The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields
Are hung, as if with golden shields,
Bright trophies of the sun!
Like a fair sister of the sky,
Unruffled doth the blue lake lie,
The mountains looking on.

And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove,
Albeit uninspired by love,
By love untaught to ring,
May well afford to mortal ear
An impulse more profoundly dear
Than music of the Spring.

For 'that' from turbulence and heat
Proceeds, from some uneasy seat
In nature's struggling frame,
Some region of impatient life:
And jealousy, and quivering strife,
Therein a portion claim.

This, this is holy; while I hear
These vespers of another year,
This hymn of thanks and praise,
My spirit seems to mount above
The anxieties of human love,

What hast thou done to this dear friend of mine,
Thou cold, white, silent Stranger?    From my hand
Her clasped hand slips to meet the grasp of thine;
Here eyes that flamed with love, at thy command
Stare stone-blank on blank air; her frozen heart
Forgets my presence.    Teach me who thou art,
Vague shadow sliding 'twixt my friend and me.
    I never saw thee till this sudden hour.
What secret door gave entrance unto thee?
    What power in thine, o'ermastering Love's own power?

        In summer time we roam o'er dingle,
        But winter draws us round the ingle,
        Why do you remain thus single,
        When love would make two hearts tingle,
        Pray, tell me why my dearest wingle,
        With the fair you do not mingle,
        Better with love 'neath cot of shingle,
        Than all your yellow gold to jingle.

        For married life you would enjoy,
        And soon a little girl and boy,
        They would your leisure hours employ,
        At Christmas you could buy each toy,
        And fill their little hearts with joy,
        For their amusements never cloy,
        Business cares do men annoy,
        Child's happiness knows no alloy.

My hour is not yet come! - these burning eyes
    Have not yet look'd their last! - else, 'mid the roar
    Of this wild STORM, what gloomy joy to pour
    My freed, exhaling Soul! - sublime to rise,
Rend the conflicting clouds, inflame the skies,
    And lash the torrents! - Bending to explore
    Our evening seat, my straining eye once more
    Roves the wide watry Waste; - but nought descries
Save the pale Flood, o'erwhelming as it strays.
    Yet Oh! lest my remorseless Fate decree
    That all I love, with life's extinguish'd rays
Sink from my soul, to soothe this agony,
    To balm that life, whose loss may forfeit thee,
    COME DEAR REMEMBRANCE OF DEPARTED DAYS!

Mock me no more with Love's beguiling dream,
    A dream, I find, illusory as sweet:
One smile of friendship, nay, of cold esteem,
    Far dearer were than passion's bland deceit!

I've heard you oft eternal truth declare;
    Your heart was only mine, I once believed.
Ah! shall I say that all your vows were air?
    And must I say, my hopes were all deceived?

Vow, then, no longer that our souls are twined
    That all our joys are felt with mutual zeal;
Julia!--'tis pity, pity makes you kind;
    You know I love, and you would seem to feel.

But shall I still go seek within those arms
    A joy in which affection takes no part?
No, no, farewell! you give me but your charms,
    When I had fondly thought you gave your heart.

Oh! tell me ye shepherds, tell me I pray,
Have you seen the fair Jessie pass by this way?
You ne'er could forget her, if once you had seen,
She's fair as the morning, she moves like a Queen.

My sheep are neglected, my crook's thrown aside,
In pursuit of dear Jessie, sweet Jessie, my bride;
I hear nothing of her, no tidings can glean,
To see is to know her, she moves like a Queen.

Say, have you seen her? oh, pity my grief!
Speak quick, and impart me the needful relief;
You cannot forget her, if once you have seen,
She's lovely as Venus, she moves like a Queen.

Have you not seen her? - then listen I pray,
Oh! listen to what a poor shepherd can say
In the praise of one ne'er so lovely was seen;
She's youthful as Hebe, she moves l...

To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose
Scentless, colorless, this!
Will it ever be thus (who knows?)
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?

Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
    When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
    The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
    I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
    Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."

With bee and bird for her maids of honor
    Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
    And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
    Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
    Like royal children in sportive play.

My restless soul for a little seas...

And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?-A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose,
(And sure the power of wisdom only knows,)
What need requireth thee:
So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
Some necessary cause must surely be;
But disappointments, pains, and every woe
Devoted wretches feel,
The ...

They met each other in the glade -
    She lifted up her eyes;
Alack the day! Alack the maid!
    She blushed in swift surprise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from lifting up the eyes.

The pail was full, the path was steep -
    He reached to her his hand;
She felt her warm young pulses leap,
    But did not understand.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from clasping hand with hand.

She sat beside him in the wood -
    He wooed with words and sighs;
Ah! love in spring seems sweet and good,
    And maidens are not wise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from listing lovers' sighs.

The summer sun shone fairly down,
    The wind blew from the south;
As blue eyes gazed in eyes of brown,
    His kiss fell on her mouth.
Alas! alas! the wo...

Like drifts of balm from cedared glens, those darling memories come,
With soft low songs, and dear old tales, familiar to our home.
Then breathe again that faint refrain, so tender, sad, and true,
My soul turns round with listening eyes unto the harp and you!
The fragments of a broken Past are floating down the tide,
And she comes gleaming through the dark, my love, my life, my bride!
Oh! sit and sing I know her well, that phantom deadly fair
With large surprise, and sudden sighs, and streaming midnight hair!
I know her well, for face to face we stood amongst the sheaves,
Our voices mingling with a mist of music in the leaves!
I know her well, for hand in hand we walked beside the sea,
And heard the huddling waters boom beneath this old Figtree.

God help the man that goes a...

As sunbeams stream through liberal space
And nothing jostle or displace,
So waved the pine-tree through my thought
And fanned the dreams it never brought.

'Whether is better, the gift or the donor?
Come to me,'
Quoth the pine-tree,
'I am the giver of honor.
My garden is the cloven rock,
And my manure the snow;
And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock,
In summer's scorching glow.
He is great who can live by me:
The rough and bearded forester
Is better than the lord;
God fills the script and canister,
Sin piles the loaded board.
The lord is the peasant that was,
The peasant the lord that shall be;
The lord is hay, the peasant grass,
One dry, and one the living tree.
Who liveth by the ragged pine
Founde...

    Like the herald hope of a fairer clime,
The brightest link in the chain of time,
The youngest and loveliest child of day,
I mingle and soften each glowing ray;
Weaving together a tissue bright
Of the beams of day and the gems of night.--
I pitch my tent in the glowing west,
And receive the sun as he sinks to rest;
He flings in my lap his ruby crown,
And lays at my feet his glory down;
But ere his burning eyelids close,
His farewell glance the day-king throws
On Nature's face--till the twilight shrouds
The monarch's brow in a veil of clouds--
Oh then, by the light of mine own fair star,
I unyoke the steeds from his beamy car.
Away they start from the fiery rein,
With flashing hoofs, and flying mane,
Like meteors speeding on the wind,
They lea...

What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.

But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

        We love but once. The great gold orb of light
    From dawn to even-tide doth cast his ray;
        But the full splendor of his perfect might
    Is reached but once throughout the livelong day.

        We love but once. The waves, with ceaseless motion,
    Do day and night plash on the pebbled shore;
        But the strong tide of the resistless ocean
    Sweeps in but one hour of the twenty-four.

        We love but once. A score of times, perchance,
    We may be moved in fancy's fleeting fashion -
        May treasure up a word, a tone, a glance;
    But only once we feel the soul's great passion.

        We love but once. Love walks with death and birth
    (The saddest, the unkindest of the three);
        And only once while we sojourn...

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

L' ultimo, lasso! de' miei giorni allegri.

HE REVERTS TO THEIR LAST MEETING.


    The last, alas! of my bright days and glad
--Few have been mine in this brief life below--
Had come; I felt my heart as tepid snow,
Presage, perchance, of days both dark and sad.
As one in nerves, and pulse, and spirits bad,
Who of some frequent fever waits the blow,
E'en so I felt--for how could I foreknow
Such near end of the half-joys I have had?
Her beauteous eyes, in heaven now bright and bless'd
With the pure light whence health and life descends,
(Wretched and beggar'd leaving me behind,)
With chaste and soul-lit beams our grief address'd:
"Tarry ye here in peace, beloved friends,
Though here no more, we yet shall there be join'd."

MACGREGOR.<...

Let us be silent for a little while;
Let us be still and listen.    We may hear
Echoes from other worlds not far a way.

City on city rising, steeple out-topping steeple,
Gaining and hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent,
People and people and people, and ever more human people -
This is not all of creation, this is not all that was meant!
Earth on its orbit spinning,
This is not end or beginning;
That is but one of a trillion spheres out into the ether hurled:
We move in a zone of wonder,
And over our planet and under
Are infinite orders of beings and marvels of world on world.

There may be moving among us curious people and races,
Folk of the fourth dimension, folk of the vast star spaces.
They may be trying to reach us,
They may be lon...