Occhi miei, oscurato è 'l nostro sole.

HE ENDEAVOURS TO FIND PEACE IN THE THOUGHT THAT SHE IS IN HEAVEN.


    Mine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night,
Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love;
There we may hail it still, and haply prove
It mourn'd that we delay'd our heavenward flight.
Mine ears! the music of her tones delight
Those, who its harmony can best approve;
My feet! who in her track so joy'd to move.
Ye cannot penetrate her regions bright!
But wherefore should your wrath on me descend?
No spell of mine hath hush'd for ye the joy
Of seeing, hearing, feeling, she was near:
Go, war with Death--yet, rather let us bend
To Him who can create--who can destroy--
And bids the ready smile succeed the tear.

WOLLASTON.
...

That other house, in the same crowded street,
One red-tiled floor had, answering to my feet,
And a bewildering garden all of light and heat.

Only that red floor and garden now remain,
One glowing firelike in my glowing brain,
One with smell, colour, sun and cloud revived again.

Yet in the garden the sky was very small,
Closed by some darkness beyond the low brown wall;
But from the west the gold could long unhindered fall.

Of human faces I remember none
Amid the garden; but myself alone
With creeping-jenny, sunflower, marigold, snapdragon--

These all my love, these now all my light,
Bringing their kindness to any painful night.
The sun brushed all their brightness with his skirt more bright.

And I was happy when I knew it not,
Dre...

        All perfect things are saddening in effect.
    The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes,
    The matchless tinting on the royal rose
        Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked,
        Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked
    Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows -
    These hold a deeper pathos than our woes,
        Since they leave nothing better to expect.

        Resistless change, when powerless to improve,
    Can only mar. The gold will pale to gray;
    Nothing remains tomorrow as to-day;
        The lose will not seem quite so fait, and love
    Must find its measures of delight made less.
    Ah, how imperfect is all Perfectness!

Io canterei d' Amor sì novamente.

REPLY TO A Sonnet OF JACOPO DA LENTINO.


    Ways apt and new to sing of love I'd find,
Forcing from her hard heart full many a sigh,
And re-enkindle in her frozen mind
Desires a thousand, passionate and high;
O'er her fair face would see each swift change pass,
See her fond eyes at length where pity reigns,
As one who sorrows when too late, alas!
For his own error and another's pains;
See the fresh roses edging that fair snow
Move with her breath, that ivory descried,
Which turns to marble him who sees it near;
See all, for which in this brief life below
Myself I weary not but rather pride
That Heaven for later times has kept me here.

MACGREGOR.

The dark was thick. A boy he seemed at that time
Who trotted by me with uncertain air;
"I'll tell my tale," he murmured, "for I fancy
A friend goes there? . . . "

Then thus he told. "I reached 'twas for the first time -
A dwelling. Life was clogged in me with care;
I thought not I should meet an eyesome maiden,
But found one there.

"I entered on the precincts for the second time -
'Twas an adventure fit and fresh and fair -
I slackened in my footsteps at the porchway,
And found her there.

"I rose and travelled thither for the third time,
The hope-hues growing gayer and yet gayer
As I hastened round the boscage of the outskirts,
And found her there.

"I journeyed to the place again the fourth time
(The best and rarest visit of the ra...

I'm weary of this weather and I hanker for the ways
Which people read of in the psalms and preachers paraphrase--
The grassy fields, the leafy woods, the banks where I can lie
And listen to the music of the brook that flutters by,
Or, by the pond out yonder, hear the redwing blackbird's call
Where he makes believe he has a nest, but hasn't one at all;
And by my side should be a friend--a trusty, genial friend,
With plenteous store of tales galore and natural leaf to lend;
Oh, how I pine and hanker for the gracious boon of spring--
For then I'm going a-fishing with John Lyle King!

How like to pigmies will appear creation, as we float
Upon the bosom of the tide in a three-by-thirteen boat--
Forgotten all vexations and all vanities shall be,
As we cast our cares to...

"Ah, are you digging on my grave
    My loved one? planting rue?"
- "No: yesterday he went to wed
One of the brightest wealth has bred.
'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,
    'That I should not be true.'"

"Then who is digging on my grave?
    My nearest dearest kin?"
- "Ah, no; they sit and think, 'What use!
What good will planting flowers produce?
No tendance of her mound can loose
    Her spirit from Death's gin.'"

"But some one digs upon my grave?
    My enemy? prodding sly?"
- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
She thought you no more worth her hate,
    And cares not where you lie."

"Then, who is digging on my grave?
    Say since I have not guessed!"
- "O it is I, my mi...

From fall to spring, the russet acorn,
Fruit beloved of maid and boy,
Lent itself beneath the forest,
To be the children's toy.

Pluck it now! In vain,--thou canst not;
Its root has pierced yon shady mound;
Toy no longer--it has duties;
It is anchored in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden,
Playfellow of young and old,
Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men,
More dear to one than mines of gold.

Whither went the lovely hoyden?
Disappeared in blessed wife;
Servant to a wooden cradle,
Living in a baby's life.

Still thou playest;--short vacation
Fate grants each to stand aside;
Now must thou be man and artist,--
'T is the turning of the tide.

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the stream
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,--
Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness stains its equal gleam.
And ages drop in ...

Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.

And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.

For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.

And there to make a cot unknown t...

    My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
    My den is all a cosy glow;
    And snug before the fire I sit,
    And wait to FEEL the old year go.
    I dedicate to solemn thought
    Amid my too-unthinking days,
    This sober moment, sadly fraught
    With much of blame, with little praise.

    Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
    You stand to bow your last adieu;
    A moment, and the prompter's chime
    Will ring the curtain down on you.
    Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
    You falter as a Sage in pain;
    Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
    And face your audience again.

    That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
    Let us all read, whate'er the cost:
    O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
    Is it for dear one ...

("L'aurore s'allume.")

[XX. a, December, 1834.]


Morning glances hither,
Now the shade is past;
Dream and fog fly thither
Where Night goes at last;
Open eyes and roses
As the darkness closes;
And the sound that grows is
Nature walking fast.

Murmuring all and singing,
Hark! the news is stirred,
Roof and creepers clinging,
Smoke and nest of bird;
Winds to oak-trees bear it,
Streams and fountains hear it,
Every breath and spirit
As a voice is heard.

All takes up its story,
Child resumes his play,
Hearth its ruddy glory,
Lute its lifted lay.
Wild or out of senses,
Through the world immense is
Sound as each commences
Schemes of yesterday.

W.M. HARDINGE.

    "More than half my life long
Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,
But they all have shrunk away into the silence
    Like a lost song.

    "And the day has dawned and come
For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb
On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered
    Half in delirium . . .

    "With folded lips and hands
They lie and wait what next the Will commands,
And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord
    Sink with Life's sands!'

    "By these late years their names,
Their virtues, their hereditary claims,
May be as near defacement at their grave-place
    As are their fames."

    Such thoughts bechanced to seize
A traveller's mind a man of memories -
As he set foot within the western city

Handsome you are, and proper you will be
Despite of all your infortunity:
Live long and lovely, but yet grow no less
In that your own prefixed comeliness:
Spend on that stock: and when your life must fall,
Leave others beauty to set up withal.

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady,
That well could tune his pipe, and deftly play
The nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy,
Methought I saw, upon a summer's day,
Take up a little satyr in a wood,
All masterless forlorn as none did know him,
And nursing him with those of his own blood,
On mighty Pan he lastly did bestow him;
But with the god he long time had not been,
Ere he the shepherd and himself forgot,
And most ingrateful, ever stepp'd between
Pan and all good befell the poor man's lot:
Whereat all good men griev'd, and strongly swore
They never would be foster-fathers more.

Through shimmering skies the big clouds slowly sail;
    A faint breeze lingers in the rustling beech;
    Atop the withered oak with vagrant speech
The brawling crows call down the sleepy vale;
Unseen the glad cicadas trill their tale
    Of deep content in changeless vibrant screech,
    And where the old fence rambles out of reach,
The drowsy lizard hugs the shaded rail.
Warm odors from the hayfield wander by,
    Afar the homing reaper's noontide tune
Floats on the mellow stillness like a sigh;
    One butterfly, ghost of a vanished June,
Soars dimly where in realms of purple sky
    Dips the wan crescent of the vapory moon.

I do not know if all the fault be mine,
    Or why I may not think of thee and be
    At peace with mine own heart. Unceasingly
Grim doubts beset me, bygone words of thine
    Take subtle meaning, and I cannot rest
    Till all my fears and follies are confessed.

Perhaps the wild wind's questioning has brought
    My heart its melancholy, for, alone
    In the night stillness, I can hear him moan
In sobbing gusts, as though he vainly sought
    Some bygone bliss. Against the dripping pane
    In storm-blown torrents beats the driving rain.

Nay I will tell thee all, I will not hide
    One thought from thee, and if I do thee wrong
    So much the more must I be brave and strong
To show my fault. And if thou then shouldst chide
    I will accept repr...