That all paths to the Father lead Where Self the feet have spurned.

And, as the mystic aisles I pace,

By aureoled workmen built, Lives ending at the Cross I trace Alike through grace and guilt; One Mary bathes the blessed feet With ointment from her eyes, With spikenard one, and both are sweet, For both are sacrifice.

Moravian hymn and Roman chant

In one devotion blend,
To speak the soul's eternal want

Of Him, the inmost friend; One prayer soars cleansed with martyr fire,

One choked with sinner's tears, In heaven both meet in one desire, And God one music hears.

Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out Upon the Sabbath air,

Each seems a hostile faith to shout,

A selfish form of prayer; My dream is shattered, yet who knows But in that heaven so near These discords find harmonious close In God's atoning ear?

O chime of sweet Saint Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be,
And in all hearts new-born!
That Pentecost when utterance clear
To all men shall be given,
When all shall say My Brother here,
And hear My Son in heaven!

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

WHO hath not been a poet? Who hath not,

With life's new quiver full of winged years,

Shot at a venture, and then, following

on,

Stood doubtful at the Parting of the Ways?

There once I stood in dream, and as I paused,

Looking this way and that, came forth to me

The figure of a woman veiled, that said, "My name is Duty, turn and follow me";

Something there was that chilled me in her voice;

I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold in mine,

As if to be withdrawn, and I exclaimed: "O, leave the hot wild heart within my breast!

Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death;

This slippery globe of life whirls of itself, Hasting our youth away into the dark; These senses, quivering with electric heats,

Too soon will show, like nests on wintry boughs

Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, Which whistling north-winds line with downy snow

Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain,

Thither the singing birds no more re

turn."

WHEN I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,

But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for the cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded, with roofs of gold,

My beautiful castles in Spain !

Since then I have toiled day and night, I have money and power good store, But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright,

For the one that is mine no more; Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, You gave, and may snatch again; I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, For I own no more castles in Spain ! AN INVITATION.

TO J. F. H.

NINE years have slipt like hour-glass

sand

From life's still-emptying globe away,

hand,

Doubtful at first and far away, The moon-flood creeps more wide and wide;

Up a ridged beach of cloudy gray, Curved round the east as round a bay, It slips and spreads its gradual tide.

Then suddenly, in lurid mood,

| Against the beach's yellow zone, Curl slow, and plunge forever in.

And, as we watch those canvas towers That lean along the horizon's rim, "Sail on," I'll say; "may sunniest hours

Convoy you from this land of ours,
Since from my side you bear not him!"

For years thrice three, wise Horace said,
A poem rare let silence bind;
And love may ripen in the shade,
Like ours, for nine long seasons laid
In deepest arches of the mind.

Come back! Not ours the Old World's good,

The Old World's ill, thank God, not

ours;

But here, far better understood,
The days enforce our native mood,
And challenge all our manlier powers.
That first my tottering footsteps trod ;
Kindlier to me the place of birth
There may be fairer spots of earth,
But all their glories are not worth
The virtue in the native sod.

Thence climbs an influence more benign Through pulse and nerve, through heart and brain;

Sacred to me those fibres fine

That first clasped earth. O, ne'er be mine

The alien sun and alien rain!

These nourish not like homelier glows
Or waterings of familiar skies,
And nature fairer blooms bestows
On the heaped hush of wintry snows,

field

And scorned to have her sweet caprices Strait-waistcoated in you or me.

I, who take root and firmly cling, Thought fixedness the only thing; Why Nature made the butterflies, (Those dreams of wings that float and hover

At noon the slum berous poppies over,) Was something hidden from mine eyes,

Till once, upon a rock's brown bosom,
Bright as a thorny cactus-blossom,
I saw a butterfly at rest;
Then first of both I felt the beauty;
The airy whim, the grim-set duty,
Each from the other took its best.

Clearer it grew than winter sky
That Nature still had reasons why;
And, shifting sudden as a breeze,
My fancy found no satisfaction,
No antithetic sweet attraction,
So great as in the Nomades.

Scythians, with Nature not at strife,
Light Arabs of our complex life,
They build no houses, plant no mills
To utilize Time's sliding river,
Content that it flow waste forever,
If they, like it, may have their wills.

An hour they pitch their shifting tents In thoughts, in feelings, and events; Beneath the palm-trees, on the grass, They sing, they dance, make love, and chatter,

Vex the grim temples with their clatter, And make Truth's fount their lookingglass.

A picnic life; from love to love,
From faith to faith they lightly move,
And yet, hard-eyed philosopher,
The flightiest maid that ever hovered
To me your thought-webs fine discov-
ered,

No lens to see them through like her.

So witchingly her finger-tips
To Wisdom, as away she trips,
She kisses, waves such sweet farewells
To Duty, as she laughs "To-morrow!"
That both from that mad contrast bor-

row

A perfectness found nowhere else.

| The beach-bird on its pearly verge
Follows and flies the whispering surge,
While, in his tent, the rock-stayed sheli
Awaits the flood's star-timed vibrations,
And both, the flutter and the patience,
The sauntering poet loves them well.

Fulfil so much of God's decree
As works its problem out in thee,
Nor dream that in thy breast alone
The conscience of the changeful seasons,
The Will that in the planets reasons
With space-wide logic, has its throne.

Thy virtue makes not vice of mine,
Unlike, but none the less divine;
Thy toil adorns, not chides, my play;
Nature of sameness is so chary,
With such wild whim the freakish fairy
Picks presents for the christening-day.

SELF-STUDY.

A PRESENCE both by night and day,
That made my life seem just begun,
Yet scarce a presence, rather say
The warning aureole of one.
And yet I felt it everywhere;
Walked I the woodland's aisles along,
It seemed to brush me with its hair;
Bathed I, I heard a mermaid's song.

How sweet it was! A buttercup
Could hold for me a day's delight,
A bird could lift my fancy up
To ether free from cloud or blight.

Who was the nymph? Nay, I will see,
Methought, and I will know her near;
If such, divined, her charm can be,
Seen and possessed, how triply dear!
So every magic art I tried,

And spells as numberless as sand,
Until, one evening, by my side
I saw her glowing fulness stand.

I turned to clasp her, but "Farewell,"
Parting she sighed, "we meet no more;
Not by my hand the curtain fell
That leaves you conscious, wise, and
poor.

"Since you have found me out, I go;
Another lover I must find,
Content his happiness to know,
Nor strive its secret to unwind."