"Mitte sectari ROSA quo locorum
Sera moretur."
--Hor. i. 38.


I had a vacant dwelling--
Where situated, I,
As naught can serve the telling,
Decline to specify;--
Enough 'twas neither haunted,
Entailed, nor out of date;
I put up "Tenant Wanted,"
And left the rest to Fate.

Then, Rose, you passed the window,--
I see you passing yet,--
Ah, what could I within do,
When, Rose, our glances met!
You snared me, Rose, with ribbons,
Your rose-mouth made me thrall,
Brief--briefer far than Gibbon's,
Was my "Decline and Fall."

I heard the summons spoken
That all hear--king and clown:
You smiled--the ice was broken;
You stopped--the bill was down.
How blind we are! It never
Occurred to me to seek
If you had ...

What conscience, say, is it in thee,
When I a heart had one, [won]
To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?

For shame or pity, now incline
To play a loving part;
Either to send me kindly thine,
Or give me back my heart.

Covet not both; but if thou dost
Resolve to part with neither;
Why!yet to shew that thou art just,
Take me and mine together.

L' aura mia sacra al mio stanco riposo.

HE TELLS HER IN SLEEP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, AND, OVERCOME BY HER SYMPATHY, AWAKES.


    On my oft-troubled sleep my sacred air
So softly breathes, at last I courage take,
To tell her of my past and present ache,
Which never in her life my heart did dare.
I first that glance so full of love declare
Which served my lifelong torment to awake,
Next, how, content and wretched for her sake,
Love day by day my tost heart knew to tear.
She speaks not, but, with pity's dewy trace,
Intently looks on me, and gently sighs,
While pure and lustrous tears begem her face;
My spirit, which her sorrow fiercely tries,
So to behold her weep with anger burns,
And freed from slumber to itself returns.

MACGREGOR.

The body is no prison where we lie
Shut out from our true heritage of sun;
It is the wings wherewith the soul may fly.
Save through this flesh so scorned and spat upon,
No ray of light had reached the caverned mind,
No thrill of pleasure through the life had run,
No love of nature or of humankind,
Were it but love of self, had stirred the heart
To its first deed. Such freedom as we find,
We find but through its service, not apart.
And as an eagle's wings upbear him higher
Than Andes or Himalaya, and chart
Rivers and seas beneath; so our desire,
With more celestial members yet, may soar
Into the space of empyrean fire,
Still bodied but more richly than before.

The body is the man; what lurks behind
Through it alone unveils itself. Therefore
We a...

[W. L. C.]


Sit closer, friends, around the board!
    Death grants us yet a little time.
Now let the cheering cup be poured,
    And welcome song and jest and rhyme.
Enjoy the gifts that fortune sends.
            Sit closer, friends!

And yet, we pause. With trembling lip
    We strive the fitting phrase to make;
Remembering our fellowship,
    Lamenting Destiny's mistake.
We marvel much when Fate offends,
            And claims our friends.

Companion of our nights of mirth,
    Where all were merry who were wise;
Does Death quite understand your worth,
    And know the value of his prize?
I doubt me if he comprehends -
            He knows no friends.

And in that realm is there no joy
    Of comrades and the j...

    Dust of my dust,
    And dust with my dust,
    O, child who died as you entered the world,
    Dead with my death!
    Not knowing
    Breath, though you tried so hard,
    With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
    And stopped when you left me for Life.
    It is well, my child.
    For you never traveled
    The long, long way that begins with school days,
    When little fingers blur under the tears
    That fall on the crooked letters.
    And the earliest wound, when a little mate
    Leaves you alone for another;
    And sickness, and the face of
    Fear by the bed;
    The death of a father or mother;
    Or shame for them, or poverty;
    The maiden sorrow of school days ended;
    And eyeless Nature that makes you dri...

Days full of rapture,

Are ye renew'd ?
Smile in the sunlight

Mountain and wood?

Streams richer laden

Flow through the dale,
Are these the meadows?

Is this the vale?

Coolness cerulean!

Heaven and height!
Fish crowd the ocean,

Golden and bright.

Birds of gay plumage

Sport in the grove,
Heavenly numbers

Singing above.

Under the verdure's

Vigorous bloom,
Bees, softly bumming,

Juices consume.

Gentle disturbance

Quivers in air,
Sleep-causing fragrance,

Motion so fair.

Soon with more power

Rises the breeze,
Then in a moment

Dies in the trees.

But to the bosom

Comes it again...

The leaf that ripens only in the sun
Is dull and shrivelled ere its race is run.
The leaf that makes a carnival of death
Must tremble first before the north wind's breath.

The life that neither grief nor burden knows
Is dwarfed in sympathy before its close.
The life that grows majestic with the years
Must taste the bitter tonic found in tears.

Between two pillared clouds of gold
The beautiful gates of evening swung --
And far and wide from flashing fold
The half-furled banners of light, that hung
O'er green of wood and gray of wold
And over the blue where the river rolled,
The fading gleams of their glory flung.

The sky wore not a frown all day
To mar the smile of the morning tide;
The soft-voiced winds sang joyous lay --
You never would think they had ever sighed;
The stream went on its sunlit way
In ripples of laughter; happy they
As the hearts that met at Riverside.

No cloudlet in the sky serene!
Not a silver speck in the golden hue!
But where the woods waved low and green,
And seldom would let the sunlight through,
Sweet shadows fell, and in their screen,
The faces of ...

(Terpsichore)

Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 24, 1843.

In narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse,
In closest frock and Cinderella shoes,
Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display,
One zephyr step, and then dissolve away!

. . . . . . . . . .

Short is the space that gods and men can spare
To Song's twin brother when she is not there.
Let others water every lusty line,
As Homer's heroes did their purple wine;
Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these
The native juice, the real honest squeeze, - -
Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power,
In yon grave temple might have filled an hour.
Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre,
For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire,
For...

He found her not; - yet much the POET found,
    To swell Imagination's golden store,
    On Arno's bank, and on that bloomy shore,
    Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound,
Where Rome's forlorn Campania stretches round
    Her ruin'd towers and temples; - classic lore
    Breathing sublimer spirit from the power
    Of local consciousness. - Thrice happy wound,
Given by his sleeping graces, as the Fair
    "Hung over them enamour'd," the desire
    Thy fond result inspir'd, that wing'd him there,
Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan Lyre,
    Might haply fan the emulative flame,
    That rose o'er DANTE's song, and rival'd MARO's fame.

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

I'll get me hence,
Because no fence
Or fort that I can make here,
But love by charms,
Or else by arms
Will storm, or starving take here.

Ye brown old oaks that spread the silent wood,
How soothing sweet your stillness used to be;
And still could bless, when wrapt in musing mood,
But now confusion suits the best to me.
"Is it for love," the breezes seem to say,
"That you forsake our woodland silence here?
Is it for love, you roam so far away
From these still shades you valu'd once so dear?"
"No, breezes, no!"--I answer with a sigh,
"Love never could so much my bosom grieve;
Turnhill, my friend!--alas! so soon to die--
That is the grief which presses me to leave:
Though noise can't heal, it may some balm bestow;
But silence rankles in the wounds of woe."

She wept. Life's purple tide began to flow
In languid streams through every thrilling vein;
Dim were my swimming eyes, my pulse beat slow,
And my full heart was swell'd to dear delicious pain.
Life left my loaded heart, and closing eye;
A sigh recall'd the wanderer to my breast;
Dear was the pause of life, and dear the sigh
That call'd the wanderer home, and home to rest.
That tear proclaims in thee each virtue dwells,
And bright will shine in misery's midnight hour;
As the soft star of dewy evening tells
What radiant fires were drown'd by day's malignant pow'r,
That only wait the darkness of the night
To cheer the wand'ring wretch with hospitable light.

There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake—that all heart’s ache have known,
And given to others all heart’s ache,
From meagre girlhood’s putting on
Burdensome beauty—for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.

Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, ‘Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.’

Vagu...

What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

The look of love alarms
Because 'tis fill'd with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall Win the lover's hire.

Soft Deceit and Idleness,
These are Beauty's sweetest dress.

He who binds to himself a joy
Dot the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

Now had you drank cold Tanais' wave,
Whose streams the drear vale slowly lave,
    A barbarous Scythian's Bride,
Yet, Lyce, might you grieve to hear
Your Lover braves the winds severe,
    That pierce his aching side.

O listen to the howling groves,
That labour o'er your proud alcoves,
    And hear the jarring door!
Mark how the star, at eve that rose,
Has brightly glaz'd the settled snows,
    While every leaf is hoar!

Gay Venus hates this cold disdain; -
Cease then its rigors to maintain,
    That sprightly joys impede,
Lest the strain'd cord, with which you bind
The freedom of my amorous mind,
    In rapid whirl recede!

Born of a jocund Tuscan Sire,
Did he transmit his ardent fire
    That, like Ulysses' Queen,
His...