'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail
Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale:
From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven,
And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven,
She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin
And bend, as if Heaven was ruining in,
Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass
As if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they pass
To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound,
And the waves and the thunders, made silent around,
Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed
Through the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lost
In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep
Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep
It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale
Whose dep...

Hark! ah, the nightingale
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark! what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain

Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?
Dost thou once more ass...

Dedicated to the mountains of the San Juan district, Colorado, as seen from the summit of Mt. Wilson.


I stood at sunrise, on the topmost part
Of lofty mountain, massively sublime;
A pinnacle of trachyte, seamed and scarred
By countless generations' ceaseless war
And struggle with the restless elements;
A rugged point, which shot into the air,
As by ambition or desire impelled
To pierce the eternal precincts of the sky.

        Below, outspread,
A scene of such terrific grandeur lay
That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld;
The hands would clench involuntarily
And clutch from intuition for support;
The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze
On such an awful and inspiring sight.

The sun arose with bright transcendent ray,
Up...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

FEBRUARY 5, 18 - .

        Want - want - want - want! O God! forgive the crime,
        If I, asleep, awake, at any time,
        Upon my bended knees, my back, my feet,
        In church, on bed, on treasure-lighted street,
        Have ever hinted, or, much less, have pleaded
        That I hadn't ten times over all I needed!
        Lord save my soul! I never knew the way
        That people starve along from day to day;
        May gracious Heaven forgive me, o'er and o'er,
        That I have never found these folks before!

        Of course some news of it has come my way,
        Like a faint echo on a drowsy day;
        At home I "gave," whene'er by suffering grieved,
        And called i...

I

Within the mind strong fancies work.
A deep delight the bosom thrills
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handywork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-wh...

    Most sweet, most powerful,
    Controller of my inmost soul;
    The terrible, yet precious gift
    Of heaven, companion kind
    Of all my days of misery,
    O thought, that ever dost recur to me;

    Of thy mysterious power
    Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt
    Its subtle influence?
    Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled
    Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold,
    The theme seems ever new however old.

    How isolated is my mind,
    Since thou in it hast come to dwell!
    As by some magic spell,
    My other thoughts have all,
    Like lightning, disappeared;
    And thou, alone, like some huge tower,
    In a deserted plain,
    Gigantic, solitary, dost remain.

    How worthless quite,
    S...

At the golden gate of song
Stood I, knocking all day long,
But the Angel, calm and cold,
Still refused and bade me, "Hold."

Then a breath of soft perfume,
Then a light within the gloom;
Thou, Love, camest to my side,
And the gates flew open wide.

Long I dwelt in this domain,
Knew no sorrow, grief, or pain;
Now you bid me forth and free,
Will you shut these gates on me?

        There came a nymph dancing
        Gracefully, gracefully,
        Her eye a light glancing
        Like the blue sea;
        And while all this gladness
        Around her steps hung,
        Such sweet notes of sadness
        Her gentle lips sung,
That ne'er while I live from my memory shall fade
The song or the look of that young Indian maid.

        Her zone of bells ringing
        Cheerily, cheerily,
        Chimed to her singing
        Light echoes of glee;
        But in vain did she borrow
        Of mirth the gay tone,
        Her voice spoke of sorrow,
        And sorrow alone.
Nor e'er while I live from my memory shall fade
The song or the look of that young Indian maid.

    Musician, with the bent and brooding face,
    White brow and thunderous eyes: you are not playing
    Merely the music that dead hand did trace.

    Musician, with the lifted resolute face,
    And scornful smile about your closed mouth straying,
    And hand that moves with swift or fluttering grace,
    It is not that man's music you are playing.

    The grave and merry tunes he made you are playing,
    Each march and dirge and dance he made endures,
    But changed and mastered, and these things you're saying,
    These joys and sorrows are not his but yours.

    You take those notes of his: you seize and fling
    His music as a dancer flings her veil,
    Toss it and twist it, mould it, make it sing,
    Whisper, shout savagely, lament and w...

Farewell, old playmate! on thy sandy shore
My lingering feet will leave their print no more;
To thy loved side I never may return.
I pray thee, old companion, make due mourn
For the wild spirit who so oft has stood
Gazing in love and wonder on thy flood.
The form is now departing far away,
That half in anger oft, and half in play,
Thou hast pursued with thy white showers of foam.
Thy waters daily will besiege the home
I loved among the rocks; but there will be
No laughing cry, to hail thy victory,
Such as was wont to greet thee, when I fled,
With hurried footsteps, and averted head,
Like fallen monarch, from my venturous stand,
Chased by thy billows far along the sand.
And when at eventide thy warm waves drink
The amber clouds that in their bosom sink;

The Irish poem I give this translation of was printed in the Revue Celtique some years ago, and lately in An Fior Clairseach na h-Eireann, where a note tells us it was taken from a manuscript in the Gottingen Library, and was written by an Irish priest, Shemus Cartan, who had taken orders in France; but its date is not given. I like it for its own beauty, and because its writer does not, as so many Irish writers have done, attribute the many griefs of Ireland only to 'the horsemen of the Gall,' but also to the faults and shortcomings to which the people of a country broken up by conquest are perhaps more liable than the people of a country that has kept its own settled rule.


A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND.

My thoughts, alas! are without strength;
My spirit is journeying towards death;
My...

I mark the months in liveries dank and dry,
The noontides many-shaped and hued;
I see the nightfall shades subtrude,
And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.

I view the evening bonfires of the sun
On hills where morning rains have hissed;
The eyeless countenance of the mist
Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.

I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,
The cauldrons of the sea in storm,
Have felt the earthquake's lifting arm,
And trodden where abysmal fires and snow-cones are.

I learn to prophesy the hid eclipse,
The coming of eccentric orbs;
To mete the dust the sky absorbs,
To weigh the sun, and fix the hour each planet dips.

I witness fellow earth-men surge and strive;
Assemblies meet, and throb,...

L' aura soave ch' al sol spiega e vibra.

HIS HEART LIES TANGLED IN HER HAIR.


    The pleasant gale, that to the sun unplaits
And spreads the gold Love's fingers weave, and braid
O'er her fine eyes, and all around her head,
Fetters my heart, the wishful sigh creates:
No nerve but thrills, no artery but beats,
Approaching my fair arbiter with dread,
Who in her doubtful scale hath ofttimes weigh'd
Whether or death or life on me awaits;
Beholding, too, those eyes their fires display,
And on those shoulders shine such wreaths of hair,
Whose witching tangles my poor heart ensnare.
But how this magic's wrought I cannot say;
For twofold radiance doth my reason blind,
And sweetness to excess palls and o'erpowers my mind.

NOTT.

...

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear:--
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remembered oft and well
By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,
Can proudly still aspire to be
All that may yet win smiles from thee:--
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it. Mary,--oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray
Even more than Love should dare to say,--
In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
I...

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn
                Where she was wont to roam.

All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,
That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,
Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled
                Out of the yellow gorse.

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,
The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,
And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last
                Is the voice of the lonely land.

He lurks among the reeds, beside the marsh,
    Red oleanders twisted in His hair,
His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh,
    Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare.

The green and stagnant waters lick His feet,
    And from their filmy, iridescent scum
Clouds of mosquitoes, gauzy in the heat,
    Rise with His gifts: Death and Delirium.

His messengers: They bear the deadly taint
    On spangled wings aloft and far away,
Making thin music, strident and yet faint,
    From golden eve to silver break of day.

The baffled sleeper hears th' incessant whine
    Through his tormented dreams, and finds no rest
The thirsty insects use his blood for wine,
    Probe his blue veins and pasture on his breast.

While far away He in the mar...

Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That ...

The shopping had been tedious, and the rain
Came pelting down as she turned home again.

The motor-bus swirled past with rush and whirr,
Nought but its fumes of petrol left for her.

The bloaters in her basket, and the cheese
Malodorously mixed themselves with these.

And all seemed wrong. The world was drab and grey
As the slow minutes wept themselves away.

And then, athwart the noises of the street,
A violin flung out an Irish air.

"I'll take you home again, Kathleen." Ah, sweet,
How tender-sweet those lilting phrases were!

They soothed away the weariness, and brought
Such peace to one worn woman, over- wrought,

That she forgot the things which vexed her so:
The too outrageous price of calico,

The shop-girl's look...