Femineo generi tribuantur.

The Muses, whom the richest silks array,
Refuse to fling their shining gowns away;
The pencil clothes the nine in bright brocades,
And gives each colour to the pictured maids;
Far above mortal dress the sisters shine,
Pride in their Indian Robes, and must be fine.
And shall two bards in concert rhyme, and huff
And fret these Muses with their playhouse stuff?
    The player in mimic piety may storm,
Deplore the Comb, and bid her heroes arm:
The arbitrary mob, in paltry rage,
May curse the belles and chintzes of the age:
Yet still the artist worm her silk shall share,
And spin her thread of life in service of the fair.
    The cotton plant, whom satire cannot blast,
Shall bloom the favourite of these realms, and last;
Like y...

Where run your colts at pasture?
Where hide your mares to breed?
'Mid bergs about the Ice-cap
Or wove Sargasso weed;
By chartless reef and channel,
Or crafty coastwise bars,
But most the ocean-meadows
All purple to the stars!

Who holds the rein upon you?
The latest gale let free.
What meat is in your mangers?
The glut of all the sea.
'Twixt tide and tide's returning
Great store of newly dead,
The bones of those that faced us,
And the hearts of those that fled.
Afar, off-shore and single,
Some stallion, rearing swift,
Neighs hungry for new fodder,
And calls us to the drift:
Then down the cloven ridges,
A million hooves unshod,
Break forth the mad White Horses
To seek their meat from God!

Girth-deep in hissing ...

Day of ending for beginnings!
Ocean hath another innings,
Ocean hath another score;
And the surges sing his winnings,
And the surges shout his winnings,
And the surges shriek his winnings,
All along the sullen shore.

Sing another dirge in wailing,
For another vessel sailing
With the shadow-ships at sea;
Shadow-ships for ever sinking,
Shadow-ships whose pumps are clinking,
And whose thirsty holds are drinking
Pledges to Eternity.

Pray for souls of ghastly, sodden
Corpses, floating round untrodden
Cliffs, where nought but sea-drift strays;
Souls of dead men, in whose faces
Of humanity no trace is,
Not a mark to show their races,
Floating round for days and days.

.    .    .    .    .

Ocean's salty tongues are...

Home! Home!
Man may roam
While the blood of life is brimming,
While the head's with glory swimming;
But, when Love and Life are over,
Bring him to the village clover,
Home! Home!

Home! Home!
Bring him home,
Where the songs of sad hearts shrive him,
Where remorse no more shall rive him,
Where the ever weeping willow
Moults to make its leaves his pillow,
Home! Home!

Home! Home!
He is home,
Where his song was ever sounding,
Where his blood was ever bounding,
Here, at last, he leaves his madness,
All his love and all his sadness,
Home! Home!

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

    Sent by Lord Melcombe to Dr. Young, Not Long Before His Lordship's    Death.(68)


Kind companion of my youth,
Lov'd for genius, worth, and truth!
Take what friendship can impart,
Tribute of a feeling heart;
Take the muse's latest spark,(69)
Ere we drop into the dark.
He, who parts and virtue gave,
Bad thee look beyond the grave
Genius soars, and virtue guides;
Above, the love of God presides.
There's a gulf 'twixt us and God;
Let the gloomy path be trod:
Why stand shivering on the shore?
Why not boldly venture o'er?
Where unerring virtue guides,
Let us have the winds and tides:
Safe, through seas of doubts and fears,
Rides the bark which virtue steers.

For the sun that shone at the dawn of spring,
For the flowers which bloom and the birds that sing,
For the verdant robe of the gray old earth,
For her coffers filled with their countless worth,
For the flocks which feed on a thousand hills,
For the rippling streams which turn the mills,
For the lowing herds in the lovely vale,
For the songs of gladness on the gale, -
From the Gulf and the Lakes to the Oceans' banks, -
Lord God of Hosts, we give Thee thanks!

For the farmer reaping his whitened fields,
For the bounty which the rich soil yields,
For the cooling dews and refreshing rains,
For the sun which ripens the golden grains,
For the beaded wheat and the fattened swine,
For the stallèd ox and the fruitful vine,
For the tubers large and cotton white,

Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes
For him new suns are in the skies!

Thy soul a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into bloom sad Autumn by thee;
Night and desert, if they spy thee,
To gardens laugh with daylight shine,
Lit by those happy smiles of thine!
Dark with cloud the future far
Goldens itself beneath thy star.
Smilest thou to see the harmony
Of charm the laws of Nature keep?
Alas! to me the harmony
Brings only cause to weep!

Holds not Ha...

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Poem is formed on a very singular and sublime idea. A young gentleman, possessed of an uncommon genius for drawing, on visiting the Tower of London, passing one door of a singular construction, asked what apartment it led to, and expressed a desire to have it opened. The person who shewed the place shook his head, and answered, "Heaven knows what is within that door - it has been shut for ages." - This answer made small impression on the other hearers; but a very deep one on the imagination of this youth. Gracious Heaven! an apartment shut up for ages - and in the Tower!

    "Ye Towers of Julius! London's lasting shame,
    By many a foul and midnight murder fed."

Genius builds on a slight foundation, and rears beautiful structures on "the baseless fabric of a vision." The...

Dear John, as I know, like our brother of London,
You've sipt of all knowledge, both sacred and mundane,
No doubt, in some ancient Joe Miller, you've read
What Cato, that cunning old Roman, once said--
That he ne'er saw two reverend sooth-say ers meet,
Let it be where it might, in the shrine or the street,
Without wondering the rogues, mid their solemn grimaces,
Didn’t burst out a laughing in each other's faces.
What Cato then meant, tho' 'tis so long ago,
Even we in the present times pretty well know;
Having soothsayers also, who--sooth to say, John--
Are no better in some points than those of days gone,
And a pair of whom, meeting (between you and me),
Might laugh in their sleeves, too--all lawn tho' they be.

But this, by the way--my intention being chiefly

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


VIII

Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur hymenæus.

But a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie,
When she thought of his wealth, his birth and education:
Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference truly;
Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds his portion,
Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing;
Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and simple.
But the many things that he knew, and the ease of a practised
Intellect’s motion, and all those indefinable graces
(Were they not hers, too, Philip?) to speech, and manner, and movement,
Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely instructed feeling,
When she thought of these, and these contemplated daily,
Daily appreciating mo...

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?

"We know the Shrine is void," they said.
"The Goddess flown,
"Yet wreaths are on the altar laid,
"The Altar-Stone
"Is black withfumes of sacrifice,
"Albeit She has Bed our eyes.

"For, it may be, if still we sing
"And tend the Shrine,
"Some Deity on wandering wing
"May there incline,
"And, finding all in order meet,
"Stay while we Worship at Her feet."

    How often, Lord, when 'tis Thy will
        To use the chastening rod,
    My soul, possessed of passions ill,
        Rebels against its God!
    Denies that Justice reigns in heaven,
        Doth His decrees pervade;
    And loathes the blessings He hath given,
        The creatures He hath made!

    Do thou the spirit me instil
        Of sweet submission, Lord,
    And teach me to Thy sovereign will
        In meekness to accord;
    Like Him who felt affliction's fire,
        But never did repine;
    And bore the cross at Thy desire,
        When harder far than mine.

    Enough, it is my King's command!
        What more do I require?
    Yet what is from a father's hand
        Can but to good conspire.
    And all ...

Hou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.

While the vile mortals of the multitude,
By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood
Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone

Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
And from the water, smiling through her tears,

Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

    It was long and long ago our love began;
    It is something all unmeasured by time's span:
In an era and a spot, by the Modern World forgot,
    We were lovers, ere God named us, Maid and Man.

    Like the memory of music made by streams,
    All the beauty of that other love life seems;
But I always thought it so, and at last I know, I know,
    We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams.

    When the moon was at the full, I found the place;
    Out and out, across the seas of shining space,
On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail
    And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace.

    At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay,
    (Oh! the wonder of that mountain far away!)
And the Land of Silver Dreams all about it shines ...

Over the hill to the poor-house I'm trudgin' my weary way--

"OVER THE HILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE, I'M TRUDGIN' MY WEARY WAY."

I, a woman of seventy, and only a trifle gray--
I, who am smart an' chipper, for all the years I've told,
As many another woman that's only half as old.

Over the hill to the poor-house--I can't quite make it clear!
Over the hill to the poor-house--it seems so horrid queer!
Many a step I've taken a-toilin' to and fro,
But this is a sort of journey I never thought to go.

What is the use of heapin' on me a pauper's shame?
Am I lazy or crazy? am I blind or lame?
True, I am not so supple, nor yet so awful stout;
But charity ain't no favor, if one can live without.

I am willin' and anxious an' ready any day
To work for a decen...

Comrades, pour the wine to-night
For the parting is with dawn!
Oh, the clink of cups together,
With the daylight coming on!
Greet the morn
With a double horn,
When strong men drink together!

Comrades, gird your swords to-night,
For the battle is with dawn!
Oh, the clash of shields together,
With the triumph coming on!
Greet the foe,
And lay him low,
When strong men fight together!

Comrades, watch the tides to-night,
For the sailing is with dawn!
Oh, to face the spray together,
With the tempest coming on!
Greet the sea
With a shout of glee,
When strong men roam together!

Comrades, give a cheer to-night,
For the dying is with dawn!
Oh, to meet the stars together,
With the silence coming on!
Greet the...

This is the story a man told me
Of his life's one day of dreamery.

A woman came into his room
Between the dawn and the creeping day:
She was the years-wed wife from whom
He had parted, and who lived far away,
As if strangers they.

He wondered, and as she stood
She put on youth in her look and air,
And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed
Her form and flesh bloom yet more fair
While he watched her there;

Till she freshed to the pink and brown
That were hers on the night when first they met,
When she was the charm of the idle town
And he the pick of the club-fire set . . .
His eyes grew wet,

And he stretched his arms: "Stay rest! "
He cried. "Abide with me so, my own!"
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
S...