lichen - blurred gravestones all alone; is the kind of ruin strange sights to That see may have their teaching for you and me. Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell; But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, He talking his patois and I EnglishFrench, I'll put what he told me, preserving the tone, In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own. An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, Built as a death-bed atonement for crime : 'T was for somebody's sins, I know not To hear Doctor Death, whose words For even our honeymoons must wane, smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine. Convicted of green cheese by Reason. And none will seem so safe from change, The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto's self hath wit To draw such vintages as Fancy's. When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and schooltime doubles, Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles. "Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? Is this the moral of a poet, Who, when the plant of Eden dies, Is privileged once more to sow it? "That herb of clay-disdaining root, From stars secreting what it feeds on, Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on? "Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, Need one so soon forget the way there? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there?" Dear child, 't was but a sorry jest, And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest For comments staler than rabbinic. If Love his simple spell but keep, One Darby is to me well known, Who, as the hearth between them blazes, Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes. He rubs his spectacles, he stares, "T is the same face that witched him early! He gropes for his remaining hairs, - "Good heavens! but now 't was winter | And, when the Autumn comes, to flee Then from the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest The cordage of his hammock-nest, High o'er the loud and dusty road Of downy breasts and throbbing O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Master, not slave of daily bread, Wherever sunshine beckons thee! PALINODE. DECEMBER. Like some lorn abbey now, the wood The carven foliage quaint and rare, song. And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing'st empty while the north winds chase Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past, I love thee still for what thou wast. Ah, when the Summer graces flee From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed; When our own branches, naked long, The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o'er a tale twice told O'er embers pleading with the cold, I'll trust, that, like the birds of Spring, Far off in some diviner air, A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER. SOMETIMES come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awestricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning from far-off horizons, Piling the deeps up, heaping the gladhearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and thither like driftweed." BIRTHDAY VERSES. WRITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBUM. T was sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o'er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power. Then, let him sorrow as he might, Those awful powers on man that wait, Therein are set four jewels rare: To him the simple spell who knows But he that with a slackened will |