That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas

Feeling their way to you more and more; If they once should clutch you high as the knees They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, Beyond all reach of hope or help; And such in a storm is Appledore.

DARA.

WHEN Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand
Wilted by harem-heats, and all the land
Was hovered over by those vulture ills
That snuff decaying empire from afar,
Then, with a nature balanced as a star,
Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He, who had governed fleecy subjects well,
Made his own village, by the self-same spell,
Secure and peaceful as a guarded fold,
Till, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees,
Under his sway, to neighbor villages

Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now, when it fortuned that a king more wise
Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes,
He sought on every side men brave and just,
And having heard the mountain-shepherd's praise,
How he rendered the mould of elder days,
To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide,
Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride.
Than in his crook before; but Envy finds
More soil in cities than on mountains bare,
And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare
Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear
That, though wise Dara's province, year by year,
Like a great sponge, drew wealth and plenty up,
Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest,
Some golden drops, more rich than all the rest,
Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that whereso'er he went
A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent,
Went guarded, and no other eye had seen
What was therein, save only Dara's own,
Yet, when 't was opened, all his tent was known
To glow and lighten with heapt jewels' sheen.

The king set forth for Dara's province straight,
Where, as was fit, outside his city's gate

The viceroy met him with a stately train;
And there, with archers circled, close at hand,
A camel with the chest was seen to stand,

The king grew red, for thus the guilt was plain.

"Open me now," he cried, "yon treasure-chest!” 'T was done, and only a worn shepherd's vest

Was found within; some blushed and hung the head, Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof

He stood, and "O, my lord, behold the proof
That I was worthy of my trust!" he said.

"For ruling men, lo! all the charm I had;
My soul, in those coarse vestments ever clad,

Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, And Fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear,

Which bend men from the truth, and make them reel.

"To govern wisely I had shown small skill Were I not lord of simple Dara still;

That sceptre kept, I cannot lose my way!" Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright And thrilled the trembling lids; before 't was night Two added provinces blest Dara's sway.

TO J. F. H.

NINE years have slipped like hour-glass sand
From life's fast-emptying globe away,
Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand,
And lingered on the impoverished land,
Watching the steamer down the bay.

I held the keepsake which you gave,
Until the dim smoke-pennon curled
O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave,
And closed the distance like a grave,
Leaving me to the outer world;

The old worn world of hurry and heat,

The young, fresh world of thought and scope; While you, where silent surges fleet

Toward far sky beaches still and sweet,

Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope.

Come back our ancient walks to tread,
Old haunts of lost or scattered friends,
Amid the Muses' factories red,

Where song, and smoke, and laughter sped
The nights to proctor-hunted ends.

Our old familiars are not laid,

Though snapped our wands and sunk our books, They beckon, not to be gainsaid,

Where, round broad meads which mowers wade, Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;

Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow,
From glow to gloom the hillside shifts

Its lakes of rye that surge and flow,
Its plumps of orchard-trees arow,

Its snowy white-weed's summer drifts.

Or let us to Nantasket, there
To wander idly as we list,
Whether, on rocky hillocks bare,
Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tear
The trailing fringes of gray mist.

Or whether, under skies clear-blown,
The heightening surfs with foamy din,
Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown
Against old Neptune's yellow zone,
Curl slow, and plunge forever in.

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 crypts and arches of the mind.

That right Falernian friendship old
Will we, to grace our feast, call up,
And freely pour the juice of gold,
That keeps life's pulses warm and bold,
Till Death shall break the empty cup.

MEMORIAL VERSES.

KOSSUTH.

A RACE of nobles may die out,
A royal line may leave no heir;
Wise Nature sets no guards about
Her pewter plate and wooden ware.

But they fail not, the kinglier breed,
Who starry diadems attain;

To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed
Heirs of the old heroic strain.

The zeal of Nature never cools,

Nor is she thwarted of her ends;

When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools,
Then she a saint and prophet spends.

Land of the Magyars! though it be
The tyrant may relink his chain,
Already thine the victory,

As the just Future measures gain.

Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won
The deathly travail's amplest worth;
A nation's duty thou hast done,
Giving a hero to our earth.

And he, let come what will of woe,
Has saved the land he strove to save;
No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow,
Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave.

"I Kossuth am: O Future, thou

That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile,
O'er this small dust in reverence bow,
Remembering, what I was erewhile.

"I was the chosen trump wherethrough
Our God sent forth awakening breath;

Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death."

TO LAMARTINE.

1848.

I DID not praise thee when the crowd,
'Witched with the moment's inspiration,
Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud,
And stamped their dusty adoration;
I but looked upward with the rest,

And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best.

They raised thee not, but rose to thee,

Their fickle wreaths about thee flinging;

So on some marble Phoebus the high sea

Might leave his worthless sea-weed clinging, But pious hands, with reverent care,

Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare.

Now thou 'rt thy plain, grand self again,
Thou art secure from panegyric,
Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain,
And actedst Freedom's noblest lyric:
This side the Blessed Isles, no tree

Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee.