THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PR482I 
 . I 62 
 1889 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 https://archive.org/details/poemssketchessonOOirwi 
 
POEMS, SKETCHES, 
 
 AND 
 
 SONGS, 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CAULFIELD IRWIN, 
 
 Author of -‘Songs and Romances,” “Poems,” “ Versicle3.” 
 ‘•Winter and Summer Storiev” ‘‘Pictures 
 
 and Songs,” &c.. &c. — 
 
 ♦ 
 
 mwn : 
 
 M. H. GILL & SON, 
 
 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET. 
 
 1889. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
<20J<ITEJ<IT 
 
 Guess,” I said to the Rose . , , , i' 
 
 Idylic Echoes . . . . .2 
 
 Dream . . . . . .3 
 
 Angelo in the Alps . , . . .4 
 
 The Last Sibyl . . . . .8 
 
 The Fairies’ Home . . . . .23 
 
 Among the Spanish Hills . . . .32 
 
 Tones . . . . . .35 
 
 Yew Trees . . . . . .36 
 
 A Child’s Pastoral . . . . .40 
 
 A Window Song . . . . .44 
 
 A Lowland Picture . . . . .46 
 
 Old Walks and Old Scenes . . . .54 
 
 The Palace of Dreams . . . . .57 
 
 A Portrait Sketch in Tar . . . .74 
 
 Song :—Growing Young . . . . .78 
 
 Song at a Cottage Door . . . . .82 
 
 Maiden and Sailor—A Ballad . . . .85 
 
 My Boat and Sycamore Tree . . . .80 
 
 Song—Grape Harvest on the Loire . * .90 
 
 Musings . . . . . .93 
 
 At a Window . . . . . . 96 
 
 Old Summer . . . . . .97 
 
 The Simple Soul . . . . .98 
 
 Kirjath Sepher’s Well ..... 109 
 
 The Old River Revisited . . . .110 
 
 A Visit from My Muse . . . .113 
 
 Winter Scenes and Musings—The Birds at Christmas . ,116 
 
 Under The Torrent ..... 121 
 
 Dutch Pictures ..... 123 
 
 Foreign Night Rambles . . . • .125 
 
 A Glimpse of Egypt ..... 127 
 
 A Character ...... 129 
 
 The Last Glimpse ..... 131 
 
VI. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pago 
 
 In Galilee ... • • . 133 
 
 Late Autumn in a Suburb .... 137 
 
 By the Fireside with a Sweet Song Book . . , 139 
 
 A Grey Dawn ...... 141 
 
 Sonnet—Could we before our Souls keep constantly . . 142 
 
 The Course of Life ..... 142 
 
 Clouds . ..... 143 
 
 The Birds in Winter ..... 144 
 
 Evil and Ignorance . . . , . 145 
 
 Love ...... 146 
 
 Paris: 1794 ...... 146 
 
 Little Lura ...... 156 
 
 Song of a Druidess ..... 165 
 
 The Cross of Coolock . . . . . 167 
 
 Fancies During Beading Rambles—Babylon . . , 173 
 
 An Old Ballad Tale of the Freuch Channel . . . 175 
 
 Song by the Christmas Fire .... 184 
 
 Song—Clear was the mild March Eve . . . 188 
 
 Sketches and Songs . . . . .189 
 
 Song of Spring ..... 190 
 
 Summer . ..... 191 
 
 A Summer Song ..... 191 
 
 Windy Dusk ...... 194 
 
 A Winter Song ..... 195 
 
 Song of a Summer Day ..... 196 
 
 Fancy’s Frolic—A Child Bevel .... 197 
 
 Hesperian Vales ..... 206 
 
 Ballad Pictures—An Old Irish Scene . . . 211 
 
 A Sail to a Statue ..... 214 
 
 Calliroe—An Hellenic Ballad .... 220 
 
 The Woodman ..... 224 
 
 A Day Dream ..... 225 
 
 Intelligence ...... 228 
 
 Scenery of the Seasons: Spring .... 230 
 
 Frosty and Fine Days ..... 234 
 
 Summer Time—An Idylic Sketch .... 236 
 
 Sunday Walks ...... 240 
 
 October Dusk . . . . . .24 5 
 
 Winter ...... 246 
 
 A Christmas Song ..... 247 
 
POEMS. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 I. 
 
 “ Guess,” I said to the Rose, 
 
 Pure as the April snows, 
 
 “ For whom I pull thee, sweet ?” 
 “ For one I know that’s dear; 
 
 Upon whose maiden breast, 
 Tenderly placed, Fll hear 
 Her say, ‘ He loves me best,’ 
 
 In its delighted beat.” 
 
 n. 
 
 •“ Guess,” to the Cup with red 
 Wine brimming bright, I said, 
 
 “ For whom I fill thee, sweet ?’ 
 
 “ For one whose lip outvies 
 My hue and all beside, 
 
 As glow the evening skies, 
 
 On you and your young bride, 
 
 After your walk through the wheat. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 IDY LIU ECHOES. 
 
 III. 
 
 “ Guess ”—when a year was o’er— 
 
 To the pure Spring by the shore, 
 
 “ For whom I brim this vase ?” 
 
 “ For a dear little son 
 On his baptismal day, 
 
 Who yet by me will run, 
 
 And with my grasses play 
 Among my viewless fays.” 
 
 IDYLIC ECHOES. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Sweet when, the winter past, the earth grows fair 
 In seed time ; when upon the shelving share 
 Of the late used plough Arcturus shines, 
 
 And spring stars view the buds upon the vines. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Sweet are the apples that bloom among the corn fields 
 yellow, 
 
 The fragrant flowers of the vine that yield to the grape 
 grown mellow; 
 
 And under amber noon clouds, and piles of vapours sunny, 
 The evergreen oaks o’er hives of dewy, delicious honey. 
 
DREAM. 
 
 3 
 
 Third Voice. 
 
 Through rosy, withering twilight Vesper’s star 
 Guides weary wings to well-known nests afar ; 
 
 And thus Life’s ageing years with each day’s end. 
 
 After the sunken sun fatigued tend 
 Toward the dear bed that in the dusk of home 
 Awaits them ; where peace beckons through the gloom 
 To pillows wreathed with sere leaves, once in bloom, 
 And Rest—time’s happy prelude to the tomb. 
 
 DREAM- 
 
 Across an antre lonely as the poles, 
 
 In dark I wander, far from earthly things, 
 
 Wishing to meet with death to give me wings 
 To waft my soul amid yon skies of souls; 
 
 And from some aged sea, in twilight dim, 
 
 Hear strange words murmuring round the horizon’s rim. 
 
 Dead silence, hollow dark for leagues around ; 
 
 While far away in shadows of the west 
 I hear the dim winds roaming as in quest 
 Of phantoms straying from their buryal mound ; 
 
 Then o’er dark hills through muffling mountain cloud, 
 The ghostly moon comes wandering in her shroud. 
 
4 
 
 AXQELO IN THE ALPS. 
 
 Now sombre echoes of the thunder-shock 
 
 From some dead world came o’er the unseen sea, 
 And seemed in the blind dark searching for me, 
 
 Till in black Ethiop night one shining rock 
 
 Gushed waters pure, like high souled thoughts secure, 
 That through the darkness of all doom endure. 
 
 And while a gloomy storm from the profound 
 Arisen sudden, widened on the waste, 
 
 Still strengthened me from heights eternal based, 
 Though caught in billows of tempest from the ground, 
 And swept from land, where only round me lay 
 Shoreless expanses of aged ocean grey. 
 
 ANGELO IN THE ALPS. 
 
 Mind, to conceive great things, must live alone, 
 
 As God is, when somewhere in His infinite home, 
 
 He meditates another universe : 
 
 Even the human artist on this earth, 
 
 Of infinite perfectness contemplative, 
 
 Feels, too, the need of total solitude: 
 
 And hence it was that Angelo once left 
 His noisy city and companionships 
 A while to live with his sole self alone, 
 
 And the ideal of a grand design— 
 
ANGELO IN THE ALPS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 5 
 
 A group colossal of old Gods, which he 
 .Purposed to image and mould in marble white : 
 
 And in a rude hut under the mighty Alps, 
 
 With them and winter’s presence stern, abode, 
 
 And with the vastness, with the eternal powers 
 Of matter’s hugest forms, and of all space, 
 
 Felt happy and at home. 
 
 Night had long fallen, 
 
 As by the group which he had turned to shape 
 He stood :—his helmet, of which he had made 
 A lamp, masking in gloom his earnest brow, 
 
 Shed its clear light on mighty countenances 
 And forms and attitudes austere and calm;— 
 
 Olympian majesties beauteous as the clouds 
 Throned o’er the dawns of summer, white, supreme; 
 
 Or those of storm on sombre evenings 
 Seen in the obscure spaces of the West, 
 
 When winter desolates a dying world, 
 
 Blank, sad, deject, and mute in hopelessness, 
 
 Beneath the wildering winds’s insensate cold, 
 
 And agents pitiless of invisible powers ; 
 
 Clouds, o’er whose brows, in seeming dim consult, 
 
 One fierce-eyed star, their genius, reigns from space. 
 
6 
 
 ANGELO IN THE ALPS. 
 
 Thus, in the solitary midnight, he, 
 
 The artist, from his lamp-lit brow surveys 
 His work, and with inspired touch corrects 
 Some outline to complete perfection. 
 
 Then, doffing his old helmet, in a nook 
 
 Of shadow places it, and looks awhile 
 
 From the hut’s window on the scene without,— 
 
 Above, where the stupendous world-wave heaves 
 
 Over the earth to the high air and stars 
 
 Its snows impassable with chasms profound— 
 
 Fantastic rocks, cliffs with grotesque profiles, 
 
 Like those of agencies of primeval Time 
 Ere life with love appeared upon this globe : 
 
 Who, dying in their work thus left the mould 
 Of their last effort—forces of the depth, 
 
 Fire-born, unlike the imagery of the sun : 
 
 Some blockish-fronted, stooped o’er an abyss, 
 
 As stupified with its monotony, 
 
 Jutted against the low, round, rising moon, 
 
 Whose silver edged the chasm’s black awesome line; 
 Some hump-backed, Alpine incubi enorm; 
 Sharp-visaged as the north wind; giants, some 
 Erect, or prostrate stretched, portentous and huge, 
 Serrated all the foreground ; but on high 
 The immeasurable fields and slopes of snow 
 
ANGELO IN THE ALES. 
 
 Spaced, and pure peaks in icy altitude 
 Serene, or vaguely gleamed : the ice wind came by; 
 Unfrequently the snow-fall from some height 
 Flapped, and fell with its snow-thunder sound; 
 
 Or on the ear the creaky, glassy strain 
 
 Of moving ice tinkled in harmony 
 
 With some star’s straining sparkle. At intervals 
 
 The pine woods’ wailing stirred the upper air— 
 
 Rock-rooted woods that seemed to yearn for rest— 
 
 Till silence closed each melancholy moan— 
 
 Sole language of the mighty mountain world 
 Whose solitude mingled with immensity. 
 
 Awhile the artist gazed upon the scene, 
 
 Whose images blent with his creative trance— 
 
 Materials whence imagination 
 
 Could fuse or shape in dreams, or waking moods, 
 
 Their impress and their spirit, in some form 
 
 Human, mighty, austere, or sad, whose look 
 
 And attitude embodied somewhat of 
 
 The potencies of the primeval world. 
 
 Then, with a brief prayer to the Divine, and Power 
 Infinite, Who foresees the purposed end 
 In the beginning of His work—he stretched 
 Close wrapped, on straw sheaves from the sunny plain 
 
<s 
 
 THE LAST SYBIL. 
 
 Beneath, for rest, beside his group of Gods— 
 The while one star refreshed his closing eyes— 
 Exalt and calm as one whose thought conceived,. 
 Sleeps at the basis of his pyramid. 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 In the lone desert’s silent plains there rose 
 In early time a palace-temple vast, 
 
 Circled by shadowy colonnades and towers, 
 
 Thick as a cedared forest, starward sprung. 
 
 In the wide distance of the waste it lay 
 Like some volcanic isle of the gray main, 
 
 Seen by the sad-eyed courseless mariner, 
 
 Hastening through untried regions, when the sun 
 Stares wild and flaming through the evening skies.. 
 
 Around it for some space the earth was rich, 
 Bright watered, and embowered in ancient trees : 
 There flowers and herbs of rarest virtue grew, 
 Breathing their mystic powers to the faint winds 
 Nightly above it had the star hosts rolled 
 For years innumerate as they; the sun 
 Blazed down on its uncrumbled battlements 
 The large moon scattered intermingling shadows 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 9* 
 
 Amid its towers, and cleft its outer walls 
 In light and gloom with a slant sword of beams. 
 Long races dusky cheeked and ebon browed 
 Had perished and were tombless now ; great cities 
 Reared by the hands of giants against Time 
 Were ashes; still this changeless mansion rose 
 High, lone, and mighty in the solitude. 
 
 Though o’er the noon-lit waste the dazzling sky, 
 
 As though ’twere mirroring the sheeny sands 
 Round to the far horizon floating flamed, 
 
 Still o’er this magic mansion, and amid 
 Its clustering woods and fountains, the calm air 
 Drew dulcet breath as the spice winds that fan 
 The brow of eastern summer. Lonely morn, 
 Rose-footed, tripped adown the crescent hills, 
 
 And through its tendrilled casements softly passed, 
 Filling the chambers with her amber light ; 
 
 Solemn and fair the region round it showed ; 
 
 Clear wound a slow bright water through the green 
 Of woodland arches, where in autumn fell 
 The round large fruitage on the wandering wave 
 That washed its walls and mirrored on its calm 
 This silent, splendid, melancholy pile, 
 
 Mystic and lone as some grand spirit-house 
 
10 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 In a bright star, forlorn and desolate. 
 
 There oft upon some far sky-piercing peak 
 Strange forms of beauty to a mortal eye, 
 
 Furled sonorously their fleet wings of Are 
 After some comet-crossed tempestuous flight; 
 Ofttimes at eve when the dusk air was still 
 The rushing sound of spirits stirred the trees, 
 
 Like moonlight waters faintly murmuring; 
 
 Some straining off on level van adown 
 
 The slant of earth, scattering in radiant flight 
 
 Th’ horizon’s furled clouds, remotely winged 
 
 Their shining course, like suns to their bright death ; 
 
 Sometimes a spirit pale with weary voyage 
 
 Across the vague and worldless infinite 
 
 Touched on some mountain—like a setting moon ; 
 
 And oft, twixt eve and midnight, vengeful forms 
 
 Swept through the sounding darkness, when the light 
 
 Was low, and dim the land, save where one rock, 
 
 Remote above the plain, with waters streamed. 
 
 Within a mighty hall, cupola’d, vast, 
 
 Pillared with marble shafts innumerable, 
 
 Spaced like a shadowy subterranean world, 
 
 Or hollow cloud realm hovering o’er the pole 
 By the cold moon unfrequent tenanted. 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 11 
 
 Its sombre walls with signs inscrutable 
 
 Were carved, and through its many chambers peered 
 
 The sad stars journeying weary to their rest. 
 
 Books of strange character lay scattered round, 
 Written upon the palms of mystic leaves, 
 
 Which, ages back, were plucked by magian’s hands 
 From stream banks, where lone angels sat and gazed 
 Upon their homes reflected from the blue : 
 
 There nitched in marble deep recess there lay 
 One opened scroll, and near a lamp of gems 
 And various corals formed, shed o’er the page 
 Its bud of silver light. A single sign 
 Upon the aged leaf alone was graved, 
 
 One mystic word in hieroglyphic dim, 
 
 Which ne’er was uttered to a mortal’s ear, 
 
 Though often had its sound unbarred the gates 
 Of distant worlds : while by it lay a shell 
 Filled with the juices of a long lost plant, 
 
 Of which one potent drop unchained the soul 
 From dust, and would preserve the body pure 
 From age to age wrapped in a soulless sleep. 
 
 As heavy sunk the globe of gold—above 
 The sunset spread a desert of strange shapes; 
 lake lions some, with fronts of waving fire, 
 
12 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 Stood in the yawn of mighty cavern clouds ; 
 
 While some like leopards, spotted fierce with storm, 
 
 Lay stretched along the blaze, and pawed the air :— 
 
 A moment—and in ribs of gorgeous mist 
 Dissevered all, and in vague shreds dislimbed, 
 
 Drifted ; and as the evening fell were massed 
 In the gray haze line o’er the yellow void. 
 
 Within this chamber of strange imagery, 
 
 Beneath the lustrous hush of starry skies, 
 
 Near to an open oreal, on a couch, 
 
 Lay, statue-still, a form of woman fair, 
 
 Breathless, but instinct with a pulseless life. 
 
 Her limbs were wrapped in robes majestical, 
 
 Her eyes seemed closed for ever, and the mouth, 
 
 Of intense beauty, slept in a deep smile, 
 
 Such as oft dwells upon the lips of the dead— 
 
 The last impression the rap’d spirit gives 
 To the fond clay, on its first sight of heaven. 
 
 The clear high brow seemed breathing light: ’twasxola 
 And spiritual as some summit of snow 
 Lit by the midnight stars or winter moon, 
 
 And like a river flowing dark beneath 
 
 Through phantom shadows streamed her ebon hair. 
 
 Her years no soul could guess ; her face seemed formed 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 13 
 
 To vary never with the varying time ; 
 
 Her visible aspect seemed the changeless mould 
 Of a divinity, breathless and eterne. 
 
 The sun was yet beneath the eastern mountains, 
 That strode far back to ocean, and along 
 The pallor of the faint cold iron dawn, 
 
 Vast clouds uncouth, half seen and vague in shape, 
 Like the lost monsters of the early earth, 
 
 Swam duskly. 
 
 Sudden through the pulseless air 
 Arose a murmurous stir. As the moon set, 
 
 Some spell around the far horizon’s verge 
 Rung syllabled in thunder ; a vague sound, 
 
 Like rushing wind swept through the tranced dark ; 
 The woodland stirred, tire wakened herbage moved 
 As though the dawn had come; and a clear s r ar 
 From the blue zenith shot a crescent flight, 
 
 And o’er the glimmering palace pinnacles 
 Vanished in music. 
 
 And o’er that statue form 
 A light as of a rising star has come ; 
 
 A breath has stirred the lips, and the rare eyes, 
 
 Dark with their meaning of unuttered lore, 
 
14 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 Have opened; she has risen from her couch, 
 
 A shape of power, beauteous, majestical, 
 
 With earnest purpose in her brow and mien ; 
 
 Lo ! as amid the still dark air she moves 
 Atoward the glimmering oreal niche, where rests 
 On altar stone the sign inscrutable ; 
 
 Her footsteps’ sound crossing the vasty hall, 
 
 Though light, in shudders stirs the startled walls. 
 And high ascending through the thinning gloom. 
 Whisperingly echoes through its many domes ; 
 
 Then from her presence the dark air around 
 In living stillness of expectancy, 
 
 Enchanted lists—for since the Sibyl breathed 
 A hundred varying centuries have rolled. 
 
 A while, within the solemn casement’s light 
 She stands, and from her lonely desert isle 
 Looks on the night and infinite heavens calm. 
 Through the clear clime the starry spaces shone 
 In dark blue brightness o’er dawn’s sapphire’s streak, 
 Making a mystic twilight o’er the world, 
 
 Upon whose waste the fire of distant suns 
 Fell redly, shadowing the sands, for thence 
 So near the nearest sphere revolving seemed 
 Viewed through the magic, tranquil atmosphere, 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 15 
 
 That each disclosed dini' tracts of hill and sea ; 
 
 And o’er each disk the nights and days of space 
 Passed dialled—mighty century-seasoned orbs— 
 
 Huge stormy worlds moved, rolled in belted clouds— 
 Suns glowed with many coloured flaming skies, 
 
 While many, dim with infinite time appearred 
 Girth with cold snow stars on the skirt of space. 
 
 As round her reigns the hush of gentle skies, 
 
 Amid the stillness breathes she, the blue shadows 
 Of wavering night crossing her upturned face— 
 
 Now looking on the future as an orb 
 Shadowed but bright’ning, and as bending now 
 Over the mystic scroll encharactered 
 In the sweet solemn language of a star 
 Still shining o’er the great trees darkling dome— 
 
 While through her cheek th’ excited spirit blood 
 Plays, like deep flushings of the twilight air, 
 
 Her utterance breaks the calm, the while her eyes 
 Shine rapturing with rich imaginings. 
 
 Sibyl Vision- 
 
 “ Through space, world peopled, thronged with wondrous 
 souls, 
 
 Crossed by th’ alternate days and nights of time, 
 
 Through lights and shadows immense of planets vast 
 
l(j 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 Dialing the periods of infinity— 
 
 On wings of power, God given, have I soared, 
 
 And tracked creation from its elements, 
 
 Thundering in mass confused, seething in flame, 
 
 And quivering strong beneath the new born will 
 That swayed its tracts to shape with might supreme, 
 
 And soothed each fire mass into harmony • 
 
 Even to the desolate shore, whose awful sea 
 Of infinite darkness silently retreats 
 Before new bursting suns and circling worlds, 
 
 In fear and wrapped in prayer the while, I’ve sailed— 
 Now wandering o’er some new formed globe whose plains 
 Lay drear, uncreatured yet, and round whose sphere 
 Thick tempests gathering nightly o’er the sea 
 Smothered its dawn in darkness, roofing out 
 For epochs desolate, the genial beams— 
 
 Now gloom-bewildered through some frightful chasm 
 Coursed by the sighing wrecks of ancient worlds, 
 
 Sad realms of silence and of darkness thick, 
 
 Whose dying sun, muffled in cloud and smoke, 
 
 Three parts extinct, still flickered a weak beam 
 Fitful and red across infinity. 
 
 Thence travelling nearer to the heart of light 
 I’ve coasted great orbs, measureless and grand. 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 17 
 
 Sailing along in vast and glorious skies, 
 
 That on great axis ponderously revolve 
 With mighty movement round their central sphere, 
 Once for earth’s thousand years ; majestic realms 
 Peopled with souls of love and power, happy 
 In goodness, the great race who live with God, 
 
 Seeing Him through perfection late achieved 
 Through thousand changes, through a thousand worlds 
 Each bright’ning toward the empyrean throne, 
 
 Among them three great spheres I visited, 
 
 Each elder than the other and more fair. 
 
 The first a desolate planet, dark and lorn, 
 
 O’ergrown with mighty herbage—where a sea, 
 
 As yet uncrossed by spirit, tempest riven, 
 
 Round giant shores rolled its chaotic waves— 
 
 Where mountain ranges spouted still with fire— 
 
 Where monsters, many and huge, on foot and wing, 
 Wide shadowing the ground, gambolled uncouth— 
 Here browsing, as they crushed through giant woods 
 Their paths ; while hungry forms followed through air 
 Their prey, or shouldered through the turbid sea. 
 
 Inland great realms extended, where the sun 
 Unblinded by the surging ocean clouds 
 Flamed upon flashing streams and forests green. 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 There dwelt a mortal race, savage and strong, 
 Wanderers, wild hunters of their daily food, 
 
 Who, ever weaponed with the spear and bow, 
 
 Followed the savage to his inmost haunt, 
 
 And tracked the monsters to their bone-strewn caves. 
 Erect, with majesty, like the wild tree, 
 
 Fearless of mortal foe, encountering 
 The beasts with passions terrible as theirs, 
 
 Lordly they strode—kings of the savage earth ; 
 
 Who knelt each morn unto the mighty sun 
 Or southern star that brings the summer skies, 
 
 Uttering rude thanks for their joy-bearing beams, 
 
 From altar fires kindled with rarest woods, 
 
 High pinnacled on grassy mountain top, 
 
 But when the thunder trampling the mid air, 
 
 Or earthquake, frequent then, tore through the ground, 
 Toppling huge rocks adown the mountain sides, 
 
 This race, so fearless to the fronting foe, 
 
 Fell to the earth, embracing the dull soil, 
 
 While some, the oldest and the wisest there, 
 
 With deep, propitiatory prayers addressed 
 The terrible spirit, and promised incense feasts 
 Of rarest things, for many an eve and morn, 
 
 If he allay his just, his dreadful wrath. 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 lf> 
 
 Next in gradations circumstantial, 
 
 I’ve viewed mankind from savage life progress, 
 
 Age after age, to civilisation ; 
 
 From low-browed forms familiar with the beasts, 
 
 And scarce above them, levelled by the fierce 
 Surrounding terrors of dread nature, to 
 Shapes dowered with thought and hence with freedom, who 
 Led ’mid their flocks a life contemjolative, 
 
 And through experience rendered more secure. 
 
 Then viewed I cities built, religions formed, 
 
 Commodity exchanged, land joined to land, 
 
 And shore to shore by ship and caravan ; 
 
 Huge empires, Indian, Babylonian, 
 
 And Roman, for a space supremely tower, 
 
 And perish, because based upon mere force, 
 
 Or on ideas partial, false, without 
 Hold in utility, unity, and truth, 
 
 Tending to universal permanence. 
 
 An aged earth in ruins, and a new 
 World of barbaric nature in the west 
 Discovered, and in European lands 
 The great mind-harvest growing more and more 
 With ardent incremence. Yet still this earth 
 Is but a crescent sphere, half lit with dawn. 
 
20 
 
 THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 Southward and east still reigns the gloomy past, 
 
 Its stationary empires, and its life 
 Of superstition, darkness, and of war ; 
 
 There dominates the spirit of ancient man, 
 
 Whose sceptre was the sword, who knew not yet 
 To conquer Being with a brand of light, 
 
 Making the vanquished strong for evermore. 
 
 In sense-life lags the sunny sultaned east, 
 
 And many a realm, ruled by climatic law, 
 
 Stern as the everlasting winter’s frost, 
 
 Long bore all barren to themselves and God, 
 
 A waste of simple souls—until the trump 
 Blown by th’ emancipating seraph, Thought, 
 
 Shall roll immortal echoes o’er the lands, 
 
 And Light and Law look down from orient suns... 
 Yet while awaiting morning they shall lie, 
 
 Lo ! on the world’s sea verge, northward away, 
 Shadowed by rolling cloud-rifts from the pole, 
 
 An Isle shall rear its navy-girdled throne, 
 
 Towering triumphant o’er the restless main. 
 
 There shall arise the earth’s progressive race, 
 Spirits of stubborn strength and energy, 
 Adventurous, daring, breathing of the sea. 
 
 Their mighty thunder brimmed fleets shall awe 
 
THE LAST SIBYL. 
 
 21 
 
 The citadelled harbours of the hoary main ; 
 
 Their argosies, with world wealth laden deep, 
 
 Shall circle earth in valiant voyagings, 
 
 From summer’s seas to winters of the pole, 
 Battling the blinding snow-drifts of. the north, 
 
 Or heaving heavily on sultry sails, 
 
 Around the burning sunbelt of the earth. 
 
 A mighty land shall grow, and from its shores, 
 
 As from a sun-born, light-diffusing soul, 
 
 Shall spring a growth of nations, destinied 
 To reign, and reigning, fill the world with peace; 
 Exalted o’er them that she may exalt 
 And raise unto the stature of her power 
 The races wandering on the skirts of night. 
 
 • • * • 
 
 Then, as the ages brighten, and the world 
 Rolls toward the central springs of Being, where 
 Glows far and wide the throne of Deity 
 Transcendant ; the progressive soul of man, 
 
 Fed with the mighty knowledge ages bring, 
 
 Shall, from the eyes of knowledge, see his God 
 Sowing the infinite waste with spheres of souls ; 
 And rounding to a clear and waneless orb, 
 
 Whose light reveals the future and the past, 
 
 At length shall comprehend its destiny. 
 
22 
 
 THE LAST SYBIL. 
 
 Flooded with glory at the vision grand, 
 
 Exalted, purified, henceforth his eye 
 Fixed on the wondrous height ’tis his to scale, 
 Fraught with great purpose, pure and strong as one 
 Born for a hero of eternity, 
 
 Through space shall fearless pass from life to life, 
 A minister of power and happiness 
 Unto the helpless race of infant worlds, 
 
 And unto creatures such as he has been.” 
 
 As thus she spake, the night broke up, and o’er 
 The glimmering desert rolled a thunder peal, 
 Majestic signal of the heaven’s assent 
 Unto the prophesy, and passed away. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The dawn revealed the depths of eastern skies, 
 Islands rose-hued, and golden promontories 
 Glowed in the green depths of the aerial sea. 
 
 It seemed a land of promise in some orb 
 Nearer than this, the throne, to some pure pilgrim 
 Long toiling through its many-houred day, 
 
 Who, with its light upon his spirit face, 
 
 Beholds atop its last bright pinnacle, 
 
 With holy eyes, richly beneath him spread, 
 
 Some beautous Eden of eternity. 
 
THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 23 
 
 THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 A Child’s Story. 
 
 i. 
 
 Lying under a green oak’s shadow, 
 Watching the sunset leaving the meadow, 
 
 I was aware 
 Of a frolic pair 
 
 Couched in a cavern up in the bark, 
 
 Whose laughter chimed on the sunny air, 
 Whose eyes were each a spark, 
 
 Feasting, the golden moss among, 
 
 On berries sweet, 
 
 Red with the heat, 
 
 And tiny seeds that tickle the tongue ; 
 While at intervals 
 Their cavern walls 
 Echoed while they sung. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Looking up, I nodded and bade 
 The sprites “ Good eventime,” and said : 
 “You might invite 
 Me up in the light, 
 
 To join your revel, good folks, I think.” 
 
24 
 
 the fairies’ home. 
 
 Here, as one held up 
 His cowslip cup; 
 
 The other bent o’er a green leafs brink, 
 
 Shaking with laughter clearly heard, 
 
 Replied, “ Well, come; 
 
 To you we’re at home— 
 
 We couldn’t say more if you were a bird.” 
 
 iii. 
 
 Then I climbed a branch of the great green tree, 
 And along it stretched, so that I could see, 
 
 And be quite near 
 Those comrades dear 
 In their cosy nook in the glow of the West; 
 
 On which both chimed in a jubilant “ cheer,” 
 And welcomed me their guest. 
 
 Two other sprites, employed the while— 
 
 One feeding a poor 
 Old bee, he bore 
 
 (Lamed while crossing a twilight stile); 
 
 One with a sick 
 Cricket, whose tick 
 
 Waxed weak—both nodded to me with a smile. 
 
THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 Well, a snugger spot was ne’er-a-where seen 
 Than that wherein they dwelt, I ween ! 
 
 Its roof was a dome 
 Woven with broom, 
 
 Fretted with insect work, and neat; 
 
 The hearth at the end was the work of a gnome, 
 And the smell of the place was simple and sweet; 
 Couches of yellow and crispy leaves 
 Spread by the brown 
 Walls, mixed with down, 
 
 With curtains such as the spider weaves ; 
 
 Doors, too, kept it warm 
 When came a storm, 
 
 Or the cold white clouds of Winter eves. 
 
 v. 
 
 We had chatted awhile in the sunset’s gold, 
 
 On matters joyous and manifold— 
 
 Of the soft little Moth 
 Who had pledged her troth 
 To a foreign lover, whose lovely wing 
 
 Had wafted him up from the Summer South, 
 And how the Gnat was to make the ring 
 When who should look in at the entrance there, 
 
26 
 
 THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 In a friendly way, 
 
 But a sparrow gray, 
 
 From town—who had been taking the air— 
 And a kindly thrush, 
 
 From a neighbouring bush, 
 
 Who was noted for miles for his music rare. 
 
 VI. 
 
 “ Step in,” said the Fays, “ and take a perch— 
 Behold ! you haven’t far to search.” 
 
 On which both dipped 
 
 Their heads, and slipped, 
 Bright-eyed, upon the chamber floor, 
 
 Where ears of corn, gathered that morn, 
 
 And rows of field flowers, dewy-lipped, 
 
 And thistle-seeds in plenteous store, 
 
 Were heaped beside beech kernels sweet; 
 Leaves upon which 
 Lay honey rich, 
 
 That made the sparrow cry, “ Weet-weet-weet!”' 
 A strawberry flecked, 
 
 Red-apple pecked, 
 
 And a rubious cherry for a treat. 
 
THE EAlKIES HOME. 
 
 27 
 
 VII. 
 
 As the birds enjoyed their evening meal, 
 
 I heard the distant town bells peal 
 Beyond the wood, 
 
 Where sunset’s flood 
 Was westering toward the azure bay, 
 
 From whose bright sands, 
 
 O’er the evening lands, 
 
 Came the cry of the sea-gulls, far away; 
 
 By the shoulder of the slate-grey hill 
 The sun’s gold rim 
 Edged down ; and dim 
 The valley grew, and all was still, 
 
 Save the woogle faint 
 Of the river, and, quaint 
 As the whirr of a bat, the burr of the mill. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 As it dusked, some Insect, with humble head, 
 Entered the fairies’ home to be fed— 
 
 Feeble old folk 
 Who pulingly spoke 
 
 Of the times when they were strong and young 
 A month ago !—or sat, sad, in a row, 
 
 Till their stomachs were filled—when they suddenly sung 
 
28 
 
 THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 Then a silent, black-eyed Cockroach swept— 
 With a kindly glance 
 At those aged askance— 
 
 The husks of their meal away; then tripped 
 To lock up with her key 
 The corn store, and see 
 If the orphan Midges were snug and slept. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Meanwhile, as I watched all this aside, 
 
 And the Fairies chatted, kindly-eyed, 
 
 With the birds and I, or said, “ By-by,” 
 To some infant Insect who came to be kissed 
 Ere ’twas put to bed in the leaves anigh ; 
 And tbe moon from the waters rose in a mist! 
 And just as the evening planet’s ray 
 O’er a rosy line 
 Of cloud divine 
 
 Looked into their hollow home, a Fay 
 Who sate in the flush, 
 
 Said, “ Come, good thrush, 
 
 And sing us something you’ve seen to-day.” 
 
 The Thrush’s Story. 
 
 ’Twas noon and full tide, 
 
 As by the calm shore 
 
THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 29* 
 
 Where, with Summer roof wide, 
 
 A green sycamore 
 In the air and warm light 
 Basked in full-leaved delight, 
 
 That a little child played 
 In the silence and shade 
 With a wreath that he made 
 Of convolvulus white. 
 
 Now and then the great tree. 
 
 In commune with the airs, 
 
 That came winging in pairs 
 From the calm, lovely sea, 
 
 Roused itself amiably. 
 
 In the warm summer blue 
 One great cloud, pure in hue 
 As a lily, or vase 
 Shaped of snow, in the blaze. 
 
 Floated, dropping light dew ; 
 
 As each blythe little breeze 
 From the vapour-white seas, 
 
 Pausing, watched for a while, 
 
 With a play-fellow smile 
 And soul full of love, 
 
 The glad child, and the wreath 
 Of white flowers he wove, 
 
 •Vi. 
 
30 
 
 9 
 
 THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 Scarcely daring to breathe, 
 
 Bending o’er his gold hair 
 In the sea-silence there. 
 
 And as now and then he 
 A dear little song sung, 
 
 Like the notes of a young 
 Bird, when Summer’s sweet light 
 Or new object of sight 
 Brings his young heart delight; 
 
 So they innocently 
 
 J oined in with his song; 
 
 And, familiarised grown, 
 
 Chatted—some at his feet, 
 Stretched out in the heat , 
 
 Others whispering sweet, 
 
 From the boughs where they hung. 
 
 White clouds passed like the hours 
 As he wove still his flowers, 
 
 When another dear child, 
 
 With hair nut-brown and wild, 
 
 On her shoulders, and eyes 
 Like to black ivy berries, 
 
 From the road by the wood, 
 Singing, joyous in mood, 
 
THE FAIRIES’ HOME. 
 
 31 
 
 Came, bearing a neat 
 Osier basket, with sweet 
 
 Milk, white as the clouds, and a heap of sweet cherries. 
 Such a beautiful feast as they both had, the while 
 From a leafy nook near I looked down with a smile ; 
 What would I have given to be their fond guest ? 
 
 I’d have sung on the shoulder of either my best— 
 Tir-is-chi-cha-chee, lua, lu—and the rest that so oft from 
 the dell, 
 
 The oaks, and the stream you, fairies, know well. 
 
 But they finished all up—all save two cherries red, 
 
 The largest, which Carry concealed for the last ; 
 
 One of which to her brother she gave, the while she, 
 Rising and looking up gratefully, said— 
 
 “ And now, Tttle brother, we’ll just leave this other 
 For that dear thrush that sings to us up in the tree. 
 Thrush, this is for you ”—and she chirped—“ now come 
 down.” 
 
 Upon this the bright little boy smiled ; and upon 
 His wee sister’s head placed the lovely white crown. 
 
 Then from the green height 
 The Fays sung at the sight, 
 
 And the happy sea airs in the sycamore’s dome 
 Made it ring with their whispers of leafy delight 
 As they watched the two children pace hand in hand home. 
 
32 
 
 AMONG 1HE SPANISH HILLS. 
 
 Here the thrush rubbed his bill on a stem of oak, 
 
 And with sidelong look glanced from his host’s happy nook 
 To his nest toward the West and the long sunset dead. 
 
 Ere bidding “ good-night ” to his comrades, he said— 
 
 “ Yes, such was the prettiest matter of note, 
 
 My good fairy friends, I have looked on to-day, 
 
 And now for my home through the dear twilight grey, 
 
 Where sings the lone little stream sweet on its way. 
 
 *•••••* 
 
 And off he flew. The sparrow winged his head, 
 
 And someone closed the entrance for the night, 
 
 And when I thought of them again the red 
 Morn through the window glowed upon my bed, 
 
 And all the bay soon grew a flood of light. 
 
 AMONG THE SPANISH HILLS-1633- 
 
 “ O ! where shall those weary feet find rest? Surely here ; if the 
 silence of those hills does not deceive me.” 
 
 —Cervantes's “ Dorothea .” 
 
 I. 
 
 On high old convents, parched and pale, 
 
 And gray as bone, 
 
 Drowse in the heavy heat, and hail 
 The traveller lone, 
 
 Toiling up mountain paths of shale 
 And calcined stone ; 
 
AMONG THE SPANISH HILLS. 
 
 33 
 
 Tile-roofed vine farms in the vale 
 O’er-top o’erblown, 
 
 Cork trees green illumed, and village wells ; 
 And far-off, glimmering like a sail 
 In the dry, dizzy light, 
 
 Towers of a castle white— 
 
 Old dim tourelles ; 
 
 Beyond, the purple plain, 
 
 And further, blue as rain, 
 
 The fresh calm crescent main— 
 
 Tis Spain 
 
 n. 
 
 Oh ! sweet in dazzling noon 
 Thy waters, shady Well ! 
 
 Amid the heat as cold 
 As Winter’s desert moon, 
 
 And grateful as new gold. 
 
 Thou comest like the mood 
 That puts the mind in tune ; 
 
 Live in thy lonely height, 
 Asleep in the strong light; 
 With evening blue 
 Some star shall peep into the cool 
 Depths of thy leafy pool, 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 AMONG 1HE SPANISH HILLS. 
 
 Grateful to you. 
 Even as from afar 
 By memory’s star— 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 hi. 
 
 And now the white moon from the bay 
 Serenely clear and rounded glances, 
 And o’er the hill road far away 
 Soon brings in view, 
 
 ’Mid shadows blue, 
 
 The sparkle of Castilian lances ; 
 
 And like their light, 
 
 In distant night. 
 
 Where sleeps the hamlet street of Lura,„ 
 Sprinkling the air, 
 
 The tonings rare 
 Of some guitarist’s acciachatura. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Good horse, I pat thy face, 
 
 The while thou lookest in mine,. 
 
 With those kind eyes of thine ; 
 
 Here rest we ; off and graze 
 Awhile this grassy place. 
 
TONES. 
 
 35 
 
 Then side by side we’ll rest 
 Within this sheltered nook, 
 Anear this bubbling brook, 
 
 In view of the blue brine 
 And plain spread line on line. 
 Here our sole comrades are 
 The faint winds on the heath, 
 The freshet’s fall beneath 
 The cliff, and evening’s star. 
 
 TONES. 
 
 True poets are they who love all Beauty of soul or scene, 
 Who make us feel and see whatever they paint, I ween, 
 
 Be it lovely or mighty in immortal words set down, 
 
 Shaping a nobler life in life lit from their golden crown. 
 Kings of the mind, creators who bequeath each human 
 brain, 
 
 A world superior to Nature’s, wherein they ever reign. 
 
 Then let us each day peruse some fancies finer than our 
 own, 
 
 With daily matters occupied—in brightness and in tone, 
 Those of a richer region seen o’er some enchanted main. 
 To keep our souls in the higher light of the universal 
 throne; 
 
36 
 
 YEW TREES. 
 
 Peruse some song of a soul composed in a happy mood, 
 
 In love with its own innocent beauty, that the work may be 
 loved of the good, 
 
 Or live with the poets of music, of imaginative sound, 
 
 When harmonised feeling and fancy filled their spirit’s 
 enchanted round. 
 
 YEW TREES. 
 
 A Legend. 
 
 L 
 
 Vast night was solemn and blue, 
 
 And from the sea the half-moon shone 
 Between two 
 Black trunks of aged yew. 
 
 n. 
 
 Beneath and o’er me spread 
 Infinite calm, as from the deep 
 Ocean’s bed ; 
 
 All around seemed dead. 
 
 hi. 
 
 The black roofs o’er a black pool bent, 
 
 And through their hearse-like plumes the air 
 Came and went; 
 
 Nor knew I what it meant. 
 
YEW TREES. 
 
 37 
 
 IV. 
 
 In fields of fern o’egrown 
 
 I hearkened, till there seemed to come 
 A passing moan 
 
 From that Presence dark and lone. 
 
 v. 
 
 But, as I nearer paced, and stood 
 By forms whose dreams I overheard, 
 Like drops of blood 
 Fallen from an ebon hood. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Methought from one black cloud o’erhead 
 I heard in necromantic tones 
 
 A voice, and, near, a tread : 
 
 “ Awake and speak, ye dead !*’ 
 
 VII. 
 
 “ ’Tis mhny an age since we two here 
 Were slain and sadly buried ; 
 
 But once a year 
 Heaven dooms us to appear— 
 
38 
 
 YEW TREES. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 To hearken once again 
 To what the sweet bird sings— 
 The sound of rain— 
 To voices on this well known plain. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Here all we knew has flown ; 
 
 Of our once dear abode 
 
 On yon hill lone, 
 Remains not now a stone. 
 
 x. 
 
 Young monks of old were we, 
 
 When the fierce pirates landing wrecked 
 Our priory : 
 
 Slew us, and put to sea. 
 
 XI. 
 
 This place was once a burial ground 
 For ages—gone are even its graves, 
 
 Now only found 
 By yon yews, and pool around. 
 
YEW TREES. 
 
 30 
 
 XII. 
 
 Yet deem not that our souls 
 Sleep in the thousand rings 
 
 Of those dark boles ; 
 
 We live where’er existence rolls. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 To aid, in many a mood, 
 
 Whate’er is excellent on earth, 
 
 And make on land and flood 
 The better golden from the good, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Our life is in celestial zones; 
 
 Yet, oft recalling our sad fate, 
 
 From our bones 
 Issue passing moans. 
 
 xv. 
 
 Hark to yon holy bell, 
 
 Now heard in times of Christmas round the world; 
 And with us pray that all be well, 
 
 To Cod, Whose love’s imperishable.” 
 
40 
 
 a child’s pastopal. 
 
 A CHILD’S PASTORAL. 
 
 Above the sunny village street, 
 
 Hark ! from the frayed and mouldering tower 
 The old clock tolls the noon-day hour— 
 Cheerful chimes, well known as sweet, 
 
 Which float along the dry highway, 
 
 Where cluster children all at play, 
 
 And through the leaves 
 And o’er the sheaves 
 Lessen toward the calm blue bay. 
 
 Come, little one, we with the sun 
 Will pass this peaceful holiday. 
 
 Now, hand-in-hand, where shall we go ?— 
 
 Into those meadows green and calm, 
 
 And visit first the little lamb, 
 
 Our first of friends where daisies blow : 
 
 Here in the sunshine soft he lies, 
 
 Basking with innocent, half-closed eyes. 
 
 While from a bush 
 Anear, our thrush 
 Sings to him his best melodies : 
 
 Sport, playful lamb ! sing, bird, in the calm, 
 For us and all our butterflies ! 
 
A CHILD iS PASTORAL. 
 
 We will not pluck a single flower 
 Of all that on this upland thrives, 
 
 But let them live their simple lives 
 With Summer’s wind and sun and shower : 
 Were we one cluster to bereave 
 Of but one friend, the rest might grieve ; 
 But as the grass 
 Our shadows pass 
 Let them commune whisperingly 
 
 Of us, as good neighbours who would 
 Not wish that even a flower should die. 
 
 Now let us mount the stile where grows 
 The hawthorn with the blossoms white, 
 Whence, past yon slope, we first have sight 
 Of the wide sea that shines and flows, 
 
 And dots of vessels here and there 
 Fading away in distant air. 
 
 And mark we how 
 The sweet-milked cow 
 Stops grazing, noting us from far— 
 Together home in twilight’s gloom 
 We three shall pace towards evening’s star. 
 
42 
 
 a child’s pastoral. 
 
 Now in the fragrant salt sea air 
 
 On this green shore-bank let us rest, 
 Watching the white gulls float the breast 
 Of the pure sunny waters there : 
 
 Hark ! from yon rocky nested wall 
 At times to them their comrades call ! 
 Happy above 
 The young they love, 
 
 Some mother, watching o’er her brood, 
 Thus tells her mate how all await 
 His dear return at eve with food. 
 
 Let every form of Being be dear 
 
 That treads the earth or wings the wind ; 
 Look kindly on them, and be kind 
 To all that dwell around us here ; 
 
 Love them ; and hate all those, my boy, 
 Who cruelly such lives destroy : 
 
 Bird, insect, kine, 
 
 Are all divine 
 
 In innocence ; who hurts them pains 
 Him Who has made them—in them reigns. 
 
 But let’s enjoy our feast beside 
 
 This Spring—for you must hungry be 
 After our long, bright walk • and, see ! 
 
a child’s pastoral. 
 
 43 
 
 Already flows the evening tide. 
 
 And now, as toward the set of day 
 Return we, let us strew the way 
 With crumbs and corn 
 For birds at morn, 
 
 And insects by this grassy road : 
 
 To please them is a gracious play, 
 
 For which thev’ll thank us, as will God. 
 
 The tiniest creature we inspect, 
 
 Like man, awakes each day to seek 
 Food for itself, and those still weak 
 It cares, using its intellect 
 
 For such same purposes as our race 
 On this our common dwelling place : 
 For, howere small * 1 
 Those beings, all 
 
 Have minds and hearts akin to ours, 
 And love for homes we dimly trace 
 In nooks among the trees and flow’rs. 
 
 So now, as spreads blue twilight’s gloom 
 Over the fields, low down our star 
 Beckons us, and toward woods afar 
 The anxious crows are winging home. 
 
44 
 
 A WINDOW SONG. 
 
 Let’s trust All life may happy be ; 
 
 Sweet sleep to all on land and sea ! 
 
 But here’s at last 
 Our home—more fast 
 We hurry as it draws more near; 
 
 And there one stands with outreached hands 
 To clasp her wearied wanderer dear. 
 
 A WINDOW SONG. 
 
 Within the window of this white, 
 
 Low, ivy-roofed, retired abode, 
 
 We look through sunset’s sinking light 
 Along the lone and dusty road 
 That leads unto the river’s bridge, 
 
 Where stand two sycamores broad and green, 
 Whence from their rising grassy ridge 
 The levels length in shade and sheen. 
 
 1'he village panes reflect the glow, 
 
 And all about the scene is still, 
 
 Save, by the foamy dam below, 
 
 The drumming wheel of the whitewashed mill : 
 A radiant quiet fills the air, 
 
 And gleam the dews along the turf; 
 
 While the great wheel bound 
 On its drowsv round 
 
 j 
 
 Goes snoring through the gusts of surf. 
 
A WINDOW SONG. 
 
 45 
 
 A-south, beyond the hamlet lie 
 
 The low, blue hills in mingling mist, 
 
 With furl of cloud along the sky, 
 
 And ravines rich as amethyst, 
 
 And mellow edges golden-ored 
 
 As sinks the round sun in the flood, 
 
 And high up wings the crow line toward 
 Old turrets in the distant wood ; 
 
 Awhile from some twilighted roof 
 The blue smoke rises o’er the thatch ; 
 
 By cots along the green aloof 
 
 Some home-come labourer lifts the latch; 
 Or housewife sings her child to sleep, 
 Or calls her fowl-flock from the turf, 
 While the mill-wheel bound 
 ()n its drowsy round 
 Goes snoring through the gusts of surf. 
 
 Still at our open window, where 
 
 Gleams on the leaves the lamp new lit, 
 
 For hours we read old books, and share 
 Their thoughts and pictures, love and wit: 
 As midnight nears, its quiet ray 
 
 Thrown on the garden’s hedges faint, 
 
 Pales, as the moon, from clouds of grey, 
 
46 
 
 A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 Looks down serenely as a saint. 
 
 We hear a few drops of a shower, 
 
 Laying the dust for morning feet, 
 
 Patter upon the corner bower, 
 
 Then, ceasing, send an air as sweet. 
 
 And, as we close the window down, 
 And close the volumes read so long, 
 Even the wheel’s snore 
 Is heard no more, 
 
 And scarce the runnel’s swirling song. 
 
 A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 The sun was setting red and blurred 
 Beyond the Flemish lowland, where 
 Its light along the landscape brown 
 Now touched the roofs of spired town, 
 
 With long canals by bridges spanned, 
 
 And sentinelled by poplars tall; 
 
 And gable-fronted streets and square, 
 
 With languid fountain pulsing by 
 
 Some painter’s statue, windowed wall 
 Of carved cathedral, and along 
 The grassy mound of bastions strong;— 
 Now touched the breadths of harvest land. 
 
A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 Where tented corn for many a mile, 
 
 And level flax field pale and dry, 
 
 And willow fringe along the sky, 
 
 A moment glimmered in its smile; 
 
 Around the slowly dusking air 
 In warm contentment brooded there ; 
 
 Far off a lazy windmill purred, 
 
 Perched on a mound; sometimes the boom 
 Of whirring bat across the gloom 
 Vibrated; but in field and tree 
 Dotting the levels drowsily, 
 
 No leafed branch moved, no grass blade stirred* 
 
 After a rural ramble, we 
 
 Had paced an hour the chapelled aisle 
 Of one great church whose altar lights, 
 
 Dim streaming through the lofty pile, 
 
 Now gleamed upon some brassy rail, 
 Some sainted picture, statue pale, 
 
 Or carved pulpit solemnly ; 
 
 And down the polished pavement shed 
 Afar, a lessening golden glow, 
 
 Like cloudy sunset dusking slow 
 Upon the level glassy wave 
 Of some majestic ocean cave, 
 
48 
 
 A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 And stalactited roof o’erhead ;— 
 
 Hushed was the space of gorgeous gloom, 
 Hushed as a midnight shrine or tomb, 
 
 Save when at times in distant dark 
 A gold bell tinkled, or a spark 
 
 Flitted with tread of echoing feet,— 
 
 Or where some whispered query neat, 
 
 Or sighing answer murmured small, 
 From some dim nooked confessional. 
 
 An hour we paced this region dim 
 Of prayer and picture, and then turned 
 (Just as the note of vesper hymn 
 Brake from the organ loft) into 
 The narrow tall street, roofed with blue, 
 Lonelied at night, save for a few 
 Blowsed figures sauntering in the rue, 
 
 Into whose darkened length we turned, 
 
 And onward towered the distance bright, 
 Where, in the lazy civic night, 
 
 A tavern window jocund burned. 
 
 Arrived we past the lamp-lit bar, 
 
 Where stood the landlord’s daughter fair, 
 With laughing blue eyes, flaxen hair, 
 
A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 ’Mid portly casks and many a jar, 
 
 And long-necked flasks, above, below, 
 Dispensing to the taste or need 
 
 Of groups of Flemmings fat and slow, 
 And others jocund browed I trow. 
 The silver tankard foamed with ale, 
 The thin glass brimmed with aniseed, 
 
 Or almond-essenced noyeau pale, 
 Or dark with spicy curacoa— 
 
 Then paced a passage whose dusk air 
 Smelt like the cabin of some barge, 
 
 Long seasoned with the merchandise 
 Of northern and tropic skies ; 
 
 Of the Moluccas and Bordeaux, 
 
 The hams of Spain, the Lowland beurs , 
 
 Its oily hollands and liqueurs, 
 
 Until the sanded parlour clean 
 Oped to my view a different scene :— 
 
 45 ) 
 
 For there beside the coal-red hearth 
 An artist group was dimly seen, 
 
 Jocund as any upon earth, 
 
 Amid the hallow of white smoke 
 That blown from goodly meerschaums broke 
 In volumes round them—each like Jove— 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 A cloud compeller. One was lean, 
 
 With high, straight brow and gravest mien— 
 History his walk ; one-eyed with mirth, 
 
 With portly frame of widest girth, 
 
 Whose talent turned on tavern sights— 
 Kermesses thronged with dancing boors, 
 
 Fat fair ones and their loutish woores, 
 
 And harvest revels and delight; 
 
 One with a wild Salvator air, 
 
 Bearded, with long black shock of hair, 
 
 Who most would think could never paint 
 Aught but a tempest or ravine, 
 
 Where bandits couched in rocky screen, 
 A-watch with primed carbines levelled, 
 
 But whose high reverend genius revelled 
 ’Mid forms of angel and of saint: 
 
 And last, one with a keen brown eye 
 And low, square forehead, furrowed by 
 Long, patient wrinkles, whose chief power 
 Lay in the phase of still life themes, 
 
 Not in romance, humour, or dreams, 
 
 A Schneider-Ostade, whose chief fame 
 Rested on dead deer, fish, and game, 
 
 Or market street stalls seen at night, 
 
 By paper lamp or candle light. 
 
A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 51 
 
 In chat discursive passed an hour, 
 
 The while we touched on various themes— 
 Nature and art, its souls of power 
 Like Angelo, others whose dower 
 Was beauty wrought in holiest dreams, 
 
 The schools of Icaly and Spain, 
 
 Before their genius lapsed in wain 
 Their biblical and common scenes ; 
 
 Of France with movement full but less 
 Poetic than Dramatic—those 
 Of Deuchland, where each great work means 
 More than it images, and teems 
 With deep ideal loveliness ; 
 
 Discussed the art critics and dictators, 
 Or sympathetic or perceptive 
 Thinkers prosaic and deceptive 
 To its aesthetical creators, 
 
 From some dry classic-brained Tuscan 
 To nature’s last, best critic, Ruskin; 
 
 A pleasant chat, to each digestive 
 Intellect, highly suggestive. 
 
 At last, ere we broke up the night, 
 
 While through the casement the clear moon 
 O’er the cathedral’s pinnacled height, 
 
 With carillon dark and carving slight, 
 
52 
 
 A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 And quaintly traced as a rune, 
 
 Trembled a dew of quiet light; 
 
 The silver tankards ranged along 
 The broad board filled with foamy beer. 
 
 “ Now for a song to give us cheer,” 
 
 One cried—and chorused we his song. 
 
 Song. 
 
 While corn and wine grow ripe in autumn’s rays 
 We bend o’er olden books with student brow ; 
 
 Suns there are which illumed earth’s vanished days,. 
 And deathless make our spirits fruitful now. 
 
 Around our rooms those souls of vanished Time 
 Silently shine, immortal o’er the strife ; 
 
 Shakspeare still comments from his book of life ; 
 Milton unveils the unseen worlds sublime. 
 
 Thus companied, while glows the summer ray 
 Brightest where most remote, upon life’s stream 
 That sunward flows, we shape a progress dream... 
 And, musing, for its swift fulfilment pray. 
 
 Oh ! while we wander life’s supreme domain, 
 
 Its spirits round us and its God above, 
 
 Here let us labour, still to make the brain 
 
 Grow rich with culture, and the heart with love. 
 
A LOWLAND PICTURE. 
 
 53 
 
 Let brooding culture essay to untold 
 
 With earnest care each gift of mind and heart 
 For future life, by study, and by art 
 Developing each fruit and flower of gold. 
 
 Let art still illustrate Time’s bright’ning days, 
 And from Imagination’s mystic sphere 
 All that is truest, noblest, and most dear 
 Embody in diverse harmonic phase. 
 
 Let science scan the planet and the soul 
 And learn the laws which sway anear afar 
 Matter and thought, life’s tropic and its pole 
 Through all the spheres of spirit and of star. 
 
 When cultured Labour in all paths be prized, 
 And earnest knowledge burn no more apart 
 In lamp of gold, but universalized 
 
 Give ampler scope to intellect and heart. 
 
 And relegating knowledge bright and sage, 
 
 For spirits dowered with time’s eternal youth, 
 Bequeath to them its supreme heritage 
 In many a volume of the largest truth. 
 
OLD WALKS AND OLD SCENES. 
 
 Oh, while around yon sun our world is driven, 
 
 We breathe the airs of beauty, progress, love, 
 While golden clouds still tent us as we move, 
 
 In pilgrimage towards happiness or heaven ; 
 
 That we may work in God’s expanse sublime 
 To make each future soul a richer heir, 
 
 Here clasping hands beneath this noon of Time 
 Look to the image of his Light, and swear ! 
 
 OLD WALKS AND OLD SCENES. 
 
 i. 
 
 With every season have we viewed this scene :— 
 When the soft lilac clouds, dispersed shapes, 
 
 Slept o’er the sea line ’twixt the stretching capes, 
 And the spring freshes flooding o’er the dam 
 Edged its sleek fall with sweeling flaggers green ; 
 When skies were full of May and blossomed balm 
 Or cloudy, sultry noons of summer grey 
 Roofed the low mountains and the waveless bay ; 
 Or when from sullen vapours heavily 
 Rayed down at times a sombrous, fan-like glow ; 
 Thunder above the corn-fields brooded low ; 
 
 And not the faintest breath was felt to flow. 
 
 7 
 
OLD WALKS AND OLD SCENES. 
 
 55 
 
 Till through the lurid, curled clouds amain 
 Rattled the crash reverberant, and rain 
 Released at first in drops, heavy and slow, 
 
 Thickened to deluge on the steaming plain. 
 
 Then slumbrous days of misty heat and growth, 
 Scarce cooled by a wind even from the south; 
 Through which we hear no more the bubbling brook, 
 But the dry toll of reapers, as they grasp 
 The swathes of wheat they bind in strawy clasp, 
 
 Or double-sided clash of whetting hook : 
 
 And later, others shorter and as warm, 
 
 When in the dusty pane the dry beam glows, 
 
 And parched trailers droop, and the flies swarm 
 Black, thick and rank, at sleepy autumn’s close. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Then cooler came after some teeming night, 
 
 The cheerful sadness of September light. 
 
 Pale skies more chill, but splendrously clear, 
 
 Over the breezy morning foliage sere; 
 
 Then as we walked in mellow calm, remote 
 From the town’s hum, on some dry, quiet road— 
 When ceased the snapping bark of cottage curs— 
 
 We heard vague voices of the havresters 
 
56 
 
 OLD WALKS AND OLD SCENES. 
 
 On uplands heaping high each yellow load ; 
 
 Nay, on the stillness, under the cart’s wheel, 
 
 The husky crackle of the stubble steal; 
 
 And saw- the thistle-down across us float:— 
 
 And later aspects of the year we knew 
 No less:—October’s mornings, breezy and blue, 
 
 With scents of frost and withered fallen leaves, 
 
 By dry day roads, or misty, moony eves; 
 
 Or when clouds crisp with cold rose o’er the brown 
 Woodlands—till came November’s dull nights soon. 
 Then as returned we late a-toward the Town, 
 
 Cold gusts of water crossed us from the wier 
 On sloppy roads, where the wind, raw and drear, 
 Breathed from the wet, rank, foggy fields anear, 
 
 Faint lit from rainy hallows round the moon, 
 
 That overhead unseen in vapours swam. 
 
 ’Mid winter, too, upon whose numb, cold calm, 
 
 When footing frosted paths, beside some dead 
 Shrubbery, in shelter from the blue north wind, 
 
 We heard beneath the birchen thickets, lined 
 With fallen leaves, the blackbird’s rustling tread ; 
 
 And yet again, when through the white wide park, 
 Muffled, quick pacing, we were wont to mark 
 The deers’ slot in the snowy sludge beside 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 57 
 
 The river; and across the pure, chill waste, 
 Far off by barren branches brownly laced, 
 Spreading into the hazy evening wide— 
 The great trees’ swaying sigh in desolate air 
 Ceaselessly—with an inner low despair. 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS- 
 Part I- 
 
 In a castle’s turret chamber 
 When had sunk the ashy ember, 
 
 One sate, fancy-wakeful, under 
 The wide heaven’s midnight palace, 
 Muttering with distant thunder 
 From the mountains and the sea. 
 
 Books of finest, pure brain-bread 
 In open scrolls before him spread, 
 
 And aged tomes of mystery 
 By his lamp and chalice. 
 
 These he reads, then quaffs the wine, 
 
 Then shuts the page—his spirit’s pinion— 
 And floats in phantasies divine 
 Throughout his soul’s dominion: 
 
 For no Comus cup of pleasure 
 Was the vase which sparkled near, 
 
58 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 But one whose liquid laved clear 
 The jewels of his spirit’s treasure, 
 
 Waking to the will each mood 
 Of the brain’s infinitude ; 
 
 And from the present and the past, 
 
 And from the winds, th’ electric fire, 
 
 The hollow blackness of the vast, 
 
 The rolling thunder and the blast, 
 
 Pointed imagination’s wing 
 
 In sudden strange, and mystic flights, 
 
 Fitful as the northern lights 
 That from the abysmal depth aspire— 
 
 Beneath its potent spiriting. 
 
 Lo ! as he faced where, ending the dim room 
 A window opened on the blank blue gloom 
 Precipitous, a suddden sense of height 
 And lonliness, fell on him with the night; 
 
 And as he stood with robe blown in the breeze 
 That inward flowed above the depths of trees— 
 Lo ! looking toward the blackened main, a Form, 
 Seeming at first a falling meteor, came 
 Over the gloomy seas, in swiftest flight; 
 
 Silent and furious, burning like a flame ; 
 
 And through the casement, in a whirl of storm, 
 
THE PALACE OE DREAMS. 
 
 59 
 
 Rushed on his view a Spirit without name ; 
 
 Who swathed in angry thunder mists, looked down 
 Beneath its luminous electric crown 
 In rays of sight from face of featureless fire : 
 
 And a voice cried—“ Arise—follow—behold !” 
 
 Then swift within its tempest-vesture rolled 
 He rose unto the summit of a tower, 
 
 And swept into the midnight blank and cold, 
 Upwafted by the mighty spirit’s power. 
 
 First thought he that he wandered through the night 
 
 Across a sandy antre, in the glow 
 
 Of a red waning moon, half hidden and low ; 
 
 While phantom shafts of lightning transiently 
 Blinded the glare it cast on the dim sea. 
 
 The place which seemed the disk of some dead world, 
 Spread to the rounding vagueness, vapour-furled; 
 When sudden above him loomed a mystic sight:— 
 
 A wondrous Castle-Cathedral on a height 
 Rolled amid clouds ; its lofty hall alight, 
 
 And coloured oreals, shining in the snow 
 That whitely whirled in silent drifts around 
 Its superb towers and supreme pinnacles, 
 
 Whence came, afar and faint, a tone of bells 
 Amid the tumults of ghostly mist that curled 
 
60 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Silent and beautiful above :—most like 
 The uncongealing tinkle of ice, when spike 
 From spike dissevers, piteous noised :—but while 
 He gazed with marvel, they approached the pile; 
 
 And through the white crumbling vapours treading, clomb 
 Up its immensive colonaded stair 
 To a majestic portal opening there; 
 
 And entering soon beneath its airy dome, 
 
 Paced, marvelling, many a spacious chamber o’er, 
 
 Radiant and hushed, until he came to one 
 Whose casement opened on a sea that shone 
 In lights of evening to a purple shore ; 
 
 And in the shadow of its silken shrouds, 
 
 Rustling in airs from gardens breathing balm, 
 
 Felt golden sleep descend with twilight’s calm 
 Upon his closing eyelids, from a star 
 Sparkling within the sunset depth afar, 
 
 Amid the rosy cinctures of the clouds. 
 
 Then was he ’ware those chambers manifold, 
 
 Spreading around to the enchanted sense. 
 
 In gorgeous canopies of gloomy gold 
 And silent vistas of magnificence, 
 
 Irradiate with evening loveliness— 
 
 Stellated and enshaded avenues 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 61 
 
 Of pillared crystal of a myriad hues; 
 
 Founts bubbling over fruitage, solemn lamp ; 
 Wide pictured halls, whose light grew less and less, 
 
 And others mouldering, ruinous and damp, 
 Where fell the water-drop from the high roof, 
 Monotonously toned in halls aloof,— 
 
 Were chambers of the many-mooded soul, 
 
 By dreaming fancy imaged. And he heard 
 Amid the golden woodlands by the wave 
 That beat on marble cliff and foliaged cave, 
 
 The hidden voice of the melodious bird 
 Paining the stillness with its plaint of love ; 
 
 And from the turret vapour-veiled above 
 The Palace, in the infinite calm, the toll 
 Of one enormous bell that, swinging slow 
 In the void, vibrated with the ocean’s flow. 
 
 First, gazing round the chamber where he lay, 
 
 He saw ’twas festal-sad; for it was dim, 
 
 Though rich wines shimmered to the aureate rim 
 Of globed goblets in the slanting light 
 That streamed across the tranquil sunset seas, 
 From airy distances of burning rose, 
 
 Whence floated languidly a golden breeze 
 From mighty hills remotely crowned with snows, 
 
62 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Whose huge crests seemed dividing day and night: 
 And on their furthest promontory withdrawn, 
 
 High cedars waved in a stormy amber dawn; 
 
 The while their nearer vallied sides afar 
 Lay in the light of midnight’s solemn star. 
 
 As from this mighty domed room he paced 
 Along the neighbouring chamber’s lofty halls 
 Where solemn marbles stood—lo ! dimly traced 
 Pictures, like fragment fancies half defaced, 
 
 And countenances glimmered on the walls. 
 
 One imaged gloomy space, through which the swoon 
 Seemed heard of one great sphere in snowy shroud 
 And toiling planets, each with its vague moon, 
 
 All dark; and windy worlds of belted cloud. 
 
 And nearer, amid shores all black around, 
 
 In awesome calm, a sullen-coloured flood 
 Lay motionless within the mountain’s round, 
 
 Like a moon’s disk in tempest, or dead blood. 
 
 Beside it spaced a realm in changeless rest; 
 
 Where, in a distance evermore the same, 
 
 Great meteors charioted along the west 
 In globes of orange flame. 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Anear a form sailed in a magic barque, 
 
 By Ophionia > s quiet orient isle, 
 
 Embowered to the waves • pale Phosphor’s spark 
 From brown Arabia’s hills was seen to smile ; 
 
 And ’mid green trunks aflame with living gold 
 Remote, or stooping weighed with foliage o’er 
 The sea, huge serpents coiled in many a fold, 
 Guarded the circlet of an enchanted isle ; 
 
 Some white as snow, enormous shapes of sleep, 
 
 Or rainbow-iridescent, and as long, 
 
 Uncoiled, prepared for a flinging leap 
 Across the waters ; or in circuit strong- 
 involved voluminously bask, and sheathe 
 Their eyes of diamond in squameous mail, 
 
 And venomed valves ; or, from their caves of Death 
 Inland, undulate o’er the flowery dale. 
 
 And here a desert in an unknown land, 
 
 A gloomy river serpenting afar; 
 
 In front, a coast-line, desolate and grand, 
 
 Along the fathomless deep without a star; 
 
 Death’s under-world it seemed, where distantly 
 Dim phantom figures fell down in the night 
 On one steep, black cliff o’er the frowning sea, 
 
 In worship, fronting the dark Infinite. 
 
64 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Again he views beneath a purple morn 
 That over Egypt opes its level lids, 
 
 The yellow river flowing ; seas of corn, 
 
 Obelisks and elephants and pyramids. 
 
 And in a temple, ’mid a place of tombs, 
 
 A priestess throng chaunting a hymn divine ; 
 
 Their cymbals clashing shone like hollow moons, 
 Before the altar of the mighty shrine. 
 
 And here a citied pasture plain alarmed 
 
 From swift invasion from the northward, where 
 
 The shawled Assyrians charioted and armed, 
 Dashed through the dust of battle in the glare 
 
 Here by a mountain tinged with dawning light, 
 
 A spectre squadron horsed seemed listening to 
 
 The thunder of a multitudinous fight 
 
 From the dark lowland storming up the blue. 
 
 And with those pictures many more of might, 
 
 Each living, though in ruins, like some rhyme 
 
 Of bard forgotten, from whose page old night 
 Had blotted many a line, sweet and sublime. 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 Dreaming in space beneath the magic night, 
 Pictures still rose before the poet’s sight, 
 
 Rich fragment fancies, floating cloudlets fanned 
 By winds of sunset lovely, lone, or grand, 
 
 Austere and terrible with thunder-light, 
 
 Like vignottes framed by some enchanter’s hand, 
 When in a mood of phantasy he’d form 
 Visions of beauty calm, or gloom and storm, 
 
 Of meditative heaven, or shuddering hell, 
 
 Which, so imagined, fine or fair or fell, 
 
 Mind to the scenic sense made visible. 
 
 Now seemed a region in wide air to rise, 
 
 A land of sweet autumnalized repose, 
 
 Still as the spaces which the quiet skies 
 Reveal through western drifts of watery rose 
 wSerene, round morn or even’s steady star : 
 
 First in the silence he beheld afar, 
 
 Beyond an unknown coast, in clear sea day, 
 
 The glimmering levels of a quiet bay, 
 
 Whose tide toward ocean outward flowed away; 
 With fronting mountains, keen as purple spar, 
 And, lower, mellowing slopes of mingled grey ; 
 
€G 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Streams that in sleep through seering woodlands wound 
 Rocks—flowers of innocent beauty—all things round 
 Are toned with colours of the quiet glow; 
 
 Beyond the capes remote and cool and low, 
 
 That scarce above the watery distance show; 
 
 While o’er the skiey ridges calm, and o’er 
 The breathing yellow land and sandy shore, 
 
 The Eden beauty of the dreaming light 
 Enchants the wonder-wandering sight; 
 
 A sleeping picture, clear and sweet, 
 
 And fair as it is fleet— 
 
 For now ’tis melted into air; and soon, 
 
 As under some black vapour drives the moon, 
 
 Out in the stormy sunshine of a green 
 And heavy, rolling, rounding main is seen, 
 
 ’Mid careless, curling billows and flying spray. 
 
 Scudding under a steep-walled promontory 
 And wind-blown fortress brown, an argosy 
 Of ancient time, toil through the water’s sway, 
 
 With square sail bellied, and high surfy prow 
 Aslant, amid the outward billows bounding 
 Into the open, and the precipice rounding, 
 
 Plunge through the surges of the stormier sea ; 
 
 A ship that wafted many a martial form 
 Upon 3 mission heroic and sublime ; 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 And with them one fair northern maid, whose heart 
 From her steeled lover could not beat to part, 
 
 Living a lone life, like a broken rhyme, 
 
 But held by him for battle and for storm 
 Crusading; for it seemed the stirring time 
 When Europe witnessed her strong sons depart 
 To wrest the Holy Land from pagan sway, 
 
 Hell’s mortal shadow resting dark upon 
 The Orient, wrapped in tumult and affray, 
 
 And toward the tomb of the Divinest One 
 Whose Spirit has celestialized our clay, 
 
 Hurried like stormy clouds from western day; 
 
 Nor rest was there for thousands until thev 
 Followed the trumpet toward the rising sun. 
 
 Still traced the dreamer the great vessel’s flight, 
 Which, through the roaring darkness of the night 
 Scudded a solitary sea, afar 
 From friendly gleam of helm-directing star. 
 
 Then darker change o'erspread the visioned vast, 
 
 As though subterrene night eclipsed the noon ; 
 
 Nor more a music of Romance, but from 
 The pyramid heart of some sublimer poem 
 Or lyre, from whose dark chords low thunders broke, 
 With lightnings which revealed the destiny, 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Of good and evil, in eternity— 
 
 Vibrating o’er the deserts of time awoke 
 A gloomier vision in his spirit’s dome. 
 
 He thought he waked from the sound of a mighly bell r 
 And heard its doleful cadences expire 
 Over a windy waste where darkness fell 
 In flashes from a firmament of hell, 
 
 Silent, starless, strange, and vast, 
 
 The while he wandered among 
 Sights and silences terrible, 
 
 Until he came at last 
 
 To where a desolate antre spread, o’erhung 
 With roof of lower-lowering angry fire, 
 
 Skirting a fathomless main; 
 
 Where wandered wide a desolate host 
 Apart, in torment, lonely and lost, 
 
 Of flaming fiend and anguished ghost; 
 
 Some of aspect cruel and cold, 
 
 Breathless with hatred and disdain 
 
 For mortal and immortal, and deep eyes 
 
 Stone-sullen, under brows of serpent fold : 
 
 There some, gnashing their rage with bloody tongue. 
 Mumbled inarticulate blasphemies; 
 
 And some couched moody, waiting with sad minds 
 The rising of the torture winds, 
 
THE PALACE OP DREAMS. 
 
 69 
 
 Shrank in prospective pain; 
 
 But soon swept upon the blast 
 That swooned from the eternal past, 
 
 The region faded into vaporous grey; 
 
 And from the shadowing frontier of that hell 
 Loomed vaguely a dominion where abode 
 The phantoms of old wars, 
 
 Battalious, under the gaunt throne of Death ;— 
 And that, too, clouded away. 
 
 There rose upon his sight 
 A host, bright < as a firmament of stars, 
 
 And flashed, and, like the northern light, 
 
 Sank in the solitudes of night, 
 
 Where a great moon’s blank and sombre face— 
 Like some old lonely god’s eternal tomb— 
 Shone, mouldering in forgotten space, 
 
 Among the austere wrecks of olden doom. 
 
 Through space the Dreamer’s spirit wandered still: 
 When, as obeying fancy fixed by will, 
 
 Rose on his view the regions infinite, 
 
 Thronged with the systems and the worlds, between 
 Whose primal and reflected seas of light 
 Vast shadows coursed the hollow, where were seen 
 Primordial influences spreading wide, 
 
70 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Tivixt sphere and sphere, system with system buoyed 
 Upon the impalpable bosom of the void, 
 
 Like billows of an omnipresent tide, 
 
 Now rolled in one and by the force destroyed; 
 
 And now new centres taking shape once more, 
 
 To roll again around some luminous shore, 
 
 Innumerable suns sequent as waves, 
 
 Alike the womb of planets and their graves ; 
 
 But he beheld all where in sun and sphere 
 Conditions ripening to an end, as here 
 Results of Deitific Prescient Cause 
 Ennobling life and matter without pause ; 
 
 All futures still, the offspring of a past, 
 
 Each brighter, broader, heavenlier than the last. 
 
 But sweeter seemed the place when twilight deepened o’er 
 the prospect wide; 
 
 When, save the universal voice of Ocean, other sounds had 
 died. 
 
 There could he drink delight, he thought, from varied nature 
 hour by hour, 
 
 From that lone casement worshipping her moods of beauty 
 and of power; 
 
 Enchant the sense, awaked at morn, with radiances of sky 
 and shore, 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 71 
 
 The voice of birds and waters, summer foliage, summer 
 thunder’s roar; 
 
 Hear, on grey days where cloudy autumn brooded o’er the 
 ashen floods, 
 
 The sombre wind’s Saturnian breathings from the venerable 
 woods: 
 
 Or breathe the air from Isles of Shadow sweet, when evening 
 turns to rose 
 
 O’er unseen woodlands—paradises dark of odour and re¬ 
 pose— 
 
 Remote upon the skirt of night, beyond the superb sphere of 
 sea, 
 
 Where setting planets only move, and, ceaseless as eternity, 
 
 Some mighty volum’d cataract flung from skiey precipices 
 falls 
 
 Through tracts of stone chaotic down the world’s primeval 
 mountain walls, 
 
 To caverns, miles beneath the sun ; abysmal nights’ profound 
 abodes, 
 
 ’Mid everlasting echoes, like the murmurs of dethroned 
 gods; 
 
 Thus with imagination sailing through the infinite starry 
 seas, 
 
 Shape conjecture, reason balanced, of Life’s possibilities; 
 
 To some sphere excursioning that through the deeps of Being 
 
 runs— 
 
72 
 
 THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 Hollows of vast universes, domed with living skies of suns; 
 
 Where around the central throne the ripened Spirit Worlds 
 combine ; 
 
 Where the day is glory-steeped, and night a starry day 
 divine : 
 
 Where throughout the silent spaces moves the unseen Creative 
 Soul; 
 
 Matter moulding to His thought in orbs whose lives ascend¬ 
 ing roll; 
 
 Suns and planets ever circling by the will of the All-Seeing, 
 
 Particles that die to live in this immensity of Being; 
 
 Where each century rolls their spirits nearer to the supreme 
 shore, 
 
 Rounding upward into power and perfect nature evermore ; 
 
 Where the springs of Fancy bathe the heart in an eternal 
 youth, 
 
 And the Reason, instinct perfect, flashes faithfully on truth ; 
 
 Still in ampler circles ranging through the myriad spheres of 
 night, 
 
 Till falls the crown of God upon the balancerl soul of love 
 and light. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 In the lofty turret room, 
 
 Wainscoted with black yew, 
 
 Flickered a lamp in the windy gloom 
 
THE PALACE OF DREAMS. 
 
 73 
 
 Far out upon the sea : 
 
 An aged clock tolled up to “ Two,” 
 
 In a corner like a tomb, 
 
 Standing lonelily. 
 
 And underneath the great trees shook, 
 Above the winter-swollen brook, 
 
 In the sad, shadowy wind that blew 
 Along the shore disconsolately ; 
 
 And then the light expired, and dark 
 Possessed the chamber and the park ; 
 
 The scattered scrolls ’mid the darkness blind 
 Rustled in the wandering wind, 
 
 Like the souls of the writers fled, 
 
 Until the gusty morning red 
 Lengthening along the dreary seas, 
 
 Desolate in the cloud and breeze, 
 
 Fell on the sleeper as he lay 
 Fronting the rainy break of day. 
 
74 
 
 A PORTRAIT SKETCH IN TAR. 
 
 A PORTRAIT SKETCH IN TAR. 
 
 Once we knew an old Salt, who loved old malt, 
 
 He was hale though halt, and had lost an arm, too, 
 
 At Sebastopol, 
 
 With his larboard peeper; but there was a charm too,. 
 
 When on the deep, or shore to weep, or 
 
 Laugh with the right one, which was a bright one 
 
 (The colour of opal), 
 
 And although but the hull of a man-of-war’sman, 
 
 He was still a mor’s- man, 
 
 At the call of duty : and though loving beauty 
 Less than when he was twenty, and sea was 
 A scene of action as of strong attraction, 
 
 For the British Pollies, who, after the vollies 
 Of great three-deckers, became the wreckers 
 Of the hearts that gained the white shores where reigned 
 the 
 
 Georgium sidus ,— 
 
 To the love of fun true as t’ his gun, 
 
 In all sort of sport his laughing report 
 Sounded, especially whenever it chanced that we 
 Heard that some State, at sea 
 
 Defied us. 
 
A PORTRAIT SKETCH IN TAR. 
 
 On Portsmouth sward near the dock-yard, 
 Above the harbour in a sort of arbour, 
 Composed of a few old rusty guns, 
 
 Which, in their day, had volleyed tuns 
 Of shot among the Spanish fleet— 
 
 Each noon this old Tar took his seat, 
 
 The while his little grandson played, 
 
 Beside him in their iron shade, 
 
 With some toy boat the old man had made 
 For him, or paper fleets which he 
 Arranged for fight upon the bright 
 Short grassy down, as on the sea. 
 
 There he sate, when weather was fine, 
 
 Tough as a coil of tarry rope— 
 
 With his tobacco and telescope, 
 
 Scouring the distant crescent line, 
 
 Of the sovereign, salt, blue brine ; 
 
 Criticising all the sails, 
 
 And musing o’er the stormy gales. 
 
 The wine and grog shops, foreign and home, 
 With which in early life he’d formed 
 Acquaintance, since he sailed the foam :— 
 
 Days when intrepid Nelson stormed 
 Across the waters, south and north,— 
 
 Of fire and smoke under the blue 
 
76 
 
 A PORTRAIT SKETCH IN TAR. 
 
 Hard Copenhagen sky—the day 
 
 Whose minutes were with broadsides numbered, 
 
 Off the Nile, and how the bay 
 
 At sultry night-fall, wreck encumbered, 
 
 Rang with the shouting of their crew, 
 
 When the great admiral’s vessel blew 
 
 Up like a volcano : and 
 
 Lastly the sun set sad and grand, 
 
 That from the Atlantic saw the star 
 Of Nelson, wreathed by victory, 
 
 Set ’mid the heavy-swinging sea, 
 
 And flaming fleets of Trafalgar. 
 
 Likewise upon the Portsmouth green, 
 
 Each evening this old Salt was seen, 
 
 Where the seamen with their white 
 Loose trousers, ringlets, plaited long 
 Pigtails and blue jackets—light 
 As waves in a swell beneath a bright 
 Breeze,—danced with their laughing lasses, 
 
 Clean and trim as a deck, with eyes 
 Jet-black, or blue as English skies ; 
 
 Or on some upturned boat together, 
 
 Happy as home’s summer weather, 
 
 Sat, singing songs and chinking glasses. 
 
A PORTRAIT SKETCH IX TAR. 
 
 At length, one grey October day, 
 
 This old Salt on his death-bed lay, 
 
 His little grandson on his bed 
 Sat with his arm around his head, 
 
 Lovingly innocent holding so 
 
 His playmate, fearing he should go— 
 
 For the old man had told his dear, 
 
 His time for pushing off was near. 
 
 His aged cronies—wrecks of men— 
 
 Sat smoking in the corners there, 
 
 Knowing their comrade feared not death, 
 
 But saying oft, with wordless breath, 
 
 For his last voyage a simple prayer. 
 
 He had just changed his quid, and then 
 Tightening on the child’s hand his own, 
 
 Stared for a little on the tide : 
 
 Then in a loving, low, sweet tone 
 Blessed him, and said :—“Now, Tom, my tar, 
 Care well your mother as you grow 
 Up by her heart, when I am low ; 
 
 Be her home-pilot, mainstay, pride, 
 
 Keep ship-shape every rope and spar, 
 
 And through life watch God’s polar star. 
 
 I mean beside you to abide ; 
 
 And when on Sabbath evenings you 
 
78 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Come to my grave close by the blue 
 Sea, from the flowers I’ll look upon 
 The dear face of my own grandson,— 
 
 When I am not upon the wide 
 Ocean ;—and we, my lad, will there 
 Say each for each a silent prayer. 
 
 And though unseen I’ll happy be— 
 
 As many a day beside the sea; 
 
 Come, come, now; cry no more for me.” 
 
 Then as the little fellow fell 
 Upon his comrade’s neck and cried 
 Out broken love words, pitiable, 
 
 As looking in his eyes he saw 
 Beneath their light a shade of awe, 
 
 Wishing his parting grief to hide, 
 
 The old man smiled, closed them, and died. 
 
 SONG- 
 Growing Young. 
 
 i. 
 
 Full fifty years had passed away, 
 
 And winter, in a mournful mood, 
 Holding a mirror to me showed 
 How time had tinged my hair with grey, 
 
SONG. 
 
 79 
 
 How shadows gloomed my shortening way; 
 When Fancy, coming to my aid, 
 
 O’er me her wreath of roses flung 
 And ’mid delighted laughters said:— 
 
 Kiss me, old friend, on your birthday ; 
 
 Those flowers I bring will never fade, 
 
 For in affection’s fields they sprung; 
 Learn life’s best art—live in your heart— 
 Have faith m me : I’ll make you young. 
 I’ll make young,” sweet Fancy sung, 
 
 “ Back in the past, from year to year, 
 Toward morning I will lead you, dear : 
 I’ll make you young —Pll make you young !” 
 
 ii. 
 
 Ten winters vanished from her smile, 
 
 And I felt forty, hale and strong, 
 
 And by the good fire sat, the while 
 My bright-browed son, in his best style— 
 Tom—now my partner—sung his song. 
 My wife, on whose dear, cheerful face 
 
 Spring lights still blent in cheek and eye 
 With kindly autumn’s mellow grace. 
 
 Held on her knee and kissed with glee 
 Our serious-eyed still infant son, 
 
80 
 
 SOI\ G. 
 
 Who, as he stood observingly, 
 
 Said—“ Mamma’s only wrinkle’s gone 
 And left a dimple in its place.” 
 
 Oh, happiest hour from fate e’er won ! 
 
 Up from my chair I laughing sprung: 
 
 “ Come children, comrades, eyes of light, 
 Come let us sport this birthday night !” 
 Then as we played at blindman’s game, 
 
 And full of frolic laughed and sung, 
 
 My youngsters’ chorussed voices rung— 
 “ Papa and we are just the same, 
 
 Papa—Ha-ha—papa, mamma, 
 
 Papa again is growing young !” 
 
 hi. 
 
 Where come my birthdays now, although 
 Life’s light be less on hill and sky, 
 
 And in the vale of Time below 
 
 The shadows deepen—what care I ! 
 
 Come, Fancy, to my aid,” I cry : 
 
 “ Forty, indeed !—Ho, bring me here 
 An earlier time—Appear, appear 1” 
 
 And forthwith comes my Twentieth Year, 
 
 And leads me to a moonlight shore, 
 
 To meet with one as good as dear— 
 
SONG. 
 
 81 
 
 Whose name’s now mine, not hers of yore— 
 Who gives me there a lock of hair, 
 
 And parting kiss—thus in a trice 
 Returns youth’s joyous Paradise. 
 
 Chime out ye marriage bells that rung 
 In sunshine as bright as this I see ! 
 
 The ring is on and we are one, 
 
 The ring is on, and we are free— 
 
 Speed carriage, speed with her and me, 
 Again I’m young—again I’m young. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Or, should I seek a calmer mood 
 
 Than on that j oyous morn—what then, 
 
 An air of April cools my blood, 
 
 And, if I wish it, I’m but Ten, 
 
 Returned awhile from school again, 
 
 In summer holidays to see 
 My mother’s dear face blessedly 
 Welcome her “bright boy” home—or be 
 A child as innocent as my own, 
 
 And hear her teach me, all alone, 
 
 To say my prayers beside her knee. 
 
 So now grow grey, head, as you may, 
 
 My heart with fancy—so I sung— 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 SONG AT A COTTAGE DOOR. 
 
 Can make me gay the darkest day, 
 
 And while my rosy group among, 
 
 In the old fire-lit room we play, 
 
 Can join their laughing song and say— 
 
 Pap a—Ha-ha !—papa—mamma, 
 Papa again is growing young ! 
 
 SONG AT A COTTAGE DOOR. 
 
 The evening sky is calm and gray, 
 
 As by the door, old friend, we rest, 
 
 In the last low glare of day, 
 
 Levelled on us from the west; 
 
 And while the leaves are falling yellow 
 As the old ale, mild and mellow, 
 
 Which we quaff—oh, then we love 
 To watch the children, who have crowned us 
 With green ivy, playing round us, 
 
 And see the wenches dance at sunset, 
 
 Yonder in the willow grove. 
 
 5 Tis many a year since yonder bell 
 
 Rang for our christening, friend of mine; 
 Yet we can do our work as well 
 
SONG AT A COTTAGE DOOR. 
 
 As when our years were twenty-trine. 
 
 And better guide. White locks have cooled 
 The brain where blood of twenty ruled; 
 
 Of sunset we now think at noon ; 
 
 And less our self-care than for those 
 
 We’ll leave—young hearts and cheeks of rose. 
 
 Sweet is the present, nor less pleasant 
 
 The past that looks from memory’s moon. 
 
 And when the time for sweethearts came, 
 
 A new life, summer sweet, was ours; 
 
 Then all the past seemed dull and tame 
 To those full-blooded, happy hours. 
 
 Never came Eden o’er us shedding 
 Such light as on our morning wedding— 
 Except that brighest day and best, 
 
 When someone showed us, closely keeping 
 By her heart, our first-born sleeping ; 
 
 Or, with arms out-reached, new life leaping, 
 He babbled to us, home returning, 
 
 From his happy mother’s breast. 
 
 Learning to live is truly life : 
 
 Our love is greater than of yore, 
 
 Divided between child and wife, 
 
8 
 
 SONG AT A COTTAGE DOOR. 
 
 And dear ones who have gone before. 
 
 Life’s blood like wine no longer headies, 
 
 While faltering feet strong Duty steadies. 
 
 To act what’s right, and watch the end. 
 Guardian and love those dear, to me 
 Appears life’s true nobility; 
 
 And so to pace the road to Heaven— 
 
 This is not to grow old, my friend. 
 
 Sometimes a neighbour passing brings 
 News from the town : the twilight broods 
 Deeper around : on weary wings 
 
 The crows sail towards the mountain woods 
 The lads and lasses are returning. 
 
 Candles in cottage panes are burning, 
 
 And o’er the earth the starry “ Seven ” ; 
 Numb grows the air, the shadows deep: 
 
 So let us to our hearth-side nook 
 And read a chapter from the Book, 
 
 To put our souls in tune with Heaven— 
 
 Kiss our youngsters, and to sleep. 
 
 V 
 
MAIDEN AND SAILOR. 
 
 85 
 
 MAIDEN AND SAILOR. 
 
 A Ballad. 
 
 At the end of the hamlet-street the sea 
 Spaced fresh and blue, as side by side 
 
 Through old ribbed boats, whose toil was o’er, 
 
 They made their way by the pebbly shore 
 To the meadows along the pleasant tide— 
 
 Maiden and sailor happily. 
 
 Twas the time of harvest, and settled weather, there was 
 hardly a tinge upon the leaves 
 
 Of the calm September woods, where gossipped the crows 
 anear the golden sheaves. 
 
 The winter night was starry and still, 
 
 ’Twixt village and village the fields were white, 
 
 From the sea there was but little wind, 
 
 As they lagged, the laughing group behind, 
 
 Returning each to their cot’s red light, 
 
 After a dance at the farm on the hill. 
 
 And as happy they as though it were summer, the while he 
 whispered low, 
 
 As with eyes downcast, and sweet cheeks aglow, they 
 wandered along in the light of the snow. 
 
8fi 
 
 SONG. 
 
 The autumn morn shone cheerily down, 
 
 And a dry fog rolled through the village gay; 
 
 The bells rung blythe o’er old and young, 
 
 In their Sunday clothes, and the children sung—• 
 
 As beside her sailor, who’d been away 
 To Cuba, the bride, with wallflowers brown 
 Wreathing her bonnet, in wedding white, and fine gold 
 watch, at the gray porch stood, 
 
 Where the old tree crisping a few leaves on her head, would.- 
 have blest her if it could. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 My Boat and Sycamore Tree. 
 
 i. 
 
 In my grassy garden, by the way 
 
 That runs between the shore and sea, 
 
 1V1 y upturned boat basks all the day, 
 
 And near it my green sycamore tree : 
 
 Stretched in its full-leaved shade, at noon 
 I rend sweet tomes of minstrelsy ; 
 
 Then go for a sail toward evening’s moon, 
 
 Or while ’tis sunset out in the bay. 
 
 Hail, friends of summer !—one, unmoved, 
 
 Knows all my verses read and loved ; 
 
SONG. 
 
 87 
 
 One for adventure formed, each song 
 Sung ’mid the waters rolling strong, 
 
 When ’mid the waves and wandering foam 
 We sail together in sight of home. 
 
 n. 
 
 Companions, who make life more sweet, 
 
 Who thus to me afford your aid— 
 
 You yield amid noon’s heavy heat 
 
 Your roof of leaves, your floor of shade : 
 When tired with rest upon the grass, 
 
 O buoyant boat ! how pleased are you 
 Off ’mid the life of waves to pass, 
 
 Your freight but some bright book or two— 
 Stories and tales for Summer bowers, 
 
 Old ballads echoing stormy hours, 
 
 Of which I read to both, or sing 
 Sweet verses worth remembering, 
 
 Now ’mid your leaves, now by your sail, 
 
 In sunny eve or moonlight pale. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Close bending o’er some poet-page, 
 
 Which, stretched in calm, I read, my tree, 
 
88 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Though full of Summer’s j oyous age, 
 
 Seems listening attentively : 
 
 If now, perhaps, I voice some sweet 
 Lyric of music most divine, 
 
 Its lisping foliage seems to beat 
 Time to the verses, line for line; 
 
 Or should my study chance to be 
 A book of science—botany— 
 
 All the leaves feel a pride to see 
 With trees we’ve such a sympathy ; 
 
 And airy laughters seem to sing— 
 t( : Yes, they know every—everything !” 
 
 IV. 
 
 As in the level Western glow 
 
 From the far city’s spires and homes, 
 While through the freshened tide waves’ flow 
 We scud—to illustrate our poems, 
 
 Pictures along the coasts arise— 
 
 Far off gray headlands drowsed in mist, 
 And mountains sloped in Southern skies, 
 With dells as rich as amethyst; 
 
 There, up some vale, from ridge to ridge, 
 The arches of some long dim bridge, 
 
 And star’s spark on its rushy stream ; 
 
SOXG. 
 
 89 
 
 There, some old turret, like a dream 
 Of days heroic : but we’re bound, 
 
 Boat, for yon low moon’s silver round ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Rise, moon of Summer o’er the deep, 
 
 And when you’ve silvered all the bay, 
 Back to our lonely tree asleep, 
 
 In your bright path we’ll hold our way: 
 Rise, moon of Autumn, in whose glow 
 Serene, the warmed land-wind bears 
 From orchards, as we homeward go, 
 
 Sweet scents of apples and of pears. 
 
 On late September eves, grown chill, 
 Through white clouds o’er the seaward hill, 
 Shine, moon, on our last sail this year, 
 
 And on our sycamore growing sere, 
 
 Which drops, in recognition dear, 
 
 A few crisp leaves to us who’ve come 
 Safe to our garden, tree, and home. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now Winter’s windy days have come 
 
 With dolorous airs, gray rain, and snows; 
 But what care we, the while at home 
 
90 
 
 SONG. 
 
 We’ve changed our poetry for prose ! 
 While in its boat-house, sheltered, one 
 Shall sleep, and sleep our leafless tree, 
 Expectant of the April sun, 
 
 ’Mid dreams of Summer past the sea : 
 While by my cosy hearthside nook, 
 
 With old piano and with book, 
 
 I store up memories you shall hear 
 When dawns the sweet time of the year— 
 When in your shade I’ll rest all day, 
 
 And sail with you the sunset bay. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Grape Harvest on the Loire. 
 
 Lulled in the rich evening’s trance, 
 
 Round us our green vineyards quiver, 
 Joyously our daughters dance, 
 
 While sunward rolls our glorious river; 
 
 Fill our cups with native wine, 
 
 Fuller still—and yet another ; 
 
 Life becomes a clime divine, 
 
 When brother clasps the hand with brother: 
 Merrily the minutes race— 
 
SONG. 
 
 91 
 
 Bees that fly from buds to blossoms ; 
 Time has quickened his old pace, 
 
 To foot it with our beating bosoms. 
 
 Sing, Lissette, young dark-eyed daughter, 
 Old tunes of your mother’s singing, 
 
 While we trod by yon bright water, 
 
 While our marriage bells were ringing; 
 Still they chime from yon gray tower, 
 
 ’Mid the cool old walnut trees ; 
 
 She may hear them still this hour, 
 
 Borne upon the spirit breeze, 
 
 Sing, sweet friends, ring bells of even’,. 
 
 In the golden sunset weather, 
 
 While the airs of harvest heaven 
 Mingle both your songs together. 
 
 Yonder, where the youngsters muster, 
 
 Mine own red-lipped boy is playing, 
 Trying on his brow a cluster, 
 
 In a grapey crown arraying; 
 
 Little son, come hither hie thee— 
 
 Vine-fed suckling, who shall wean thee ?• 
 With this tendril I will tie thee— 
 
 Tumbling in the fruit will stain thee ; 
 
t92 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Thou art like the vine god, rosy, 
 Whom I read of other even’, 
 
 In a Greek book—cloistered cosey, 
 Pelting grapes in Jove’s old heaven. 
 
 Shepherds come from sheep-strewn meadows, 
 In the slant light, autumn browned ; 
 Maidens rest beneath the shadows, 
 
 With their jet-hair, dance—discrowned ; 
 Groups pace singing, down each way, 
 
 In the glowing sinking sun; 
 
 Girls through the elm rows, whispering, stray, 
 Each with the lad her eyes have won; 
 Stream out the wine in the golden ray— 
 Our revel as yet has scarce begun ! 
 
 Let us be gay—life’s but a day, 
 
 And the stars shall set ere we be done. 
 
 Ho ! let the jolly board be spread, 
 
 With wealth of field and orchard fine, 
 With pyramids of milky bread, 
 
 With apples, almonds, and red wine; 
 With peaches crimson, as if culled 
 Within the sunset’s mellow dells— 
 Green glittering drops of juicy grapes, 
 
MUSINGS. 
 
 03 
 
 And cheeks of bloomy muscatells; 
 
 Let’s sing, and dance, and drink our fill, 
 Lo ! those are moments worth the prizing, 
 While in the pale east o’er the hill, 
 
 The mellow amber moon is rising. 
 
 MUSINGS. 
 
 Oft with my heart at eventime 
 
 Cld leafy memories round me fall, 
 
 Of joys, that in the lavish prime 
 
 Of youth, seemed scarcely joys at all; 
 Old simple hours of light and calm, 
 
 The birth of days that come no more, 
 Like breathings redolent of balm, 
 
 From woods along some morning shore.. 
 
 When in our old familiar nook, 
 
 In that still casement toward the dawn, 
 We pondered o’er some favourite book, 
 While yet the stars o’erlooked the lawn ; 
 When the warm east, low-lined and white. 
 Woke o’er the misty golden corn, 
 
 The sun-moats dizzied all the light, 
 
 And silent glowed the freckled morn. 
 
MUSING S. 
 
 When o’er the fragrant forest’s coast 
 The moon in amber vapour swam— 
 
 A soul in sweet sensation lost, 
 
 So lulled in light, illumined in calm, 
 
 It seemed an image of our own 
 
 When Love first tuned our fancy’s powers, 
 And all things round us took the tone 
 Of those deep, lavish-hearted hours. 
 
 When drowned in drifts of slanting sleet 
 Sunk the white hills and fields away, 
 
 And scarce a sound from the village street 
 Rose through the dumb, gray winter day— 
 While round the genial fire, with books 
 And friends, we talked in light and calm, 
 The frost ghost o’er wide woods and brooks 
 Touched the dead hours with icy palm. 
 
 Oh, happy space of summer hours, 
 
 Now passed ’mid joyous wanderings, 
 
 In commune with the poet-powers, 
 
 And murmurmgs of the muse’s wings ! 
 
 Oh nights beside the cheery hearth, 
 
 When, as the snow-skies round us furled. 
 We sat entranced, forgetting earth, 
 
 Amid the souls of Shakespeare’s world 1 
 
MUSING,S. 
 
 Oh, happy days, when sudden came 
 Deep moments of electric mood, 
 While roving, heart and soul on flame, 
 Through some exciting solitude : 
 
 Now pondering o’er eternal themes 
 In spiritual trance sublime; 
 
 Now rolled in wide prospective dreams 
 Beyond the round of earth and Time. 
 
 Now Nature’s charm enchants us less, 
 And even the works of brightest brain 
 Their method known, half-cease to bless 
 Seers grow short-sighted—poets, men ; 
 
 Eternal barriers define. 
 
 The range immortal mind can run: 
 
 And as the orb of day goes down 
 The wintry landscape wide and brown, 
 Imagination longs to gain 
 An ampler spiritual domain, 
 
 Careering on a grander course 
 To drink deep at its central source 
 New Being, and on wings divine 
 Float after the red sun. 
 
90 
 
 AT A WINDOW. 
 
 AT A WINDOW. 
 
 Dead sunset had sunk ; all the world was in gloom, 
 
 As we sat by the wold-watching window, and heard 
 In the late Autumn garden the trees dimly stirred, 
 
 While double dark filled up the book-piled room : 
 
 And one said : “ Writing now, though more accurate in 
 art 
 
 Is a business ; while certain old books that we know 
 Are less those of authors than Nature’s, and so— 
 
 For I love the old style, which is that of the heart, 
 
 Let’s read from this tome of a long-vanished mind 
 Its few precious fancies, ’mid much that is poor, 
 
 Its few sighs of melody, mournful and pure, 
 
 As we look on the night, as we list to the wind : 
 
 For like stars low and bright that burn sadly along 
 The edge of a desert all desolate, where 
 The yellowing olive leaf yields to the air 
 Its scent—are such thoughts and such tones of old song.”’ 
 
OLD SUMMER. 
 
 9 
 
 OLD SUMMER. 
 
 Happy the days in which we dwelt 
 In yonder red brick country house, 
 
 Where dawn and evening’s amber lights 
 
 Flushed through the drooping quiet boughs; 
 Where oft we sailed from morn to moonrise 
 O’er the faint white clouded floods, 
 
 Or wandered on with revelling step 
 Amid the windings of the woods; 
 
 Watched the long river as it flowed 
 ’Mid fan-glows of the cloudy sun, 
 
 And heard the rustle of the leaves, 
 
 As slow the woogling wave rolled on. 
 
 When every dawn the sunny air 
 
 Vibrated from the blackbird’s singing, 
 
 When from the last light-topped tree 
 
 Some startled bird sprang woodward winging, 
 Till from the steep where foamed the cascade, 
 Far away with watery swoon, 
 
 Pale glimmering the silvered ash 
 
 Rustled its prayers to evening’s moon, 
 
 And from the fields and twilight hamlet, 
 
 Wafted on the inconstant breeze, 
 
 Village voices, rural laughters 
 Came through intervalling trees. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 i. 
 
 In yonder ancient castle, where 
 
 The light on roof and garden glows, 
 
 And floats before the cloudy air 
 O’er woods and open coast line fair; 
 
 Once lived a boy and girl, his sister, lovely as an April rose. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Unto each other, as they sprung 
 
 In sunshine lone, so dear they grew, 
 
 Life seemed a heaven to those young 
 Comrades; and, save the bird which sung 
 Their happy dreams each morn away, no closer love on earth 
 they knew. 
 
 in. 
 
 A little singing bird, which they, 
 
 First fancy-charmed by its clear note, 
 
 Had purchased at the gate one May, 
 
 And which grew dearer day by day, 
 
 Perched on their shoulders as they walked, and, earnest, 
 learned their songs by rote. 
 
THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 93 
 
 IV. 
 
 A little trustful life, with eyes 
 
 Of tender black simplicity; 
 
 Pinions and breast of darling dyes; 
 
 Voice like love’s laughter blent with sighs; 
 
 Faithful and fond, whose tiny tricks charmed from their very 
 
 innocencv. 
 
 * 
 
 v. 
 
 ’Twas like the fairy genius of 
 
 Those fair twin human friends, whose mind, 
 
 So harmonised in thought and love, 
 
 In morning chamber, sunset grove, 
 
 Delighted most in music—song and instruments of many 
 kinds. 
 
 vi. 
 
 Ah ! sweet was then their morning bow’r, 
 
 Where ’mid the sunny sycamore trees, 
 
 The bird flew singing to each flow’r; 
 
 Or chamber, where the western hour 
 Flamed over floors of crimson grain and aureate tasseled 
 draperies. 
 
100 
 
 THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And thus for a sweet year and more 
 Comrades the happy three had been, 
 
 When, as to womanhood they bore 
 The girl, came death, sudden and frore, 
 
 And swept her summering soul away beyond the planet’s 
 azure screen. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 It was an evening wild and lone, 
 
 As, tearful-eyed, with heart of pain, 
 
 He watched his dying, dearest one; 
 
 While o’er the dreary sea the sun 
 Glared on the walls from wintering waves and flying low 
 clouds ragged with rain. 
 
 IX. 
 
 A desolate air through skies of gray 
 Swept, brooding the broad land upon : 
 
 The last leaves sailed the void ; a ray 
 Pierced through thick vapours o’er the bay— 
 
 And dropped beneath the windy west, blurred with their drifts, 
 the large low sun. 
 
THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 101 
 
 X. 
 
 Then, ere the shadowing mortal sleep, 
 
 Closed her white lids, and faint she lay, 
 
 In sorrow, watching Arnold weep, 
 
 She gave him lovingly to keep, 
 
 Tor her sake, from her finger thin, a diamond ring of richest 
 ray. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And rising from her couch, the while 
 She placed it on his trembling hand, 
 
 A last kiss gave—then with a smile 
 Sank back and died. The ancient pile 
 Shadowed that night a lonelier soul than poorest cabin in 
 the land. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Nor was it till the lily frame 
 
 Of that young maiden’s soul was laid 
 In marble, second sorrow came 
 To quench his heart’s tear-blinded flame, 
 
 Tor lo ! the bird, to both endeared, had vanished with his 
 sister’s shade. 
 
102 
 
 THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The boy was heir to opulence ; 
 
 But what were power or gold to him ? 
 
 Absorbed in anguish so intense, 
 
 Awhile his soul seemed closed to sense 
 Of all except his sorrow dear—a star in vapours hidden 
 dim. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Until one night, in sleep consoled, 
 
 Her presence mingled with his own, 
 
 Like dream with dream; and bright tales told, 
 
 Of her new life, whose days of gold 
 In space had happy been, save that her dearest was on earth 
 alone. 
 
 xv. 
 
 Told of the infinite which spread 
 
 Around the worlds, where lived the Past— 
 
 The systems of those deemed the Dead, 
 
 Where, swift as light, existence sped 
 Prom space to star ; and ol the marvels, love, and beauty of. 
 the vast. 
 
THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 103 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Wrapped in dim tearful fantasies 
 
 Of things which were, or only seem, 
 
 Wakened he lay : the low night breeze 
 Sobbed through the shadowy garden trees. 
 
 And o’er the setting moon a cloud fantastic hovered like a 
 dream. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Again o’er his grief-wasted brain 
 
 Sleep fell; the while he seemed to sail 
 The depths of a mysterious main— 
 
 Visiting on its viewless gale 
 
 Lone lands and hills, and palaces of melancholy splendour 
 pale. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Rewaked by this new dear delight, 
 
 And solitary now no more, 
 
 He watched the orbs through western night, 
 
 Sink in the solemn ocean bright— 
 
 "While, as he slept, another voice seemed whispering from the 
 eternal shore. 
 
.104 
 
 the simple soul. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The bird’s fond spirit ’twas that came— 
 
 A film of living oether small 
 As bubble, or the silver flame 
 Of distant wave ; tender and tame 
 To his love-listening ear, and brooding, in the stilness, told 
 him all: 
 
 xx. 
 
 Told him of its first life below, 
 
 And of its happiest year with him, 
 
 And many things he wished to know 
 Of viewless natures, whence there flow 
 Marvels unseen of sense ; and of its simple love no change 
 could dim. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 It loved the sun—remembering, 
 
 It said, the mornings long ago, 
 
 How in their warmth it used to sing, 
 
 And then rest silent; worshipping 
 The first god that it knew, with love and wonder at its happy 
 glow. 
 
THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 105 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And when strange days of caged dread 
 Being past, it came to love the boy, 
 
 By whom ’twas cherished, cultured, fed, 
 
 He grew its higher god instead— 
 
 His gentle eyes a living sun, his presence a perpetual 
 
 j°y> 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 How restless-sad, it felt when he 
 Was absent—like some olden morn 
 Such times, when lonely on a tree : 
 
 How cheered ’twould rouse delightedly, 
 
 Hearing his voice; and how its heart beat in its voice at his 
 return. 
 
 xxiv. 
 
 • 4: 
 
 Oh, happy life ! thus to be near 
 
 One known so well in noonday bright, 
 
 Or, when rich evening came to cheer 
 Their window; nor had dark a fear, 
 
 Through noise unwinged its head—assured that he would 
 come with morning’s light. 
 
10G 
 
 THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Then came the sickness, and the change 
 It passed into, as out of sleep; 
 
 The vastness, light, life, most things strange ; 
 
 But it bethought, though wide its range, 
 
 Of movement now, close to the place where its dear master 
 lived ’twould keep. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And, conscious that it now could pass, 
 
 And live in any lifeless thing— 
 
 Blossom or bough, or square of glass 
 In the south window where he was 
 For hours by day—resolved to dwell for ever with him in his 
 ring. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Even when in feathered form enclosed, 
 
 All bright things it had loved—the dawn— 
 
 The sparkling, distant sea-line rosed—* 
 
 Dew-drops—sweet fancies when it dozed— 
 
 White clouds and rainbows ; and all these unto this diamond 
 seemed wan. 
 
THE SIMPLE SOUL. 
 
 107 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 But ’twas not for its brightness and 
 Beauty, this gem should be its home; 
 
 But as it circled the dear hand 
 It knew and loved, at his command 
 To whisper its new life, and call the singing birds at morn to 
 come. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 This much, and more, it told. And lo ! 
 
 As by the morning casement he 
 Rested, and fell the sunny glow 
 Upon the jewel—to and fro, 
 
 Light-charmed, the birds thronged tame, and showered 
 around their richest minstrelsy. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 From field and garden round they flew, 
 
 And clustered on each tree and stem 
 Of the window vine—with every hue 
 On breast and pinion—grey, brown, blue— 
 Attracted by the bird’s ethereal soul within the lustrous 
 gem. 
 
108 
 
 THE SIMPLE SUOL. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Its silent meanings understood, 
 
 With various voices answering 
 By one and one, in blythest mood; 
 
 Then flocking to the sunset wood, 
 
 To hold commune, maychance, of friends who in the trees 
 no more would sing. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 With autumn many southward fled, 
 
 Yet, when the snow was on the sill, 
 
 Came others daily there, with bread 
 At the old casement to be fed, 
 
 And chirp to the gem’s spirit; when, alas! the boy himself 
 fell ill. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And soon the stars of Christmas lone 
 Illumined his happy dying face, 
 
 The while he kissed the ring that shone, 
 
 Whispering its soul. Then both were gone, 
 Passing together to the love awaiting them in spirit space. 
 
KIRJATH SEPHER’s WELL. 
 
 109 
 
 KIRJATH SEPHER'S WELL. 
 Numbers XXI. v. 17. 
 
 i. 
 
 Now that I am wedded, 
 
 Oh ! father promise me 
 Thy well-beloved daughter, 
 
 A southland men will reap 
 Through a mile of yellow corn ; 
 
 A vineyard fronting morn, 
 
 And meadows white with sheep ; 
 
 But, above all the rest, 
 
 Kirjath Sepher’s well of water, 
 Deep and cool, which I love best 
 Say wilt thou ? And then he 
 Standing tall beside the yoke, 
 Underneath the summer oak, 
 Answered—“ I have said it!”— 
 Spring up, oh Well, spring to me 
 The while I sing to thee. 
 
 n. 
 
 Incline thine ear, oh spring, 
 Unto me while I sing 
 In the open sunset meadow ; 
 
110 
 
 THE OLD RIVER REVISITED. 
 
 Bubble up in the clear shadow 
 That the sun cannot dispel, 
 
 Flow through the channelled stone, 
 
 Where I see my face so well, 
 
 Where nor wild ass or gazelle 
 In the noontide ever comes, 
 
 And the brown bee only hums 
 By the porch with grass o’ergrown : 
 
 For within I feel the beat 
 Of a new life sacred-sweet, 
 
 And secret as thine own !— 
 
 Spring up, oh Well, spring to me 
 The while I sing to thee. 
 
 THE OLD RIVER REVISITED. 
 
 i. 
 
 Tell me not, Oh ! tell me not the years have passed for 
 ever, 
 
 For this bright eve I’ll live again my life by this old 
 river. 
 
 Row softly through the kindly waves, 
 
 That bore me long ago, 
 
 The while the loved old evening light 
 
THE OLD DIVER REVISITED. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Floats o’er their quiet flow. 
 
 Yes, here the cheery playground lies, 
 
 Soft shelving to the stream, 
 
 Ah ! would that I could see once more, 
 
 With shut eyes that fresh dream ! 
 
 And here is still the rude stone chair, 
 
 Where oft-times a loved one 
 
 With gentle cheek, and dim gray hair, 
 
 Sate in the morning sun. 
 
 While the trout plumped up from the sleeky depth, 
 
 And midges winked around, 
 
 And the bee-swarm filled the beech tree roof 
 With summery humming sound. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Lo ! see’st thou where yon sycamore spreads out against the 
 sky? 
 
 Now row me thither on this tranced stream of memory. 
 
 How often did those branches fling 
 Love kisses o’er our brows, 
 
 When the slanting west was velveting 
 Its plumy droop of boughs ? 
 
 How oft with spirits trembling 
 Like the restless leaves above me, 
 
 I listened for the step of one 
 
112 
 
 THE OLD RIVER REVISITED. 
 
 Who left old home to love me ? 
 
 Old tree, full many a charmed hour 
 Has flown by thee, I wis, 
 
 Bright heaven-dreams lay in thy leaves. 
 
 Green Eden bower of bliss : 
 
 Even now thy dipping boughs seem tranced 
 In a long sweet summer bliss. 
 
 hi. 
 
 The eve is o’er—row on, row on amid the slumbrous 
 night, 
 
 Where yonder ruin stands against the crossing^streak of 
 light. 
 
 Softly ’mid the shadows 
 Of the mournful yew trees glide, 
 
 For they watch o’er the silent homes 
 Where the lost of earth abide ; 
 
 Before me bear the new-lit torch— 
 
 Solemnly glide and soft; 
 
 Blest be the path to that old porch— 
 
 Their shadows crossed it oft. 
 
 I seem now in my solemn mood, 
 
 To hear old voices calling : 
 
 My soul is like an autumn wood, 
 
 Where the silent leaves are falling ; 
 
A VISIT FROM MY MUSE. 
 
 113 
 
 The earth rolls deep into the night, 
 
 The tombs in mist are furled ; 
 
 The crescent moon, like a barque of light, 
 Seems bearing spirits from the world. 
 
 A VISIT FROM MY MUSE. 
 
 As I sat in a mournful muse of care 
 By the moonlit door one autumn night, 
 
 Who should I see in the ivies there 
 
 But the delicate shape of a friendly Sprite, 
 
 Who, laughing mellowly, hopped anear, 
 
 And said, as she gently pulled my ear, 
 
 “ What! dreaming still on griefs and wrongs 
 When you should be shaping autumn songs 
 And moulding many a theme subline ?— 
 
 Come in with me, 
 
 And let me see 
 
 What you have been doing this long, long time.” 
 
 Then into the dusky room we went, 
 
 Where, near the casement glimmering blue, 
 
 The leafy fire dozed low, and sent 
 Its perfumed pillar up into the flue. 
 
 Scarcely then was the old lamp lit, 
 
 i 
 
A VISIT FROM MY MUSE. 
 
 114 
 
 Amid the volumes of thought and wit, 
 
 When : Yes, ’tis just as I feared,” she cried, 
 As she sate on a poem by my side, 
 
 “ Though time has traced in the orchard near 
 The golden hours 
 On fruit and flowers, 
 
 You’ve idled away the good bright year.” 
 
 Then first with a gleamy hand she oped 
 A roll of manuscript written clear, 
 
 Scann’d it, and cried, “ ’Tis more than I hoped : 
 You’ve turned your heart to music here; 
 
 In twenty love songs breathing bliss 
 From lines that rhyme like kiss to kiss,— 
 Some gay, some glowed with passion’s heat, 
 And vibrating like pulses sweet. 
 
 Thanks, thanks for this labour of love, my son ; 
 
 But say, whose eyes 
 Have waked those sighs ? 
 
 Come, tell me the name of the darling one.” 
 
 Laughing, I pointed through the pane 
 To the rose-roofed cot in the little vale, 
 
 Where an August drift of moonlit rain 
 Tenderly passed on the perfumed gale, 
 
A VISIT FROM MY MUSE. 
 
 115 
 
 “ Muse, to paint beauty, one must love, 
 
 And the bard must be moved, if he would move. 
 That well thou deemest of this wine 
 It glads me, but, for the lovely vine 
 
 From which my fancy drew delight ”— 
 
 Here archly wild, 
 
 The little muse smiled. 
 
 And carolled, “ I’ll visit her dreams to-night. 
 
 “ And murmur mellowly in her ear 
 
 The lines in which her lip and cheek, 
 
 With its dimple ripple are painted clear 
 As the pouting cherry or scarlet streak 
 
 In the daisy’s heart, and the young blue day 
 Of her gentle eyes. But say, bard, say 
 Whether thou’st lived in darling dreams 
 Alone, or risen to grander themes ?” 
 
 “ That I in storm no less can sail, 
 
 Than sunshine, muse, 
 
 This scroll peruse 
 
 And say how runs my chivalric tale.,’ 
 
 Then turned she over a page or two 
 Of tournament gay and combat dread, 
 
 Glanced at my knights in armour blue, 
 
116 
 
 WINTER SCENES AND MUSINCiS. 
 
 My love bowers, banquets, and fields of dead— 
 
 When a distant sound of music rare 
 Came streaming along the starry air. 
 
 “ Hark ! knowest thou not,” she cried, “ yon strain ?* 
 Tis the shaping dream of a poet brain, 
 
 Who thus evokes my sovereign aid, 
 
 Now adieu till day ”— 
 
 And swift away 
 
 She flew to her task o’er the dusky glade. 
 
 WINTER SCENES AND MUSINGS- 
 The Birds at Christmas. 
 
 Days have come of winter sublime and cold cloud-scenery, 
 
 Yet beautiful as those when summer, radiant o’er the sea, 
 
 Brings us skies blue as the breast of the bird that plain¬ 
 tively 
 
 Sings by the promont’s steep, where dip the boughs in the 
 waves’ bright flow,^— 
 
 ’When yellows the daffodill wet, what time have southward 
 set, 
 
 Clusters that watched the wide world with a look of windy 
 woe. 
 
 Still and cold is the air this short December day, 
 
 Under the rounding sky the earth is white with snow, 
 
WINTER SCENES AND MUSINGS. 
 
 117 
 
 'City and country, white, to the hills that far away 
 
 Stretch their pure soft pencilled slopes and dells in the wintry 
 glow 
 
 Of the piteously cheerful sun that down his lessened arc 
 toward night 
 
 Slants—too feeble to melt at noon with his distant frosty 
 light 
 
 The icy tracery of the trees against a sky less bright— 
 
 Trees that foliaged with snow and crystal flowers are seen 
 
 Beautiful in their winter garb as when their fronds were 
 green. 
 
 And soon the westering orb, low, large, and round—a ray¬ 
 less sphere, 
 
 Mirrors its dying glory o’er the landscape, chill and clear; 
 
 Along the icy-floored canal and river rings the sound 
 
 01 skaters,, as the evening air grows closely colder round, 
 
 Whence shouts and laughters rise in the haze now gathering 
 torpidly 
 
 Over the darkening scene, where breathes the wind from the 
 North Sea. 
 
 Oh, deadly are those icy nights when the wind blows keen 
 from the Pole, 
 
 Whence over ocean, mountain, city, the desolate cloud tracts 
 roll 
 
 From sombre spaces, continents of winter wild and bare : 
 
118 
 
 WINTER SCENES AND MUSINGS. 
 
 The huge vague vapour banks are mountaining in the cold' 
 gray glare. 
 
 A while with night their frozen tumult looms up distantly— 
 Then with a rush the storm sweeps o’er the austere surge and 
 frowning sea. 
 
 o 
 
 Lo ! as by the beach we walked a line of sound afar, 
 
 Ceaseless and drear, hummed o’er the waste, where the roofs 
 of vapour riven 
 
 Over the wild and tenebrous space showed but one icy star, 
 
 Piercing with lonely light the black envelopment of heaven ; 
 
 From the desert void at times a wild gust tempest-toned 
 
 Swept o’er the waters, and the promonts fronting the dark 
 deep, 
 
 And inland o’er the unseen rounding levels passing, 
 moaned—• 
 
 The sand grass shook—a drear unrest wildered earth’s wintry 
 sleep. 
 
 And higher through the homeless gloom the billows roll and 
 roar, 
 
 Whitening the gaunt headlands, washing wide up the 
 shingly shore— 
 
 Ridges, with a planet’s steadiness moving, mighty and 
 frore— 
 
 And pleasant it was to hurrry home through the whirling 
 wind and sleet 
 
WINTER SCENES AND MUSINGS. 
 
 119 
 
 Into the region of lamps and life, and the shelter of suburb 
 and street. 
 
 Or, now ’tis noon; from the fire-lit room we look on the 
 snowy garden, where 
 
 On wall and branch the poor birds cluster, dumb in the icy 
 air; 
 
 Innocent lives are theirs, the season bleak deprives of 
 food— 
 
 Brings famine—see how piteously their groups forlornly 
 brood ! 
 
 Ah! above all, the weak and helpless demand our human 
 care; 
 
 Life that can feel and suffer, one with ours is, everywhere— 
 
 The form is nothing : Being that is sensitive to pain 
 
 And want, appeals to sympathy from each sound heart and 
 brain : 
 
 For what are those small and simple creatures but the infants 
 of this sphere ? 
 
 Diverse in shape, but whose helplessness in winter, hard and 
 
 drear, 
 
 Claims aid—whose very innocence itself should make them 
 dear. 
 
 And we think, when we see the cruel, thoughtless fowler 
 issue forth 
 
120 
 
 WINTER SCENES AND MUSINGS. 
 
 On these, their foodless days, when blow the keen winds 
 from the North, 
 
 To take advantage of the weak, whom circumstance has 
 made 
 
 Then weaker—following foolish Custom merely—it were 
 well 
 
 That Reason and Benevolence formed customs for their 
 aid, 
 
 So altering to a mood of heaven that of heartless hell. 
 
 Man, gifted with superior powers and intellect—we trow— 
 
 Should be the guardian, not destroyer, of all weaker life 
 below— 
 
 The friend of God’s sweet, crimeless creatures, not their 
 cunning foe. 
 
 But mindful when he walks abroad on bitter days like these 
 
 To bring with him some food for those poor tenants of the 
 trees, 
 
 And, having saved some innocent lives, bear through the 
 evening gloom 
 
 Some gracious memories of good achieved—returning home. 
 
 Customs are only tracks which folk follow from age to age, 
 
 Once fixed, pursued, and nobler when benevolent and 
 sage 
 
 Than cruel to delight in :—acts that satisfy the Heart 
 
 Are purest of all pleasures, and become of Heaven a part. 
 
UNDER THE TORRENT 
 
 121 
 
 UNDER THE TORRENT. 
 
 Spacious, mighty, massive, and white, 
 
 The river plunged from the level height, 
 
 Like some great Spirit, descending on earth’s dominions, 
 Amid the tempest hurry of its vast pinions. 
 
 Around, the rocks like giants prostrate and dead. 
 
 Turned by the vengeance of some god to stone, 
 
 Or the resistless forces of ages sped, 
 
 Loomed black through mists and storms of surf o’er 
 blown. 
 
 Sprayey whirlwinds carreering, mounted the breast 
 Of the cliffs evermore, evermore sinking to rest. 
 
 Scattered in wet crevasses and hollows gray, 
 
 The withered leafy ruins of winter lay. 
 
 Blankly the trees shook and shivered, the air; sky, and 
 ground 
 
 Trembled under the cataract’s falling sound. 
 
 Driving in gusts and billows for ever heaping 
 Aloft, from the gorge’s brink precipitious leaping, 
 
 And senseless, save to its purpose—resistless sweeping— 
 Through chasm and gorge, and gloomy woodland errant— 
 The awesome anthem of its onward current, 
 
 Round and round, o’erheard through the wild cloud’s rent, 
 Like creatures of some sorcerous element. 
 
122 
 
 UNDER THE TORRENT. 
 
 The crows and eagles black and boding swam 
 Through storms of mist; beyond where the air was calm, 
 On a summit, a group of trees, withered and gray, 
 Seemed uttering ghostly charms, 
 
 As they stretched their wet, chill arms 
 Towards some unhallowed vision, far away. 
 
 At length the sun rolled among 
 Vapours chaotic, 
 
 Burst forth, and downward flung 
 Splendours despotic; 
 
 Through the mists curling dense, 
 
 Long shafts of radiance, 
 
 Glories and wonders 
 Of flame ’mid the thunders 
 Of waters descending 
 And whirling away ; 
 
 And shapes never ending 
 Of tempest winged spray : 
 
 Blasted and beaten back 
 On their fierce rapid’s track, 
 
 Where the foam-billows swell, 
 
 Bursting like battle shell. 
 
 Rage like a river of Hell, 
 
 Tumulting onward, 
 
 Towards the deeps sunward ; 
 
DUTCH PICTURES. 
 
 123 
 
 Through the rocks deaf and dumb, 
 Tortured and riven, 
 
 Seething and coiling 
 Raging and boiling, 
 
 Like the wrath of the heaven 
 To come! 
 
 While as loomed the black pines askance 
 From the cliffs, horrent, 
 
 The struggling ray slanted low 
 Over the boiling snow, 
 
 The dazzling surf-dance 
 Under the torrent. 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES. 
 
 A Hurry graph. 
 
 The seas of wheat, the flax-fields green, 
 
 The willow fringe along the sky ; 
 
 The clustering spires in distance dim— 
 The red-tiled hamlets, clean and trim; 
 The chateaux with their tourelles high 
 Which over russet woods are seen, 
 
 Sink in the southern clouds that lean 
 
 Upon the brown land’s level line, 
 
 And castled mountains of the Rhine. 
 
124 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES. 
 
 And norhvard on the horizon loom 
 
 The sandhills with their windmills grey, 
 
 Twinkling like midges in the glow 
 Of the long, level sea-light low, 
 
 Where Amsterdam, Bergen-op-Zoom, 
 
 And Holland’s pastures take the day 
 With many a branching water way, 
 
 To where the white surge curlingly 
 Rolls from the azure Zuyder Zee. 
 
 More red-tiled towns in trees embowered; 
 
 Cathedrals, which museums are ; 
 
 Great picture galleries where bloom 
 The hues of Rubens rich, and gloom 
 Scenes that in Rembrandt’s brows have lowered— 
 Scenes which appear as though they were 
 Painted by Night’s hand and a star— 
 
 And Potter’s landscapes sweet with kine 
 And feeling for dumb life divine. 
 
 Interiors by Jan Steen, with dame 
 And Flemish cavalier, where glow 
 
 Cloaks crimson ’mid the sheen of steel, 
 
 And petticoats like lemon-peel; 
 
 And robes that shift in silver flame 
 
FOREIGN NIGHT RAMBLES, 
 
 125 
 
 Of satin stiff and glossy white, 
 
 And crisped laces in the light; 
 
 And, in the shadow, china sets, 
 
 And nut-brown carved cabinets. 
 
 There, too, the grey-green swinging seas 
 Of Vandeveld, with his sea-fights, 
 
 The curling smoke of broadsides—red 
 Flame-jets—confusions, drownings dread, 
 And shattered masts, sails drooping dead, 
 Or high poop’d stately argosies 
 Returning after voyage flights, 
 
 Weighted with China’s silk and tea, 
 
 Or Ceylon’s spice and ivory. 
 
 FOREIGN NIGHT RAMBLES. 
 
 Wandering through dark foreign cities, now by gray old 
 monasteries, 
 
 Mouldering Town Halls, many window’d—here and there a 
 lonely column, 
 
 Topped by its pale statua; or skirted by their sad and 
 solemn 
 
 Rows of poplars ; Churches with their carved porches, winged 
 faces 
 
12G 
 
 FOREIGN NIGHT RAMBLES. 
 
 Of angel, saint, and others, forms of mild old mitred 
 dignitaries ; 
 
 Painted windows wreathed with leaves, facades with tracery- 
 fine as laces : 
 
 And on high, the massive square 
 Twin-turrets, built to last for ever, 
 
 O’erlooking miles of roof and river; 
 
 And fringe of pinnacles along 
 
 The shadowy walls with buttress strong, 
 
 Or spire sublime and stately, soaring in the tingling starry 
 air. 
 
 Wandering through tall old streets, all gable-fronted, dark and 
 narrow 
 
 With lines of shadowy balconies ; and in some open space a 
 cluster 
 
 Of fresh fountains, pulsing amid young trees in the quiet 
 lustre ; 
 
 Or, beyond, some aged armed gateway in the walled gloom, 
 
 Where the moonlight strikes the unfrequent figure, tan 
 sailed barges swoom, 
 
 On canal or sea space, which then quivers like a silver 
 arrow ; 
 
 And, as one hastes, late and alone 
 Hotel-ward through strange place or piazza, 
 
A GLIMPSE OF EGYPT. 
 
 127 
 
 Where groups by steps lie huddled prone, 
 
 —Or, shuttering cabaret or casa,— 
 
 Down some dark lane the last song dies, 
 
 And your sole comrades are, your shadow, and the old blue 
 starry skies. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF EGYPT. 
 
 In one wide dream, in one sweet mood, 
 
 From Spring to Spring, from drought to flood, 
 
 Lo ! Summer, from her throne on high, 
 
 Broods down from Egypt’s sapphire sky. 
 
 There ’mid the level round of green 
 And fat, black sluiced lands, is seen 
 Some city islanded, with white 
 Baked fortress wall, and indistinct 
 In dizzy air and steady sheen, 
 
 Like spiral shells, fretted and pinked, 
 
 Minaret clusters, in the light 
 Aurorialised—which, ere the night 
 Domes o’er the half-sunk desert sun, 
 
 Alternately seem built of rose 
 Or salmon-coloured cloud, upon 
 The plain that fades from gold to dun. 
 
 Beside the river serpenting, 
 
 The burning yellow sand-hills trend, 
 
128 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF EGYPT. 
 
 Where splendid groups of drooping palm 
 In languid-lapsed siestas bend, 
 
 Dotting the distance dark, where glooms 
 The heated desert’s noon-day calm ; 
 
 While through the shimmering wide air looms 
 Pyramid peak by ruined tombs, 
 
 Or Sphynx that seems alive and purrs, 
 Resting upon its lion paws, 
 
 Or camel’s gray train far away 
 Against the horizontal skies, 
 
 With high-raised heads, as small as flies, 
 
 Like hieroglyphic characters 
 Upon some crumbling tawney strip 
 
 Of dry papyrus. Edged like saws 
 Stretch stony mountains Eastward, and 
 Upon the stream banks sculptured rocks, 
 
 And with the evening Western flocks 
 Of desert birds athirst for dew: 
 
 And by the river’s side near hand, 
 
 Here a red granite tomb, and there 
 A broken fountain dry, in hue 
 Old ivory, half filled with sand ; 
 
 And villages in tall green wheat, 
 
 And the full flowing Nilus sweet— 
 
 All domed by Egypt’s indolent blue. 
 
129 
 
 A CHARACTER. 
 
 A CHARACTER. 
 
 As from the sultry town, oppressed, 
 
 At eve we pace the suburb green, 
 
 There, at his window looking west, 
 
 Our good old friend will sure be seen : 
 
 Upon the table, full in light, 
 
 Backgammon box and Bible lie ; 
 
 Behind the curtain, hid from sight, 
 
 A wine glass no less certainly; 
 
 A finger beckons—nothing loath 
 We enter—ah ! his heart is low, 
 
 His flask is brimming high, but both 
 Shall change their level ere we go. 
 
 We sit, and hour on hour prolong, 
 
 For memory loves on wine to float; 
 
 He tells old tales, chirps scraps of song, 
 
 And cracks the nut of anecdote ; 
 
 Tells his best story with a smile— 
 
 5 Tis his by fifty years of right ; 
 
 And slowly rounds his joke, the while, 
 
 With eye half closed, he trims the light: 
 Tho’ clock hand marks the midnight’s date, 
 But blythe is he as matin wren, 
 
 His grasp is firm, his form dilate 
 With wine, and wit of vanished men. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 A CHARACTER. 
 
 He reads each morn the news that shook 
 The days of Pitt and Nelson, too, 
 
 But little cares for speech or book, 
 
 Or battle after Waterloo ; 
 
 The present time is lost in haze, 
 
 The past alone delights his eye ; 
 
 He deems the men of these poor days 
 As worthless all of history ; 
 
 Who dares to scoff that love of thine, 
 
 Old friend, for vanished men and years ? 
 His youth that charms thee—pass the wine— 
 The wine alone is good as theirs. 
 
 Each morn he basks away the hours 
 In garden nooks, and quaffs the air ; 
 
 Chats with his plants, and holds with flowers 
 A tender-toned communion there ; 
 
 Each year the pleasant prospect shrinks, 
 
 And houses close the olden view; 
 
 The world is changing fast; he thinks 
 The sun himself is failing too :— 
 
 Ah ! well-a-day, the mists of age 
 
 May make these summer seasons dim; 
 
 No matter—still in Chaucer’s page 
 The olden summers shine for him. 
 
THE LAST GLIMPSE. 
 
 131 
 
 THE LAST GLIMPSE. 
 
 “ Land !” from the breezy masthead cried 
 A sailor, looking o’er the wide 
 Bright waters toward his native shore, 
 Lengthening a gray line flecked with green, 
 Whither the full sailed vessel bore. 
 
 The captain bending the bulwark o’er— 
 His bronzed face lit in the wavy sheen— 
 Gazed on the sea familiarly : 
 
 “ We’ll anchor,” said he, “ ere yon sun 
 Goes down behind the harbour hill,”— 
 Then strode amidships, where upon 
 Hex couch a beauteous form lay still. 
 
 The azure eyes were closed ; dim death, 
 Alas 1 had stopped her gentle breath, 
 
 Just as the morning’s low rose cloud 
 Edged the lone ocean, whose last sphere 
 With her sweet soul withdrew : and loud 
 The sailors sobbed around her shroud. 
 
 So fair was she, so young. So dear 
 To all those rude seamen, her mood 
 Simple and gay, had made her, while 
 From the rich South, whose leafy strand, 
 Mountains, and woods divinely smile, 
 
 She voyaged to her Native Land. 
 
132 
 
 THE LAST GLIMPSE. 
 
 White as the sunny tropic spray, 
 
 The robe that wrapped her tender clay ; 
 
 While with her gold, luxuriant hair, 
 
 Streamed from the coral-cinctured brow 
 And cheek, like summer crescent fair, 
 
 Dimly the simple soft sea air 
 
 Played ; and the wave-lights past the prow 
 
 With every dip of the speeding ship. 
 
 Down the ridged rolling billows glanced 
 Under the warm wind-stretched sail, 
 
 With a life-like gleam on her face, entranced,. 
 Red lips, and closed lids, marble pale. 
 
 More silent than the broad sea day 
 The sailors, sadly, where she lay, 
 
 As toward a pure place sanctified, 
 
 Looked, reverend, and scarce essayed— 
 
 For one, who on the waters wide, 
 
 Like a clear April day had died, 
 
 In love and light—a prayer of aid ; 
 
 And the ship sped fast, and the sun at last 
 Nish touched the mountains, blue with rain,. 
 When a marvelling whisper rose, and slow 
 Gathered—beholding once again 
 Her large eyes open in the glow. 
 
IN GALILEE. 
 
 133 
 
 
 Alive in golden light they gazed 
 
 Toward the dear shore : and while they raised 
 
 Her gentle form that she might view 
 
 The hills and vales long murmured of, 
 
 In accents soft as Irish dew. 
 
 Death seemd a space to yield to Love. 
 
 “ Cheer, be of cheer, maiden, most dear!” 
 
 But, as the sun in twilight’s foam 
 Vanished, she drooped, and—smiling, died. 
 “Oh, Native Land; oh, sense of Home, 
 
 How wond’rous art thou,” many cried. 
 
 IN GALILEE. 
 
 An open country, smiling, calm, and fair; 
 Mountains and open plains, and here and there 
 A road with sunny hillocks, and hamlets where 
 The apple orchards cluster, and the vine 
 Climbs the flat roofs, or o’er the field supine 
 Spreads. Down the river comes a cooling breeze, 
 And all is green and fresh in flower and tare. 
 
 The scent of vineyards gladden the summer glow, 
 Faintly freshened from Hermon’s fringe of snow. 
 Northwards are uplands, and Genesareth, bound 
 
134 
 
 IN GALILEE. 
 
 By mild, grey, wavy hills, in skies as clear 
 As spring-light, sleeps, like some low quiet mere 
 Fancied in evening’s levels ; and anear 
 Tabor’s round summit, by its oak-clump crowned, 
 With little flat-roofed farms girdled around, 
 
 Rises ; and southward undulates the ground 
 On to the rugged, long Esdraelon vale, 
 
 Fringed with mountains, sultry, grey, and pale; 
 
 And Carmel’s promont, shadowy o’er the brine— 
 
 A broken band of rich dark blue divine. 
 
 Scarce seen through sunny, wide, sheep-dotted meads, 
 Buff Jordan winds through its tall walls of reeds 
 And tamarisks, until its dwindling line 
 Fails toward the old red, leafy Jebusite hills 
 And land of Moab, where the cascade spills 
 From cliff to cliff, and fading leaves no sign, 
 
 When evening purples the upland east like wine. 
 Eastward the desert spreads in sultry swoon, 
 
 Dizzy and dry : the heavy heat of noon 
 O’er olive grove, old tomb, and palm, and well, 
 
 On the far flats falls breathless, burning; but soon 
 The green plains round freshen from the cool sea; 
 Airs visit smiling Nazareth’s lovely and lone 
 Clean hamlet street, whose sycamores whisperingly.- 
 From leaf and blossom, blend their summer tone 
 
IN GALILEE. 
 
 135 
 
 With innocent children’s voices, playing among 
 Hedges of roses, and with maiden’s song 
 And laughter, as the white group, gossiping, throng 
 Round the old fountain, where, in grey years gone, 
 The wayfarer drank, and camel slaked its thirst, 
 With eager eyes and nervous nostril pursed, 
 
 Ere journeying toward Jerusalem, hot and high, 
 Piled on its hoary hills in the southern sky. 
 
 At length comes on refreshing afternoon; 
 
 The plain feels the faint presence of the sea ; 
 
 The oval coo of doves from sycamore domes 
 Comes from the gardens round the leafy homes, 
 Where figures are gathering myrrh and honeycombs ; 
 The scarlet cloud-streaks roof green Galilee, 
 
 And, floating up, the soft and superb moon 
 Comes like a goddess queen of the far East 
 And olden time, bidden unto some feast 
 Held in those halls of rosy western day— 
 
 Tumults of crimson clouds, now turning grey, 
 
 Past Elisha’s isles and Joppa’s rocky bay— 
 
 Halls plenteous piled with red ambrosia 
 And laughing cups ranged dulcet-deep thereby, 
 Noted in Homer’s song, Anacreon’s sigh— 
 Quintessent nectar, sparkling immortally ; 
 
13 G 
 
 IN GALILEE. 
 
 And golden couches, whereupon to lay 
 
 Her young limbs, ivory-smooth and pale as snow. 
 
 And robe’s fair fragrant volute’s radiant flow, 
 
 Like moon clouds, or sweet verses clothing light 
 With airy words, some beauteous dream of night. 
 
 And as she moves, in bluest darkness, round 
 The spacious, shadowy land, there is no sound 
 Save of the lambs bleating themselves to sleep, 
 
 Or rustle of foliage drifted from some steep, 
 
 Or voices low of waters, vague as rain, 
 
 Or hollow wind in rocks, upon the plain, 
 
 Whose verdurous disc remote, the moon has set 
 With twinkle of leaves, and white cliff, dewy-wet. 
 And iridescent sparkle of rivulet. 
 
 A sacred calm fills air and earth and time ; 
 
 The land sleeps like a child, and from above 
 The stars seem singing of the Divine Love, 
 
 Whose form those fields once knew, well as the sun— 
 
 The Heart of Deity, gone forth upon 
 
 His mission through their worlds, sweet and sublime. 
 
LATE AUTUMN IN A SUBURB. 
 
 137 
 
 LATE AUTUMN IN A SUBURB. 
 
 The wintry roads are dry and grey, 
 
 And through the calm, dull, shortening day 
 The sky but gives a glimmering ray 
 From the low under-roof of morn, 
 
 Or when at noon some floating ray 
 
 Fans down on farmyard stacks of corn, 
 For a moment yellow and gay. 
 
 Drear grow the evenings, when the pale 
 Moon lusters with a wintry smile 
 Through thickening clouds a little while : 
 And now the moon herself is gone, 
 
 And heavy dark domes all the ground; 
 And looking from the casement round 
 The murky suburb, while the air 
 Rustles the yellow leaves, and where 
 The lines of gas lamps lengthen drear, 
 
 Less and less frequently you hear 
 
 Along the road some footstep pass ; 
 
 And see in houses like a mass 
 Of darker cloud against the sky, 
 
 Some window-square of curtained light ; 
 And, indistinct in thickest night, 
 
138 
 
 LATE AUTUMN IN A SUBURB. 
 
 Upon an upland past the town, 
 
 Some window watch-light through the brown 
 Gloom—like a lighthuse far to sea. 
 
 The roof of cloud spreads thickeningly 
 O’erhead, and thinner near the ground : 
 
 For minutes oft there is no sound ; 
 
 And the air comes and goes, and heaves 
 Disconsolately the garden leaves; 
 
 And sometimes in the gloom, demurred, 
 
 The sounds of trees remotely stirred. 
 
 And when the town has silent grown, 
 
 And lights from every house have gone, 
 Dust-muffled tramp of horses shake 
 The far-off hazy silence, as 
 Along some cross highway they pass ; 
 
 And if past middle night you wake. 
 
 And through the universal grey 
 Toward morning look—dull, damp, and lone 
 Is all the world; and rising day 
 Seems aged and weary :—then some ray 
 Strikes the line of poplars tall, 
 
 And over hazy roof and wall 
 Passes on its way. 
 
EY THE FIRESIDE, ETC. 
 
 139 
 
 BY THE FIRESIDE WITH A SWEET SONG-BOOK, 
 
 As round me falls the twilight gloom, 
 
 Read me from this favourite tome, 
 
 In the firelight smile of home, 
 
 Some lyric, like an April air, 
 
 Which o’er the soft blue ocean blows, 
 
 Before the hills have lost their snows, 
 
 Tinged with odours, sweet and rare, 
 
 Of budding wheat and rose ; 
 
 Or some old song or melody, 
 
 Simple as earth’s infancy; 
 
 Blythe or mournful as the breeze 
 That in October’s hazy noon 
 Rustles through the yellow trees, 
 
 Frolics through the searing flowers 
 And withering garden bowers, 
 
 Whence the saddened birds have flown ; 
 
 Or from some thougtful page entone 
 A sonnet, like a summer moon 
 O’er the spacious sea of night, 
 
 Round and full of quiet light: 
 
 Or that enchanted Dream that came 
 To one, alone in night’s dark rest— 
 
 Thoughts that illume despair and death,. 
 
140 
 
 BT THE FIRESIDE, ETC. 
 
 Like stars that dome some desolate heath. 
 Or cold, unfooted antre vast, 
 
 Dark with the infinite and the past; 
 
 Yet fancy-full with precious flame, 
 
 Like jewels on an Ethiop’s breast: 
 
 And amid echoes, tempest drear, 
 
 Amid the black woods of the west— 
 
 A strain of Love rising above 
 The omnipresent sense of doom, 
 
 And long death-wail’s sonorous gloom ; 
 
 A music sweet, ecstatic, clear, 
 
 As that some lonely nightingale, 
 
 In love with evening’s planet pale, 
 
 Pours from her brown breast. 
 
 Or let me hear some careless rhyme 
 From th’ Elizabethan time, 
 
 When like autumn sunshine streaming 
 
 Through deep orchards, dropping fruit, 
 Nobly round the isle, were beaming, 
 
 Mellow lights on lip and lute :— 
 
 Simple songs, arising oftly 
 
 ’Mid the strains of bards and sages— 
 Simple voices, floating softly 
 
 From the grand Dramatic Ages. 
 
A GRAY DAWN. 
 
 141 
 
 A GRAY DAWN. 
 
 The day has drowsed in a bleak dream, 
 Shrinking its broad and golden gaze; 
 
 Pale in the blown and muffling haze 
 Along the brownly drifting stream 
 The weak and windy noonlight falls : 
 
 Upon the margined sands the rushes nod, 
 
 The white stream-lily droops its chilly cheek 
 Over its shadow, wavering slant and meek ; 
 
 And from the sloping field the black crow calls,. 
 Daintily feeding on the wormy sod. 
 
 Now the willows gray along the river 
 Ruffle like weak, moulting birds, 
 
 Whitening in the gust that ever 
 Lifts their leaves ; while high o’erhead 
 From the bare pine-tops wintry words 
 Shrill through the twigs, whose leaves are shed— 
 Drowsing, sighing, swelling o’er the breeze, 
 
 As though its barky heart were ill at ease. 
 
 Then evening falls upon the windless air, 
 
 Still are the trees, and viewless flows the stream,. 
 As vague in light as sound, low floating there, 
 Woogling inconstant music in its dream. 
 
142 
 
 THE COURSE OF LIFE. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Could we before our souls keep constantly 
 The sense of a Being, perfect and divine, 
 
 And live in presence of the Deity, 
 
 How purely would our thoughts and actions shine 
 Though this be hard to realize to sense, 
 
 In the affectionate child whose sinless soul 
 Loves us, we have a type of innocence 
 
 And goodness, which are God’s, defined here, 
 
 To love, and make existence holy and dear; 
 Warding all evil by its influence, 
 
 Angel of Home and Life. Let Reverence reign 
 For what is purest: for of all and best 
 Beauty within this infinite domain, 
 
 That of an innocent soul is loveliest. 
 
 THE COURSE OP LIFE. 
 
 At first the infant takes delight 
 In sense of motion and of sight, 
 
 While learning love for those most dear 
 To last in Heaven, even as here ; 
 
 Then school, and earnest days of youth, 
 
 And heritage of mental truth ; 
 
 Then love, new home, and toil for those 
 Whose new-born life around us blows. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 143 
 
 Renewers of forgotten days ; 
 
 Then daily steps o’er beaten ways ; 
 
 Head gray as that of buried sire. 
 
 The love of rest, and evening’s fire : 
 
 And last, amid life’s cares and woes 
 And winter winds and falling snows, 
 
 Which end life’s old year—the desire 
 To live awhile with memory 
 Of dear old days before we die. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Clouds. 
 
 Behold the cloud shapes that throughout the year 
 Pursue their airy life in gloom and light:— 
 
 Now from some coast of winter wild and drear. 
 Or low horizon, stormy and austere, 
 
 With muffled brow, and gesture of command, 
 Watching the dismal deep and starless space, 
 Portentious, with the vast its dwelling-place, 
 
 Some solitary Phantom seems to stand; 
 
 While in the level tempest’s bleak career, 
 
 Another, moving dark and mightily 
 Amid the tumult, with eripient hand 
 
144 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Discrowns some dark antagonist on high : 
 
 —Some dim, sublime, scarce seen through driving spray 
 Some like the gods beheld at rise of day ; 
 
 Or from the ocean’s shore some eve of storms— 
 
 Calm beings—ghost supreme—majestic forms. 
 
 Birds of Winter. 
 
 Of winter noons when oft from the blue north 
 The wind breathes keen, from town we wander forth 
 To feed the fasting birds with corn and bread, 
 
 When most they need such care : when all the ground 
 And food-producing world for them is dead. 
 
 Numbly some perch on branches, without sound, 
 Familiar, tame with want; and as we strew 
 Crumbs on some walk, or place nigh which they brood,, 
 And, passing, look behind, can see their true 
 Souls soft with piteous, loving gratitude ; 
 
 And, as we homeward pace through evening grey, 
 
 Feel—something being so gained, and naught to rue,. 
 Thus to have happier made, and saved a few 
 Affectionate souls—is a true Holy Day. 
 
 While o’er the world flushed the white winter dawn, 
 
 And here and there a bird began to sing, 
 
 Simple and sweet, in glimmering fields, like Spring, 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 145 
 
 Budding from hedge to hedge—one sat withdrawn, 
 Unhappy to have waked again in the ray: 
 
 For she had lost her young, whose eyes that hour 
 Once looked in her fond eyes affectionately, 
 
 And, mourning for them, her poor little heart 
 Sang of them, and her sorrow,—now a part 
 Of her lone life for evermore ;—for they 
 Had perished, the cruel fowlers prey : 
 
 And, in her plaint, she mingled all that she 
 Remembered of their looks and love—to day 
 New-born, that knew them once when by her side— 
 And anguished that with them she had not died. 
 
 Evil and Ignorance. 
 
 ’Tis comforting to think, though Evil here 
 Is still so widely spread, at it may be, 
 
 Throughout the worlds of yon infinity— 
 
 As Ignorance is its source on any sphere, 
 
 That from Life’s nature, of necessity 
 Good yet must triumph ; and that evil must be 
 Its own destroyer—it, in sooth, being blind 
 To consequence, it must give way to Mind, 
 
 Whose law’s development—from one truth gained 
 By life’s experience and thought, unto 
 A higher ; for the many from the few, 
 
146 
 
 Paris : 1794 . 
 
 Widening the prospect, ’till where Evil reigned 
 The enlarged heart shall reign. Thus Evil must die, 
 Where’er Intelligence lives in yonder sky. 
 
 Love. 
 
 More beauteous is Love than star or sun, 
 
 Surpassing matter in conception ; 
 
 Greater than aught in yon material dome, 
 
 Mind’s empire, with infinity its home: 
 
 Things lovely in themselves, which mind has made, 
 Win naught from place, nor need extrinsic aid, 
 
 Nor songs and sermons under gilded ceilings 
 Reflect more sweeter fancies, clearer proofs, 
 Convincing truths eternal, nobler feelings, 
 
 Than sung or spoken under rural roofs ; 
 
 Nor need an eye be set beneath a crown 
 Hence to enjoy the dawn and sunset’s glories, 
 
 Or beauty of the bubble, or yellow strewn 
 Leaves, venerable and sweet as ancient stories. 
 
 PARIS: 1 7 9 4. 
 
 A Scene in the City, and Supper in the Suburbs. 
 
 i. 
 
 ’Twas in the days when Paris, pale and red. 
 
 With terror and with blood, was still the sphere 
 Of fatalistic, sanguine Robespierre, 
 
paris : 1794 . 
 
 147 
 
 Who, founding his Republic on the dead, 
 
 Sought the best surety for its security 
 In clearing from the old aristocratic 
 Structure, its thinking attic:— 
 
 A youth from Aix, Pierre Rabutin by name, 
 
 Lodged in an aged house near Notre Dame, 
 Absorbed in his books, and knowing few 
 In the great shambles Paris had become, 
 
 Save his school comrades, most of whom had flown ; 
 A patron from his province, Count L’Elaat, 
 
 Upon whose poor but spacious estate 
 His mother’s cottage stood ; and in his new 
 Parisian home, a girl, young, tall, and fair, 
 
 Who likewise rented a small chamber there, 
 
 On the same flat, and whose bright eyes of blue 
 And cheerful converse had become to him 
 Like some sweet April morning, soft with dew, 
 
 A solitary charm and source of joy, 
 
 Amid that bloody city dread and dim. 
 
 Where numbers seemed to live but to destroy. 
 
 n. 
 
 It was a warm and radiant eve in May, 
 
 Blue, calm, and bright the sky domed o’er the town, 
 Goldening every spire and steeple grey, 
 
148 
 
 parts : 1794 . 
 
 Goldening the old roofs and glowing down 
 The narrow street that westward led into 
 The Place de Greve, to which, attracted by 
 The curiosity that fear creates, 
 
 Came Pierre, to show himself unto the fates. 
 
 “ Good evining, citizen, a good day’s toil,” 
 Drunkenly cried a savage figure, dressed 
 In red cap, belt, huge boots, with open breast, 
 Pistols and sabre by his side, the while 
 Looking upon him with a grimy smile, 
 
 And laying on his shoulder a huge hand 
 Mottled with blood and mire. The level gleam 
 Shot o’er the roofs, flooding the quiet square, 
 From whose choked gutters rose a sanguine steam 
 ’Mid many a gaunt and wolfish gathering there, 
 And in the centre the black gullotine 
 Reared on its redly dripping platform, where 
 From time to time, one took from one beneath 
 A water bucket, whose contents he dashed 
 Upon the planks, and with a red cloth washed 
 The structure, dripping from the work of Death ; 
 The while a youth, sharpened, with artist care, 
 The heavy sheaving axe hung sidelong o’er 
 The block and framework, saturate with gore. 
 Upon the pavement round about were piled 
 
Paris : 1794 . 
 
 149 
 
 In neatest order, heaps of that day’s dead 
 Each corse disposed with care beside its head— 
 
 M en of all ages, beards of black and red, 
 
 White ghastly faces of eternal calm 
 
 Were some ; others convulsed as with a spasm. 
 
 And here a woman’s head, with locks of gold, 
 
 Or chestnut, cropped close to the neck, whence stream’d 
 
 The blood from the shrunk vessels, well nigh drained. 
 
 While, on the bodies, some laid sofawise 
 
 For ease against the scaffold, lolled or sate 
 
 The harvestmen of death ; some brawny squat 
 
 Some tall, partaking with their pipe and glass 
 
 Converse together, and, save for the flies 
 
 Rank swarming round, enjoying the calm hour 
 
 After their toil, or jesting with some lass 
 
 Wolf-eyed with famine, who might chance to pass; 
 
 Or, playing with their children, who had come 
 Bringing them supper, when the rattling drum 
 Gave note of the day’s execution? done. 
 
 A grateful air had risen at set of sun 
 In peaceful rows the pigeons perched upon 
 The eaves, or wheeled ; the swallows skirred on high, 
 And with the dusk sweet coolness filled the sky. 
 
 Then came the dead carts. “ Pardon me, my friend, 
 
150 
 
 Paris : 1794 . 
 
 That I disturb you,”—’twas a driver spoke, 
 
 Lifting his cap politely unto one 
 Who sate upon the corses, as his yoke 
 He settled :—“ Not at all, ray son, 
 
 The work of the Republic must be done, 
 
 And, though as yet, it scarcely has begun, 
 
 Ne’erless those sixty who have fallen to-day 
 Is no such bad instalment, as things run, 
 
 Of the huge debt the Great have yet to pay ; 
 
 In short, all things considered, I may say, 
 
 Never was harvest so advanced in May. 
 
 But, let me offer you assistance, pray, 
 
 In clearing off this rubbish ?” “ Thank you, well: 
 
 I trust your dame and little ones enjoy 
 Good health, and how is he, your eldest boy ?” 
 
 <c My faith, he’s passable, and will feel no worse 
 For this day’s work :—though nothing in our purse 
 It puts, it lessens still the centuried curse 
 With which we’ve groaned.” And then they went, pell-me 11 
 To heave into the carts each trunk and head ; 
 
 Then at the fountain washed, and strolled to bed, 
 
 And starry night domed o’er that city of hell. 
 
 A Supper in the Suburbs. 
 
 That night in an old villa near the town, 
 
 Madame St. Croix, a friend of Count L’Elaat, 
 
Paris : 1794 . 
 
 151 
 
 Invited to a supper, ordered late, 
 
 A few supporters of the Old Estate; 
 
 All whom disguised in rabble garb came down, 
 
 To snatch an hour’s communion ; it might be 
 Their last on this side of eternity. 
 
 The Count had brought Pierre Rabutin with him, 
 And both by darksome streets and alleys dim 
 Arrived unchallenged at the portal, where 
 A servant gave admittance to the pair. 
 
 Within the spacious chamber a few lights 
 Burned dimly, shaded toward the casements barred, 
 Shuttered and curtained close; for on such nights, 
 Detective of conspiracy, a guard 
 Patrolling armed, watched each suspected house, 
 
 As the keen-eyed, soft-footed cat the mouse. 
 Pleasantly passed the supper hour away, 
 
 The feasters, male and female, were alike 
 Polished and cool: despair, which turns some grey, 
 Had made this courtly company, careless, gay— 
 Indifferent to the hour when death should strike, 
 
 As that of bed time. So they laughed and filled 
 
 Their glasses, criticised and witticised 
 
 All things which they affected and despised, 
 
 Until the hostess, turning her bright eyes 
 
 On Count L’Elaat, asked how much blood was spilled 
 
152 
 
 PARIS : 1794 . 
 
 That day ? and only felt a little chilled 
 When he recounted those the destinies 
 Dismissed to worlds above them or below, 
 
 Several of whom were some few weeks ago 
 Her guests at supper. “ For, my faith,” she said, 
 
 “ So long we all have lived upon the brink 
 Of the next life, we giddy feel no more ; 
 
 To-morrow, all of us at this same hour 
 Already may be voyaging to the shore 
 Of Hades, or, perchance, approach the moon; 
 
 The earth has grown a cloud, and I do think 
 A supper with the living or the dead 
 Equally pleasant.” The Chevalier Du Lass 
 Faint laughing, as with little bit of bread 
 He stirred the champagne bubbles in his glass, 
 Lisped out, “ Ma foi—so common death has grown 
 Amid the waves of our Parisian sea, 
 
 That life, in short, has now become to me 
 The more extraordinary phenomenon : 
 
 All perish now without a sigh or moan, 
 
 As once the custom of humanity; 
 
 The skeleton laughs ; then wherefore should not I 
 Who am one, laugh at death, even ere I die.” 
 
 “ And purpose you to wait until that grim 
 Robespierre sends you to the guillotine, 
 
PARIS : 1794 . 
 
 153 
 
 Marquis ?” the hostess asked, offering a rose 
 From her bouquet. “ Well, no, I wish to save 
 The State expense, if I have time to choose, 
 Especially as its finance runs low, 
 
 Despite of all the confiscations, so 
 I have secured me here a sweet morceau 
 With which I can take post unto the grave 
 At any moment ” (here from his white hand 
 He took a ring within whose chamber lay 
 Under a glass a little powder grey), 
 
 Then added in his manner airily bland : 
 
 “ A priceless treasure in such days as these, 
 
 For with it one commands his destinies. 
 
 In sooth, though life is dear, yet death at least 
 Is cheap—a single franc supplies the feast. 
 
 This pretty powder you have but to mix 
 With your life’s current, and will need no more 
 Saving an obolus to waft you o’er 
 The grateful current of the ghostly Styx. 
 
 But, lest I seem a churl, my friends, behold 
 A paper of the same for all your use; 
 
 No fear of injury from its abuse.” 
 
 This from his vest then taking he unrolled, 
 And, amid many thanks and laughter gay, 
 Distributed it around the company. 
 
154 
 
 paris ; 1794 . 
 
 Scarce had he done so, when was heard the tramp 
 Of feet, and thund’rous knocking at the gate. 
 
 “ Open, in the Republic’s name.” “Yet wait, 
 
 Our leisure a short space, at any rate,” 
 
 The hostess cried with an impatient stamp. 
 
 <c ’Tis our death summons.” “ Doubtless, but as I 
 Have had the honour of your company, 
 
 May mine the honour also be, to give 
 The signal to such friends as care to live 
 No longer?” At this, several smiling said— 
 
 “ That pleasure must be ours assuredly.” 
 
 And then the Chevalier, as Ganymede, 
 
 Rose, filling every glass in which was laid 
 The poison; and as toward her bowed they all— 
 Last ceremony of the festival— 
 
 Added—“ Madame, we wait the sign to die.” 
 
 Too precious was the draught for an oblation ; 
 
 So all forthwith their glasses drained with care 
 Lest any particle should linger there— 
 
 And, but regretting more was not to share :— 
 
 Then, seated, they resumed the conversation. 
 
 Some minutes past—then slowly came a drear 
 Silence, commencing with the Chevalier 
 Who, as the outer door burst, said—“ He feared 
 
PAKIS : 1794 . 
 
 155 
 
 The poison not so good as was declared 
 And naming to Pierre Rabutin the drug, 
 
 Asked with raised eyebrows and a puzzled shrug, 
 c ‘ How many minutes it required to act ? 
 
 As by his reckoning five had passed, in fact.” 
 ce If genuine—two.” As, delicately his watch 
 He held that Pierre might see it, you might catch—• 
 So deep the stillness had become—its tick 
 More loud than their hearts’ pulses beating near. 
 Another minute sped. And then—“ I fear 
 The chemist, sir, has played us a sad trick,” 
 
 Said Count L’Elaat, “ but there’s time if we’re quick. ” 
 And drawing forth a knife with look perplexed 
 Stabbed himself to the heart—then to his next 
 Neighbour he handed it, who did the same, 
 
 And so it passed from gentleman to dame, 
 
 So swift—the hostess scarce had had a guest 
 Were she still living; or the Guard, who now 
 Stood at the door aghast and pale of brow, 
 
 Any alive save young Pierre to arrest, 
 
 And who, the while that they were occupied 
 With some just breathing, others who had died. 
 
 In the confusion managed to escape, 
 
 Well knowing his detection in such high 
 Aristocratical society 
 
156 
 
 LITTLE LURA. 
 
 Might cause even one comparatively ill-bred 
 To forfeit on the guillotine his head. 
 
 The night Guard of Arrest remained a space 
 Making an inventory of the dead 
 
 Who had escaped them—with but little grace ; 
 
 At length, one looking round the chamber said : 
 
 u My faith, if those folk had but lived as well 
 
 As they have died —there were no use for Hell.” 
 
 LITTLE LURA. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 When golden noon looked down the sky, 
 
 I saw, amid a seaside meadow, 
 
 A circling group of children sit 
 
 Beneath a willow’s wavering shadow ; 
 
 They watched an elder one, who wove 
 
 A crown, and would have watched for hours 
 Their eyes were wonder-wide with joy, 
 
 Their tiny laps were heaped with flowers. 
 And one—her head half bent aside, 
 
 Her face one innocent, earnest smile— 
 
 Sat plaiting a dainty daisy wreath, 
 
 And singing to herself the while. 
 
LITTLE LURA. 
 
 157 
 
 But lonely Lura sat apart, 
 
 Her bright eyes like the young blue day, 
 
 A rosy, mystic, mournful child, 
 
 Like a sad evening in May— 
 
 Looking upon the wreaths they wove, 
 
 But filled with fancies sweet and still; 
 
 Then rising, with declined head, 
 
 Paced towards the wood ’twixt sea and hill. 
 Paced by the ruined chapel gray, 
 
 The dappled silver beech that stood 
 In the lone field—looked back, and then 
 Was lost along the curving flood. 
 
 The rosy group beneath the trees 
 Looked up, but saw not Lura there ; 
 Surprised awhile; then took their wreaths 
 And walked into the noonday glare; 
 
 Then by the stately rows of trees 
 That shed their leafy lights beneath, 
 
 The line of children, hand in hand, 
 
 Went homeward up the shadowy, peaceful path, 
 
 Along the sun-warmed, sandy shore, 
 
 The child’s lone form is flitting now— 
 
 A place she oft has wandered o’er— 
 
 While pretty fancies flushed her brow; 
 
158 
 
 LITTLE LURA. 
 
 Now stoops she o’er the limpid wells 
 That lie within the mossy, rock, 
 
 And plucks the sea-flowers’ azure bells, 
 
 And gazes on each snowy flock 
 Of slow gulls, rising on the waves; 
 
 Or gathers, by the quiet caves, 
 
 Through which the smooth green billow rolls. 
 Dry weed, and shells, bell-blossomed brooms. 
 And night-grown, peaked mushrooms, 
 
 Like fairy parasols. 
 
 Till last'she came unto a reach, 
 
 Where lay upon a rising beach 
 A brown-ribbed boat, its prow sunk low, 
 
 Upward half-drawn upon the sand, 
 
 While the keel swung lazily to and fro, 
 
 As it were dallying with the strand— 
 
 She climbed within, and on the stern 
 Built up a dome of shells, and fern, 
 
 Long purple heath; then in its shade, 
 
 Of rosy weed a carpet made ; 
 
 And, tired with fancy, presently 
 Lay down, and slept beside the sea, 
 Unconscious while the stealthy tide 
 Is wafting her from land away, 
 
 Or that she drifts on ocean wide 
 
LITTLE LURA. 
 
 15 £ 
 
 Long after the red set of day ; 
 
 Till a wind sweeps through the shivering dark, 
 
 Drear as an indrawn breath of pain, 
 
 And she wakes, O God ! in the drifted bark. 
 
 Far on the wide and midnight main. 
 
 All through that dread night, and the next drear day, 
 They searched each spot where Lura loved to play, 
 Bewildered, anguished ; along miles of coast 
 Searched, but to find with labour hope was lost. 
 
 And now, as tired in spirit, homeward slow 
 O’er the dumb seabanks desolate they go, 
 
 From wrecks of clouds that o’er the glaring gray 
 Of sunset drove, a wind began to blow, 
 
 And o’er the cottage lone, blank dark fell down : 
 
 The doors rattled, the window-shrubs shook as in woe 
 And the dim sv r eeling candle glimmered where 
 By the blank hearth stood Lura’s little chair. 
 
 Alas, that one so sv r eet, so loved, and fair, 
 
 Alone in desolate darkness should be lost; 
 
 A child forlorn, when sudden-risen storm 
 
 Shakes the wide earth. Will pitying angel save ? 
 
 A knock ! and at the opened door a form ! 
 
 Lura ? No ! ’tis an aged seaman brave, 
 
 Who brings the news the drifting child has been 
 
100 
 
 LITTLE LUKA. 
 
 Taken aboard a vessel which now lies 
 At anchor ten miles off. Divine surprise ! 
 joy and deep gratitude to the Unseen 
 Fill every heart. Forthwith her brothers rise :— 
 
 “ We will to horse—to-night she will be here !”' 
 
 And hurry out where tempest wild and drear 
 Whirls through the roofed darkness of the skies. 
 
 “ What a night for a gallop !” one said, looking out 
 From the dim streaming pane on the deluge of rain 
 Sweeping over the roof, falling heavy without 
 On the garden path bubbling in pools, rushing out 
 From the swol’n guttling throat of the sputtering spout; 
 Hearing now on the breeze the mad moan of the trees, 
 And, more awful, the roar of the lone raging shore, 
 Where the dying moon’s crescent, pure, lone, and serene. 
 At moments amid the far turmoil is seen 
 To dive ’mid the luminous cloud wrecks. But hark ! 
 Voices, the clatter of hoofs in the dark, 
 
 While some at the open door gather to say 
 “ Good night,” ere their friends in the storm ride away. 
 
 Part II.—A Gaiiop. 
 
 The horses are saddled, each springs to his seat, 
 
 Gives the spur, and away down the dark hamlet street, 
 
LITTLE LURA. 
 
 1G1 
 
 And out on the stormy blank road—ere the beat 
 
 Of their hearts made a score—where the wind in its might 
 
 Grows dreader and broader, as darker the night; 
 
 Low down to the north a vague crease of blank light; 
 Roaring darkness around the rough path; to the right, 
 
 The imminent gloom of a long mountain height, 
 
 Whose ridge blends afar with the sky’s stormy bound; 
 
 To the left, the great sea, only known by its sound, 
 Tumultuous, rolling in wrath from afar, 
 
 Where, through cloudy confusion, shines fixed one fierce 
 star, 
 
 Tempestuous, holding its lone, angry watch, 
 
 ’Twixtthe two maddened worlds of the rain and the wind ; 
 Against which, as they gallop, at moments they catch 
 Sight of headlands, made visible but by their foam, 
 Beaten out of the blackness—dead light from the blind 
 Ocean hell; and then, through the hubbub behind, 
 The long, dismal shore, where the vast billows roar 
 On the sands and the banks; and, remote in the gloom, 
 The sullen wave-wilderness, murmuring doom. 
 
 Heavy gusts weigh the trees as they gallop along, 
 
 Pass, and leave them to moan; and more steady and 
 strong 
 
 The gale beats upon them, low bent by its force, 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 LITTLE LURA. 
 
 As they mount the hill-roadway, through torrent and gorse. 
 Then through a ravine sweep in shelter—each horse 
 Breathing thick with its speed—holding on with one 
 heed 
 
 Headlong to the goal; while the rough, rainy rock 
 Rings and flashes with fire to their strong trampling shock. 
 Now the roadway grows steep, their pace well-nigh a 
 leap 
 
 Down sheer darkness, until the broad blast once again 
 Smites sidelong the figures of horses and men 
 Holding shoreward. And now something glimmers before—- 
 His a river that rushes down, flooded and frore, 
 
 To the sea—but the bridge has been swept from the ridge. 
 On the bank the steeds shuddering stand in recoil, 
 
 Staring on death below, but—across they must go. 
 
 They plunge—rise—snort—swim, where the white currents 
 boil; 
 
 Gain the smooth middle depth, where they float light as oil, 
 Foot the ground, grapple up through the rocks and the reeds 
 Of the opposite shore, whence the shortest way leads 
 To the village and ship—shake themselves, while they snore 
 Out the spray—and are off in a gallop once more. 
 
 And now through the night comes a hamlet in sight 
 Where, albeit it is late, glimmers many a light, 
 
LITTLE LUKA. 
 
 103 
 
 For the people are down on the beach, where the bark 
 Which has saved the lost child from the sea wide and 
 wild, 
 
 Has been driven on the shoals in the tempest and dark ! 
 So swift to the coast ride the brothers, and there 
 Dismounted, bewildered, stand, facing despair; 
 
 For, gazing in gloom through the strong blinding blast, 
 Where the desert of cloud and of water seem one, 
 
 A light, blue, on the verge of the sky and the surge 
 Mounting huge, shows the hull with its snapped maddened 
 mast 
 
 And blown foresail, rocking o’er white billows flocking 
 In fury around through the hum of the gale. 
 
 And now comes the echoless boom of a gun 
 Drowned in water and wind; and anear, the long roar 
 Of impassable mountaining waves evermore. 
 
 “ Who will man us a boat ?” “ Since an hour, one’s afloat, 
 
 With the best of our men, too, aboard her ; but then 
 The distance is great; who can struggle with fate 
 When it rides on a gale such as this, which has smote 
 Down yon oak, stronger far than a vessel of war, 
 
 Rooted firm in the rocks—like a reed ?'’—some one said 
 
 As it struck by a shot, the two youths answered naught, 
 But stood silent and fixed, and upon the seas dread 
 Loveless, pitiless, hopeless, gazed blank, as if dead. 
 
164 
 
 LITTLE LURA. 
 
 “ She is gone 1” some one cried, gazing out on the wide 
 Lightless ocean ; but all the next minute descried 
 Something move on the far feverous foam there are cheers 
 But none echo their hope, as the speck disappears 
 For a long, heavy-hearted, and scarce breathing space; 
 And some turn awaybut again there’s a trace, 
 
 While against the strong fronting blast each sets his face ; 
 And once more overblown it mounts high, then is gone— 
 Now lifts on the sea, for the rowers are strong— 
 
 And the rude wrecking wind itself sweeps them along. 
 
 “ Ah ! the breakers !” Now, now is the danger most near, 
 When escape nearest seems. All rush into the spray 
 Thundering in, ’mid the roar ol the shingles, this way 
 And that torn and driven. “ A long pull—at last— 
 
 Cheerily men ’’—till, dashed onward by billow and blast, 
 The keel groans, the gunwale is seized hard and fast 
 Now, sea ! do thy worst, for the danger is past. 
 
 Ashore leap the men—all men—nothing more ? 
 
 Yes ; on yon seaman’s shoulder peers up a pale face, 
 
 With terror exhaust, half asleep, tired with pain; 
 
 There’s a cry—outstretched arms, and in home’s dear 
 embrace 
 
 The lost child is fondled in peace once again. 
 
SONG OF A DRUIDESS 
 
 165 
 
 SONG- OF A DRUIDESS. 
 
 i. 
 
 When the bright sun-god has set 
 And the night is wild and wet, 
 
 And the winds and seas in a roar, 
 
 I sit at my cavern door, 
 
 By the rocks where the billows fret. 
 
 I have vervain, ater, and rue 
 For the boats of the mariners who 
 Oft come through the surge to the shore, 
 To buy a fair wind from me, 
 
 Wherever they sail o’er the sea ; 
 
 For, when unto Lir I have prayed, 
 
 And my hand on the holy oak laid, 
 
 My raven gives me a sign 
 
 From the vase blue god of the brine: 
 
 Then feel I strong as a tower; 
 
 Then a flame, as of lightning red, 
 
 Seems dividing my shuddering head ; 
 Then my body belongs to the dead; 
 
 And as earth disappears -for a time, 
 
 I utter the words sublime 
 I know not, but which are of power, 
 
 And the people tremble at me 
 As I prophesy. 
 
1GG 
 
 SONG OF A DRUIDESS. 
 
 II. 
 
 The birds of the waves that flow, 
 
 And the birds of the air, all know 
 Me, Loisak : the eagle comes 
 To my cave all famished and thin 
 To warm himself within, 
 
 When the cold white north wind hums,. 
 And the air is blind with snow; 
 
 And he tells me what passes there 
 In the stormy uppermost air; 
 
 Or, when on the dreary plain, 
 
 When the moon is in the wane, 
 
 And the cattle moan in the rain, 
 
 Some sea-ghost flitting past 
 From the ship with plunging mast, 
 
 Tells me of his late pain ; 
 
 And the people see in my eyes; 
 
 That the secrets of earth and the skies 
 Are mine when those red fires rise, 
 
 And that what’s past.and yet is to be 
 Flies forth from my tongue, fearfully, 
 When I prophesy. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Yet, sometimes, like an old song, 
 
 The sweet days when I was young, 
 
THE CROSS OF COOLOCK, 
 
 167 
 
 Come back to my heart like the Spring, 
 
 When at night I wander along 
 The rocks, mid the billow’s boom, 
 
 Looking out in the windy gloom : 
 
 They were sweet; but the magic I own 
 O’er the winds and the waves and the tomb— 
 The power to bless and to damn— 
 
 Unto me now have grown greater far ; 
 And, though I’ve no mate to caress, 
 
 Or child to sing to and dress, 
 
 With the high Gods, whose servant I am, 
 Loisak is never alone ; 
 
 For I sing to the evening star, 
 
 And have friends in the thunder and wave, 
 
 In the ghosts of the cloud and the grave ; 
 
 And all mariners kneel unto me, 
 
 When I prophesy. 
 
 THE CROSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 ’Tis late September, when blue skies 
 Grow pale, and windy sunlight flies 
 O’er stubble fields and barns, wherein 
 The threshing sounds with merry din ; 
 When roads are dry, and comes of eves 
 
168 
 
 THE CROSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 The scent of frost and withered leaves ; 
 
 Just as the coolness falls like rain 
 Over the glimmering twilight plain, 
 
 And sparkles from a wooded dell 
 The first star o’er the dusty way 
 To Coolock town, that evening gay 
 Figures twain have come to pray, 
 
 At the grey 
 
 Cross beside the ivied well. 
 
 With wrinkles manifold has life 
 Traced the brows of man and wife ; 
 
 Their cottage house remotely lies 
 Under the low yellow skies ; 
 
 Their only son upon the sea 
 Pursues a distant destiny; 
 
 Their only daughter, when a child, 
 
 By gipsys stolen in woodland wild, 
 
 In vain they’ve looked for through their tears, 
 For full fifteen long saddened years ; 
 
 Old age has fallen, and their sight 
 So sorrowed, fails them like the light; 
 
 And so ’tis for their children’s weal 
 That they kneel 
 Where the silent shadows steal. 
 
THE CROSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 169 
 
 About the fields, in twilight still, 
 
 The mist has gathered blue and chill, 
 
 And rounds the low moon, silent sweet, 
 
 As they approach the village street, 
 
 Where many a candle glimmers, where 
 A bonfire crackles high in air, 
 
 Wavering its tongues of orange flame 
 O’er many an aged man and dame ; 
 
 And. as the youngsters dance and sing, 
 With clapping hands in joyous ring, 
 
 The pilgrims hear from those gay folk 
 Of two, just joined in nuptial yoke— 
 
 A youth dark-haired and bright-eyed maid, 
 In white-robe ribbanded arrayed, 
 
 And wreath of flowers ; 
 
 Whilst speeds a fiddler in the shade 
 Of a great tree the happy hours. 
 
 The old pair first at distance stand : 
 
 Then comes a pause : the young wife’s hand 
 Parts from her lover’s with a sigh 
 She quits the dance, and silently 
 Moves towards the aged dame with gaze 
 Deep earnest—for a while surveys 
 Her face—then falls upon her breast, 
 
170 
 
 THE CROSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 Sobbing with doubtful love distressed. 
 
 “Your name?” “ Tis Alice.” “Child—my child,” 
 The mother screams in accents wild, 
 
 The while the old man stands aghast; 
 
 And through their hot tears falling fast, 
 
 Like a blast, 
 
 Rushes upon them the dear past. 
 
 And now within the cottage room, 
 
 Where a great turf fire reddens gloom, 
 
 And candles shed a long-snuffed light 
 Upon the dresser, freestone white, 
 
 They gather: by their mother’s knee 
 Young Alice falls, and brokenly 
 With sobs, and little laughs, relates 
 Her story : questions ; compares dates ; 
 
 And, holding her old father’s hands, 
 
 As by her he excited stands, 
 
 Recals her early memories 
 Of sailing far across the seas, 
 
 Where, in strange lands, 
 
 She grew in tents amid the trees. 
 
 And how, when she was twelve years old. 
 
 They brought her to a ship, blindfold, 
 
THE CllOSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 171 
 
 Which sailed away for many a day 
 Across the ocean vast and grey; 
 
 And how the sailors cared her well, 
 
 Until one night when tempest fell 
 Upon the waters, and the barque 
 Became a wreck amid the dark— 
 
 Sure she had perished with the crew 
 So dreadfully the tempest blew, 
 
 But—but for Maurice yonder, who 
 Swam with her on the morning tide 
 To Malahide; 
 
 Where, with the people, up she grew, 
 
 Until he asked her for his bride. 
 
 All hearts beat quick with glad surprise, 
 
 But doubt still lingered in some eyes, 
 
 ’Till tearing hungrily apart 
 
 Her boddice—there, above her heart, 
 
 Her mother found the mole she knew 
 Which made assurance doubly true. 
 
 Then all was j oy; the feast was spread. 
 
 The tale retold and echoed 
 
 From house to house ; and danced and sung 
 
 The old folk, mingled with the young ; 
 
 And as the happy night sped on 
 
172 
 
 THE CROSS OF COOLOCK. 
 
 Only the old dame sighed and said— 
 
 “ Well: now my joy were perfected, 
 Could I but see my long-lost son.” 
 
 “ And were all lost that midnight wild 
 Save you and Maurice here, my child ?” 
 
 I never heard of any, save 
 We two, escaped that watery grave ”— 
 The youth replied. “ My comrade even 
 Whom, then, I best-loved under heaven, 
 
 I mean poor Owen Tyrrell, who 
 If any, should have swam it through, 
 
 Must have gone down in that great sea, 
 Although ”—“ Why, Maurice, that was he, 
 Our son !” exclaimed the olden pair. 
 
 Here all renewed their wondering stare ; 
 
 When voices loud rose from a crowd 
 Without—and all rushed into the air. 
 
 Say what seafairing gentleman 
 Is this, whose face as dark as tan, 
 
 Is such a wondrous counterpart, 
 
 To that of Alice that all start? 
 
 No other than her brother he, 
 
 Arrived, after years at sea ! 
 
 One glance suffices him to tell 
 
FANCIES DURING READING RAMBLES. 
 
 17S: 
 
 There are the friends he loves so well. 
 The four are clasped unto his breast; 
 The revellers quickly learn the rest, 
 
 That night of shipwreck by good chance 
 A vessel saved him, bound for France, 
 And, unto India sailing thence, 
 
 Eight years scarce past 
 When fortune fast 
 Grew up to golden competence. 
 
 FANCIES DURING READING RABMLES. 
 
 Babylon. 
 
 O’er walls stupendous, skiey towers, 
 
 Wide summer gardens, greenest bowers, 
 And templed terraces, with trees, 
 Ascending from the river shores, 
 
 And aqueducts, and reservoirs, 
 
 Vast structures, with colossal doors 
 Guardianed by winged Destinies— 
 
 The deluge of the noon-day pours 
 Down from the gold god on the height 
 Of Belu’s temple, lost in light. 
 
 Bright squares of spearmen by the grand 
 Palatial portals silent stand— 
 
174 
 
 FANCIES DURING READING RAMBLES. 
 
 A solid splendour, o’er which pass 
 The rays on helms and breasts of brass ; 
 While, where the towers by bridges rise 
 Along the broad Euphrates’ side, 
 
 The Scythian bowmen, far and wide, 
 Turbaned and horsed, in masses ride— 
 A fiercely-glittering, endless tide— 
 Waves of imperial cavalries. 
 
 Pavilions, by the river’s glow, 
 
 In pomp of gold and purple, show ; 
 
 Proud ebon horses champ along, 
 
 Rich chariot clothings overflow 
 
 The myriad, metal-glaring wheels ; 
 And as on house-roofs thousands throng. 
 
 Aloft awhile sonorous peals 
 The golden thunder of the gong; 
 
 Then all fall face to earth below, 
 
 When, ’mid a storm of sacred song, 
 
 The sacrificial clarions blow. 
 
 Before the brazen eastern gate, 
 
 Where the high monarch holds his state 
 Upon a rich pavilioned throne, 
 
 The captains, and astrologers, 
 
AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 175 
 
 The scribes, and tribute-gatherers, 
 
 Stand, while a white priest, mounting up, 
 Presents the lion-headed cup 
 Unto that Eminence, who reigns 
 O’er all the peoples of the plains 
 In noon-wide majesty alone ; 
 
 Whose potency not mightiest one 
 Amid the rich east can disturb; 
 
 Whose word can muster, wide and far, 
 ’Twixt blaze of morn and evening’s star. 
 The millions in the march of war ; 
 Whose tiar’s diamonds superb, 
 
 And ear-drops, dazzle back the sun. 
 
 AN OLD BALLAD TALE OF THE FRENCH CHANNEL - 
 
 It is the changing hour of summer’s night, 
 
 When stars grow faint along the misty height, 
 
 When low along the east the dawn’s pure light, 
 Faint-flushing falls with cold and spectral smile 
 'Through the Cathedral window, down the aisle, 
 
 Where the first votary prays—a maiden rolled 
 In scarf of silk and silver, breathing faint 
 Of musk and amber, while the chapel’s cold 
 
AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 Instinct with the dead presence of its saint, 
 
 Seems scarce unemptied of the ghosts that throng 
 Its spaces in the darkness. Scarce had she told 
 Three rosary beads when thrilled the lark’s clear song,, 
 And the first wave of dawn-wind moved along : 
 
 As round the gusty beach the grey sea broke 
 Fitful and sad ; o’erhead upon the banks 
 The long, dim sand grass waved and shook, 
 
 The river blankly flowed through poplar ranks ; 
 
 While spread a cloud-rack o’er the pointed spars 
 Of anchored shipping toward the darkness blind, 
 
 And on its black rim stretching on the wind, 
 
 A line of watery stars. 
 
 One half the land in leaden night entombed 
 Lay dim, and from the ivied tower that loomed 
 In the pale, icy dawn, there came a sound— 
 
 The many-throated chirrip of the birds, 
 
 Ceaseless and thronging; the chill air swooned round 
 The grassy battlements with uncertain sound, 
 
 And the grey poplars muttered phantom words 
 Aloft; when Nimue risen from deep-breathed prayer, 
 Leaving St. Mary’s sanctuary there, 
 
 Paced through the stony twilight of the aisles, 
 
 Where glimmered o’erhead in the unsunned cold, 
 
AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 177 
 
 Some banner’s aureole of withered gold— 
 
 Past monuments with noble scutcheon ’graved, 
 
 Device heraldric, gothic tracery— 
 
 Whereon in chilly slumber sternly lay 
 
 Old heroes who the kingdom once had saved, 
 
 And beauties soothing death with marble smiles; 
 
 And down o’er vaulted glooms, whence spectral moans 
 Thrill on the ear of midnight passer-by, 
 
 From worms and dust—a wilderness of bones— 
 
 Until she came unto the chancel where, 
 
 ’Mid blocks of stone and marble white she saw 
 
 Alured Brito by the statua 
 
 Of a crusader tall and stern and grand, 
 
 Chiselling his shield of stone, heart-shaped, stand. 
 
 Alured turned, and, leaning his right arm 
 Upon the statue, while throughout his form 
 The blood rushed rapid as a bright spring storm, 
 
 And bathed his dusky brow with colour warm— 
 
 “You come like morning, sweetest maid,” he said, 
 
 “ To cheer my work in passing; when your tread 
 Came whispering softly through the wintry aisles, 
 
 This heart beat faint that now beneath your smiles 
 Throbs happier than since the statue there, 
 
 Which is my best, was finished.” “ Mean you this, 
 
 N 
 
1781 
 
 AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 Good sculptor, as a love speech ?” Nimue 
 Asked, while a little laugh thrilled crystally 
 And her rosed cheek declined. “ Well, inward bliss 
 Must show its hidden treasures to the air, 
 
 And if it fills the ear of her from whose 
 Beauty its words took form and light like dews 
 Trembling upon yon leaf in the sunbeam, 
 
 Its charm is trebled. You have been the dream 
 That for a year has haunted me allwhere— 
 
 When loneliest, happiest with it; and though 
 Never gave I my love a voice, I thought 
 You knew I loved you, Nimue, and so 
 Even^now I speak it, though it come to naught, 
 
 And ask you but to let me love you still, 
 
 So sweet it is to cherish such delight; 
 
 Say-—will you—will you ? again I ask,” and bright 
 Her tender eyes bent on him said—“ I will.” 
 
 Then as the while she neared the porch, and ’neath 
 Its twinkling ivy, turned to nod farewell, 
 
 Alured, as though moved by some sweet spell, 
 
 Seized her hand; she felt his kiss and breath 
 A second, and then hurried light along 
 Toward the town, nor looked again until 
 The grassy shoulder of a little hill 
 Upon whose summit whirr’d a little mill, 
 
 Shut out the church—and then ’twas a side glance. 
 
AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 179 
 
 Meanwhile the sculptor, in whose ears the song 
 Of her light voice still murmured, had resumed 
 His work on the Crusader of old France, 
 
 And round him morning goldened into day 
 Along the damp-stained walls of mouldering gray, 
 
 And down the misty distance of the aisles, 
 
 Bordered with scutcheon and dumb dust entombed— 
 Through pictured windows fell the coloured ray, 
 
 With hollows and with airy lights that bloomed 
 Upon the dusty banners and stone floor, 
 
 Dear since she paced its wrinkled levels o’er 
 Through silent twilight; but more dear the place 
 Where he had touched her hand, and seen her cheek 
 From pale reserve to archest wonder, now 
 Stirred by his speech in rising blushes break • 
 
 And he was happy, and the statue’s face 
 Still stern and cold, and blockish heretofore, 
 
 Under his chisel gained a living grace, 
 
 And noble beauty grew about its brow 
 That day. But long since Nimue by the shore, 
 
 And high sea banks had reached her home, and sat 
 Pensive within her little chamber, while 
 The summer sun burned o’er the sandy flat 
 Southward on Calais town and masted port, 
 
 And the blue Channel. On her lips a smile 
 
180 
 
 AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 Hovered; she sang, and joyous was her mood, 
 
 And then at times a sadness dimmed her blood, 
 
 And with the fall of eve she grew amort, 
 
 Uncertain whether, as her needle wrought 
 The roses in her frame, to give her thought 
 To what he spoke in seriousness or sport. 
 
 Months rolled above the church, and town, and brine, 
 But as they closed towards winter, many things 
 Had happened unto Nimue, who ere 
 The Autumn sun shadowed his golden wings, 
 
 Had grown the golden heiress of a knight 
 Wealthy and old—the last of a branch line— 
 
 Who had bequeathed to his half niece fair 
 Broad Norman lands, and store of riches bright; 
 
 And forthwith she was wooed—the tale being newsed— 
 By Hugo of Peronne—whom she refused, 
 
 For he was stem and rude, debauched with wine, 
 
 And cared for naught except her purse, to set 
 His creditors at rest: moreover he 
 Had oft been heard to swear amongst his friends 
 That he would seize her to insure his ends, 
 
 And bear her off with him across the sea. 
 
 BuFof this Nimue knew nothing, save 
 
 From some vague whiff of gossip ; and she mused 
 
AN OLD EALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 181 
 
 Less on the baron who her time abused 
 Than on Alured Brito, gentle and brave, 
 
 Although in church and town but seldom she 
 Of late had seen him, for when wealth had come 
 To heighten this soft jewel’s preciousness, 
 
 The sculptor had left Calais town for Rome— 
 
 At least ’twas whispered so, nor could she guess 
 Why he had broken the sweet wreath whose flowers 
 Had grown so many all those summer hours. 
 
 Meanwhile it chanced that with the closing year 
 Nimue crossed to England, by her sire 
 Accompanied, aud passed ’mid plenteous cheer 
 And sports and dances by the evening fire 
 Of friends in Devon, a fair month or more ; 
 
 And winter blankly met them on the shore, 
 Returning—whence they saw the stormy strait 
 Space ’twixts the coasts, sullen and black as hate— 
 The curling billows tear the flinty beach 
 Of Dover, and around the chalky heights 
 Heard the cloud-gathering winds of ocean roar • 
 The while descending to a sheltered reach, 
 
 Where swung their anchored pinnace to and fro, 
 
 Its masts athwart the gloom ; they went below, 
 
 And sailed into the storm. The surges frore 
 
182 
 
 AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 Soon swept the deck; the lessening land sunk low, 
 Which they had left; nor seen were Calais’ lights. 
 
 Maychance an hour had sped; the little barque 
 Shook from each billow, plunging through the dark; 
 When sudden came a shock !—upon the deck 
 The trampling of fierce feet was heard—a voice 
 Louder than even the driving tempest’s noise, 
 
 And then the close-barred cabin door was burst. 
 And figures swiftly seized and bore above 
 The terrored Nimue. All around was wreck. 
 
 Black was the wide sea, like a moving grave; 
 Already in the hold the waters swoored, 
 
 And by her stood the gloomy form accursed 
 Of Hugo, who, in tones of rage and love, 
 
 Ordered his men to bear her swift aboard 
 His vessel, from the sinking pinnace;—when 
 Windward she saw a sail, like a foam fleck 
 Scud toward them o’er the plunging mountain wave, 
 And Nimue screamed—“ Save us, Alured, save 1” 
 Till like a bolt between the ships it drave— 
 
 When on the pirate deck she saw him dash, 
 
 And there were clashing weapons, and a flash 
 And Hugo’s grasp unloosed, and down he fell 
 Headlong into the surge, as into hell; 
 
AN OLD BALLAD TALE, ETC. 
 
 183 
 
 The while the sculptor, crying to his men 
 To save her sire, grasping bore her away 
 Aboard his rescuing vessel, in which soon 
 The old man was received ; and in the gray 
 Glare stormily shed from the low, rising moon 
 Borne by the swollen sail matching with the blast, 
 Soon o’er the billows they were cleaving fast ; 
 And, ere an hour, beheld through drifting foam 
 The lights of Calais’ harbour, and of home. 
 
 i. 
 
 It is a cloudless, tender April morn ; 
 
 Fresh is the earth, the Channel calm and blue, 
 The hedges by the roads are bright with dew, 
 Blythe swallow flocks fly o’er the growing corn ; 
 Flocks of white barques upon the silver line 
 Of watery lustre, indistinctly shine, 
 
 And from the steeples, toned to the clear Spring, 
 The bells of Calais jubilantly ring; 
 
 As music heralding a joyous train 
 In robes of holiday, above the main 
 Up the high sunny street with garlands gay, 
 
 Pace toward the great Cathedral mild and gray ; 
 Play, music, play, along their cheerful way, 
 Aluredweds sweet Nimue to-day ! 
 
184 
 
 SONG. 
 
 II. 
 
 In Norman forests green this airy morn 
 Unheard is woodman’s stroke or hunter’s horn, 
 
 For all the peasants from their oaken screen 
 Have thronged to feast upon the castle’s green ; 
 Home-cakes, and flowers and sonnets sweet beside, 
 Glad youths and girls have sent unto the bride, 
 
 Who smiling now, the ceremony o’er, 
 
 Has passed her sculptor’s statue by the door, 
 
 And home returned ’mid echoing minstrelsy, 
 
 To feast the townsfolk by the tranquil sea :— 
 
 Gather laughing groups upon each sunny height, 
 Feast, sing, and talk about the merry sight; 
 
 Dance maidens light, and daintily bedight, 
 
 With red wine and with bonfire Calais glows to-night 
 
 SONG. 
 
 By the Christmas Cottage Fire. 
 
 In this wide world our village here 
 To old and young alike is dear ; 
 
 The fields we work in all the year, 
 
 The fire that lights our evening cheer; 
 
SONG. 
 
 185 
 
 Church and school, in good allied, 
 
 Where every Sunday, side by side, 
 
 We pray for those 
 We love, and whose 
 
 Love lasts through all life’s changing weather. 
 Our time on earth grows less and less ; 
 
 Let’s live in peace; and should distress 
 Visit our village, all be true 
 Unto each other, as I and you, 
 
 Old friends :— 
 
 See, our children play together ; 
 
 Our dead are buried together. 
 
 Pleasures of life !—they are but few 
 Which equal the work we like to do; 
 
 Whatever sort may be your toil— 
 
 Whether of muscle or of mind— 
 
 Let’s make it the best our talent’s soil 
 Can shape for the good of human kind ; 
 Conscious that, when we’ve done our best, 
 Content will visit our hours of rest. 
 
 Sweetest of joys are those which come 
 In morn and evening lights of home, 
 
 That happy harbour of each day, 
 
186 
 
 song. 
 
 Which, to the simplest as the wise, 
 
 Smiles o’er the great world’s waves and spray : 
 Home is the heart’s true Paradise, 
 
 Where, with dear beings, objects dear, 
 The humblest may make heaven here. 
 
 Children are angels He above 
 Sends us to love, and teach us love. 
 
 When waked we hear their voices sound, 
 
 And feel their innocent arms around 
 Our neck, and take their morning kiss— 
 
 We hear in their dear accents His ; 
 
 Pure as Christ’s heart, His little sons 
 Most truly are those little ones. 
 
 Pleasant are sunny evening’s hours, 
 
 When to the airy fields and shores 
 
 We take them : sweet the golden west, 
 
 When by our cottage door they play ; 
 
 The clean swept hearth, the hour ere rest, 
 When by our side they kneel and pray : 
 Pleasant to stretch in bed and know 
 God watches o’er their rest below. 
 
 Oh ! Christmas night—how many as bright 
 As this have filled our hearts with light ! 
 
SONG. 
 
 187 
 
 But naught of good and happy dies, 
 
 When its dear memory lasts below, 
 
 And, albeit, the next Christmas skies 
 See not us, old folk, o’er the snow, 
 
 On high for those we’ve left we’ll pray, 
 ’Till again they are ours in eternal day. 
 
 So, boys and girls, and children dear, 
 
 All merry with youth and Christmas cheer, 
 Circling in the cottage ring, 
 
 Happily dance, and laugh and sing : 
 Youth’s but a flower, and joy an hour ! 
 
 To all who come a kind comhether ! 
 
 And, dear old friends, who round you see 
 Your loved ones happy—as happy be, 
 
 And closer draw, a little while, 
 
 Where the Christmas fire gives smile for smile. 
 In blessed peace and unity : 
 
 See, our children play together, 
 
 Our dead are in Heaven together. 
 
188 
 
 SONG. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Clear was the mild March eve, and still; 
 
 Clouds lay low in roseate rest, 
 
 A few poor sheep fed on a hill 
 
 In the clear light of the frosted west: 
 
 The moon like the half of a silver ring. 
 
 Hung in the azure overhead 
 From poplars by the roadway shed 
 Aerial shadows deepening: 
 
 And as I walked, with myself I talked, 
 
 Now of the new book read that day ; 
 
 And now to a fancied presence fair, 
 
 Whose love I had begun to share— 
 
 In mood as earnest, and more srav. 
 
 Two weeks of blustering winds and dust, 
 
 And lengthening twilights cleared with showers. 
 Endeared love’s now familiar trust, 
 
 And goldened all the coming hours. 
 
 The brightest volumes now seemed dull 
 As forth we wandered happily; 
 
 The winds were laid in the blue sky 
 And the vapourous moon was growing full. 
 
 But—destiny smiled not on me; 
 
SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 180 
 
 I pace where now no whisper stirs, 
 
 With a new year’s sun about my brows, 
 
 And feel my head touched with the boughs 
 She knew—sad, kind remembrancers. 
 
 SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 i. 
 
 Glimpses of seasons in the times foregone 
 Oft visit us while musing by the hearth : 
 
 Now ’tis some window-view of the dark dawn, 
 
 When the dim wind moaned low along the north; 
 
 Of Winters long ago, when many a day, 
 
 Close-housed, we watched the sea space white with foam. 
 When sombre windy skies of morning grey 
 Were shelving o’er our kindly, fire-lit home; 
 
 Wide Summer nights, ethereal, calm and soft, 
 
 When, in the silent depth above us bent, 
 
 By noiseless upper winds the pale clouds oft 
 Were channelled into many an azure rent ; 
 
 Or, looking from the casement on the wold, 
 
 When some December’s storm had ceased to blow, 
 
 Beheld in early morning’s glamour cold 
 
 The silent, dead world sheeted o’er with snow; 
 
 Weeks of wild weather, when we read at night 
 
190 
 
 SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 Of shipwrecks, far from aid of human home, 
 
 And praying faces raised in the slant light 
 Of stormy sunsets, on the wastes of foam. 
 
 And when some gale had left the Wintry lands, 
 
 And we at evening to the wild shore came, 
 
 We saw some ship sunk on the blank, flat sands— 
 With rigging like a network against flame. 
 
 Song of Spring. 
 
 The bees are humming ; ivies and grasses 
 Gleam as the rain-dropping white cloud passes ; 
 The oaks on the hills in the strong sun glowing 
 Reclothe with leaves like flesh; 
 
 In the spirit-scent of the water flowing 
 The sere plant buddeth afresh : 
 
 Dawn has its rainbow, and afternoon 
 Looks under its melting arch at the moon 
 Half dipped in azure far away ; 
 
 And birds from the South in the mild Spring air, 
 Sailing unseen by night and day, 
 
 Wearied, are coming with us to stay, 
 
 Till the sunsets sink in gusty grey, 
 
 Or the doleful rains from the shadowed bay 
 Drown the shortened evening’s glare : 
 
 But now a new life fills happily 
 The buds, the birds, the blue sky. 
 
SKETCHES .AND SONGS. 
 
 191 
 
 Summer. 
 
 As through warm Summer ways we tread, 
 
 The murmurous hum of bees around 
 The beech trees blossomed overhead, 
 
 Roofs the old wood with busy sound; 
 
 Faint willows sigh along the marge 
 Of the thin river Southward rolled, 
 
 And even to the blue mountain’s verge 
 The cornfields wave their rims of gold; 
 
 Fair clouds and sails are on the bay, 
 
 Whence breathe the air’s warm harmonies. 
 Now and then we hear the grey, 
 
 Sultry wind in the full-leaved trees ; 
 
 The cry of rooks in the topmost oaks 
 By the old moat and manse’s roof 
 Blend with the mill wheel’s drowsy strokes, 
 Stirring the sunny calm aloof: 
 
 And the whisper of leaves blvthe, from the eaves 
 Of green woods, comes across the land, 
 
 The while, below, the faint waves’ flow 
 
 Scarce foam the smoothes of an amber strand. 
 
 A Summer Song. 
 
 i. 
 
 Sometimes comes a day whose mood 
 Seems divine to brain and blood; 
 
192 
 
 SKETCHES AND SONGS- 
 
 While I view from out the wood 
 The sailing sky of summer cloud. 
 
 The thin stream trickles down the cliff, 
 And on the sea, amoene and fair, 
 
 A white speck gleams the slanting skiff; 
 While now and then comes floating by 
 The oval coo of doves a-pair, 
 
 From the green, whispering forest air ; 
 Scarce other sound is in the sky; 
 
 In a musing noonday dream 
 Woogling flows the simple stream 
 Over green weed and mossed stone—- 
 Happy thus to be alone 
 With its fancies, even as I. 
 
 ii. 
 
 With thy fresh reoreant scene 
 Make, bright day, my feelings green 
 From times the sweetest that have been; 
 
 With the bird’s returning wing 
 Happy memories, gold and grey, 
 
 Of some old home-hallowed da)', 
 
 Till the silence seems to sing 
 V\ ith blessed voices that no more 
 Meet me at the evening door, 
 
193 
 
 SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 Sunny morning casement bright, 
 
 Meals, and cheerful hearth at night. 
 
 Or, alas ! for a relief, 
 
 Loveliest thoughts from many a leaf 
 That we read in olden times— 
 
 Humorous dreams and beauteous rhymes. 
 Books still live, and so do they— 
 
 Summer brings them back to-day. 
 
 The noon is silent, dry and grey, 
 
 As outside the noisy barn. 
 
 By the lonely, long highway, 
 
 Laughing children dance and play, 
 
 In flying gleams of the autumn day, 
 Lighting up the leaden tarn, 
 Sloping fields of stubble shorn ; 
 And awhile, with quiet smile, 
 Lines of low-hills toward the morn. 
 
 But when the glare of sunset falls, 
 From the cloud-roof,, low and drear, 
 O’er fields of stubble and old walls, 
 Wide browning woods and rural halls, 
 And the low wind, as darkness palls 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 Is saddening through the leaves grown sere, 
 
 Lo ! by the log-piled hearth appear, 
 
 When gates are closed, with faces rosed, 
 
 The youngsters waiting evening’s cheer. 
 
 Windy Dusk. 
 
 Late Autumn has fallen on earth with shadow and dolour, 
 
 A spirit of wild unrest, of change and decay; 
 
 Every day the woodlands lessen in colour, 
 
 Suns grow paler and shorter every day, 
 
 Albeit oft the nights with a splendour polar 
 
 Dazzle, but they are cold and many times grey, 
 
 Sunset without a glory, sinks from the sky— 
 
 As this evening over the gusty bay, 
 
 Where, along the sides of the headlands high, 
 
 Grown too dusk to define each well-known way, 
 
 Airs uneasily shiver the heath and fly 
 
 In gloomy affright, as if forlorn and astray, 
 
 From the sombre sea line stormy and drear, 
 
 Whence comes the tumult louder over the deep ; 
 
 While on the beach the billows retreating tear 
 Shingle and sands, returning heap on heap ; 
 
 And heavier, huger from the open waste in the wind, 
 Thunder along the promonts fronting the starless night, 
 
SKETCHES AND SONGS. 
 
 195 
 
 Through the low sea smoke the coasts are scarce defined, 
 And the sound and swell of the elements fill the cloudy 
 height: 
 
 In each pause, when the wind dies off, in the gloom behind. 
 Swoons the desolate moan and rising roar of the woods, 
 Unseen—like an island sea in the darkness blind, 
 
 With withered leaves for spray—each tree like a wave; 
 Swaying their maddened boughs in despairing moods, 
 Swaying in anger and anguish as if bereaved by a fate, 
 From whose resistless fury nothing can save ; 
 
 And mingle leafless sorrows on high with the steadier hate 
 Of the deepening storm that darkens the sullen face of the 
 floods. 
 
 A' Winter Song. 
 
 i. 
 
 Now frozen is the little stream, 
 
 Where oft we bent a musing brow; 
 And, like the stream, each sunny dream 
 That flowed with Summer ceases now, 
 For, ah ! the North winds blow, 
 
 The world is white with snow; 
 
 Would we might keep 
 The earth’s dark sleep 
 Till Spring days round us glow. 
 
196 
 
 SONG OF A SUMMER DAY. 
 
 II. 
 
 Along bleak surges of the bay 
 
 The gray glare of the Winter moon, 
 Has sunk in dreary space away; 
 
 And as dull morning rounds to noon, 
 The land and air are cold and grey, 
 Crossed Avith dismal glares of sun, 
 And the wild Avind has no rest, 
 BloA\ r ing the bare earth upon, 
 
 BloAving all the dreary day, 
 
 Till snoAv shall blind the evening ray, 
 
 In the cloudy-muffled West. 
 
 SONG OF A SUMMER DAY. 
 
 Within our bark 
 From dawn to dark, 
 
 PilloAved on leaves, in sunshine, we 
 Sail with our tomes 
 Of old sAveet poems, 
 
 And the vivid vast for company. 
 
 Then to our nest 
 In the golden west, 
 
 Beneath the headlands drooping tree,. 
 Up the steep way 
 
fancy’s frolic. 
 
 107 
 
 From sands grown gray, 
 
 Returning, leave the shadowy sea. 
 
 Soon folded close 
 As leaves of rose, 
 
 Our souls shall rest from all that seems. 
 As o’er our home 
 In night’s blue gloom 
 
 Our star shall ope its urn of dreams. 
 Then shall our souls, 
 
 As midnight rolls, 
 
 Furled like our sail within its cove, 
 Rest, while the deep 
 And wide earth sleep, 
 
 Under the Infinite, watched by Love. 
 
 FANCY’S FROLIC. 
 
 A Child Revel. 
 
 i. 
 
 One noon, within a grassy dell, 
 
 Close to the azure Summer sea, 
 
 Where bubbled through the moss a w r ell 
 O’er which a broad-leaved sycamore tree 
 With blossomed fronds, stood sentinel, 
 
198 
 
 fancy’s frolic. 
 
 Two children lay in frolic play, 
 
 Each with a beauteous crimson shell 
 Culled from the crescent-sanded bay; 
 
 And after one, ’mid tinkling chimes 
 Of laughter, had sipped many times 
 Of the cool lymph, he babbled : “ Come 
 And let us drink a health to some 
 
 Bright Bird that sings, Insect that wings 
 From leaf to leaf, around, above, 
 
 Just as, of evenings, those we love 
 Drink to their happy friends at home.” 
 
 ii. 
 
 This fancy filled with quick delight 
 
 Their hearts, and merry eyes that shone 
 Under their gold-curled foreheads white. 
 
 So, by the well, whereon the sun 
 Was wavering rays of leafy light, 
 
 As with their mood in unison, 
 
 They stretched ’mid grasses fresh and bright; 
 Dipped in the water and raised up 
 In sunshine, each a dripping cup ; 
 
 Then paused a moment innocently, 
 
 Who first with comic courtesy 
 To honour; ’till from the green height 
 
fancy’s frolic. 
 
 199 
 
 Of the broad sycamore’s bending crown 
 Blithely a thrush they knew by sight, 
 
 Just come to bear them company, 
 
 Sweet-fluting, on the pair looked down. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Instant the elder elf grave-eyed 
 Lifting his dripping bumper, cried: 
 
 “ ’Tis the kind friend that we so oft 
 Hear singing to us from the croft— 
 
 First on the list of toasts is he ! 
 
 So with three times three a health to thee, 
 Brown thrush, and all your family !” 
 
 The while—in imitative mood 
 Of grandpa when with cup of good 
 Wine in the sunset room he stood 
 And drank to all—the younger there, 
 Assuming an old-fashioned air 
 And venerable voice that shook 
 In trembles like the rippling brook, 
 
 Added : “ Here’s t’ ye, friend, and long, 
 
 Long may we live to sing your song !” 
 
 IV. 
 
 Here both sprites drained and upside down 
 Held their conch-cups—replenished them. 
 
200 
 
 fancy’s frolic. 
 
 “ Whom shall we drink to next ?”—as, prone, 
 His brother watched, upon a stem 
 Among the herbage round it grown, 
 
 A Butterfly alight; a town 
 Of Ants, all business-browed, anear; 
 
 And other insects careless strown 
 Amougthe moss. “Our company 
 Is numerous as gay, I see,” 
 
 Returned the stooping child, “and here, 
 
 Here comes our old friend, Buzz, the Bee. 
 Welcome, good sir, to our poor cheer ! 
 
 Wild flowers a few, and cups of dew— 
 
 Permit us now to drink to you 
 In memory of the honey spread— 
 
 Oh, sweet! so often on our bread.” 
 
 And, bowing both to this new guest, 
 
 Each placed a hand below his chest. 
 
 Y. 
 
 “ I trust, sir ”—with esteemful eyes, 
 
 Waggish, beneath his gold-curled screen, 
 
 Full of respect for one so wise, 
 
 Yet cautious of his weapon keen— 
 
 The elder said (a swarm of flies 
 
 Had meanwhile come to watch the scene)— 
 
fancy’s frolic. 
 
 201 
 
 <l I trust you’ll bear our courtesies 
 
 To madam, your most gracious Queen.” 
 (Buzz) “ Thank you : I should much indeed 
 Desire to visit her fair court; 
 
 And, possibly, as I would need 
 An introduction, you would lead 
 
 Me to the presence ” (buzz )—Ho ! ho ! 
 V feks this is the best of sport,” 
 
 Bubbling with laughter sweet behind 
 His chubby white hand, as a blind 
 Pretentious held, the other, lest 
 His merriment offend their guest; 
 
 “ What ! are you off now you have dined ? 
 
 Well, ere, ho, ho ! good Bee, you go, 
 
 Let’s offer you a glass of port.” 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now, in that hall of banquet green 
 
 Some flies in sunshine hummed, and lit 
 On flossy flowers, and flashed like wit; 
 
 The Bee, with sting aculeate 
 And vest of velvet soft, was seen 
 To hide his earnest ebon pate 
 Within some honeyed bloom amcene, 
 
 Or climb some dewy, nitid stem, 
 
202 
 
 fancy’s frolic. 
 
 Or brustle some burred thistle’s screen, 
 
 Whereon a gadfly, tired of flight, 
 
 And basking in the dizzy light, 
 
 With carmine wings closed, looked at them ; 
 Beneath, a Beetle, black as night, 
 
 Guarding its grey eggs laid yestre’en, 
 
 Scowled at the bumble in a huff, 
 
 Indrawn, and posed in posture gruff; 
 
 While in the herb with oupish head 
 A Grasshopper hid, seeming dead; 
 
 One beady eye closed, one askance, 
 
 Sentinelling his countenance. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Meanwhile the affluent sunshine yields 
 Odours from flower and ripening rind ; 
 
 The rough green wealth of wheaten fields 
 Sways in the low midsummer wind ; 
 
 Through cupolas of bending green, 
 
 And boles of nutted beeches tall, 
 
 The sultry, blue sea-line is seen : 
 
 Above the orchard’s mossy wall 
 The clustering apples in the sheen 
 Redden ; ripe gusts of grape and grain 
 Perfume the warm air from the plain, 
 
fancy’s frolic. 
 
 203 
 
 Which breathing wide all day has been 
 Mingled with sophs that, cool as rain, 
 
 Bore the fresh salt scent of the main: 
 
 From meads was heard the sweeping scythe, 
 Timed by the shirted mower strong, 
 
 And round about all Being, blithe, 
 
 Seemed joyous as the bright bird’s song. 
 Stretched meanwhile ’mid the grasses wild, 
 With innocent fancies kind, elate, 
 
 In happy mood, each Cupid child 
 Frolicked, as over crisp-curled pate 
 And joking eyes the silent sun 
 Winked through the foliage on their fun : 
 
 A pair of tiny poets they, 
 
 Who, loving birds and insects bright, 
 
 Dear comrades of the Summer light, 
 
 Thus sought to please them with the play,. 
 In which they passed their holiday. 
 
 In short, they quaffed to all around— 
 
 To every bird, whose song they knew, 
 
 Each winged form of air or ground ; 
 
 And these, thus “ honoured,” drank in lieu 
 Healths to each flower of fairest hue— 
 
 Trees, grasses, white clouds o’er the bay— 
 
fancy’s frolic. 
 
 Till in the West day’s rosy bloom 
 Surprised them with the thought of home. 
 
 IX. 
 
 On chis the revellers started up, 
 
 Recalling, with a strain of will. 
 
 How oft they’d drained each comic cnp ; 
 Then as, forsooth, the well’s pure wine 
 Unsteadied their bright brains divine, 
 Intoxicate with fancy still, 
 
 In frolic reeled, and in pure sport 
 'Clung to each other for support 
 ’Mid chimes of laughter; said “ Good-bye ” 
 To all their pleasant company— 
 
 The birds, the trees, the well, the sky, 
 
 The insects, who with drowsy eyne, 
 Charmed with a sport and day so fine, 
 Each sought its little nook anigh 
 For rest, and domesticity : 
 
 Then, folding a fond arm about 
 Their collared necks, the pair set out. 
 
 x. 
 
 Now dies the wind along the lea, 
 And, floating from the airy West, 
 
fancy’s fkolic. 
 
 205 - 
 
 The low, gold sunset slanting falls 
 Across the gray old garden walls, 
 
 And touches pailing, roof, and tree, 
 
 Along the winding river’s breast, 
 
 Beside whose bank, through fields of hay, 
 
 Happily homeward rambled they. 
 
 “ Well, Dot, “ said Rubi, whose blue eyes 
 Were serious sweet as morning skies, 
 
 “ Methinks we’ve passed a happy day ; 
 
 One even in frolic may be wise— 
 
 For wise it is, whate’er they say, 
 
 To love, and make all beings pure 
 As happy as ourselves, I’m sure. 
 
 What though those simple creatures are 
 Mute unto us as yonder star! 
 
 As they have mijids —else how could they 
 Procure their food and find their way 
 To nest and nook at evening grey?— 
 
 They know whoever seeks to be 
 
 Kind to them: marked you not the Bee ?—* 
 
 How, when I spoke to him, right well 
 He guessed that I was amiable.” 
 
 “ And when you drank ‘ The Ladies,’ ” cried 
 Dot, “ with a ‘ Firstly I propose 
 Miss Butterfly, than whom a bride 
 
206 
 
 HESPERIAN VALES. 
 
 More sweet ne’er wedded a wild rose, 
 Such as she clings unto with wings 
 
 White as her eyes are black as sloes ’— 
 Without the slightest sign of fear 
 She lit upon your shoulder here, 
 Curtseyed, and kissed you on the ear, 
 
 To show she liked you, I suppose.” 
 Thus prattling under the woodbine, 
 
 Over the gate, and the old vine 
 
 Roofing the porch, ihe joyous pair 
 Entered ; and, hungry with the air, 
 Announced both their wish—to dine ! 
 
 HESPERIAN VALES. 
 
 Through endless woodland roofs of darker green 
 I view, low down, green gleams of the glad sea. 
 
 That girds the island like a deity, 
 
 Indolent in its immense security; 
 
 Or through the sloping, long, branch-arched ravine, 
 From its dazzling-crested mountain crown, 
 
 Remote some unheard cascade’s straight, cool sheen, 
 Tumbling in ceaseless shafts of sun-sprays down 
 Into yon lake, asleep in leaves and haze, 
 
 Where nymphs with bosoms and with brows sun-brown 
 
HESPERIAN VALES, 
 
 207 
 
 Swim, laughing as they bathe in the deep cool 
 Of the recluse long pool; 
 
 Or silent as they cross the watery blaze 
 
 Shoreward, whither they bear from golden orchards 
 where 
 
 Summer owns every tree, and fills the air, 
 
 Baskets or fruit, crimson and amethyst, 
 
 Dropped in their ripeness down the verdurous maze, 
 J Mid wreaths of dry odorous mist, 
 
 In spots of splendid heat, 
 
 Or shadow cool and sweet: 
 
 And now awhile a bird begins its song, 
 
 But soon grows mute for silent luxury ; 
 
 And shadows only trace the flowery ground, 
 
 Nor, in the universe of leaves, a sound 
 Stirs through the slumbrous-crowned 
 Dominion, sea-bound; 
 
 Or in the viewless branchy vales profound, 
 
 Save their own murmur ebbing sultrily round, 
 
 All the day long. 
 
 Where’er in Summer sunsetless I move, 
 
 Ever endomed in happy stillness of 
 This woodland world, amid green, mellow light, 
 
 And sighs ef distant drizzling waterfalls, 
 
208 
 
 HESPERIAN VALES. 
 
 Lost in a dream divine of Beauty—Love 
 Lives everywhere beneath the skiey height 
 
 Of snows that crest the valley’s mountain walls, 
 And fills, alike in shadow and in sight, 
 
 All substance with its unseen influence, 
 
 All Being with its mute melodious sense; 
 
 So that each tree, each leaf, and blossom seems 
 To live for one another, and infuse 
 Through each the sweetness of their life of dreams, 
 Imparting odours, whispers, happy dews, 
 
 In sweet communion calm of fixed content, 
 
 All guardianed by the bright sun from aloft, 
 
 Which, never setting, round the mountain goes, 
 Making behind it now a twilight soft, 
 
 And bringing sleep to every herb and tree 
 And shrub in flowering hollow or warm croft 
 With its own shadow; while along the sea 
 A line of morning gold remotely glows 
 In light celestial everlastingly, 
 
 So that the peaks of ice and sloping snows 
 Ne’er lose their beauteous tints of gold and rose, 
 The while around the happy woodlands sleep,.. 
 And the while shadow loves them in repose ; 
 Light, lovingly withdrawn, 
 
 Still guardians them with dawn 
 From the Hesperian deep. 
 
HESPERIAN VALES. 
 
 20D 
 
 Some trees I commune hold with once have been 
 Living, and may be nymphs whene’er they will; 
 
 But so delightful, separate, and still 
 Is now their hidden inward life of dreams, 
 
 Many still liee in leaves, and taste the hours 
 In breathing in their air, and floating beams, 
 
 With like enchantment, whether yellow or green; 
 
 In budding their soft tancies into flowers 
 
 And sweet’ning time with their fruits’ ripening glow, 
 
 Drinking the sunlight ’till their juices flow 
 
 Dulcet, and flecks of colour on the rind 
 
 Encharm their consciousness, warm, dusk, and blind; 
 
 And when at length upon the moss beneath 
 
 They drop, and all are gone, their living breath 
 
 Maychance for gracious change again informs 
 
 A female shape, hidden in flowers, and warms 
 
 Her placid heart once more, as after sleep ; 
 
 When, to her sisters running, she will peep 
 
 Where they are couched ’mid leaves, and laughing cry : 
 
 “ Behold me ! Once again ’tls I !” 
 
 And singing and embracing, as before, 
 
 They sport with echoes round the woods and shore. 
 
 Here are no mortals such as I have been 
 In the far land of man, where Winter rounds 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 HESPERIAN VALES. 
 
 All life ir. cities girt with burial mounds, 
 
 And none can be as they in youth have been; 
 
 Where Fate rules pitiless, and griefs cold breath 
 Wastes, sighing for the loved lost, long unseen. 
 Time withers, and life’s lightnings blast the best, 
 
 As worst, and all things swift or slower move 
 From April bud, and flower, and Summer love, 
 
 To gloomy sunset, falling leaves, and death, 
 
 Amid commotion : but sweet Summer rest 
 With loveliness lives here in loneliness, 
 
 And the earth, sea, and air make Love their guest; 
 So that my thankful spirit long has blessed 
 The fate that drove me thither o’er the foam 
 To this recluse, bright, solitary home— 
 
 From the drear world of woes to one of woods, 
 
 Green, peaceful, fruitful, separated far 
 From the past human life as morning’s star; 
 
 Where those I love unseen around me are; 
 
 Where nothing changes but one’s happy moods, 
 
 With fancies born of love for every light, 
 
 Water, aud leaf, by day, or low-sunned night; 
 Where none need toil or sorrow, sow or reap; 
 
 Where the bloom takes the morning when it wakes 
 To life and joy, and comes sweet death in sleep. 
 
BALLAD PICTURES. 
 
 211 
 
 BALLAD PICTURES. 
 
 An Old Irish Scene. 
 
 Once, as the summer’s golden eve was changing into gray, 
 
 Above the western woods that girt the pleasant green Magh 
 Breagh, 
 
 In his lime-white mansion circled by its high-heap’d ver¬ 
 dant rath, 
 
 A Chieftain sate on his carved couch of blackest polished 
 yew— 
 
 Wherein he kept his drinking-cups of silver, and gold too, 
 
 His ivory fithcheale images, and treasures not a few 
 
 Of ornaments, gem-studded, from the far-off eastern mines— 
 Watching his herdsmen driving home the cattle by the 
 path 
 
 Along the rushy river. Silence spread, and dusky sleep 
 Upon the pastures fell; the while as far as eye could see 
 Between the avenues of oaks the white cows quietly 
 
 With lashing tails came winding; and then flocks of bleating 
 sheep— 
 
 A fat and numerous herd : for he had just received that 
 spring 
 
 His tributes, when the cuckoos from the south began to 
 sing. 
 
212 
 
 BALLAD PICTURES. 
 
 As fell the gloom of twilight round, a bondmaid neat and 
 fair, 
 
 Robed in gray, with sea-blue eyes and floating flaxen hair, 
 
 Had lighted the pine torches, tallow-dipped, and placed them 
 where 
 
 The great hearth in the centre rose. The hall was long and 
 low, 
 
 Its massive walls of smoothed oak gleamed in the yellow 
 glow, 
 
 And round them hung great drinking horns, cloaks, shields, 
 and many a row 
 
 Of weapons, iron axes of the Danars, iron brands 
 
 Heavy and long, and slender swords, of ruddy bronze 
 below— 
 
 So old, that some, maychance, were wielded by the potent 
 hands 
 
 Of Odin’s sons, when they to Erie came from Scythian 
 lands: 
 
 For of the tusks of giants of the deep the hilts were made, 
 
 And charmed Ogham sentences were graven on each blade. 
 
 Resting upon the rafters of the roof lay many a spear 
 
 Sheaf upon sheaf; old armour, chains for hounds, and horns 
 of deer; 
 
 And, furthest from the fire-place, a huge bronze vat of red 
 
 beer 
 
BALLAD PICTUKES. 
 
 213 
 
 On each side of the chamber stood; whence opened many 
 doors 
 
 To smaller rooms for privacy and sleep ; o’erhead the 
 same; 
 
 Cauldrons around the hearth, late kindled, hung o‘er its 
 strong flame 
 
 Of turf and faggots mingled : fresh, green rushes strewed the 
 floors. 
 
 At times the sound of outside life swooned through the silent 
 hall— 
 
 Voices of cowmen stalling up the herds, the neigh of 
 steeds 
 
 In stables waiting to be fed ; while round the rath’s high 
 wall 
 
 Grooms, herds, and groups of kerns and clowns were 
 chattering one and all; 
 
 And through the gateway entered some with bundles of 
 green reeds, 
 
 And quern-women in outhouses were grinding the white 
 corn, 
 
 When sudden from the mansion’s porch there sounded a lond 
 horn, 
 
 Calling the chieftain’s guests unto the evening feast Then 
 
 came 
 
214 
 
 A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 The Druid, Mathan, in his robe of green and belt of gold, 
 
 His daughter, Una, snowy-robed, with hair as brown as 
 mould, 
 
 And level-browed grey eyes, as arch and modest as the 
 morn; 
 
 There Bolg, the fool, came stored with tale, and pastime, and 
 quaint game; 
 
 And at their heels guests from the tribe, a company mani¬ 
 fold. 
 
 There by the tables long they sate and feasted, maid and., 
 man, 
 
 Right plentifully—while kind words from one to the other 
 ran— 
 
 On speckled cakes, and milk, and honey from the hives of 
 Bann, 
 
 Fish from the Boin, from Almhain fruit, and ale from Cualan. 
 
 A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 Phcu! pheu! on gumne cide ma Praxteles ? 
 
 “ Lo ! Autumn’s labour at length is ended; 
 
 The harvest corn in the granary uuder 
 Our cottage is stored ; now the vines we tended 
 Have drained their fruit through the grape-press sluices,. 
 And, as I remember, round the stone chamber 
 
A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 215 
 
 Two score pitched jars settled their juices 
 
 For nights when the hearth will flame up from its ember— 
 
 May Bacchus avert the souring thunder, 
 
 And keep our vintage clear and golden 
 As it tasted and shone in the Autumns olden 
 On which, as my sire told, splendoured the comet 
 For nearly a month o’er the Dictoean summit, 
 
 When melted the streams in mist, and asunder 
 Cracked like dry gold the plain’s yellow mould. 
 
 So, toil in the fields being over, no better 
 Thing can I think of, my Althis, than borrow 
 Old Acton’s boat on the beach, and to-morrow 
 Sailing to Cnidos, awaken your wonder 
 And worshipful joy—than which nothing is fitter 
 For youth—in beholding the Image, the finest 
 Praxiteles wrought in his moments divinest— 
 
 Soft Aphrodite, foam-white, seeret-smiling, 
 
 Bright-browed, and deep-chested, small-handed, beguiling? 
 Celesiial sweet as the nightingale’s warble 
 To its gold goddess star in the faint dawn afar, 
 
 Tuning every pulse from melodious marble.” 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 Next morn, while yet in dusk air 
 
 Bright Phosphor twinkled, toward a reach 
 
216 
 
 A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 Deep-sanded, in the curving beach, 
 Through meadows they descended where 
 The pinnnce rested, slight and still, 
 
 Under a purple promont hill 
 Whose image in the waves it kissed 
 Looked like its base in amethyst. 
 
 The radiant sweet and silent sky 
 Of spacious vapour, whitely spread, 
 
 By noiseless winds was channelled 
 In many an azure rent on high ; 
 
 Scarce yet was the blithe lark awake, 
 
 And in the grasses creaked the crake, 
 And mellow stillness over all 
 The inland brooded, while afar 
 Where dwindled one retiring star, 
 
 Upon the dawn wind’s shadowy breath. 
 They heard the steep-foamed torrent fall 
 Down to the surf wave underneath 
 Trembling with faint, uncertain tone, 
 E.emote in sunny stillness lone. 
 
 The anchor soon they raised, the sail 
 Stretched flagging to the low shore wind, 
 And then amid the waters pale 
 In the long dawn they sped uutil 
 
A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 217 
 
 The first beam touched the shouldered hill, 
 And down the peaks of azure past, 
 
 And surging through the tide waves fast, 
 They left the headlands dim behind. 
 
 All day they sailed, before the wind, 
 
 The sea-space white with Autumn cloud, 
 Until the low sky, heavy browed, 
 
 Lifting at eve its roof, disclosed, 
 
 Like a bright sea beyond a sea, 
 
 Alength of level lustre, rosed, 
 
 And lemon-hued along the North ; 
 
 Then, as the rounded sun broke forth 
 Against the golden-vapoured dome, 
 
 A rich shore shone above the foam, 
 
 With blue spired hills and sleepy capes— 
 
 A land of beauty everywhere, 
 
 With many a green declivity 
 And templed summit fair on high, 
 
 Where sounds of music, marble shapes, 
 With spirit flooded the clear sky; 
 
 And as they neared the haven’s calm, 
 
 ’Mid breaths of sweetening inland balm. 
 
 A stream of dulcet minstrelsy 
 From a young maiden group upon 
 A shore steep, fronting the low sun, 
 
218 
 
 A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 Flowed o’er the waters tremulously ; 
 
 And while the rich soul of their song 
 Flashed the listening nerve along, 
 
 They landed soon ’mid greetings gay ; 
 Then past the white town went their way 
 Into the woods, where oped a dell 
 With poplar grove and marble well, 
 
 In which its simple guardian god 
 Looked on the water, where abode 
 Long grasses that amoenely fell 
 Amid the wavering glossy screen 
 Of wandering ivies clustering green ; 
 
 And, thence passing, scaled a mound 
 Where ’mid whispering leaves they found 
 A moon-lit shrine upon a slope 
 Among the foam of waterfalls, 
 
 With rose blooms clambering to its cope. 
 And milk-white shafts and capitals. 
 
 Then, as the pure orb from the dale 
 Streamed sidelong, entered they the place 
 With soft, delighted, reverend pace, 
 
 And in its domed halo pale 
 Advanced into the inmost shrine 
 Sacred to beauteous art divine ; 
 
A SAIL TO A STATUE. 
 
 219 
 
 The while in moonlight’s odorous hush, 
 
 A maid, the pure-browed minister 
 Of Aphrodite, came to her, 
 
 And as she raised the veil and stood 
 Aside, those pilgrims, in a mood 
 Art-emanate, celestial, gazed 
 (Thus falls the crimson rose’s blush 
 While lifting its bloom-laden bough) 
 
 Upon the tender, luminous brow, 
 
 And form symmetrical and smooth, 
 
 And splendrous with Summer youth. 
 There knelt those rural Greeks awhile 
 In worship of their goddess’ smile, 
 
 And when they rose bethought that they 
 Henceforward bore to their blue bay 
 An artist dream, become their own, 
 
 Of perfect beauty, such as day 
 Nor land, nor sea unfolds to sight— 
 
 A joy that genuis moulds alone ; 
 
 And by the shrine they slept that night 
 A sleep whose dreams were all of light. 
 
 Then, as the low dawn creased the dark, 
 And set the moon’s sphere pale as death, 
 They raised the brown sail of their barque 
 
220 
 
 CALLIROE. 
 
 And moved by morning’s lonely breath, 
 Tended their eager barque, that home 
 Winged them across the breezy foam, 
 Till rose their hamlet’s roof afar 
 Under the evening’s sacred star. 
 
 CALLIROE. 
 
 An Hellenic Ballad. 
 
 Within the columned palace gate 
 
 That fronts the crimson closing West, 
 
 The suitors stand—a plumed band, 
 
 As though for burning battle dress’d, 
 
 And in the lapsing day await 
 The mighty King’s behest. 
 
 From inner halls a herald grey, 
 
 Advancing, lowly bends the knee :— 
 “Thron’d by the board my sovereign lord 
 Awaits ye, Princes of the Sea ; 
 
 And by his side—a star of day— 
 
 His daughter, rare Calliroe.” 
 
 A movement in the plumed throng— 
 
 Their swords are drawn, their foreheads bare. 
 To one bright blade each lip is laid, 
 
CALLIROE. 
 
 221 
 
 A long cold kiss that all must share. 
 
 A vengeful look that burns with wrong— 
 A murmur many-voiced, “ we swear !” 
 
 Close to the palace throne they stand, 
 
 And in the stillness speaks the King, 
 While echoes round revolve the sound 
 Through golden domes diminishing :— 
 
 “ A welcome and a royal hand 
 
 We stretch, to all our portals bring. 
 
 Long have ye waited, long have wooed 
 This one bright dnughter of our throne. 
 A vain desire; the way side briar 
 Weds not with roses summer blown ; 
 
 The tincture of our kingly blood 
 Shall mingle with a king’s alone.” 
 
 Advanced a shining knightly form : 
 
 “ Thy words of welcome, haughty sire. 
 Are such as those we cast our foes, 
 When we would flash them into ire; 
 
 Methinks if thus you speak in storm 
 Our weapons lack not battle fire. 
 
 Our blood, forsooth !—’tis bright as thine. 
 Though traced unto the giant kings. 
 
222 
 
 CALLIROE. 
 
 Such pride at most a foolish boast, 
 
 Not such as truest glory brings 
 
 This soul:—this blood of theirs and mine 
 Is that of which the minstrel sings. 
 
 It draws not virtue from the dead, 
 
 But self-ennobled shines and flows ; 
 
 It waxes bright in valours light 
 And dignified from battle glows, 
 
 Drawing its fame-lit fountain-head 
 Less from our fathers than our foes. 
 
 Into a sceptre love must change 
 
 His rosy torch to please thine eye :— 
 
 Not such our creed ; in noble deed, 
 
 And faithful hearts our doweries lie. 
 
 In gallant purposes that range 
 To truest fame and dignity.” 
 
 He ceased ; nor more his claim would urge, 
 While wrath-enwrapped the monarch shone. 
 As lightning comes, when tempest hums, 
 Along some headland sombre grown, 
 
 Washed by the night sea’s line of surge :— 
 
 He makes a signal from his throne ! 
 
CALLIROE. 
 
 223 
 
 A minutes’ hush—a pulse of rest— 
 
 Then tramplings of a hurrying train !— 
 But round his form, a cloud of storm, 
 The suitors close—again, again 
 Upon the haughty monarch’s breast 
 Their dark gray daggers fall like rain ! 
 
 He falls ; beside his crown he dies ; 
 
 His red blood stains the marble floors ; 
 While in amaze the minions gaze— 
 
 A sudden and their sheathless swords 
 Fire all the air—and battle cries 
 Sound through the dusky corridors. 
 
 Loud rings the unequal combat there; 
 Outnumbered but unterrified 
 O’er levelled foes their weapons rose 
 Athirst for death and crimson dyed : 
 When lo ! a sudden furious glare 
 Illumines the palace chambers wide. 
 
 And weak and wounded, friend and foe 
 Still struggle through the fiery gloom ; 
 But fast as fate is locked the gate 
 And from a turret, dark as doom, 
 Calliroe looks down upon 
 
 Her father’s corse and lovers’ tomb. 
 
224 
 
 THE WOODMAN. 
 
 THE WOODMAN. 
 
 Wet from the woods where all the winter day 
 The woodman shook from pining branches down 
 The humid acorns in his basket brown, 
 
 Till the long sunken sunset’s level gray 
 And lone, companioned him, he took his way 
 To his poor cot, that with a welcome dim, 
 Forlorn since forenoon, seemed to smile on him, 
 As smelling of the oaks he cast upon, 
 
 Its floor his load, and with face wistful wan 
 Kneeling, blew the white ashes of the hearth 
 From its red smouldering spot, and placed thereon 
 Dry twigs, which crackled, kindly, and soon shone 
 Cheerfully, lighting up the narrow gloom, 
 
 And leafy bed, and stone mik pitcher there, 
 
 And sparkled sheding around a look of mirth, 
 And soon replenished a full glow of heat ; 
 
 On which, from her dark corner in the room, 
 The cat, bow-backed, came purring to his feet, 
 And rubbed against him, and sat, kindly-eyed, 
 Expectant of her supper at his side. 
 
A DAY DREAM. 
 
 A DAY DREAM. 
 
 Once came a golden dream in summer noon, 
 
 As on a pillow of faint opiate leaves, 
 
 Stretched slumbrously I lay, the while the light 
 Cleaving the snltry curtain’s interspace 
 Dizzied the chamber’s distance ; and outside 
 The sunny tendrilled casement hummed the bee : 
 The many-throated music of the birds 
 Ceased in the heavy heat; and the slow world 
 Seemed moving through the stillness in a dream. 
 I thought, as the sun set, a Spirit approached 
 Straight from the sinking glory, with a sound 
 Of airy melody that swiftly swelled 
 To deep, sonorous thunder. As I gazed, 
 
 Swiftly arrived on earth, I heard him alight, 
 
 Amid the music of wings, and stand 
 Fronting me, as a windless ocean calm, 
 
 Or shining mountain summit spired in snow. 
 
 A toueh thrilled on my brow, and I looked up, 
 
 But veiled in splendour were the lineaments 
 Of the great angel, of whose voice alone 
 My human sense was conscious, as he shaped, 
 
 In utterance tempered to the ear, like light 
 Transmuted into sound the summons—“ Come 1” 
 I rose ; ’twas evening—all was air around : 
 
 The level lands grew dark; the space of sea, 
 
22G 
 
 A DAY DREAM, 
 
 Silent and sad, lay dim beneath ; but soon 
 Along the steeps of evening came a star, 
 
 Like a new god to a deserted world, 
 
 Exultant, silent, confident in light 
 
 Through the great gloom : his splendrous forehead lit 
 
 The path we twain pursued along the sea; 
 
 And o’er broad plains where life was silent, o’er 
 
 Huge mountains clothed with pine and ridged with snow 
 
 Deserts of ice and frozen vales; a world 
 
 Of winter piled in night; from whose gaunt walls 
 
 Down dismal precipice to dark profound 
 
 Drear torrents plunged, and multitudinous streams, 
 
 Cold-foaming, swirled along impetuous : 
 
 And on a plain converging, broadened forth 
 In a great river. Onward thence across 
 A summer sea of azure, domed with stars : 
 
 Until at length, eastward, rose a land 
 Hung like a purple cloud along the dawn, 
 
 Which brightened as we passed its shoreward peaks 
 With a^pale halo, such as when the moon 
 Fronts from the low sea-line the sunset dead, 
 
 Over an evening realm, and so remained 
 As in dim Hades, where the past still lives 
 A life all phantom fair. Yet warm was here 
 The wind from hill, and sea, o’erlooked by cliffs 
 
A DAY DREAM. 
 
 227 
 
 Piled high in mist and light; and sweet the clime 
 That o’er the faint, umvintered check of day 
 Showered blushes : here a spirit of Beauty reigned 
 O’er stream and plain and city-glimmering plain, 
 
 Here lived a brooding life iu leaf and fruit; 
 
 Here lingered, summering in yellow woods, 
 
 Where phantom heroes, happy shades, reposed, 
 
 And ’mid the snowy tumult of the clouds 
 Heaped eastward, many a god and glorious shape 
 Lay, walked, and slumbered in the amber light. 
 
 Faint as a lily’s shadow by a spring, 
 
 All where it was a land of beauty and dream, 
 
 From the sweet eyes of nymphs in caverns lone 
 To the great level stars that southward shone 
 Along the twilight steeps of purple air : 
 
 For here ’twas night, ever a moonless night; 
 
 The orbs moved not, and time had seemed no more, 
 Save that each hour there dropped a solemn star 
 Slow to the west, and striking the rich sea. 
 
 Rung like a shower of bells from the blue wave 
 A note of passing: and for ever more 
 From the pine clothed hills the steep cascade 
 Sprang with a roar, tossing its plumes of foam, 
 
 And round the woodskirt on the asphodel plain 
 With sleek blue waters wimpled into light. 
 
228 
 
 INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 From things beheld the mind can see others the eye cannot 
 behold : 
 
 Something disturbs a planet; genius measures with what 
 that force must be ; 
 
 Directs the glass to that point of space afar, and instan¬ 
 taneously 
 
 What the mind saw before the eye, appears its thought to 
 verify, 
 
 And that which must be in the abysm forthwith is witnessed 
 to unfold ; 
 
 Already, while invisible, weighed, its path, its speed, its 
 volume known— 
 
 Thus from the seen what is unseen relationally may be 
 shown. 
 
 Lo ! in the vast of space, beyond the system in which moves 
 our sun, 
 
 The telescope unveils creation, noiv as ever moving on. 
 
 The instrument of Herschel turned remotely to setherial 
 gloom, 
 
 Measured each minute by a system passing o’er the 
 speculum ; 
 
 And whencesoever Light may come Intelligence may 
 ascertain 
 
INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 229 
 
 Of every mighty universe its composition to a grain ; 
 
 Detect in spheres the human eye unaided cannot re¬ 
 cognise, 
 
 The matter of which we are made, which ever changing 
 never dies— 
 
 The substance of this hand that writes is found in the remotest 
 skies. 
 
 If Matter then is one, so Mind identical with ours must 
 be 
 
 In kind, though unimaginable in power and in quality, 
 
 And as sans Love life could not live aughtwhere throughout 
 infinity, 
 
 To Being with Intelligence, Life must an infinite progress 
 be, 
 
 For ’tis the nature of love and mind to make superior all we 
 see : 
 
 Lo ! that which knows and is perishless must toward perfec¬ 
 tion ever tend, 
 
 For happiness is perfectness, still widening as we onward 
 wend, 
 
 From high to higher life: thus we may judge what bright 
 and blessed Powers 
 
 Wise from experience, must exist in older universes than 
 ours; 
 
230 
 
 SCENERY OF THE SEASONS : SPRING. 
 
 What instruments of intelligence, what mental methods must 
 be theirs— 
 
 The growthy of might minds in action for innumerable-, 
 years. 
 
 SCENERY OF THE SEASONS : SPRING. 
 
 Now all the air is stirred with wings 
 From the deep south, as April brings 
 Amid fresh scents and radiances 
 Mild, dewy suns from the blue seas: 
 
 In meadowy slopes the daffodils 
 Sprout yellow by the tinkling rills, 
 
 Singing on their way from the distant hills— 
 Where, in the azure air, some white 
 Vapour superbly soars in sight: 
 
 The lamb by budding hedges roams ; 
 
 And swallow flocks in sidelong flight, 
 
 Sail past by starts—to left, to right: 
 
 The bee hums in the drowsy light, 
 
 And creeks the crake with all his might,. 
 
 From misty meadows night by night. 
 
 Far away in the mountain’s shade 
 Some thin thread of a pale cascade 
 
SCENERY OF THE SEASONS : SPRING. 231 
 
 Glitters like a snow-fleck left 
 By winter in some rocky cleft: 
 
 While all around is bright and bland; 
 
 On glassy lake you see the swan, 
 
 The deer upon the sunny lawn; 
 
 Through leaves and grasses joyously 
 The river flows by vale and lea, 
 
 Singing as it goes in merry moods, 
 
 As ’twere the spirit of lonely woods, 
 
 Or sparry cavern deep inland,— 
 
 Wearied with silence and mystery, 
 
 Come down to commune with the sea: 
 
 At moments floats an airy radiance round 
 
 From the white dropping clouds; the fresh clear sound 
 
 Of the young sparrows in the sallow bushes— 
 
 Where through the flaggers the brown runnel rushes— 
 Twitters:—a quickening motion in the brown 
 Of furrowed fields is felt; and from the town 
 Vague noises, like the ceaseless, drowsy hum 
 Of distant stony pulses, faintly come : 
 
 On one side sleeps a rushy-margined pond, 
 
 Where, girt by oaks, the moss-tufts, bronzed and shorn, 
 Grow green in cozy sheltered nooks again, 
 
 As blow the cool airs from the lifting morn, 
 
 Or sleep in sunny siftings of pure rain : 
 
232 
 
 SCENERY OF THE SEASONS : SPRING. 
 
 Long winding roads and upland brownly loamed, 
 
 Spread to the showery distance, vapour domed; 
 
 And lengths of white cloud stretch upon the wind, 
 
 All through the growing, vernal hours ; until 
 The western sun, dipped in a golden haze, 
 
 Along the seaward, sloping, green-patched hill, 
 
 Making ’mid forest boles a luminous maze, 
 
 Glows on the shadowy interspace of earth, 
 
 Whence comes the ploughman’s whistle through the mist; 
 And silence settles all where it may list: 
 
 The faint smoke rises from the crackling hearth, 
 
 Of roadside cots; while the spring tide afar 
 Begins to twinkle from the evening star. 
 
 Then as we homeward wend through dewy dusk along, 
 Memories of southern seasons rise from antique song : 
 Where, down the spring-blue winding river the stately white 
 sw'ans oar, 
 
 Plucking the grass and herbage growing by the verdant 
 shore, 
 
 Where lately blocks of mountain ice whirled dreary, cold, 
 and dim ; 
 
 Where freshens the rusty winter moss on the bubbled 
 fountain’s brim. 
 
 Snowy aerial vapours stream on the distant vine-draped 
 rocks, 
 
SCENERY OF THE SEASONS : SPRING. 
 
 233 
 
 High up in the austere dome of azure hurry the long-legged 
 flocks, 
 
 And comes by the April grassy shores in twilight’s swoon, 
 
 The plaint of the Halcyon poised on the wave in the dewy 
 moon : 
 
 Or where the exuberant, succulent stems of the milky 
 corn 
 
 Rustle the night’s rain-drops away in the early airs of 
 morn; 
 
 Where the tempting apples’ ripening juices yellow the 
 fragrant rind, 
 
 And the scent of the blue-black violet yields to the rose on 
 the warmed wind; 
 
 Where under the dusky red sea dawns the April swallow 
 flies; 
 
 Where mother and child in shore-side cots sleep under genial 
 skies; 
 
 And high in heaven the Pleiades look on a myriad sailing 
 eyes : 
 
 Where opulent autumn bends in the splendid sunshine, 
 heavy with grapes, 
 
 And the boats of the fishers anchor at night at the ends of 
 purple capes; 
 
 'Pill flames bright Vesper, late arisen, through rains and 
 blood-red haze, 
 
 Its earnest lustre across the waste oi windy bays. 
 
234 
 
 FKOSTY AND FINE DAYS. 
 
 FROSTY AND FINE DAYS. 
 
 Of dim Decern ber days, when falls the snow 
 Until the wide north clears at afternoon, 
 
 And o’er the channel’s torpid wintry flow, 
 
 Half shelved in blueish air, appears the moon. 
 
 Faint as some distant, half-forgotten woe ; 
 
 I walk along those dreary stretehing sands, 
 
 Encrusted with the tide’s ice-rim, and hear 
 The weak waves’ washing make a music drear ; 
 
 Or the low-flying curlew’s whistling screech, 
 
 Settling to feed in some salt shallow reach, 
 
 Or skirring far along the misty strands :— 
 
 Walk until cold, dreary dark comes down, 
 
 The while as yet a tint of frosted rose 
 Lingers over the dumb inland town, 
 
 And the dead air closely colder grows, 
 
 Seaward, austere clouds, sublime in form, 
 
 Lurid-domed dominions of storm, 
 
 Loom, which, in those desolate dark nights, 
 
 When through the blackness the numb pole-wind blows* 
 Will blind in whirls the ruddy binacle lights 
 Of solitary ships that westward sail. 
 
 With surfy bows heaved sidelong to the gale, 
 
 Stemming toward skies of summer, hot and still; 
 
 Or some dread earth-end cape, where mightily, 
 
FROSTY AND FINE DAYS. 
 
 23fr 
 
 In mountain masses the huge seas swing by, 
 
 And, from the white top of a wintry hill, 
 
 The gaunt winged condor stares with icy eye: 
 
 Or, maychance to some haven’s steady light, 
 
 Under a twinkling village on a height, 
 
 Reaching out little dark arms toward the sea and night 
 Whence, presently, a boat will oar from sight, 
 
 Over the surges of the blank dusk bar, 
 
 Where, over lines of land-brown cloud, its star 
 Peers with a cold fierce glare—against which soon 
 The onward, stately vessel’s topmost spar 
 Will rise and fail—the wave-worn black hull loom, 
 
 The windy lantern glare on level boom, 
 
 And solemn sails, and mastage black and tall 
 
 Heaved on the slackening long surge of the harbour walk. 
 
 Here was my favourite walk in idle hours, 
 
 On keen grey days of windy March, when roads 
 Are parched and whitened in the eastern blast 
 That ever o’er the long lone inland bodes, 
 
 Wildering through heaths, and sedgy sluices, past 
 Some manse, with poplar, rigid as a mast : 
 
 And where forlorn trees shake in the withering breath,, 
 Under a dome ashy and full as death; 
 
 The while, at times, from the cold desolate shores, 
 
 A line of cranes clang, winging toward the moors. 
 
236 
 
 SUMMERTIME. 
 
 SUMMER TIME. 
 
 An Idylic Sketch. 
 
 After a morn of rain, passed in a mood, 
 
 Of common duties—rummaging old nooks 
 In press and closet—dusting his old books— 
 
 Ouc from the cottage by the humid wood 
 
 A "student rambled through wet field and dell, 
 
 To let light airs freshen the Winter blood, 
 
 And visit the seaside he loved so well— 
 
 Sands sprinkled o’er with specks of silver shell, 
 
 By marge of tide-rolled shingle smooth and grey, 
 Bordering the broken curve along the bay, 
 
 Where banks of grasses waved amiably 
 In the warm wind that came and went its way 
 Over the glad, green, rain-refreshed sea : 
 
 It was the time when the brown, furrowed earth 
 Had turned to the sun its Northern side— 
 
 When one looks carelessly on Winter’s hearth, 
 
 And toward the sun, meadows, and fresh, blue tide— 
 A youth who through the months of wind and snow 
 Had gone within a cottage to abide 
 Tor quietness and study, far from town, 
 
 And store up language, science, in his brain 
 
SUMMER TIME. 
 
 237 
 
 Uninterrupted—for the driving rain, 
 
 And windy moanings of the wild wood brown, 
 
 And long strand-wash of dreary waves below, 
 Familiar and unheeded passed to one 
 Earnest in building up the palace of 
 Knowledge—that calm morning wandered forth 
 To field and beach. No more the barren North 
 Looked hard and blue ; but lonely airs came bv 
 From bright meridional breadths of sea : 
 
 All things were full of sweet amenity— 
 
 Grasses and waves, the birds and wayside springs 
 From the far woods the oval coo of doves— 
 
 Like bubblee on a spring where each one moves 
 After the other, intermingling rings 
 In stillness—breathed to one late known to Love. 
 For, as it happ’d, one gusty, blue March day, 
 Strolling with a Greek book beside the bay, 
 
 Upon the sands he found a maiden’s glove, 
 
 And following where she paced far away, 
 
 In the wind gusting round a promontory. 
 Returning the white loss, her violet eyes. 
 
 And cheek less rosed from the wind than from 
 The beanteous blood that gave it grateful bloom,. 
 Thrilled him with a new life : and hence, until 
 Young Spring stood tiptoe on the snowless hill 
 
'-238 
 
 SUMMER TIME. 
 
 She came to meet him on the shore, now still, 
 
 From the old red-brick manse beside the mill, 
 
 Lest he should feel alone—and all by chance 
 Each day; until she went a month to France, 
 Whence she was now returned, as by a sign— 
 
 Her candle in the casement draped with vine— 
 
 On yester happy eve he could divine. 
 
 In the warm blue of the sweet morning sky 
 A lovely, lonely cloud of freshest white, 
 
 Arisen from the summering sea anigh, 
 
 Brooded, and seemed to his upturned sight 
 Like a vast lily, or superbest vase, 
 
 Pure as the marble mould of antique days, 
 Upheld by viewless Summer’s airy arm ; 
 Shone stationary over field and farm, 
 
 Looking upon the cheerful villaged bays, 
 
 'The rounding inland, many meadowed; 
 
 And seemed to droop, o’erflowing with warm tears. 
 To see again the old world green and warm ; 
 
 The while the kind, large Presence that it bears. 
 Over her shoulder turning her blythe head, 
 
 Bends o’er the earth, bending with coy, kind charm. 
 Looking upon the space she loves so well, 
 Hearkening to the sounds of wave and wing, 
 
 To the sweet blear of lambs, to birds that sing 
 To her from simple throats innumerable. 
 
SUMMER TIME. 
 
 239 
 
 The sun, as though new bathed in tropic seas, 
 
 Poured o’er the living earth its affluent light, 
 Making all things that meet the sense and sight 
 Amcene with Summer scents and radiances : 
 
 There seemed a quickening motion in the hush 
 Of growing fields ; amid green shaded boughs 
 The sparrows chirped and chattered, and the thrush 
 Trilled forth his song with mellow-fluted close ; 
 Lengths of white vapour slept along the floods, 
 
 O’er the blue Western hills and winding road, 
 
 And interspace through which the river flowed 
 In curves of calm along the distant woods ; 
 
 At times a blueish drift of slanting rain 
 Fled from the sunbeam pointing like a hand ; 
 
 And sped each hour the level rushing train 
 With throb and drift of steam along the land. 
 
 So Summer was within them and around, 
 
 As in the sunny seaside solitude 
 They met in that Cloud’s presence, which had found 
 In happy hearts beating beneath it there, 
 Something to tell its sisters of the air, 
 
 More precious than aught else upon the ground— 
 
 A memory sweet, whereon, maychance, to brood 
 While lasted in the sky of noon its mood; 
 
240 
 
 SUNDAY WALKS. 
 
 While Ernest, looking up from the sweet face 
 Of Edith May, uplooking with like grace, 
 
 Both happy, said, Yes, yes ; we love, dear friend 
 Sole confidant of what below you see,” 
 
 And uttered j oyous fancies ; the while she, 
 
 Laughing, was pleased. And ne’er was sonnet penned 
 On a white cloud so sweet as both composed, 
 
 That eve with heads together, in the light 
 Of sunset, at her father’s window bright, 
 
 Whence on the page a lily pure and white 
 Wavered its shade ’mid trellage many-rosed, 
 
 SUNDAY WALKS. 
 
 After the week’s dull toil, 
 
 This Autumn Sabbath day 
 I speed by train away 
 To open shore and bay, 
 
 To air the blood and brain, 
 Enjoy the scent of soil, 
 
 Of grasses and soft rain ; 
 And up the steep hill-road, 
 Through full-leaved hedges green. 
 Survey the rounding scene— 
 
SUNDAY WALKS. £4l 
 
 The misty, long coast line; 
 
 The gray and glimmering brine, 
 
 Where the fresh flowing tide 
 O’er sandy shoal makes white 
 The billow’s ridge; the light 
 That, drifting, pauses oft 
 In some green mountain croft; 
 
 The clouds that calmly glide 
 In companies remote, 
 
 Or o’er the waters float; 
 
 Or some prim, white-sailed boat, 
 
 Channel-ward pointing, where 
 Breathes faint and fixed the air— 
 
 White splendours rise embossed 
 By ragged sea-fog crossed. 
 
 And as I pace alone, 
 
 I pause at times, to speak, 
 
 And bless some simple, kind 
 Creature in field or tree— 
 
 Children in heart and mind— 
 
 Hear some bird lonelily, 
 
 Give its dear fancies play 
 To its bright friend, the day, 
 
 Or gull in sunny creek, 
 
 Or foal, or kine that feed 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 SUNDAY WALKS. 
 
 In meadows by the way, 
 
 Whose gentle, innocent eyes 
 Show that they recognise 
 A friendship—for, indeed, 
 
 To love all Life around, 
 
 In water, air, or ground, 
 
 As one with mine, whene’er my mood 
 Is childlike, innocent, and good, 
 
 Long since has formed a part 
 Of the expanded Christian creed 
 Whose horizon’s the heart. 
 
 As up the hill-road, grey 
 And steep, I make my way 
 This early summer day, 
 
 From hedges on each side, 
 
 And young trees leafy green, 
 
 Through which at times are seen 
 The waters spacing wide— 
 
 Unseen upon some spray, 
 
 With sweetest, clearest tone, 
 
 A little bird alone 
 Sings his simple ditty; 
 
 Happy by itself to be, 
 
 With the sun, and air, and sea, 
 
 Far from the noisy city. 
 
SUNDAY WALKS. 
 
 243 
 
 It has satisfied its need 
 Of food upon some grassy seed, 
 
 And pleases itself now by giving 
 Voice unto its sense of living; 
 
 What can be the memories 
 It chants unto its friends, the trees, 
 
 And the warm sun, and soft air, 
 
 For other comrades none are there— 
 
 Not a fellow-soul to share 
 Its innocent ecstacies, 
 
 O’er and o’er the same, which end 
 Sometimes in a piteous, clear, 
 
 Melancholy note, and dear, 
 
 As if as yet without a brood 
 It felt in that wide solitude 
 The need of some bird friend. 
 
 Here, in the seasons as they pass, 
 
 Amid the wilderness of grass, 
 
 Aud yellow furze and blossomed heath, 
 How many insects live beneath, 
 
 And pass their days, and toil, and brood 
 In the same wild solitude, 
 
 Whose minds are all the means they own 
 To be happy, thus alone, 
 
 And who, when shadows deepen, creep 
 Each to its little home for sleep. 
 
244 
 
 SUNDAY WALKS. 
 
 Watch yon two insects bright, at play, 
 Climbing up that slender spray— 
 
 He who is highest, down the while, 
 
 Looks at the other with a smile 
 Perchance; and here another bears 
 Into a pin-hole in the mould 
 Some morsel precious as fine gold, 
 
 To feed its young within, whose eyes 
 Their loving guardian recognise, 
 
 Whose looks they know, whose voice they hear, 
 And gather round their tiny dear 
 Mother, in whose absence they, 
 
 Mayhap, had cried for, half the day. 
 
 No atom on the earth could live 
 In water, field, or nest, or hive 
 Were not intelligeuce allied 
 With love, diffused through every being; 
 
 Nor is the tiniest life we trace, 
 
 Alone in its vast dwelling place : 
 
 The smallest creature lives beside 
 The Soul that is All-Seeing, 
 
 And hence is happy. Who can tell 
 But the minutest have some sense 
 Of a presence invisible, 
 
OCTOBER DUSK. 
 
 245 
 
 Who loves them in their innocence, 
 
 And guards them here, and when they die, 
 Immortally, immutably. 
 
 OCTOBER DUSK. 
 
 Sitting in October’s twilight 
 In the dusky room, 
 
 Fronting the blank window pane, 
 
 We watch the gathering gloom, 
 
 The films of grey and airy cloud 
 O’er rainy sunset low, 
 
 Till the vaporous ridges roof the world 
 And a wind begins to blow, 
 
 In billows from the dreary sea, 
 
 Swaying the piteous garden tree, 
 
 Whose boughs and bared nest, 
 
 The while still glowed with stormy gold 
 The wild and saddened west, 
 
 Over the pictured walls, and on 
 Book shelves in nooks of rest, 
 
 Threw shadows from the sinking sun. 
 Like silent symbols from the sky, 
 
 Or mournful meanings imaged by 
 Some wandering ghostly guest. 
 
240 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Then turn wc from the gusty gloom, 
 
 Cut off by the windy fire. 
 
 Where up the rumbling chimney quickens 
 The flight of each smoky spire. 
 
 The shifting shadows play around 
 The silent room, while soon 
 Through lurid vapours nigh the ground 
 Sails slow the crescent moon. 
 
 Shut out the gray October night, 
 
 Windy and lone, and drear, from sight, 
 
 Oh ! comfortable curtain :—shed 
 O’er friendly books, oh, lamp ! thy light; 
 And though the year goes, let’s prolong 
 Its orchard breeze and memories, 
 
 With golden apples and autumn song. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 It is the eve of a calm, heavy day : 
 
 The dismal thaw-cloud scarfs the sky of gray ; 
 And from the pining, broomy winter trees 
 Drop follows drop upon the path anigh ; 
 
 Wetly the raw ^r breathes from the bleak seas, 
 The slow worm creeps along the rain-washed way 
 The last bird from the hedge chirps piteously; 
 
A CHRISTMAS SONG. 
 
 Hurriedly woodward flaps the crow on high: 
 From dead, damp farm-fields the last voices call 
 Unseen was sunset, nor appears a star; 
 
 The while as on the graveyard’s ruined wall 
 The elder’s aged, crippled branches gnar— 
 
 I hear remote, as leaden shadows fall, 
 
 The night wind rising o’er the stormy bar. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS SONG. 
 
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 Come close around the cheery hearth, 
 
 Friends, dear ones, young and old, as gay : 
 A happier group is not on earth 
 This holy winter holiday. 
 
 No cups of carved gold are ours, 
 
 Or southern wines from plain and mountain 
 But, better still for Christmas hours, 
 
 We have a wine, 
 
 Glows more divine, 
 
 Our Hearts the cups, and Love the fountain 
 
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 And what we have we’ll share, be sure, 
 
 Should any neighbour feel distress; 
 
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 A CHRISTMAS SONG. 
 
 Who stints himself to help the poor, 
 
 Gains what he gives in blessedness ; 
 
 And innocent hours of joy, as well 
 
 As good deeds, yield a future pleasure— 
 One sweet to think on, sweet to tell— 
 
 Thus, a night with dear 
 Ones round us here, 
 
 Like this, becomes a life-long treasure. 
 
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 So, children, play—dance, dance away, 
 Lasses and boys ; sing, friends, of Home ! 
 And while we hope each hearthside may 
 Be happy of this, from foam to foam; 
 Let’s pray that He who led the poor 
 To Heaven, with divine endeavour, 
 Through Love, which only can endure, 
 
 To all may give 
 His love, and live 
 With us, for ever and for ever. 
 
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