1

Hangs stormed with stars the night,
Deep over deep,
A majesty, a might,
To feel and keep.


2

Ah! what is such and such,
Love, canst thou tell?
That shrinks - though 'tis not much -
To weep farewell.


3

That hates the dawn and lark;
Would have the wail, -
Sobbed through the ceaseless dark, -
O' the nightingale.


4

Yes, earth, thy life were worth
Not much to me,
Were there not after earth
Eternity.


5

God gave thee life to keep -
And what hath life? -
Love, faith, and care, and sleep
Where dreams are rife.


6

Death's sleep, whose shadows start
The tears in eyes
Of love, that fill the heart
That breaks and d...

Secluded from domestic strife,
Jack Book-worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass and crack'd his joke,
And freshmen wonder'd as he spoke.

Such pleasures, unalloy'd with care,
Could any accident impair?
Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arriv'd at thirty-six?
O had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town!
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-street shop.
O had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
O!    But let exclamation cease,
Her presence banish'd all his peace.
So with decorum all things carried;
Miss frown'd, and blush'd, and then was    married.

Need we expose to vulgar sight
The raptur...

From the mystic sidereal spaces,
In the noon of a night 'mid of May,
Came a spirit that murmured to me --
Or was it the dream of a dream?
No! no! from the purest of places,
Where liveth the highest of races,
In an unfallen sphere far away
(And it wore Immortality's gleam)
Came a Being. Hath seen on the sea
The sheen of some silver star shimmer
'Thwart shadows that fall dim and dimmer
O'er a wave half in dream on the deep?
It shone on me thus in my sleep.

Was I sleeping? Is sleep but the closing,
In the night, of our eyes from the light?
Doth the spirit of man e'en then rest?
Or doth it not toil all the more?
When the earth-wearied frame is reposing,
Is the vision then veiled the less bright?
When the earth from our sight hath been taken,

Remember thee? yes, while there's life in this heart,
It shall never forget thee, all lorn as thou art;
More dear in thy sorrow, thy gloom, and thy showers,
Than the rest of the world in their sunniest hours.

Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea,
I might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow,
But oh! could I love thee more deeply than now?

No, thy chains as they rankle, thy blood as it runs,
But make thee more painfully dear to thy sons--
Whose hearts, like the young of the desert-bird's nest,
Drink love in each life-drop that flows from thy breast.

The sky, grown dull through many waiting days,
Flashed into crimson with the sunrise charm,
So all my love, aroused to vague alarm,
Flushed into fire and burned with eager blaze.
I saw thee not as suppliant, with still gaze
Of pleading, but as victor, - and thine arm
Gathered me fast into embraces warm,
And I was taught the light of Love's dear ways.

This day of triumph is no longer thine,
Oh conqueror, in calm exclusive power. -
As evermore, through storm, and shade, and shine,
    Your woe my pain, your joy my ecstasy,
We breathe together, - so this blessed hour
    Of self-surrender makes my jubilee!

Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
For if of our affections none finds grace
In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea
Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour;
But, in chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power
Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
That breathes on earth the air of paradise.

Thine eyes are dim:
A mist hath gathered there;
Around their rim
Float many clouds of care,
And there is sorrow every -- everywhere.

But there is God,
Every -- everywhere;
Beneath His rod
Kneel thou adown in prayer.

For grief is God's own kiss
Upon a soul.
Look up! the sun of bliss
Will shine where storm-clouds roll.

Yes, weeper, weep!
'Twill not be evermore;
I know the darkest deep
Hath e'en the brightest shore.

So tired! so tired!
A cry of half despair;
Look! at your side --
And see Who standeth there!

Your Father! Hush!
A heart beats in His breast;
Now rise and rush
Into His arms -- and rest.

Fear not that, while around thee
    Life's varied blessings pour,
One sigh of hers shall wound thee,
    Whose smile thou seek'st no more.
No, dead and cold for ever
    Let our past love remain;
Once gone, its spirit never
    Shall haunt thy rest again.

May the new ties that bind thee
    Far sweeter, happier prove,
Nor e'er of me remind thee,
    But by their truth and love.
Think how, asleep or waking,
    Thy image haunts me yet;
But, how this heart is breaking
    For thy own peace forget.

Your lines that linger for us down the years,
Like sparks that tell the glory of a flame,
Still keep alight the splendor of your name,
And living still, they sting us into tears.
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
One golden word.
Oh tell us we shall find beside the Nile,
Held fast in some Egyptian's dusty hand,
Deep covered by the centuries of sand,
The songs long written that were lost awhile
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
This golden word.

Even now I seem to see thee,
Lovely boy, with thy sweet smile,
Bright and beautiful as when
Reading that holy book, the while
I listened to thee, little dreaming,
Docile, gentle, pleasant child,
God who gave, so soon would take thee,
Even thee, so sweet, so mild.
But how merciful in chastening
Our father is - oh! bless his name -
Your little face was decked with smiles,
Dear child, just when the summons came.
Escaped from lingering sickness, thou hadst
Nought to mar thy little frame.
While ye mourn the dear departed,
Each bitter feeling disallow;
Look to heaven, ye broken hearted,
Look, and with submission bow.
In thy hour of deepest sorrow,
Never murmur, dare not blame;
God, who wounds, alone can heal thee;
Trust ...

Is his form hidden by some cliff or crag,
Or does he loiter on the shelving shore?
We know not, though we know he waits for us,
Somewhere upon the road that lies before.

And when he bids us we must follow him,
Must leave our half-drawn nets, our houses, lands,
And those we love the most, and best, ah they
In vain will cling to us with pleading hands!

He will not wait for us to gird our robes,
And be they white as saints, or soiled and dim,
We can but gather them around our form,
And take his icy hand and follow him.

Oh! will our palm cling to another palm
Loath, loath to loose our hold of love's warm grasp.
Or shall we free our hand from the hand of grief,
And reach it gladly out to meet his clasp?

Sometimes I marvel when we two shall m...

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -

Hearts, that have cheered us ever, night and day,
With words that helped us on the rugged way,
The hard, long road of life to whom is due
More than the heart can ever hope to pay
Are they not touchstones, soul-transmuting true
All thoughts to gold, refining thus the clay?

Tune - "Morag."


I.

    O wha is she that lo'es me,
        And has my heart a-keeping?
    O sweet is she that lo'es me,
        As dews of simmer weeping,
        In tears the rosebuds steeping!
                O that's the lassie of my heart,
                    My lassie ever dearer;
                O that's the queen of womankind,
                    And ne'er a ane to peer her.

II.

    If thou shalt meet a lassie
        In grace and beauty charming,
    That e'en thy chosen lassie,
        Erewhile thy breast sae warming
        Had ne'er sic powers alarming.

III.

    If thou hadst heard her talking,
        And thy attentions plighted,
    That ilka body talking,
        But her b...

I

"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said,
"In one brief hour?
And away with thee from a loveless bed
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,
And be thine own unseparated,
And challenge the world's white glower?

II

She quickened her feet, and met him where
They had predesigned:
And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air
Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind
Her life with his made the moments there
Efface the years behind.

III

Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew
As they sped on;
When slipping its bond the bracelet flew
From her fondled arm. Replaced anon,
Its cameo of the abjured one drew
Her musings thereupon.

IV

The gaud with his image once had been
A gift from h...

Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
    Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower:--
    Oh happy they who look on them.

Who look upon them hand in hand
    Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand
    And never give a thought to night.

Thou Cherub fair! in whose blue, sparkling eye
New joys, anticipated, ever play;
Celestial Hope! with whose all-potent sway
The moral elements of life comply;
At thy melodious voice their jarrings cease,
And settle into order, beauty, peace;
How dear to memory that thrice-hallow'd hour
Which gave Thee to the world, auspicious Power!
Sent by thy parent, Mercy, from the sky,
Invested with her own all-cheering ray,
To dissipate the thick, black cloud of fate
Which long had shrouded this terrestrial state,
    What time fair Virtue, struggling with despair,
Pour'd forth to pitying heaven her saddest soul in prayer:
    Then, then she saw the brightening gloom divide,
    And Thee, sweet Comforter! adown thy rainbow glide.
    From the veil'd awful future, to her v...

With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid,
To southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.
Only the crag and the cliff to nor’ward,
And the rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck’d seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men,
Where the batter’d hull and the broken mast lie,
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wander’d here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,
From the heights and hollows of fern and heather,
God surely loved us a little then.

The skies were fairer and shores were firmer,
The blue sea over th...