Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,
The aspirations unattained,
The rhythms so rathe and delicate,
They bent and strained

And broke, beneath the sombre weight
Of any airiest mortal word.

VII.

What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend,

While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof,

Or the rude North with baffled strain

Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane!
Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born
By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
Gifted upon her natal morn

By him with fire, by her with dreams,
Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
Than all the grape's bewildering juice,
We worship, unforbid of thee;
And, as her incense floats and curls
In airy spires and wayward whirls,
Or poises on its tremulous stalk
A flower of frailest revery,
So winds and loiters, idly free,
The current of unguided talk,
Now laughter-rippled, and now caught
In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought.
Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,
A sweetly unobtrusive third;
For thou hast magic beyond wine,
To unlock natures each to each;
The unspoken thought thou canst
divine;

Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech
With whispers that to dream-land reach
And frozen fancy-springs unchain
In Arctic outskirts of the brain;
Sun of all inmost confidences,
To thy rays doth the heart unclose
Its formal calyx of pretences,

That close against rude day's offences,
And open its shy midnight rose !

VII.

Thou holdest not the master key
With which thy Sire sets free the mystic

gates

Of Past and Future: not for common

fates

Do they wide open fling,

And, with a far-heard ring,

Even as I sing, it turns to pain, And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell:

Enough; I come not of the race That hawk their sorrows in the marketplace.

Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please;

Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace!

As if a white-haired actor should come back

Some midnight to the theatre void and black,

And there rehearse his youth's great part

Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, So seems it now: ye crowd upon my heart,

And bow down in silence, shadowy hosts!

FANCY'S CASUISTRY.

diously;

News of disaster.

But on my far-off solitude
No harsh alarums can intrude;
The terror comes to me subdued
And charmed by distance,
To deepen the habitual mood
Of my existence.

Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes?
And listen, weaving careless rhymes
While the loud city's griefs and crimes

Pay gentle allegiance

To the fine quiet that sublimes
These dreamy regions.

But where is Truth? What does it

mean,

The world-old quarrel?

Such questionings are idle air:
Leave what to do and what to spare
To the inspiring moment's care,
Nor ask for payment

Of fame or gold, but just to wear
Unspotted raiment.

TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT,

shore,

I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er,

The light revolves amid the roar

So still and saintly,

TROUT.

FIT for an Abbot of Theleme,

For the whole Cardinals' College, or

more

Withdrawing faintly.

This, too, despairing sailors see
Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee
In sudden snow, then lingeringly
Wane tow'rd eclipse,

While through the dark the shuddering

sea

Gropes for the ships.

And is it right, this mood of mind
That thus, in revery enshrined,
Can in the world mere topics find
For musing stricture,
Seeing the life of humankind
Only as picture?

Before his lenten vision gleam,

He lies there, the sogdologer !

His precious flanks with stars besprent,
Worthy to swim in Castaly!
The friend by whom such gifts are sent,
For him shall bumpers full be spent,

His health! be Luck his fast ally!

I see him trace the wayward brook
Amid the forest mysteries,
Where at their shades shy aspens look,
Or where, with many a gurgling crook,
It croons its woodland histories.

To

The events in line of battle go;
In vain for me their trumpets blow
As unto him that lieth low

I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,

In death's dark arches,

And through the sod hears throbbing

slow

With amorous solicitude!)

I see him step with caution due,
Soft as if shod with moccasins,

Grave as in church, for who plies you,
Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew

From all our common stock o' sins

The unerring fly I see him cast,

That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash! a whirl! he has him fast! We tyros, how that struggle last

Confuses and appalls us oft. Unfluttered he: calm as the sky

Looks on our tragi-comedies,

This way and that he lets him fly, A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die

Thy high-heaped canvas yearning!

shoreward

ease.

The friend who gave our board such gust, Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He'll do it handsomely, I trust,

And John H-write his epitaph!

O, born beneath the Fishes' sign,

Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Massic wine, And Burns Scotch drink, the piest !

Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, A moment glimpsed, then seen no

more,

Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace Away from every mortal door.

And when they come his deeds to weigh,
And how he used the talents his,
One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay
(If trout had scales), and 't will outsway
The wrong side of the balances.

ODE TO HAPPINESS.

SPIRIT, that rarely comest now

And only to contrast my gloom,
Like rainbow-feathered birds that

bloom

A moment on some autumn bough
That, with the spurn of their farewell,
Sheds its last leaves, - thou once didst
dwell

With me year-long, and make intense
To boyhood's wisely vacant days
Their fleet but all-sufficing grace

Of trustful inexperience,

While soul could still transfigure sense, And thrill, as with love's first caress, At life's mere unexpectedness. Days when my blood would leap and

run

As full of sunshine as a breeze,

Or spray tossed up by Summer seas That doubts if it be sea or sun! Days that flew swiftly like the band

That played in Grecian games at strife, And passed from eager hand to hand

The onward-dancing torch of life! Wing-footed! thou abid'st with him

Who asks it not; but he who hath Watched o'er the waves thy waning path,

Shall nevermore behold returning

Or such as scorns to coil and sing
Round any but the eagle's wing

Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in relentless eyes

The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,

Man ever with his Now at strife,

Pained with first gasps of earthly air, Then praying Death the last to spare, Still fearful of the ampler life.

Not unto them dost thou consent
Who, passionless, can lead at ease
A life of unalloyed content

A life like that of land-locked seas,
Who feel no elemental gush
Of tidal forces, no fierce rush

Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent
'Twixt continent and continent.
Such quiet souls have never known
Thy truer inspiration, thou

Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow Spray from the plunging vessel thrown

Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath,

Where the frail hair-breadth of an if Is all that sunders life and death: These, too, are cared-for, and round these Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace; These in unvexed dependence lie,

Each 'neath his strip of household sky; O'er these clouds wander, and the blue Hangs motionless the whole day through;

large

And lessen in such tranquil wise
As joys and sorrows do that rise
Within their nature's sheltered marge;
Their hours into each other flit

Like the leaf-shadows of the vine
And fig-tree under which they sit,
And their still lives to heaven incline
With an unconscious habitude,

Unhistoried as smokes that rise
From happy hearths and sight elude
In kindred blue of morning skies.
Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,

"T is worse than vain to woo thee back!
Yet there is one who seems to be
Thine elder sister, in whose eyes
A faint far northern light will rise
Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee;
She is not that for which youth hoped,
But she hath blessings all her own,
Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,

And faith to sorrow given alone:
Almost I deem that it is thou
Come back with graver matron brow,
With deepened eyes and bated breath,
Like one that somewhere hath met
Death,

But "No," she answers, "I am she
Whom the gods love, Tranquillity:

That other whom you seek forlorn
Half earthly was; but I am born
Of the immortals, and our race
Wears still some sadness on its face:

He wins me late, but keeps me long, Who, dowered with every gift of passion, In that fierce flame can forge and fashion

Of sin and self the anchor strong; Can thence compel the driving force Of daily life's mechanic course, Nor less the nobler energies Of needful toil and culture wise; Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure Who can renounce, and yet endure, To him I come, not lightly wooed, But won by silent fortitude."

VILLA FRANCA.

1859.

WAIT a little do we not wait? Louis Napoleon is not Fate, Francis Joseph is not Time;

Crime; Cannon-parliaments settle naught; Venice is Austria's, - whose is Thought? Minié is good, but, spite of change, Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever.

Wait, we say our years are long;
Men are weak, but Man is strong;
Since the stars first curved their rings,
We have looked on many things;
Great wars come and great wars go,
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow;
We shall see him come and gone,
This second-hand Napoleon.

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

We saw the elder Corsican,
And Clotho muttered as she span,
While crowned lackeys bore the train,
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne :
"Sister, stint not length of thread!
Sister, stay the scissors dread!
On Saint Helen's granite bleak,
Hark, the vulture whets his beak!"
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!

Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

The Bonapartes, we know their bees That wade in honey red to the knees; Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep

sound

In dreamless garners underground:
We know false glory's spendthrift race
Pawning nations for feathers and lace;
It may be short, it may be long,
"T is reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid
Wrong.

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin Can promise what he ne'er could win ; Slavery reaped for fine words sown,

System for all, and rights for none,
Despots atop, a wild clan below,
Such is the Gaul from long ago;
Wash the black from the Ethiop's face,
Wash the past out of man or race!
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!

Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings,
And snares the people for the kings;
"Luther is dead; old quarrels pass;
The stake's black scars are healed with
grass";

So dreamers prate; did man ere live
Saw priest or woman yet forgive ?
But Luther's broom is left, and eyes
Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

Smooth sails the ship of either realm,
Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm;
We look down the depths, and mark
Silent workers in the dark

Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs,
Old instincts hardening to new beliefs;
Patience a little; learn to wait;
Hours are long on the clock of Fate.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,
But surely God endures forever!

THE MINER.

Down mid the tangled roots of things
That coil about the central fire,
I seek for that which giveth wings
To stoop, not soar, to my desire.

Sometimes I hear, as 't were a sigh, The sea's deep yearning far above, "Thou hast the secret not," I cry,

"In deeper deeps is hid my Love."

They think I burrow from the sun, In darkness, all alone, and weak ; Such loss were gain if He were won, For 't is the sun's own Sun I seek.