I.

'Twas in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.


II.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,
And souls untouch'd by sin;
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.


III.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran, -
Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can;
But the Usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!


IV.

His hat was off, his vest apart,
To catch heaven's blessed breeze;
For a burning thought was in his...

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
And stills the riot of pain and grief,
Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

"You will find on it whorls and clots of
Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
Glorious butterflies raised from the dead."

"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
The three-dimensioned preacher saith;
So we must not look where the snail...

By vain affections unenthralled,
Though resolute when duty called
To meet the world's broad eye,
Pure as the holiest cloistered nun
That ever feared the tempting sun,
Did Fermor live and die.
This Tablet, hallowed by her name,
One heart-relieving tear may claim;
But if the pensive gloom
Of fond regret be still thy choice,
Exalt thy spirit, hear the voice
Of Jesus from her tomb!

"I Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life"

I.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.

II.

Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

III.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made...

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
"Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;

"Only for roses that your chance may throw -
Though withered - Twill wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, -
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again."

"Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream."

"Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet;
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit;
And words speak false; - yet, if they welcome prove,
I'll be their echo, and repeat their love."

"Only if wa...

Or che 'l ciel e la terra e 'l vento tace.

NIGHT BRINGS PEACE TO ALL SAVE HIM.


    O'er earth and sky her lone watch silence keeps,
And bird and beast in stirless slumber lie,
Her starry chariot Night conducts on high,
And in its bed the waveless ocean sleeps.
I wake, muse, burn, and weep; of all my pain
The one sweet cause appears before me still;
War is my lot, which grief and anger fill,
And thinking but of her some rest I gain.
Thus from one bright and living fountain flows
The bitter and the sweet on which I feed;
One hand alone can harm me or can heal:
And thus my martyrdom no limit knows,
A thousand deaths and lives each day I feel,
So distant are the paths to peace which lead.

MACGREGOR.


    'Tis now the ...

He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some old song:
"Two red roses he had on his cap,
And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a roo...

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country’s wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
    The buried warlike and the wise;

The mind that thought for Britain’s weal,
The hand that grasp’d the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine
Where glory weeps o’er Nelson’s shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallow’d tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
Say to your sons, Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave!
To him, as to the burning levi...

    The three following Sonnets are written in the character of Werter; the sentiments and images chiefly, but not intirely taken from one of his letters.

Up this bleak Hill, in wintry Night's dread hour,
    With mind congenial to the scene, I come!
    To see my Valley in the lunar gloom,
    To see it whelm'd. - Amid the cloudy lour
Gleams the cold Moon; - and shows the ruthless power
    Of yon swoln Floods, that white with turbid foam
    Roll o'er the fields; - and, billowy as they roam,
    Against the bushes beat! - A Vale no more,
A troubled Sea, toss'd by the furious Wind! -
    Alas! the wild and angry Waves efface
    Pathway, and hedge, and bank, and stile! - I find
But one wide waste of waters! - In controul
    Thus dire, to tides of Misery...

A Child-World, yet a wondrous world no less,
To those who knew its boundless happiness.
A simple old frame house - eight rooms in all -
Set just one side the center of a small
But very hopeful Indiana town, -
The upper-story looking squarely down
Upon the main street, and the main highway
From East to West, - historic in its day,
Known as The National Road - old-timers, all
Who linger yet, will happily recall
It as the scheme and handiwork, as well
As property, of "Uncle Sam," and tell
Of its importance, "long and long afore
Railroads wuz ever dreamp' of!" - Furthermore,
The reminiscent first Inhabitants
Will make that old road blossom with romance
Of snowy caravans, in long parade
Of covered vehicles, of every grade
From ox-cart of most primi...

Low, swallow-swept and gray,
Between the orchard and the spring,
All its wide windows overflowing hay,
And crannied doors a-swing,
The old barn stands to-day.

Deep in its hay the Leghorn hides
A round white nest; and, humming soft
On roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides,
Black in the sun-shot loft,
The building hornet glides.

Along its corn-crib, cautiously
As thieving fingers, skulks the rat;
Or in warped stalls of fragrant timothy,
Gnaws at some loosened slat,
Or passes shadowy.

A dream of drouth made audible
Before its door, hot, smooth, and shrill
All day the locust sings. .    What other spell
Shall hold it, lazier still
Than the long day's, now tell:

Dusk and the cricket and the strain
Of tree-toad and o...

When a man's faith is frozen up, as dead;
Then is the lamp and oil extinguished.

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave
The winds that lift the ocean wave,
The mountain stream that loops and swerves
Through my broad meadow's channelled curves
Should waft me on from bound to bound
To where the River weds the Sound,
The Sound should give me to the Sea,
That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.

It may not be; too long the track
To follow down or struggle back.
The sun has set on fair Naushon
Long ere my western blaze is gone;
The ocean disk is rolling dark
In shadows round your swinging bark,
While yet the yellow sunset fills
The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills;
The day-star wakes your island deer
Long ere my barnyard chanticleer;
Your mists are soaring in the blue
While mine are sparks of glittering dew.

It ma...

"The Southern Transept, hardly known by any other name but Poet's Corner."

DEAN STANLEY.

Tread softly here; the sacredest of tombs
Are those that hold your Poets.    Kings and queens
Are facile accidents of Time and Chance.
Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there!
But he who from the darkling mass of men
Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne
To finer ether, and becomes a voice
For all the voiceless, God anointed him:
His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.

Tread softly here, in silent reverence tread.
Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns
Lies richer dust than ever nature hid
Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart,
Or slyly wrapt in unsuspected sand--
The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul.
How vain ...

1

Soul of my body! what a death
For such a day of envious gloom,
Unbroken passion of the sky!
As if the pure, kind-hearted breath
Of some soft power, ever nigh,
Had, cleaving in the bitter sheath,
Burst from its grave a gorgeous bloom.


2

The majesty of clouds that swarm.
Expanding in a furious length
Of molten-metal petals, flows
Unutterable, and where the warm,
Full fire is centered, swims and glows
The evening star fresh-faced with strength,
A shimmering rain-drop of the storm.

(For a friend who mourns its passing.)

He took the earth as earth had been his throne;
And beauty as the red rose for his eye;
"Give me the moon," he said, "for mine alone;
Or I will reach and pluck it from the sky!"

And thou, Life, dost mourn him, for the day
Has darkened since the gallant youngling went;
And smaller seems thy dwelling-place of clay
Since he has left that valley tenement.

But oh, perchance, beyond some utmost gate.
While at the gate thy stranger feet do stand.
He shall approach thee, beautiful, elate.
Crowned with his moon, the red rose in his hand!

With no poetic ardour fir'd
I press the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers grave or gay.

Beneath thy roof, Argyle, are bred
Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie
Stretch'd out in honour's nobler bed,
Beneath a nobler roof — the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn,
Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
And such as wicked kings may mourn,
When freedom is more dear than life.

When I go free,
I think 'twill be
A night of stars and snow,
And the wild fires of frost shall light
My footsteps as I go;
Nobody - nobody will be there
With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair
Dance burning through the night.