If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;
And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,
‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!
‘O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,
‘That murmuring and longing came,
‘From marble cities loud with tabors of old
‘In dove-gray faery lands;
‘From battle banners fold upon purple fold,
‘Queens wrought with glimmering hands;
‘That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face
‘Above the wandering tide;
‘And lingered in the hidden desolate place,
‘Where the last Phoenix died
‘And wrapped the flames above his holy head;
‘And still murmur and long:
‘O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead
‘In a tumultuou...

I


From church and chapel and dome and tower,
Near far and everywhere,
The merry bells chime loud and clear
Upon the frosty air.

All down the marble avenues
The lamp-lit casements glow,
And from an hundred palaces
Glad carols float and flow.

A thousand lamps from street to street
Blaze on the dusky air,
And light the way for happy feet
To carol, praise and prayer.

'Tis Christmas eve. In church and hall
The laden fir-trees bend;
Glad children throng the festival
And grandsires too attend.

Fur-wrapped and gemmed with pearls and gold,
Proud ladies rich and fair
As Egypt's splendid queen of old
In all her pomp are there.

And many a costly, golden gift
Hangs on each Christmas-tree,
While ro...

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.--OVID, Fastorum, Lib. vi.


"O Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!
We are forgotten; an...

Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.

On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines
Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,
Singing a pleasant song of summer still,
A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.

Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,
In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;
But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,
And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.

Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high
Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,
Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow
And jay and nut-hatch winter’s threat defy.

O gracious beauty, ever new a...

Three memories hold us ever
With longing and with pain;
Three memories Time has never
Been able to restrain;
That in each life remain
A part of heart and brain.

The first 's of that which taught us
To follow, Beauty still;
Who to the Fountain brought us
Of ancient good and ill,
And bade us drink our fill
At Life's wild-running rill.

The second one, that 's driven
Of anguish and delight,
Holds that which showed us Heaven,
Through Love's triumphant might;
And, deep beneath its height,
Hell, sighing in the night.

The third none follows after:
Its form is veiled and dim;
Its eyes are tears and laughter,
That look beyond the rim
Of earth and point to Him,
Who rules the Seraphim.

When first the squire and tinker Wood
Gravely consulting Ireland's good,
Together mingled in a mass
Smith's dust, and copper, lead, and brass;
The mixture thus by chemic art
United close in ev'ry part,
In fillets roll'd, or cut in pieces,
Appear'd like one continued species;
And, by the forming engine struck,
On all the same impression took.
    So, to confound this hated coin,
All parties and religions join;
Whigs, Tories, Trimmers, Hanoverians,
Quakers, Conformists, Presbyterians,
Scotch, Irish, English, French, unite,
With equal interest, equal spite
Together mingled in a lump,
Do all in one opinion jump;
And ev'ry one begins to find
The same impression on his mind.
    A strange event! whom gold incites
To blood and quarrels, brass...

Again the warm bare earth, the noon
That hangs upon her healing scars,
The midnight round, the great red moon,
The mother with her brood of stars,

The mist-rack and the wakening rain
Blown soft in many a forest way,
The yellowing elm-trees, and again
The blood-root in its sheath of gray.

The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress
Of yearning notes that gush and stream,
The lyric joy, the tenderness,
And once again the dream! the dream!

A touch of far-off joy and power,
A something it is life to learn,
Comes back to earth, and one short hour
The glamours of the gods return.

This life's old mood and cult of care
Falls smitten by an older truth,
And the gray world wins back to her
The rapture of her vanished youth.

Dea...

Brave was the foeman! well he held his ground!
But here defeat at kindred hands he found!
The shafts rained on him, in a righteous cause,
Came from the quiver of Old England's laws!

He fought in vain; and on this spot went down
The jus divinum, and the kingly crown.
But for those scenes Time long has made amends.
The ancient enemies are present friends;
Two swords, in Massachusetts, rich in dust,
And, better still, the peacefulness of rust,
Told the whole story in its double parts
To one who lives in two great nations' hearts;
And late above Old England's roar and din
Slow-tolling bells spoke sympathy of kin:
Victoria's wreath blooms on the sleeping breast
Of him just gone to his reward and rest,
And firm and fast between two mighty Powers
Ne...

The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake
Our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From off our limbs a chain;
And wrongs of man to man but make
The love of God more plain.
As through the shadowy lens of even
The eye looks farthest into heaven
On gleams of star and depths of blue
The glaring sunshine never knew

[1]

"Depend upon yourself alone,"
Has to a common proverb grown.
'Tis thus confirm'd in Aesop's way: -
The larks to build their nests are seen
Among the wheat-crops young and green;
That is to say,
What time all things, dame Nature heeding,
Betake themselves to love and breeding -
The monstrous whales and sharks,
Beneath the briny flood,
The tigers in the wood,
And in the fields, the larks.
One she, however, of these last,
Found more than half the spring-time past
Without the taste of spring-time pleasures;
When firmly she set up her will
That she would be a mother still,
And resolutely took her measures; -
First, got herself by Hymen match'd;
Then built her nest, laid, sat, and hatch'd.
All went as well as such things...

Keep pure the thoughts within thy mind,
    For they to actions turn,
Which succor want, or pity woe,
    Or all but self they spurn.

Keep pure thy thoughts, for outward looks
    Will then in beauty shine;
Although thy face be plain, 'twill be
    A human face divine.

Keep pure thy thoughts by trust in God,
    And, when in trouble's sea,
Look thou for strength to brave the storm,
    Upon thy bended knee.

Then lift thy head with fearless front,
    For come whatever may,
Thou'lt gather strength to brave it well,
    Thro' ev'ry passing day.

Keep pure thy heart, oh, keep it pure,
    And thou wilt bless the hour,
When thou withstood temptation's siege,
    And bridl'd passion's pow'r.

Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.



Precept divine! to earth in mercy given,
O sacred rule of action, worthy heaven!
Whose pitying love ordain'd the bless'd command
To bind our nature in a firmer band;
Enforce each human suff'rer's strong appeal,
And teach the selfish breast what others feel;
Wert thou the guide of life, mankind might know
A soft exemption from the worst of woe;
No more the powerful would the weak oppress,
But tyrants learn the luxury to bless;
No more would slav'ry bind a hopeless train,
Of human victims, in her galling chain;
Mercy the hard, the cruel heart would move
To soften mis'ry by the deeds of Jove;
And av'rice from his hoarded treasures give
Unask'd, the liberal boon, that wa...

    Think not thy little fountain's rain
        That in the sunlight rose and flashed,
    From the bright sky has fallen again,
        To cold and shadowy silence dashed.
    The Joy that in her radiance leapt
    From everlasting hath not slept.

    The hand that to thy hand was dear,
        The untroubled eyes that mirrored thine,
    The voice that gave thy soul to hear
        A whisper of the Love Divine--
    What though the gold was mixed with dust?
    The gold is thine and cannot rust.

    Nor fear, because thy darling's heart
        No longer beats with mortal life,
    That she has missed the ennobling part
        Of human growth and human strife.
    Only she has the eternal peace
    Wherein to reap the soul's increase.

Among the numbers who employ
Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley! generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit.
Forgive me, when I fondly thought
(By frequent observations taught)
A spirit so inform'd as yours
Could never prosper in amours.
The God of Wit, and Light, and Arts,
With all acquired and natural parts,
Whose harp could savage beasts enchant,
Was an unfortunate gallant.
Had Bacchus after Daphne reel'd,
The nymph had soon been brought to yield;
Or, had embroider'd Mars pursued,
The nymph would ne'er have been a prude.
Ten thousand footsteps, full in view,
Mark out the way where Daphne[2] flew;
For such is all the sex's flight,
They fly from learning, wit, and light;
They fly, and none can overtake

Through the half-curtained window stole
An Autumn sunset's glow,
As languid on my couch I lay
With pulses weak and low.

And then methought a presence stood,
With shining feet and fair,
Amid the waves of golden light
That rippled through the air,

And laid upon my heaving breast,
With earnest glance and true,
A babe, whose fair and gentle brow
No shade of sorrow knew.

A solemn joy was in my heart,--
Immortal life was given
To Earth, upon her battle-field
To discipline for Heaven.

Soft music thrilled the quiet room,--
An unseen host were nigh,
Who left the infant pilgrim at
The threshold of our sky.

A new, strange love woke in my heart,
Defying all control,
As on the soft air rose and fell
That birt...

O God! if this indeed be all
That Life can show to me;
If on my aching brow may fall
No freshening dew from Thee,

If with no brighter light than this
The lamp of hope may glow,
And I may only dream of bliss,
And wake to weary woe;

If friendship's solace must decay,
When other joys are gone,
And love must keep so far away,
While I go wandering on,

Wandering and toiling without gain,
The slave of others' will,
With constant care, and frequent pain,
Despised, forgotten still;

Grieving to look on vice and sin,
Yet powerless to quell
The silent current from within,
The outward torrent's swell:

While all the good I would impart,
The feelings I would share,
Are driven backward to my heart,
And turned to...

I.

Mother of visions, with lineaments dulcet as numbers
Breathed on the eyelids of Love by music that slumbers,
Secretly, sweetly, O presence of fire and snow,
Thou comest mysterious,
In beauty imperious,
Clad on with dreams and the light of no world that we know:
Deep to my innermost soul am I shaken,
Helplessly shaken and tossed,
And of they tyrannous yearnings so utterly taken,
My lips, unsatisfied, thirst;
Mine eyes are accurst
With longings for visions that far in the night are forsaken;
And mine ears, in listening lost,
Yearn, waiting the note of a chord that will never awaken.

II.

Like palpable music thou comest, like moonlight; and far,
Resonant bar upon bar,
The vibrating lyre
Of the spirit responds with melodious fire...

Though o'er the darksome northern hill
Old ambush'd winter frowning flies,
And faintly drifts his threatenings still
In snowy sweet and blackening skies;
Yet here the willow leaning lies
And shields beneath the budding flower,
Where banks to break the wind arise,
'Tis sweet to sit and spend an hour.

Though floods of winter bustling fall
Adown the arches bleak and blea,
Though snow-storms clothe the mossy wall,
And hourly whiten o'er the lea;
Yet when from clouds the sun is free
And warms the learning bird to sing,
'Neath sloping bank and sheltering tree
'Tis sweet to watch the creeping spring.

Though still so early, one may spy
And track her footsteps every hour;
The daisy with its golden eye,
And primrose bursting into flower;
...