It is my curse! sweet memories fall Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes, Such pitying forgiveness lies, Woe's me! I know that love so high As thine, true soul, could never die, And with mean clay in churchyard lie,-- 1841. TIE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. THERE came a youth upon the earth, Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Upon an empty tortoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drew And so, well-pleased with being soothed Into a sweet half-sleep, Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. His words were simple words enough, That what in other mouths was rough Men called him but a shiftless youth, And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They knew not how he learned at all, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, It seemed the loveliness of things For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, Men granted that his speech was wise, And e'en his memory dim, Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, More full of love, because of him. And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god. 1842. THE TOKEN. IT is a mere wild rosebud, Quite sallow now, and dry, Yet there's something wondrous in it,- The very moons of memory, And stir my heart's blood far below Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. Lips must fade and roses wither, All sweet times be o'er, They only smile, and, murmuring ‘Thither Stay with us no more: And yet ofttimes a look or smile, Forgotten in a kiss's while, Years after from the dark will start, And flash across the trembling heart. Thou hast given me many roses, With such a deep, wild bliss; Earth's stablest things are shadows, May tell of this old home: As now sometimes we seem to find, Some relic, which, long pondered o'er, AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough And, when he read, they forward leaned, Slowly there grew a tender awe, It was a sight for sin and wrong And slavish tyranny to see, A sight to make our faith more pure and strong I thought, these men will carry hence There is no wind but soweth seeds Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds, With wayside beauty rife. We find within these souls of ours Some wild germs of a higher birth, Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers Whose fragrance fills the earth. Within the hearts of all men lie These promises of wider bliss, Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, All that hath been majestical And thus, among the untaught poor, All thoughts that mould the age begin In his wide brain the feeling deep All thought begins in feeling,--wide And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, Nor is he far astray who deems That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God. God wills, man hopes: in common souls Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century; But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then To write some earnest verse or line, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine He who doth this, in verse or prose, But surely shall be crowned at last with those RHECUS. GOD sends his teachers unto every age, And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed There is an instinct in the human heart Which makes that all the fables it hath coined, To justify the reign of its belief And strengthen it by beauty's right divine, Of spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heart To make its inspirations suit its creed, And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring Its needful food of truth, there ever is A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, |