His beauty bore no token,
    No sign our gladness shook;
With tender strength unbroken
    The hand of Life he took:
But the summer flowers were falling,
    Falling and fading away,
And mother birds were calling,
        Crying and calling
    For their loves that would not stay.

He knew not Autumn's chillness,
    Nor Winter's wind nor Spring's.
He lived with Summer's stillness
    And sun and sunlit things:
But when the dusk was falling
    He went the shadowy way,
And one more heart is calling,
        Crying and calling
    For the love that would not stay.

Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms, expires,
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em,
And softer sighs that know not what they want,
Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree,
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seem'd to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
Such I believed it must be. How could I
Let beast o'erpower them? When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon ...

MORN.

Down silver precipices drawn
The red-wine cataracts of dawn
Pour soundless torrents wide and far,
Deluging each warm, floating star.
A sound of winds and brooks and wings,
Sweet woodland-fluted carolings,
Star radiance dashed on moss and fern,
Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn;
Wet hills, hung heavily with woods,
Dew-drenched and drunken solitudes
Faint-murmuring elfin canticles;
Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells,
And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees,
Wind-wafts and genii of the trees.
Thro' briers that trammel, one by one,
With swinging pails comes laughing on
A troop of youthful berriers,
Their wet feet glitt'ring where they pass
Thro' dew-drop studded tufts of grass:
And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers,<...

Fair Prime of life! were it enough to gild
With ready sunbeams every straggling shower;
And, if an unexpected cloud should lower,
Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build
For Fancy's errands, then, from fields half-tilled
Gathering green weeds to mix with poppy flower,
Thee might thy Minions crown, and chant thy power,
Unpitied by the wise, all censure stilled.
Ah! show that worthier honours are thy due;
Fair Prime of life! arouse the deeper heart;
Confirm the Spirit glorying to pursue
Some path of steep ascent and lofty aim;
And, if there be a joy that slights the claim
Of grateful memory, bid that joy depart.

Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.

With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched on his staff, who trembles tottering by?
As wrung from out the shattered heart, one groan
Breaks the deep hush alone!
Crushed by the iron fate, he seems to gather
All life's last strength to stagger to the bier,
And hearken Do these cold lips murmur "Father?"
The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear,
...

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain
Went wild with wind; and every briery lane
Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black,
Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back,
That on the thunder leaned as on a cane;
And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack,
That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack:
One big drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane,
And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.

At last, through clouds, - as from a cavern hewn.
Into night's heart, - the sun burst angry roon;
And every cedar, with its weight of wet,
Against the sunset's fiery splendor set,
Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn:
Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met,
Dim odors rose of pink and mignonette;
And in the east a confidence, t...

Let not thy tombstone e'er be laid by me:
Nor let my hearse be wept upon by thee:
But let that instant when thou diest be known
The minute of mine expiration.
One knell be rung for both; and let one grave
To hold us two an endless honour have.

On, loitering Muse, the swift Stream chides us on!
Albeit his deep-worn channel doth immure
Objects immense portrayed in miniature,
Wild shapes for many a strange comparison!
Niagaras, Alpine passes, and anon
Abodes of Naiads, calm abysses pure,
Bright liquid mansions, fashioned to endure
When the broad oak drops, a leafless skeleton,
And the solidities of mortal pride,
Palace and tower, are crumbled into dust!
The Bard who walks with Duddon for his guide,
Shall find such toys of fancy thickly set:
Turn from the sight, enamoured Muse, we must;
And, if thou canst, leave them without regret!

Greta, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones
Seats of glad instinct and love's caroling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony:
To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.

Three miles of trees it is: and I
Came through the woods that waited, dumb,
For the cool summer dusk to come;
And lingered there to watch the sky
Up which the gradual splendor clomb.
A tree-toad quavered in a tree;
And then a sudden whippoorwill
Called overhead, so wildly shrill
The sleeping wood, it seemed to me,
Cried out and then again was still.
Then through dark boughs its stealthy flight
An owl took; and, at drowsy strife,
The cricket tuned its faery fife;
And like a ghost-flower, silent white,
The wood-moth glimmered into life.
And in the dead wood everywhere
The insects ticked, or bored below
The rotted bark; and, glow on glow,
The lambent fireflies here and there
Lit up their jack-o'-lantern show.
I heard a vesper-sparrow sing,

        I

        Sleep, little eyes
        That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
        Be comforted!    No grief of night can weigh
        Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

        Sleep, little heart!
        There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
        Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears
        And sorrows that will dim the after years.
        Sleep, little heart!


        II

        Ah, little eyes
        Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago,
        That life's storm crushed and left to lie below
        The benediction of the falling snow!

        Sleep, little heart
        That ceased so long ago its frantic beat!
        The years that come and go with silent feet

"Under the trees!" Who but agrees
That there is magic in words such as these?
Promptly one sees shake in the breeze
Stately lime-avenues haunted of bees:
Where, looking far over buttercupp'd leas,
Lads and "fair shes" (that is Byron, and he's
An authority) lie very much at their ease;
Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas,
Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese:
Not objecting at all though it's rather a squeeze
And the glass is, I daresay, at 80 degrees.
Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries
And Sainton, and Tamberlik's thrilling high Cs;
Or if painters, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise,
And the tone and the breadth of that landscape of Lee's;
Or if learned, on nodes and the moon's apogees,
Or, if serious, on something of AKHB's,

Tal me not, yu knocking fallers,
Life ban only empty dream;
Dar ban planty fun, ay tal yu,
Ef yu try Yohn Yohnson's scheme.
Yohn ban yust a section foreman,
Vorking hard vay up on Soo;
He ban yust so glad in morning
As ven all his vork ban tru.

"Vork," say Yohn, "ban vat yu mak it.
Ef yu tenk yure vork ban hard,
Yu skol having planty headaches, -
Yes, yu bet yure life, old pard;
But ay alvays yerk my coat off,
Grab my shovel and my pick,
And dis yob ant seem lak hard von
Ef ay du it purty qvick."

Yohn ban foreman over fallers.
He ant have to vork, yu see;
But, yu bet, he ant no loafer,
And he yust digs in, by yee!
"Listen, Olaf," he skol tal me,
"Making living ant no trick.
And the hardest yob ban easy
Ef yu only ...

One silver spoon shines in the house of Croot;
Who cannot buy or steal a second to't.

        A soaking sedge,
        A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

        Low clouds and rain,
        And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

        Mottled with moss,
        Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

        Shrill streaks of light
        Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

        And low between,
        The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

        Upon the stone
        Of each in turn who called this land his own

        The gray rain beats
        And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

        And at my eaves
        A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.

When the weary night is fled,
And the morning sky is red,
Then my heart doth rise and say,
'Surely she will come to-day.'

In the golden blaze of noon,
'Surely she is coming soon.'
In the twilight, 'Will she come?'
Then my heart with fear is dumb.

When the night wind in the trees
Plays its mournful melodies,
Then I know my trust is vain,
And she will not come again.

I

Now that we're almost settled in our house
I'll name the friends that cannot sup with us
Beside a fire of turf in th' ancient tower,
And having talked to some late hour
Climb up the narrow winding stair to bed:
Discoverers of forgotten truth
Or mere companions of my youth,
All, all are in my thoughts to-night being dead.

II

Always we'd have the new friend meet the old
And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,
And there is salt to lengthen out the smart
In the affections of our heart,
And quarrels are blown up upon that head;
But not a friend that I would bring
This night can set us quarrelling,
For all that come into my mind are dead.

III

Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
That loved his learning bette...

The Autumn pines and fades
Upon the withered trees;
And over there, a choked despair,
You hear the moaning breeze.

The violets are dead;
Dead the tall hollyhocks,
That hang like rags on the wind-crushed flags,
And the lilies' livid stocks.

The wild gourd clambers free
Where the clematis was wont;
Where nenuphars waxed thick as stars
Rank weeds stagnate the font.

Yet in my dreams I hear
A tinkling mandolin;
In the dark blue light of a fragrant night
Float in and out and in.

And the dewy vine that climbs
To my lady's lattice sways,
And behind the vine there come to shine
Two pleasant eyes and gaze.

And now a perfume comes,
A swift Favonian gust;
And the shrinking grass where it doth pass
Bows slave...