What shall I do with all the days and hours
    That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
    Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
    Weary with longing? - shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
    Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin
    Of casting from me God's great gift of time;
Shall I these mists of memory locked within,
    Leave, and forget, life's purposes sublime?

Oh! how, or by what means, may I contrive
    To bring the hour that brings thee back more near?
How may I teach my drooping hope to live
    Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee: ...

I
Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
That bask in heavenly heat
When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
A babe's hands open as to greet
The tender touch of ours
And mock with motion faint and fleet
The minutes of the new strange hours
That earth, not heaven, must mete;
Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.

II
A velvet vice with springs of steel
That fasten in a trice
And clench the fingers fast that feel
A velvet vice
What man would risk the danger twice,
Nor quake from head to heel?
Whom would not one such test suffice?
Well may we tremble as we kneel
In sight of Paradise,
If both a babe's closed fists conceal
A velvet vice.

III
Two f...

1.

There was a time, I need not name,
Since it will ne'er forgotten be,
When all our feelings were the same
As still my soul hath been to thee.


2.

And from that hour when first thy tongue
Confess'd a love which equall'd mine,
Though many a grief my heart hath wrung,
Unknown, and thus unfelt, by thine,


3.

None, none hath sunk so deep as this -
To think how all that love hath flown;
Transient as every faithless kiss,
But transient in thy breast alone.


4.

And yet my heart some solace knew,
When late I heard thy lips declare,
In accents once imagined true,
Remembrance of the days that were.


5.

Yes! my adored, yet most unkind!
Though thou wilt never love agai...

Erewhile, before the world was old,
When violets grew and celandine,
In Cupid's train we were enrolled:
Erewhile!
Your little hands were clasped in mine,
Your head all ruddy and sun-gold
Lay on my breast which was your shrine,
And all the tale of love was told:
Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold,
Erewhile.

Here's to her shadow!
May it mark the hours
Upon the sundial of her life--in flowers!

At morn, beside yon summer sea,
    Young Hope and Love reclined;
But scarce had noon-tide come, when he
Into his bark leapt smilingly,
    And left poor Hope behind.

"I go," said Love, "to sail awhile
    "Across this sunny main;"
And then so sweet, his parting smile,
That Hope, who never dreamt of guile,
    Believed he'd come again.

She lingered there till evening's beam
    Along the waters lay;
And o'er the sands, in thoughtful dream,
Oft traced his name, which still the stream
    As often washed away.

At length a sail appears in sight,
    And toward the maiden moves!
'Tis Wealth that comes, and gay and bright,
His golden bark reflects the light,
    But ah! it is not Love's.

Another sail--'twas Friendship sho...

Love, do not count your labour lost
    Though I turn sullen, grim, retired
Even at your side; my thought is crossed
    With fancies by old longings fired.

And when I answer you, some days
    Vaguely and wildly, do not fear
That my love walks forbidden ways,
    Breaking the ties that hold it here.

If I speak gruffly, this mood is
    Mere indignation at my own
Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties;
    I forget the gentler tone.

'You,' now that you have come to be
    My one beginning, prime and end,
I count at last as wholly 'me,'
    Lover no longer nor yet friend.

Friendship is flattery, though close hid;
    Must I then flatter my own mind?
And must (which laws of shame forbid)
    Blind love of you make self-love b...

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter;
The song was done, and can't you guess
    The words that followed after?

Like autumn leaves sometimes they fall--
    The words that burn and falter;
And is it true they too must fade
    Upon Love's sacred alter?

From memory each one of us
    Can cull some sweetest treasure;
Yet golden days, like golden leaves,
    Give pain as well as pleasure.

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter:
The sun was gone--yet heaven knew
    The stars that followed after.

("Oh, quand je dors.")

[XXVII.]


Oh! when I sleep, come near my resting-place,
As Laura came to bless her poet's heart,
And let thy breath in passing touch my face -
    At once a space
        My lips will part.

And on my brow where too long weighed supreme
A vision - haply spent now - black as night,
Let thy look as a star arise and beam -
    At once my dream
        Will seem of light.

Then press my lips, where plays a flame of bliss -
A pure and holy love-light - and forsake
The angel for the woman in a kiss -
    At once, I wis,
        My soul will wake!

WM. W. TOMLINSON.

This April sun has wakened into cheer
    The wintry paths of thought, and tinged with gold
    These threadbare leaves of fancy brown and old.
This is for us the wakening of the year
    And May's sweet breath will draw the waiting soul
    To where in distance lies the longed-for goal.

The summer life will still all questioning,
    The leaves will whisper peace, and calm will be
    The wild, vast, blue, illimitable sea.
And we shall hush our murmurings, and bring
    To Nature, green below and blue above,
    A whole life's worshipping, a whole life's love.

We will not speak of sometime fretting fears,
    We will not think of aught that may arise
    In future hours to cloud our golden skies.
Some souls there are who love their woes and tears,

Spirit of Love, whose locks unrolled,
Stream on the breeze like floating gold;
Come, within a fragrant cloud
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud;
And, on those wings that sparkling play,
Waft, oh, waft me hence away!
Love! my soul is full of thee,
Alive to all thy luxury.
But she, the nymph for whom I glow
The lovely Lesbian mocks my woe;
Smiles at the chill and hoary hues
That time upon my forehead strews.
Alas! I fear she keeps her charms,
In store for younger, happier arms!

Roses are sweet to smell and see,
And lilies on the stem;
But rarer, stranger buds there be,
And she was like to them.

The little moon that April brings,
More lovely shade than light,
That, setting, silvers lonely hills
Upon the verge of night -

Close to the world of my poor heart
So stole she, still and clear;
Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark,
The solitude, the fear.

Solea lontana in sonno consolarme.

SHE ANNOUNCES TO HIM, IN A VISION, THAT HE WILL NEVER SEE HER MORE.


    To soothe me distant far, in days gone by,
With dreams of one whose glance all heaven combined,
Was mine; now fears and sorrow haunt my mind,
Nor can I from that grief, those terrors fly:
For oft in sleep I mark within her eye
Deep pity with o'erwhelming sadness join'd;
And oft I seem to hear on every wind
Accents, which from my breast chase peace and joy.
"That last dark eve," she cries, "remember'st thou,
When to those doting eyes I bade farewell,
Forced by the time's relentless tyranny?
I had not then the power, nor heart to tell,
What thou shalt find, alas! too surely true--
Hope not again on earth thy Laura's face to see."

Love comes and goes like a spell!
How, no one knows, nor can tell!
Now here--now there--then away!
None dreameth where!--Well-a-day!

Love should be true as the star
Seen in the blue sky afar!--
Not here--now there--like the lay
Of lutes in th' air!--Well-a-day!

Should love depart, not a tie
Binds up the heart till we die!--
Now here--now there--sad we stray
Life is all care!--Well-a-day!

I sent my love two roses, - one
    As white as driven snow,
And one a blushing royal red,
    A flaming Jacqueminot.

I meant to touch and test my fate;
    That night I should divine,
The moment I should see my love,
    If her true heart were mine.

For if she holds me dear, I said,
    She'll wear my blushing rose;
If not, she'll wear my cold Lamarque
    As white as winter's snows.

My heart sank when I met her:    sure
    I had been over bold,
For on her breast my pale rose lay
    In virgin whiteness cold.

Yet with low words she greeted me,
    With smiles divinely tender;
Upon her cheek the red rose dawned. -
    The white rose meant surrender.

Part IV

Late Autumn

They who die young are blest. -
    Should we not envy such?
They are Earth's happiest,
    God-loved and favored much! -
They who die young are blest.


1

Sick and sad, propped among pillows, she sits at her window.

'Though the dog-tooth violet come
With April showers,
And the wild-bees' music hum
About the flowers,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the bob-white piped for hours,
And we heard the rain-crow's drum.

Now November heavens are gray;
Autumn kills
Every joy - like leaves of May
In the rills. -
Still I sit and lean and listen
To a voice that has arisen
In my heart - with eyes tha...

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
These cherries grow which none may buy,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rosebuds filled with snow.
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Music in Italy.--Disappointed by it.--Recollections or other Times and Friends.--Dalton.--Sir John Stevenson.--His Daughter.--Musical Evenings together.


If it be true that Music reigns,
    Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,
'Tis like that Harmony so famous,
Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS
Declared had such transcendent merit
That not a soul on earth could hear it;
For, far as I have come--from Lakes,
Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,
Thro' MILAN and that land which gave
The Hero of the rainbow vest[1]--
By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,
Which made VERONA'S bard so blest--
Places that (like the Attic shore,
Which rung back music when the sea
Struck on its marge) should be all o'er
Thrilling alive with melody--
I've hea...