Only a few more years!
        Weary years!
        Only a few more tears!
        Bitter tears!
And then -- and then -- like other men,
I cease to wander, cease to weep,
Dim shadows o'er my way shall creep;
And out of the day and into the night,
Into the dark and out of the bright
I go, and Death shall veil my face,
The feet of the years shall fast efface
My very name, and every trace
I leave on earth; for the stern years tread --
Tread out the names of the gone and dead!
And then, ah! then, like other men,
I close my eyes and go to sleep,
Only a few, one hour, shall weep:
Ah! me, the grave is dark and deep!

        Alas!    Alas!
        How soon we pass!
        And ah! we go
        So far away;
When go we must,<...

When night and silence deep
Hold all the world in sleep,
As tho' Death claimed the Hour,
By some strange witchery
Appears her form to me,
As tho' Magic were her dow'r.

Her beauty heaven's light!
Her bosom snowy white!
But pale her cheek appears.
Her shoulders firm and fair;
A mass of gold her hair.
Her eyes--the home of tears.

She looks at me nor speaks.
Her arms are raised; she seeks
Her fettered hands to show.
On both white wrists a chain!--
She cries and pleads in pain:
"Unbind me!--Let me go!"

I burn with bitter ire,
I leap in wild desire
The cruel bonds to break;
But God! around the chain
Is coiled and coiled again
A long and loathsome snake.

I shout, I cry, I chide;
My voice goes far an...

Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!

See! it teaches yonder roving planets
Round the sun to fly in endless race;
And as children play around their mother,
Checkered circles round the orb to trace.

Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,
Drinks with joy its bright and golden rain
Drinks refreshment from its fiery chalice,
As the limbs are nourished by the brain.

'Tis through Love that atom pairs with atom,
In a harmony eternal, sure;
And 'tis Love that links the spheres together
Through her only, systems can endure.

Were she but effaced from Nature's clockwork,
Into dust would fly the mighty world;
O'er thy s...

The principle by which each thing
Toward strength and shape first tended,
The pulley whereon Zeus the ring
Of earth, that loosely used to swing,
With cautiousness suspended,
he is a clever man, I vow,
Who its real name can tell me now,
Unless to help him I consent
'Tis: ten and twelve are different!

Fire burns, 'tis chilly when it snows,
Man always is two-footed,
The sun across the heavens goes,
This, he who naught of logic knows
Finds to his reason suited.
Yet he who metaphysics learns,
Knows that naught freezes when it burns
Knows that what's wet is never dry,
And that what's bright attracts the eye.

Old Homer sings his noble lays,
The hero goes through dangers;
The brave man duty's call obeys,
And did so, even in the day...

"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs." - Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.


Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off,
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.


After the Southern day of heavy toil,
How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem thro...

Holy-Rood, come forth and shield
Us i' th' city and the field;
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day;
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night;
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,
By the time the cocks first crow.

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes,
Upon the sinner's sacrifice,
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.
At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo, in good and ill,
Mother of God, be with me still!

When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

    "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

Now is your turn, my dearest, to be set
A gem in this eternal coronet:
'Twas rich before, but since your name is down
It sparkles now like Ariadne's crown.
Blaze by this sphere for ever: or this do,
Let me and it shine evermore by you.

Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace,
Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon.
Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance,
This I beseech thee in all tender love.
See where the Storm his cloudy mantle spreads,
An ashy curtain covereth the moon.
As if the tempest thirsted for the rain,
The clouds he presses, till they burst in streams.
Heaven wears a dusky raiment, and the moon
Appeareth dead - her tomb is yonder cloud,
And weeping shades come after, like the people
Who mourn with tearful grief a noble queen.
But look! the thunder pierced night's close-linked mail,
His keen-tipped lance of lightning brandishing;
He hovers like a seraph-conqueror. -
Dazed by the flaming splendor of his wings,
In rapid flight as in a whirling dance,
The black cl...

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them, ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancien...

The Autumn hills are golden at the top,
    And rounded as a poet's silver rhyme;
The mellow days are ruby ripe, that drop
    One after one into the lap of time.

Dead leaves are reddening in the woodland copse,
    And forest boughs a fading glory wear;
No breath of wind stirs in their hazy tops,
    Silence and peace are brooding everywhere.

The long day of the year is almost done,
    And nature in the sunset musing stands,
Gray-robed, and violet-hooded like a nun,
    Looking abroad o'er yellow harvest lands:

O'er tents of orchard boughs, and purple vines
    With scarlet flecked, flung like broad banners out
Along the field paths where slow-pacing lines
    Of meek-eyed kine obey the herdboy's shout;

Where the tired ploughman his d...

"The drunkard shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Far, far beyond the skies,
The land of promise lies;
When Death our souls release,
A home of love and peace,
Has been prepared for all,
Who heed the gracious call,
Drunkards that goal ne'er win, -
They cannot enter in.

Time noiselessly flits by,
Eternity draws nigh;
Will the fleet joy you gain,
Compensate for the pain,
That through an endless day,
Will wring your soul for aye?
Slave to beer, rum, or gin,
You cannot enter in.

Dash down the flowing bowl,
Endanger not thy soul;
Ponder those words of dread,
That God Himself has said.
Hurl the vile tempter down,
And win and wear the crown,
Drunkard, forsake thy sin,
Thou mayst then enter in.

(See Note 70)

Spring's herald, hail! You've rent the forest's quiet?
Your hair is wet, and you are leaf-strewn, dusty ...
With your powers lusty
Have you raised a riot?
What noise about you of the flood set free,
That follows at your heels, - turn back and see:
It spurts upon you! - Was it that you fought for?
You were in there where stumps and trunks are rotting
Where long the winter-graybeards have been plotting
To prison safe that which a lock they wrought for.
But power gave you Pan, the ancient god!
They cried aloud and cursed your future lot?
Your gallant feat they held a robber's fraud?
- Each spring it happens; but is soon forgot.

You cast you down beside the salt sea's wave.
It too is free; dances with joy to find you.
You know the mu...

Movesi 'l vecchierel canuto e bianco.

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A PILGRIM.


    The palmer bent, with locks of silver gray,
Quits the sweet spot where he has pass'd his years,
Quits his poor family, whose anxious fears
Paint the loved father fainting on his way;
And trembling, on his aged limbs slow borne,
In these last days that close his earthly course,
He, in his soul's strong purpose, finds new force,
Though weak with age, though by long travel worn:
Thus reaching Rome, led on by pious love,
He seeks the image of that Saviour Lord
Whom soon he hopes to meet in bliss above:
So, oft in other forms I seek to trace
Some charm, that to my heart may yet afford
A faint resemblance of thy matchless grace.

DACRE.


    As p...

(J. H. 1813-1904)



There's no more to be done, or feared, or hoped;
None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire;
No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped
Does she require.

Blankly we gaze. We are free to go or stay;
Our morrow's anxious plans have missed their aim;
Whether we leave to-night or wait till day
Counts as the same.

The lettered vessels of medicaments
Seem asking wherefore we have set them here;
Each palliative its silly face presents
As useless gear.

And yet we feel that something savours well;
We note a numb relief withheld before;
Our well-beloved is prisoner in the cell
Of Time no more.

We see by littles now the deft achievement
Whereby she has escaped the Wrongers all,
In vie...

L' aura celeste che 'n quel verde Lauro.

HER HAIR AND EYES.


    The heavenly airs from yon green laurel roll'd,
Where Love to Phoebus whilom dealt his stroke,
Where on my neck was placed so sweet a yoke,
That freedom thence I hope not to behold,
O'er me prevail, as o'er that Arab old
Medusa, when she changed him to an oak;
Nor ever can the fairy knot be broke
Whose light outshines the sun, not merely gold;
I mean of those bright locks the curlèd snare
Which folds and fastens with so sweet a grace
My soul, whose humbleness defends alone.
Her mere shade freezes with a cold despair
My heart, and tinges with pale fear my face;
And oh! her eyes have power to make me stone.

MACGREGOR.

While I watch the Christmas blaze
Paint the room with ruddy rays,
Something makes my vision glide
To the frosty scene outside.

There, to reach a rotting berry,
Toils a thrush, - constrained to very
Dregs of food by sharp distress,
Taking such with thankfulness.

Why, O starving bird, when I
One day's joy would justify,
And put misery out of view,
Do you make me notice you!