Of all the luckless women ever born,
        Or ever to be born here on our earth,
        Most pitied be Cassandra, from her birth
    Condemned to woes unearned by her. Forlorn,
    She early read great Ilium's doom, and tried,
        Clear-eyed, clear-voiced, her countrymen to warn.
        But - she Apollo's passion in high scorn
    Had once repelled, and of his injured pride
    The God for her had bred this punishment, -
        That good, or bad, all things she prophesied
        Though true as truth, should ever be decried
    And flouted by the people. As she went
    Far from old Priam's gates among the crowd,
        To save her country was her heart intent.
        Pure, fearless, on an holy errand bent,
    They called her "mad," who was a Prince...

Illusion works impenetrable,
Weaving webs innumerable,
Her gay pictures never fail,
Crowds each on other, veil on veil,
Charmer who will be believed
By man who thirsts to be deceived.



Illusions like the tints of pearl,
Or changing colors of the sky,
Or ribbons of a dancing girl
That mend her beauty to the eye.



The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth
And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon
To share the sunshine that so spicy is.



Samson stark, at Dagon's knee,
Gropes for columns strong as he;
When his ringlets grew and curled,
Groped for axle of the world.



But Nature whistled with all her winds,
Did as she pleased and went her way.

I

Her violin! - Again begin
The dream-notes of her violin;
And dim and fair, with gold-brown hair,
I seem to see her standing there,
Soft-eyed and sweetly slender:
The room again, with strain on strain,
Vibrates to LOVE's melodious pain,
As, sloping slow, is poised her bow,
While round her form the golden glow
Of sunset spills its splendour.


II

Her violin! - now deep, now thin,
Again I hear her violin;
And, dream by dream, again I seem
To see the love-light's tender gleam
Beneath her eyes' long lashes:
While to my heart she seems a part
Of her pure song's inspirèd art;
And, as she plays, the rosy grays
Of twilight halo hair and face,
While sunset burns to ashes.


III

O violin! - Cease,...

The woman who looks upon man as a sinner
Unsaved as to soul, and uncertain in heart,
Should learn how to cook, and prepare him a dinner,
And serve it with talent, refinement, and art.
Full many a question is solved by digestion.
Bad morals are caused, oftentimes by bad cooks,
And many a riot results from poor diet -
Conversion may lie in the leaves of cook books.

About the dull stalk of the thorntree of duty
Plant flowers of fragrance and vines of good taste.
Surround the coarse needs of the body with beauty,
Make common things noble, make vulgar things chaste.
Put art in housekeeping, nor think culture sleeping
Because the base animal, man, must be fed.
Delsarte should be able to speak in the table -
'Expression' may lie in a light loaf of bread.

...

Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky.

And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,
Though I no more may watchful bend
Thy longed repose above?

And will not heaven itself bestow
A beam of glory there
That summer's grass more green may grow,
And summer's flowers more fair?

Farewell, farewell, 'tis hard to part
Yet, loved one, it must be:
I would not rend another heart
Not even by blessing thee.

Go! We must break affection's chain,
Forget the hopes of years:
Nay, grieve not - willest thou remain
To waken wilder tears

This herald breeze with thee and me,
Roved in the dawning day:
And thou shouldest be...

My dead love came to me, and said,
'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'

'Why, as of old,' I said; and so
We quarrell'd, as of old:
But, when I turn'd to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
    Who are no longer here, the noble three,
    Who half my life were more than friends to me,
    And whose discourse was like a generous wine,
I most of all remember the divine
    Something, that shone in them, and made us see
    The archetypal man, and what might be
    The amplitude of Nature's first design.
In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands;
    I cannot find them.    Nothing now is left
    But a majestic memory.    They meanwhile
Wander together in Elysian lands,
    Perchance remembering me, who am bereft
    Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile.


II

In Attica thy birthplace should have been,
    Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas
    Encircl...

Yes, yes, when, the bloom of Love's boyhood is o'er,
    He'll turn into friendship that feels no decay;
And, tho' Time may take from him the wings he once wore,
The charms that remain will be bright as before,
    And he'll lose but his young trick of flying away.
Then let it console thee, if Love should not stay,
    That Friendship our last happy moments will crown:
Like the shadows of morning, Love lessens away,
While Friendship, like those at the closing of day,
    Will linger and lengthen as life's sun goes down.

'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.

One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red,
Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled,
And for the white rose sing a song - the white rose for the dead.

And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold,
King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old,
Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.

And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee
And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee,
You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing wild and free.

'Tis time to sing of roses! of roses all ablow!
They come a...

Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
    The land we sowed,
    The hearth that glowed---
    O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
    The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea?

Gray wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set,
    To misty deeps
    The channel sweeps---
    O Mother, think on us who think on thee!
Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet
    The sons in exile on the eternal sea.

A patch of meadow upland
Reached by a mile of road,
Soothed by the voice of waters,
With birds and flowers bestowed.

Hither I come for strength
Which well it can supply,
For Love draws might from terrene force
And potencies of sky.

The tremulous battery Earth
Responds to the touch of man;
It thrills to the antipodes,
From Boston to Japan.

The planets' child the planet knows
And to his joy replies;
To the lark's trill unfolds the rose,
Clouds flush their gayest dyes.

When Ali prayed and loved
Where Syrian waters roll,
Upward the ninth heaven thrilled and moved;
At the tread of the jubilant soul.

Underneath an apple-tree
Sat a dame of comely seeming,
With her work upon her knee,
And her great eyes idly dreaming.
O'er the harvest-acres bright,
Came her husband's din of reaping;
Near to her, an infant wight
Through the tangled grass was creeping.

On the branches long and high,
And the great green apples growing,
Rested she her wandering eye,
With a retrospective knowing.
"This," she said, "the shelter is,
Where, when gay and raven-headed,
I consented to be his,
And our willing hearts were wedded.

"Laughing words and peals of mirth,
Long are changed to grave endeavor;
Sorrow's winds have swept to earth
Many a blossomed hope forever.
Thunder-heads have hovered o'er--
Storms my path have chilled and shaded;
Of the b...

I'm askin' you'll be easy for a bit, Sir,
The lad's had little but a thrush's schoolin',
The blue skies and the fields, the little whipster,
'Tis time enough for something more--(But whisper)
He'll go the better for an easy rulin'.

Herself was always for the bit of readin'
But Denny here, he's great for growin' things,
There's not a primrose that he'd not be heedin'
Herself is right 'tis graver things he's needin'
The thrush is tamer when you clip his wings.

I'd never have you spare him with the learnin',
(And, Faith, 'tis little that the lad has had),
But if above his task you'll see him turnin'
To watch the fields--'tis just the thrush's yearnin'--
I'm askin' you'll be easy with the lad.

I love the lazy Southern spring,
The way she melts around a chap
And lets the great magnolias fling
Their languid petals in his lap.

I love to travel down half-way
And meet her coming up the earth,
With hurdy-gurdy men who play
And make the children dance for mirth.

But best of all I love to steer
For quiet corners not too far,
Where the first juleps reappear
With fresh green mint behind the bar.

P. S. Perhaps you'll think it queer,
But I do not dislike a hint
To let the juleps disappear
And stick my nose into the mint.

Qual paura ho, quando mi torna a mente.

MELANCHOLY RECOLLECTIONS AND PRESAGES.


    O Laura! when my tortured mind
The sad remembrance bears
Of that ill-omen'd day,
When, victim to a thousand doubts and fears,
I left my soul behind,
That soul that could not from its partner stray;
In nightly visions to my longing eyes
Thy form oft seems to rise,
As ever thou wert seen,
Fair like the rose, 'midst paling flowers the queen,
But loosely in the wind,
Unbraided wave the ringlets of thy hair,
That late with studious care,
I saw with pearls and flowery garlands twined:
On thy wan lip, no cheerful smile appears;
Thy beauteous face a tender sadness wears;
Placid in pain thou seem'st, serene in grief,
As conscious of thy fate, and h...

Light silken curtain, colorless and soft,
Dreamlike before me floating! what abides
    Behind thy pearly veil's
    Opaque, mysterious woof?


Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch day-long
Thick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads,
    Nigh me I still can mark
    Cool fields of beaded grass.


No more; for on the rim of the globed world
I seem to stand and stare at nothingness.
    But songs of unseen birds
    And tranquil roll of waves


Bring sweet assurance of continuous life
Beyond this silvery cloud.    Fantastic dreams,
    Of tissue subtler still
    Than the wreathed fog, arise,


And cheat my brain with airy vanishings
And mystic glories of the world beyond.
    A whole enchanted town

Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;
And, where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky,
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!
--Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept!
And such is man; soon from his cell of clay
To burst a seraph in the blaze of day!

Nought is but beauty weareth, near and far,
Under the pale, blue sky and lonely star.
This is that quick hour when the city turns
Her troubled harsh distortion and blind care
Into brief loveliness seen everywhere,
While in the fuming west the low sun smouldering burns.

Not brick nor marble the rich beauty owns,
Not this is held in starward-pointing stones.
Sun, wind and smoke the threefold magic stir,
Kissing each favourless poor ruin with kiss
Like that when lovers lovers lure to bliss,
And earth than towered heaven awhile is heavenlier.

Tall shafts that show the sky how far away!
The thousand-window'd house gilded with day
That fades to night; the arches low, the streamer
Everywhere of the ruddy'd smoke.... Is aught
Of loveliness so rich e'er sol...