic flash 
 become endowed with a life all spirit the lower turn- 
 ing into a symbol of the higher, no more itself, but 
 the expression of an infinite truth. And it is very 
 natural, when we feel so vividly sometimes these har-
 
 156 FROM A LETTER. 
 
 monies of Nature, wherein body and soul have a re- 
 ciprocal life, to look for a soul in every form, inani- 
 mate or not, forcing the intellect to accept one always, 
 whether the intentions do or not. When we know 
 that there is a divine unity between the creation and 
 the creating Mind, we are not satisfied without seek- 
 ing the interpretations to all these material things. 
 The difficulty lies, I think, in supposing we can do it 
 by a definite effort. The revelation comes from the 
 spirit, which illumines the physical types ; but if we 
 keep looking at the types, by-and-by they will become 
 meaningless. It is the difference between metaphor 
 and mythology first the poetic form of an idea, after- 
 ward the idea materialized into a form. That is the 
 danger. The fascination of "correspondence" as an 
 article of faith, is that it makes a religion out of 
 poetry ; and who that has felt the poetry there is in 
 religion, can be indifferent to this form of enthusiasm ? 
 The wonderful intenveavings of the universe, material 
 and mental, what glorious harmonies they make to 
 those who can understand them ! What glimpses we 
 have of meanings, and what joyful seasons of accep- 
 tation of the low things for the sake of the higher 
 beauty which is in all, and seen through which nothing
 
 MY CREED. 157 
 
 is common or unclean ! But religion includes all this, 
 and more : it is principle and faith, as well as inten- 
 tion and enthusiasm. 
 
 July 24, 1870. 
 
 MY CREED. 
 
 IT happens that I have not always the privilege of 
 going to the church that I love, and therefore, as last 
 Sunday, I often hear a sermon without a word in it 
 with which I can agree, except the " Dearly beloved 
 brethren" at the beginning, and "To the grace of 
 God" at the end of the usual short Episcopal dis- 
 course. There is a great deal in those words, is there 
 not ? you say, and so there is the beginning and 
 the ending love to God and love to man which 
 first, which last, we care not, for perfect love is like 
 eternity, an all-embracing circle ! So I take my text 
 sometimes from behind the sermon, and even out of 
 what may not be earnest, make an earnestness for 
 myself, perchance, by searching, finding something 
 of true harmony in what seems incomplete, and some-
 
 158 MY CREED. 
 
 times even discordant. If I could do it always ! But 
 that I do not, is my own fault; the "complementary 
 notes" are not sensitive enough. It has seemed to 
 me, ever since I knew it, to be one of the most sug- 
 gestive and beautiful truths of science, that every 
 note we strike in music bears with it its full chord, 
 veiled in the responsive thrillings of the other un- 
 touched but necessary strings. God leaves nothing 
 incomplete, even if we do ; but, ah ! how long we took 
 even to find that out, among the other truths that 
 continually shadow forth the infinite harmony ! and 
 how hard it is for us to hear those undertones, even 
 while we know they are there. 
 
 Well, this day I speak of, there was some earnest- 
 ness in the preacher's voice, and some liberality in his 
 views a little eloquence, too, but that was when 
 he was stating an argument for his opponents, and un- 
 awares the truthfulness of the words he was using 
 entered into and uplifted him. He spoke of Creed, 
 that much-vexed question, and though he settled the 
 matter to his own satisfaction in tying himself down to 
 established formula, by daring to open the subject he 
 showed he thought it had two sides, a most dangerous 
 admission for one who held his only safety in being
 
 MY CREED. 159 
 
 pledged to either. He said, indeed, that truth is too 
 large for creed, that dogma fetters it, and that the di- 
 vine depths of religion are too profound for any plum- 
 met of reason-weighed words. He said that the 
 things of the Spirit are not to be handled " eye hath 
 not seen, nor hath ear heard." He declared the dan- 
 ger (how insidious we know) of the " letter that 
 killeth," absorbing from the tree of truth the very sap, 
 and crushing in a perfidious embrace the source of its 
 own life, which it hides at last in the specious beauty 
 of its own luxuriant and noxious growth. But after a 
 glance thus at the arguments of his adversaries, leav- 
 ing behind a very lion in the path, he returned to the 
 defence of his own position, and here too he touched 
 on truth. Like Christian on his way to the house of 
 the Interpreter, he found two lions in the way. 
 Guarding their opposite sides they stood, each ready 
 to spring on the other, and woe to the unwary travel- 
 ler who, without the sacred Name on his forehead and 
 his heart, should fail to boldly press between and find 
 them chained ! Strange, that in the whole of the ser- 
 mon the name of Christ should not have been once 
 mentioned, except as part of a scheme of salvation 
 unalterable in any jot or tittle from the iron formula
 
 l6O MY CREED. 
 
 of an unbending creed ! A truth on that side, too, 
 there is, though it is harder for us to realize it, who 
 know not, blinded by the dust of the battle, when our 
 adversary is forced to his knees for mercy, and forget 
 that having once acknowledged defeat, he may win 
 his battles too, like other men. Truth wages no war 
 a 1'outrance against anything but wickedness. The 
 wrong heart needs the baptism of blood for cleansing ; 
 the erring mind is purified more easily. Many are 
 the arguments, and strong ones too, in defence of 
 doctrinal statement, and much is to be said in favor 
 of applying to religion the rules that make available 
 all other forces in the economy of life. Indeed, how 
 can we do without some condensation of the floating 
 thoughts, the atmospheres of sentiment, that enwrap 
 our universe of would-be action ? Is not the vapor 
 of heaven's own clouds imprisoned in our engines that 
 steam may do its work ? We enclose the lightning in 
 a rope of wires, that nation may speak to nation across 
 the sea, and we utilize by compression the imponder- 
 able forces. Is religion the only thing that is imprac- 
 tical ? Is the greatest force the only one that can 
 never be made available ? Is there an exception to be 
 made here to the great analogy of existence, and that
 
 MY CREED. l6l 
 
 alone to be tmapprehended which needs but to be 
 grasped to shake the world ? There must be some- 
 thing to take hold of, some vessel, crystal-clear it may 
 be, and perchance of no mortal mould, but some ves- 
 sel wherein this impalpable, imponderable, all-per- 
 meating Principle may be contained and passed from 
 lip to lip through the waiting multitude, athirst for 
 life. Either fold our hands, and let who will perish, 
 or go forth into the fields ready for the harvest, each 
 with his instrument ready sharpened in his hand for 
 no indolent reaping. Every soldier in the army of 
 the Lord has his arms given him, and trusts to no 
 snatched-up weapon of his own contriving. But do 
 you think that in the " sword of the Spirit" I would 
 figure any human-forged dogma, welded in the heat 
 of controversy by even saintly warrior ? No ! and 
 here I come to the point of my discourse. I wanted 
 to preach myself, that day, though my untutor'd 
 tongue would have faltered in the utterance of that 
 which filled my soul to overflowing. One word 
 would solve the problem, would bring unity out of 
 the differences, would link together the extremes that 
 jarred, by bringing in the centre truth without which 
 
 either remains forever incomplete. So simple and yet 
 ii
 
 162 MY CREED. 
 
 so difficult, so close to every one of us, and yet 
 so far above the highest ! The lowliest men appre- 
 hend it, and the mightiest pass it by. But how can 
 it be possible that this perfect solution should not be 
 acknowledged as the true one by the mind, even 
 before it is accepted by the heart ? On one side the 
 unuttered conception of abstract Truth and Right, a 
 divinity without a temple, the Unknown God to whom 
 the heathens raised an altar, beyond knowledge, out- 
 side of love, serene, resplendent, all-surrounding but 
 unapproachable, all-pervading but intangible, the 
 perfect Purity unto which none can reach forth but 
 the unstained hands, the perfect Light upon which 
 none can gaze unblenching but the eagle vision. 
 Through the dark valley how are we to gain this 
 height of contemplation through the dimness and 
 the soil of this lower atmosphere how find the upward- 
 leading path without a guide? Humanity cries out 
 from underneath the shadow of death, and is told, with 
 "the darkness of blackness" on its fainting eyes, that 
 the eternal Sun still shines, the God of Nature 
 reigns, and He is just ! And now there come the 
 armies of the sects. The old philosophy, with its 
 glorious intuitions, is thrust aside, and dogmatism
 
 MY CREED. 163 
 
 stifles Truth in unending involutions of creed. Let 
 me not smile at the cast-off disguises, now but a heap 
 of brittle husks, which once held food for angels ! 
 There is everywhere a murmuring and a rustling as 
 of new life springing forth out of old forms, and the 
 outgrown debris lie like shells on the shore of Time's 
 great ocean, to mark what has been, while we dream 
 what may be. A glory is coming, greater than the 
 past : the old battles have been fought, the old armor 
 has been laid aside. Reverently let it be, for those 
 old creeds were forged in the furnace of persecution, 
 and tempered by the cold blasts of adversity and 
 they did good service in their day. Still must we 
 fight ; still do we need a shield invulnerable to the new 
 weapons of our ancient foes. Like the Prince Arthur 
 of the Faerie Queene, with his buckler of a diamond, 
 would we be " clothed on " with light as with a gar- 
 ment, and ride triumphant through opposing hosts. 
 But whence comes this resplendent warrior among us 
 in what divine panoply does he advance to victory ? 
 In the last great Resurrection we are told that what 
 is sown in death shall be raised a spiritual body. 
 That spiritual body, "whereof we all are members," 
 is Christ. The Reconciler, wherein divine and human
 
 164 MY CREED. 
 
 meet. It needs no more words, no explanations. 
 Let there be an end to vexing discussions concerning 
 the nature, the standing of Christ. The old things 
 have passed away this is the new heaven and the 
 new earth, and yet eternal, for Love was from the be- 
 ginning ! The ineffable glory has beamed forth on 
 us through a human form the All-Powerful is the All- 
 Pitying God. The purest philosophy is reconciled to 
 the most human needs, and the font of life is near to 
 every thirsty soul that will approach and drink. 
 Thro' Him who taught the uttermost of love in death 
 on Calvary, the divine is brought close to the yearn- 
 ing human ; and through Him who " rose on the 
 third day," is the human lifted to know its part in the 
 divine and the immortal. In the personality of Christ 
 the two wants meet worship and life are blended into 
 one. The far-off glory of the Eternal is brought near 
 to human sight and love ; and the limitations of the 
 finite are gradually burned away by the purifying fire, 
 in whose ever-ascending flame the affections are up- 
 lifted toward their source. What is a philosophy, 
 though built on truth itself, without the motive 
 power of love ? What is a faith, though passionately 
 steadfast, without the pole-star of calm Reason in its
 
 MY CREED. 165 
 
 cold, changeless heaven ? Jesus Christ, born two 
 thousand years ago in Bethlehem, lives still, and daily 
 is crucified in every Golgotha where sin sits ravening 
 amid the bones of death. Shall we deny him, who 
 has not denied us ? Shall we refuse to acknowledge 
 him as Lord and Master aye ! and in the fullest sense 
 of obedience and reverence ? Shall we dare to say 
 that we have got beyond him, and reap the fruits of 
 the harvest he watered with his blood, while we feign 
 to serve the Master of the vineyard, who sent him to 
 us as his Son ? If we believe in him, let us acknowl- 
 edge him, freely, fully, fearlessly. If any words, em- 
 bodying such truth, are creed, by such creed am I 
 bound. I want no further doctrine, nay, I entreat no 
 statement may be added, lest some may fancy liberty 
 of thought impeded. I would not fright away one 
 earnest inquirer from the fold but the fold is that of 
 the Good Shepherd. Reason as you will, philosopher, 
 with what intellect God has given you, but remember 
 there is one place, for your heart to be ! Dream as 
 you will, O poet, but know that Truth is one with the 
 incarnate Love ! Realize for once within you that 
 Presence of mingled majesty and beauty, and then cast 
 aside, if you can, that one profession of faith but not
 
 166 JOURNAL. 
 
 till then, but not till then ! And while that communion 
 of spirit is above you as it is yet in its perfection be- 
 yond us all cling to the standard as a pledge of 
 victory, and doubt yourself, but not your cause ! 
 
 " Whosoever will confess me before men, him will 
 I also confess before my Father which is in heaven." 
 And let us remember, that though He was angry 
 with those disciples who rebuked a man " because he 
 followeth not us," while he uttered in righteous indig- 
 nation those sublime words of toleration " He that 
 is not against us is on our part," yet it is recorded, 
 " He was casting out devils in thy name ! " 
 
 July 16, 1870. 
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 January igth, 1871. I do not think I shall keep a 
 journal any more I want to forget myself. It is self 
 that suffers out of self is peace. And ' ' he that loseth 
 his life shall find it." Glorious thought, for there the 
 strange circle is complete : first, as children we are un- 
 conscious of ourselves ; then, we grow into self-knowl- 
 edge, and we are men, and "walk as gods, knowing
 
 JOURNAL. 167 
 
 good and evil ;" and then comes the higher state, above 
 ourselves, out of ourselves not self-consciousness, 
 but God-consciousness. So are we again as little chil- 
 dren. Eden, the world, Paradise the old story, in 
 the old Book. Yet have we gained nothing ? was the 
 conflict nothing ? is Heaven but that first garden ours 
 again no more ? Shall we be as never having suf- 
 fered ? God forbid ! The Messiah's crown was not 
 of gold, but thorns the Messiah's glory "as of the 
 Lamb, once slain !" I saw in Naples a picture of the 
 little child asleep upon the cross, its tiny arms em- 
 bracing with a touching innocence the instrument of 
 future anguish. If the nails had been thrust then 
 through the tender baby-feet would the guileless sacri- 
 fice have saved the world ? Nay, though the Father's 
 own hand had struck the blow, and the little one, 
 seeing His smile, had trusted to the last ! It was the 
 Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, who was 
 tempted in the wilderness, who prayed the cup might 
 pass who was " lifted up," that He " might draw all 
 men unto Him ! " Oh, that being so drawn, we might 
 be " lift eel up ! " Self-forgetfulness the sublime les- 
 son of the cross, the fulfilment, in a wonderful paradox, 
 of the greatest lesson pure philosophy could teach :
 
 168 JOURNAL. 
 
 " Know thyself! " Self-forgetfulness but there must 
 first have been a self to forget ! So nothing is wrong 
 the unrest, the aspiration, the self-assertion, the self- 
 despisal, all the pain and the harassing consciousness 
 when the soul is waking up, and stretching its wings 
 uneasily. I believe it is all meant a phase of growth, 
 and some time the poor little breaking buds will blos- 
 som into the white flowers of Peace. 
 
 It is to me peculiarly touching this way in which 
 the struggle finds its completeness this ending where 
 we began, as little children, of whom " is the kingdom 
 of heaven ! " How one longs for the baby-days 
 sometimes ! 
 
 But infinitely better is the last state than the first. 
 There is a sublimity in this innocence which is not of 
 Eden. Purified in the river of the water of Life, ab- 
 sorbed in God, floating in the ocean of His love, to 
 breathe, feel, live in Him that is Heaven. Neither 
 so shall we lose our own identity. He in us, and also, 
 we in Him. Not only loved, but loving too, and living 
 most perfectly in that. Again I come to that thought 
 " He that loseth his life shall find it." 
 
 January 20//2. I wrote part of this yesterday, not
 
 JOURNAL. 169 
 
 meaning to get so deep, but I think it is going to be a. 
 pleasure to me to express sometimes, as far as I can, a 
 thought. Sometimes there is one that haunts me till 
 I put it down in words or at least measure my 
 strength with it, till I know how much too great it is 
 for me. Sometimes, too, there is a fancy, or a turn of 
 words, that perhaps there is no harm in my catching 
 before it flies. In the midst of duties, so different, 
 which now I am called upon to perform, it may be that 
 in this way now and then I may remember to bring a 
 little oil to my intellectual lamp, for certainly nothing 
 helps one so much to ideas as trying to express those 
 one already has ! 
 
 But I talk about this as though I had made a plan, 
 after long reflection, whereas it was but the day before 
 yesterday that the longing to write first came to me. 
 Even now I feel a kind of pain at my heart, which 
 warns me how near is the old habit of introspection. 
 I cannot bear it, I must not. Oh, Father in heaven ! 
 I have given my grief to thee ! Keep it for me, till I 
 am strong enough to look at it ! Some day thou wilt 
 transmute it utterly into a joy but, I think, not until 
 we are beyond the River shall we be able to receive 
 it so!
 
 I/O JOURNAL. 
 
 May's bird is singing in my studio while I write. 
 The darling ! Soon I mean to have some plants there 
 a hanging basket, and some ferns growing out of a 
 white shell that Katie gave me, and he will like that. 
 Now he is very lonely in there, with only the poor little 
 pictures standing about, waiting till I get the room 
 ready for painting in. I don't know whether I ever 
 shall paint much, but I am going to attempt it as soon 
 as the bare walls shall no longer disconcert me. Last 
 summer I formed a lovely plan, and now I want to 
 carry it out exactly as I told Mamma. Everything in 
 my life is sacred through her now for everything in 
 my life was shared with her ! 
 
 Last May a few pages I had written at Dr. Bellows' 
 request, were printed in " Old and New," and late in 
 the summer I received, unexpectedly, a check for 
 fifteen dollars, the first money I ever made, and as an 
 earnest of what I had done, it was very pleasant to me. 
 I remember the glee we had over it, oh, how well ! I 
 had some projects, but was not allowed to give it away ; 
 so at last my wishes gathered about the ideal statue 
 which has so long reigned over my artist-dreams, and 
 a cast of the Venus of Milo I must have ! May and I 
 went in search of it on Wednesday, and the .lovely
 
 JOURNAL. I/I 
 
 white thing came home the next evening. I bought 
 also Michelet's beautifully illustrated book " L'Oiseau," 
 wherein I have glimpses of the free Nature-world of 
 wings and song. With that and the master-piece of 
 antique Art to contemplate, I ought to be happy out 
 of my " fortune." One thing more I have, a mask of 
 Michael Angelo's Dying Captive. That, in its incom- 
 pleteness, is but a suggestion, yet it has in it for me 
 all Italy, coming beautifully between the others, and a 
 never-to-be-forgotten remembrance of last summer's 
 happy reading ! 
 
 These things are the beginning of my studio. The 
 Venus is to stand in a niche, lined with some warm 
 dark color, and sheltered behind the folds of a rich 
 green curtain (my only piece of luxury), which is to be 
 drawn aside, revealing the genius loci. Then I shall 
 have rugs on the floor, and some time a pretty wood- 
 carpet. I have a good many studies to put on the 
 walls, and my own pictures ; it is a question if I shall 
 not get very tired of seeing them every day ! About 
 all these I mean to twine Autumn leaves, and wreaths 
 of that graceful Hartford fern which Rosalie Goodman 
 gave me ; and long trailing pieces of gray Southern 
 moss, a present from Zelina Ripley. My mantel is to
 
 1/2 JOURNAL. 
 
 be draped, a shelf and a bracket or two put up, and 
 then with my green growing things in the window, and 
 May's bird, I shall have a little bower of my own to 
 paint in. I like to think of it now, and it is good for 
 me to think of it ! 
 
 * 
 February ^d (Friday]. At the Philharmonic to-day. 
 
 There is a musical silence, and there is a silence that 
 is only absence of sound. In some symphonies there 
 comes a crash, and then a dead feeling of vacancy. 
 That is one silence. But let a master wield the 
 mighty mass of instruments there comes a rushing 
 wind, and the great waves of sound pile up into a 
 mountainous crescendo, then a breathless pause, and 
 the sky bends low to hear the coming murmur of the 
 thunder ! Or in the midst of rippling melodies, well- 
 ing up in floods of living sunshine from the warm full 
 heart that has beat near to Mother Nature's, there 
 falls a sweet hush of peace, and the waters gather into 
 some still pool, deep with heaven's depths of azure, 
 tranquil as though it never would overflow the brink 
 of its own perfectness. 
 
 But these words do not show forth those silences. 
 In their own nature they are inexpressible, and being
 
 JOURNAL. 173 
 
 beyond words, we look on them with awe. What is 
 this something ultimate, this ocean which surrounds 
 and encloses sound, yet penetrating into it and de- 
 fining it with subtle walls of boundary ? Penetrated 
 in its turn by the invisible echoes of spent music, our 
 conception of it recedes into the farthest limits of 
 space ; yet it is about us, intimate as the air, and as 
 necessary to sound, of which it is the background, as 
 shadow is to sunlight. Do we not think of silence as 
 enveloping creation during that mysterious brooding 
 of the Spirit, and broken only with those words that, 
 bringing Light, struck the first chord of the harmo- 
 nious universe, and set the spheres in motion ? 
 
 There is a silence of life, and there is a silence of 
 death a blank, a hopelessness, a chill but of that I 
 shall not speak. Little do we know now of what may 
 follow either ; little do we know now of the great 
 Composer's plan ; but we have in the grand sym- 
 phony our instruments, and if sometimes our discords 
 are but the steps to a more glorious height of har- 
 mony, may we not also bear the weary pauses with a 
 sure hope that they, too, work to music? 
 
 February %th, May's bird was singing to-day his
 
 174 JOURNAL. 
 
 very sweetest, after a long time of quietness and what 
 has stirred his little soul to melody ? In my studio the 
 men were sawing the wood-carpet, and he needs must 
 turn the harsh sound of their tools to song ! What a 
 transmutation ! Lead to gold was nothing to it ! 
 Birdie, you are a little philosopher or better, perhaps ! 
 
 February loth. My studio is finished, and most 
 lovely it is. How it would have satisfied Mamma ! 
 
 February \2th. For days this week there has been a 
 superabundant electricity in the air, such as we often 
 notice in winter, but lately it has been constant. 
 Usually a spark, when hands touch, is noticed as 
 something to be spoken of, and the little crackle 
 makes the children laugh. But now, as they run to 
 kiss me, there is no sound, only a sharp flash of pain 
 runs through the centre of the sweetness. I do not 
 think they know it, the dear little ones ! But it has 
 given me a strange, mystical notion concerning love 
 and love's intensity. The bitterness that points the 
 arrow of the joy, the piercing underneath the softness, 
 the fire in the midst of the kiss ! 
 
 The more we love, the more we are able to suffer ;
 
 JOURNAL. 175 
 
 and in love's self there is the inner ache of longing. 
 But would we part from that to escape from this? 
 Nay, a thousand times ! And I think of one thing 
 more. That sudden, silent flame, which we knew 
 only by the pain of it, may it not be the emblem of 
 the spirit ? I know of nothing more like spirit than 
 this impalpable, imponderable essence, which per- 
 vades all nature with its mysterious vitality Electri- 
 city, running through the universe on the messages 
 of the Unseen, winged with the silent, unutterable 
 powers of Light and Heat. Not the secret of Life yet, 
 but marvellous type of a mystery ineffable ! 
 
 February \%th. Last night they were talking of the 
 weight of the atmosphere upon a square inch of the 
 human frame, and the tremendous consequent pres- 
 sure upon the whole body, while yet we move so 
 freely and so lightly upon our daily errands, uncon- 
 scious of, because interpenetrated with, the enwrap- 
 ping force. It flashed across me : Is not this the 
 "perfect law of liberty?" The sublime paradox of 
 the New Testament the new liberty fulfilling, not 
 destroying, the old law ? It is the Spirit which, fill- 
 ing, vivifying the universe, makes is Law, constrain-
 
 176 JOURNAL. 
 
 ing, crushing where there is a void, if so be it may 
 force its way through broken stone, through bruised 
 flesh, into the heart of an emptiness that knows not 
 yet the presence of its life-bringing breath ; but gentle 
 as an angel's touch upon the brow of one who, filled 
 with the Divine inspiring, moves in his own element, 
 and, God being in him, need not be afraid to be in 
 God! 
 
 March. I scarcely dare touch on this : The inno- 
 cent suffering for the guilty. It is a mystery that 
 goes down deep, close to the infinite heart of God. 
 How deeply it searches into some human hearts, He 
 only knows. But the answer is in the purification by 
 pain purification of the sufferer that seems not so 
 hard to understand : though its anguish be as of death 
 sometimes, and blinding in the poignancy of it, still 
 it is comprehensible, and received as truth in clearer 
 moments ; but the purification of those suffered for, 
 that is the inner of the innermost. But certainly be- 
 tween the guilty and the One infinitely pure there 
 must be some reconciling link, and that is in the suf- 
 fering innocence of a loving mediator. I wish the 
 word were not incrusted with such a husk of dogma-
 
 JOURNAL. I// 
 
 tism. One standing between, not to avert judgment, 
 but to win from sin not to intercede with the Father, 
 but to implore the child. The Father loves already 
 did He not send His Son ? But the child oh ! how 
 it needs to know that love, and, knowing it, to hate 
 the sin that makes it suffer ! A goodness, perfect 
 though it might be, that could pass serene through a 
 world of guilt and pain, might comfort, might alle- 
 viate, but it would never save ! That mysterious 
 bond of anguish was the only one that could connect 
 the sinless with the sinning. It has come to me in a 
 wonderful illumination Life asking, half answering 
 the question, and the Story, with its perfect type, 
 nay, with the human, divine reality fulfilling all. It 
 is a mystery, but not a contradiction ; underneath 
 reason, but not against it. There is no avenging 
 God, but One who loves beyond all we "can ask or 
 think." Yet who loves so much as the sinless, who 
 can be truly merciful but the truly just ? Oh, Christ 
 dying is no dogma, but a living, breathing truth. 
 " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
 down his life for his friend." At the root of love's 
 bliss lies the pain of love's sacrifice, and the "shedding 
 of blood" is the "healing of the nations." To suffer,
 
 178 JOURNAL. 
 
 then, is blessed beyond all words to give is to be 
 rich beyond all counting. Suffering, we rejoice, yet 
 not for ourselves ; giving, we gain, yet for others 
 more ! Oh, blessed baptism which Christ was bap- 
 tized with ! Oh, sacred cup which Jesus drank ! Oh, 
 solemn sacrament of blood and of fire, we " know not 
 what we ask." The flesh trembles, the spirit faints, 
 but He, beyond what we can ask or think He gives 
 "exceeding abundantly." He gives the crowned 
 king ! He gives, the Lamb who died ! We ask for 
 thrones, He gives a cross ! We seek ourselves, yet 
 has He not given us Himself? O yearning, waiting 
 love ! O gentle Saviour, to men's eyes abased in 
 that strange " lifting up," shalt thou not draw all men 
 unto thee ? And following, though far off, in thy 
 steps, shall not we, to whom thou hast vouchsafed 
 the grace to bear in their own cross some shadow of 
 the weight of thine shall not we, unworthy as we 
 are to be partakers of the suffering, be partakers also 
 of the consolation ! 
 
 June T>d. How many thoughts there are in us, 
 growing up, so we can feel them stirring and pushing, 
 and yet, somehow, the garden is all shut up, and if 
 anybody goes by, there is a great high fence of silence
 
 JOURNAL. 179 
 
 between them and it ! Well, they want to get uttered 
 the poor thoughts and I suppose that is the reason 
 they strive so under the dark ground, that is very 
 warm and kind to them, I know, and gives them 
 something, too almost all, perhaps though they 
 don't know it, struggling on through the dimness, 
 feeling the heaviness about them, and the clog, they 
 think, though all the time it is the very flesh and 
 blood their aspiring little selves are made of! Then, 
 some time, they come up. They are close to our 
 lips, and shine out of our eyes, and we know they 
 are, by the looks and the perfume of them. But sup- 
 pose we try to touch them, how they shrink and 
 shiver, and make up little wrinkled faces at us, and we 
 think they are going to die, in the fading and the 
 paleness of their fairy-like reluctance ! Yes, try to 
 write a thought down, and it is as hard to catch as a 
 south wind, or a butterfly ! Then, too, you feel as if 
 you were not doing right as if the pretty blossom 
 ought to be left growing in its shady nook, undis- 
 turbed in the midst of the crowding and the tangle of 
 its sister-growths in the wildwood. Shall we dig it 
 up, and shake its tender roots, and carry it out into 
 the sunny broadness of the garden ? Let them alone,
 
 T 8O JOURNAL. 
 
 most of them, for they are not strong enough for the 
 transplanting, and the clinging tendrils would break 
 if you untwined them. Let them stay there in their 
 solitude, where no eye sees them, even a loving one, 
 that could distinguish a rare blossom from among the 
 lowly undergrowth of clustering sweetness ! Perhaps 
 a nameless odor may steal up behind the envious wall 
 that hides them from the highroad, and gladden so, 
 unseen, a weary passer-by ! 
 
 Yet transplanting is good, too, for some things, and 
 gives a room for larger growth. Well, we shall see. 
 Seed-time must be, and harvest also ! But the har- 
 vest-days need not be very near to be sure of them ! 
 
 June "Jtk. Poets and little children are never afraid 
 you will not understand them. They have their hearts 
 full, and they speak as a bird sings for the thought's 
 sake, and not for the world's. But with a touching 
 confidingness to the world they go for they must 
 have somebody to tell. They can't explain their 
 story "says itself" in their own baby-speech, and 
 ' they must trust you for the rest. A little bit out of 
 heaven, perhaps, they have to bring you, a morsel of 
 sky in a blue flower-cup, or a star caught twinkling in
 
 FROM A LETTER. l8l 
 
 a scrap of dingy quartz ; but it is a weed or a stone to 
 you so far off from the childlikeness. Your loss 
 too ; but the sorrow is the little one's, and it runs away 
 grieved, because you do not understand happy if it 
 has its mother's lap to hide its tears in ! 
 
 June ijtk. I gave Nora a bird yesterday. It is 
 very young yet, and does not sing ; but she is so 
 happy, loving it already for the sake of the song that 
 is to be ! It seems to me it is like God's gifts to 
 us, this winged thing, with a secret of glad voice 
 hidden in its tender breast a possession, hardly yet 
 a having something to hold and cherish, something 
 entirely ours, yet not all ours at once. In all God's 
 giving there is a withholding, yet what he withholds 
 is, in the very promise, given, and the waiting may 
 not that be a very sweet part too ? " For all is yours 
 things present, things to come." All is, not even 
 will be. Surely, the promise is in our hand, and 
 though the beauty be not yet all unfolded, it is given 
 let us be sure it is received. 
 
 June i8//z. (From a letter to Z. R.) Do you know 
 the Adagio of Beethoven's XI. Sonata ? Do play it,
 
 182 FROMALETTER. 
 
 and think of me ! It says something for me 
 
 I should be vain to say my thought were worthy of 
 such a garment, but it is an ideal purple robe that it 
 might wear, if it were crowned ! I am getting mys- 
 tical ; but you and I pledged friendship on an ame- 
 thyst, and I want you to see in this musical coloring 
 the alternate glow and deepening of the waves of 
 red and blue the passion and the peace that unite 
 at last into the spiritual rapture, the tremulous, soft 
 glory of the culminating purple.

 
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