University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

WRITTEN IN WINDSOR CASTLE.

[Friends, could I live a life of art alone]

Friends, could I live a life of art alone,
Or, through and through, weave in its golden thread
With the poor cares of life, which win life's bread,
Then were my leaden hours for golden known.
O but my days—my thoughts, to call my own!
That golden dreams might glisten through my head,
Unscared by meaner inmates,—that instead
Of stoniest streets, earth's charms were to me shown!
Florence and Rome and Venice you have seen,
And Alpine solitudes sublime, that hear
Above their clouds, snowclad, still, cold, serene,
The avalanche to the valleys thunder fear.
Bared to your eyes, how bless'd! such sights have been,
Henceforth, how often to them to appear!

[You shall be thought of with the scents of Spring]

You shall be thought of with the scents of Spring,
Dim violets' odours and all blooms of May;
All the sweet sights of that remember'd day,
The thought of you straight to my eyes shall bring.
In hedge and elm shall thrush and linnet sing,
And the rook's pleasant caw shall cross our way
Where chestnuts all their milky cones display,
And gold-green limes their tender shadows fling.
Then of the Fairy Palace shall there come
Remembrance,—of all shapes of beauty there,
Goddess and nymph and hero, white and dumb,
Striking a stillness through the gazing air,
Awed with their sweetness. So you have become
Link'd in my memory with all things fair.

[You cross my dusty path with dreams divine]

You cross my dusty path with dreams divine,
And like Spring's sunbursts, light my hours to gold.
You bring all thoughts of beauty. I behold,
Looking on you, the noons of Venice shine,
And from the skies of Rome, her suns decline.
The utterance of your names brings thoughts untold
Of art's high triumphs wrought by souls of old,
Babe and Madonna awed to love divine;
With you come Titian's colours to my eyes;
Prophets and holiest ones that Raphael drew,
Titans of Angelo, and gods arise,
White goddesses revealed to Phidias' view;
No common thought—no poorer sight, but flies
From fair imaginings that come with you.

[Nor, Alchemists, turning to gold the lead]

Nor, Alchemists, turning to gold the lead
Of my dull'd days, alone your presence brings
Frescoed and aureoled saints about whom clings
The reverence that we owe their limners dead;
To later triumphs are your names, too, wed
In my glad thought—names that Fame softlier sings
As yet than Leonardo's; her trump rings
But with the centuries-aged; yet theirs are read
Clearlier and clearlier, as the fresh years come,
On her throng'd tablets. As I think of you,
Memory of these we love so is not dumb;
I look upon the lives that Gainsborough drew;
Reynolds is with me, and, lo! I become
Still'd into awe as Turner's world I view.

[With you, too, comes the Shakespeare of all sound]

With you, too, comes the Shakespeare of all sound,
Handel, whose glory was to us reveal'd
With last Spring's violets, when the organ peal'd
His mighty hymns—strains fittest to resound
With Heaven's hosannas the White Throne around,
While on the jasper sea archangels shield
Their eyes from the brightness that His glories yield.
Then swell'd for us his ocean-bursts of sound,
And myriad voices poured Miltonic praise,
And chorus answer'd chorus—choir to choir
Telling His majesty, who was ere day's
New glory was, or night's. On wing'd desire
Our souls stream'd upwards—in a hush'd amaze
Rapt, like the Prophet's, up to God in fire.

[Of poet-homes was our delightful talk]

Of poet-homes was our delightful talk,
And of sweet singers o'er the Western seas,
Whose golden fancies, like our summer bees,
Swarm music round us wheresoe'er we walk,
And all our cares of their full triumph balk.
Of Holmes, well-loved, we spoke, who this day sees
Your Charles steal seawards by your home's dear trees.
Of Cambridge's dear poet was our talk,
Who gave Evangeline with us to dwell,
And wild, sweet Indian visions to our eyes,
With their strange beauty, which we love so well.
Of him I ask'd, with thoughts as sweet and wise
As those of which dim Academe's groves tell,
And of strong Lowell, whom two worlds so prize.

[Nor were those, breathing not your Boston air]

Nor were those, breathing not your Boston air,
Forgotten—Willis, dear for tender grace,
And Bryant, who by Wordsworth's side has place
For solemn thoughts and tones and fancies fair,
Blessings, how priceless to our world of care!
Would I might look in reverence on his face!
Nor were we silent of your gentle grace,
Read, my dear friend, so bless'd with genius rare.
The name of Whittier kindled in us praise,
Deep reverence for high life, and such fierce fire
Of Heaven as scorch'd black Egypt. Of our days,
Stoddard and Taylor named we, and desire
I had your dead great in your talk to raise.
Of thoughts of that sweet hour I never tire.

[And as the glory of the still May moon]

And as the glory of the still May moon,
Gathering to fulness, soften'd the sweet night,
With English fames we lit the shadowy light,
Fames, like her brightness, to be greater soon,
But not, like that, to wane, but know a noon
Of perfect radiance in the future's sight—
Names that shall all the centuries delight,
Sweet to all coming ears as brooks in June.
Of Tennyson you told me; and the thought
That you had lived familiar in his home
Made you a wonder to me straight, and brought
More teeming fancies than your talk of Rome.
Then, too, my ear our Brownings' dear names caught,
Your friends in the shade of Peter's mighty dome.

[So you have been with Severn, and have heard]

So you have been with Severn, and have heard
The tongue that spoke to Keats the last farewell,
His on whose breast our darling's dear head fell,
When his great life sank from his latest word.
Sight of that face—what thoughts must it have stirr'd!
Sound of that voice—what memories must it tell
Of him who, lapp'd in glory, now sleeps well
'Neath Roman violets, where no crities gird.
Such is the doom of fame. Even as a saint,
Ere he be crown'd with heaven, devils abuse,
So bat-eyed critics as a devil paint
Genius, to hail whose greatness they refuse.
Need is there, friend, for those who, o'ertried, faint,
Of such as you, lest we some Keats, too lose.

[What pleasant talk you bear across the sea]

What pleasant talk you bear across the sea,
To make you famous in your Boston home,
Beyond your Venice nights and days of Rome,
Your tales of Paris and of Italy.
For you have known those whom alone to see
Renowns one in your world across the foam
Of the wild sea; with such has been your home,
And, were you here, yours still their homes would be;
You'll be as he of our great Queen's great reign,
“Rare Ben,” great Jonson, who with Drummond sat,
And, while his Hawthornden rare sack he'd drain,
Told of his Mermaid nights—of this and that,
His fellows—Beaumont—Ford—and gave again
Shakespeare's wise wit and Fletcher's radiant chat.

[And you have paced the streets that Cæsar trod]

And you have paced the streets that Cæsar trod,
And breathed the air that throbb'd to Cicero's tongue,
That heard the sweet-voiced odes of Horace sung,
When Jove on all Rome's templed hills was God,
And earth, through all its nations, own'd her nod.
There where the mighty Consuls from her sprung,
When victory close the gates of Janus swung,
Led nations captive, girt with axe and rod,
There, in her marble dust, your western feet
In marvelling awe, their wandering steps have set,
Treading on annals that still make hearts beat,
On memories that the centuries pale at yet.
Fetter'd she fell. My friend, that to repeat,
In your free land, O do not thou forget.

On being told that Charles Dickens had said that “the bust of Clytie must have been modelled from a real Greek girl, or it could not have been so beautiful.”

Yes, so, great master of our smiles and tears,
So lived a real Clytie in the far past,
When grew the radiance that shall ever last,
And Athens' grandeur glorified the years.
Art then is highest when it humbly clears
The blots by life on perfect nature cast,
Gives her perfection, not by a line o'erpast,
And to mar that still reverently fears.
O Lady of the West, who art as fair
As she was, and wast born 'neath rule as free,
Perchance those eyes, in marble down-droop'd there,
Lit Salamis' red victors from the sea,
Or dropp'd from Alcibiades' bold stare.
So, snatch'd from time and death, you, friend, should be.

“Should not the truest Art interpret rather than daguerreotype?”

Yet did Dione, sunning earth with smiles,
Rise radiant from the depths of Phidias' brain,
Nor Titian's colours for her sought in vain
Who netted the fierce Mars in her sweet wiles.
Say not that highest art one charm beguiles
From beauty, though its unshorn strength disdain
Aught earthly that would circumscribe its reign.
See, Ariel and the serpent who was Nile's,
These the fine brain of him who has no peer
Did re-create from nature. Truth alone
Is mighty; yet a mightier truth is here,
A truth God-given through man, who so hath shown
Shadow'd in him the might with awe we hear
Creating always all things to us known.

IN THE DULWICH GALLERY—BEFORE GUIDO'S “ST. SEBASTIAN.”

And on this very canvas Guido wrought
The Christ-like beauty of these sainted eyes,
Fill'd but with God, even in these agonies!
How to the mighty master were they brought!
From his own brain was this great glory caught?
Whence did the radiance, here before us, rise?
Truly a sacredness untold there lies
In such rare visions. Given to man's thought
Are all his highest works of hand and brain;
They seem but his; these God himself creates.
Unless He work through us, we work in vain.
He, with pure heart and open soul, who waits
To do His bidding, he the crown shall gain,
And pass, through prayer, through glory's temple-gates.

IN LONDON—AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY—BEFORE MURILLO'S “HOLY FAMILY.”

“We are such things as dreams are made of;”—yes,
Friends, seem we not as breathings upon glass,
As wind-swept shades of clouds, that swiftly pass,
Seen by these changeless ones who ever bless
With the great glory of their loveliness,
All generations. Even as the grass,
We come and are not, while our works, alas!
Mock our mortality and nothingness.
Were earth our all, and did no lustres lie,
Of heaven, before our ever-aging eyes,
Well might we cry with him, who daily by
Great Leonardo's blest ones pass'd, “Man dies;
“These radiant ones are of eternity;
“We are the shadows; they, realities.”

ON A VIOLET-STAND.

On such a shape, Aspasia loved to heap
Hymettus' thyme, Illissus' violets,
To charm to softness Pericles, with frets
Of the Pnyx heated,—all his soul to steep
In hours of her and joy; or, years to leap,
Some Roman Lydia's hand, ere time forgets
Lost Pompeii, till some distant century lets
Life's light upon its deaths, in hyacinths, deep
In purple as the violet skies on high,
Might hide with Nature its as beauteous art,
Even on that morn when hideous death drew nigh
Those fair Italian homes, while her young heart
Dream'd not Vesuvius soon, 'neath the black sky,
Would from its womb the entombing torrent start.

AT ROME—FROM THE HILL OF THE CAPITOL.

Look! for this hill has visions; hush, and see
Their passage; hark to that still nearing shout,
That thunder-burst of joy; all Rome is out
To-day; to-day a holiday must be;
Pompeius triumphs. O'er that tossing sea
Of up-turned faces—o'er the surging rout,
See, the great conqueror, glory-girt about
With gifts and treasures rent from victory,
With monarchs manacled—great Asian kings,
Rules and dominions crumbled in Rome's ire.
Hark to the blare of brazen trumpets; things,
Unseen of Rome till now, her gazing tire,
Tower'd elephants and spoils of which earth rings.
Can grander vision, friends, your thought desire?

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE COLISEUM.

Here was the heart of Rome. Her lust of blood,
'Gainst which so long the nations of the earth
Cried vainly, here grew fiercer, or had birth,
Lapping in this vast murder-house the flood
Welling from veins of the wild savage brood
Of the strong North, here slaughter'd for her mirth.
Yet not in vain arose that cry of earth.
The avenging angel at God's footstool stood.
Sin is decay. The pitiless shall meet
No pity. Comes the Goth; the avenging day
Hastens to that fell call. The nations' feet
Quicken to hear it, on their road to slay.
To that, their hearts with lust of carnage beat;
Smit by that cry, Rome's red life shrieks away.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

What! you have look'd on Landor and have heard
His agèd lips utter Miltonic thought,
In tones that seem from Bacon's great tongue caught,
Rich, with what wisdom, in each weighty word!
Speech by which they, fit for such food, are stirr'd
To brace their lives to noblest acts,—are taught
The Spartan mood by which the strong are brought
To near all glory, like Jove's dazeless bird,
To know all is, for those who dare, endure,
And grasp success with hands that crush all stings.
O, old man eloquent, your place is sure,
Your place, how high, amid thought's sceptred kings,
The loftier lights and leaders of our race
To right and good, and scorn of meaner things.

ROBERT BROWNING.

To tread Rome with him, did not your heart beat,
With him who so could raise its dead to sight,
With him who so with wonder and delight
Fills the fit soul whose eyes his great thoughts meet,
With Robert Browning? Fittest are his feet
To tread the marble of Rome's dust aright,
Fittest his words to grow to the great height
Of the great memories of her every street,
Fit audience has his genius found, if few
Yet, for the souls of most are small and poor.
Many the years that died ere England knew
Her Milton, ere her Wordsworth's place was sure.
Slowliest the mightiest glory ever grew;
Slowly his grows—how surely to endure!

BEFORE WILKIE'S “COLUMBUS.”

So look'd the great world-seeker, in neglect,
In poverty and the world's scorn, erect
On the broad stand of the earth-changing thought
Which the dumb West from out the Past's night caught
To light and life. Yet, friend, how nearly wreck'd
Seem'd that great thought which God will'd should connect
The far, dim vast, which then his clear sight sought,
And the old world, first wed in his clear thought.
What at that moment was in that broad brow!
The gleam of the white multitudinous sails,
The ocean-shuttles ever crossing now!
The march of man towards where the sunset pales,
Of rules to which the coming times shall bow!
Friend, lo, a God-sent purpose never fails.

AT SOUTH KENSINGTON—IN THE TURNER GALLERY.

“Wisdom doth dwell with children round her knee,”
And, looking on these glories, they are wise
Who gaze on them with child-like hearts and eyes,
Content to feel, not doubt of what they see.
Truly a reverent spirit there should be
In eyes that look on things the highest prize
The highest. If they see not all that lies
Before them, they bring not the souls to see;
Therefore, dear Friends, has beauty unto you
Bared all her radiance, nor with any veil
Dimm'd her full lustre to your reverent view;
Therefore, before her, could you never fail
To see the loveliness reveal'd to few,
Deep hidden from souls, than yours, more gross and frail.

AT DULWICH.

Ah, the dear goodness of our gracious God!
Oh what a glory gilds the fields to-day!
The “glad light green” of blithe old Chaucer's May
Gleams from the grass and laughs up as 'tis trod;
There, to warm wooing airs sweet cowslips nod,
While, from their honey'd cups, bees boom away;
Bright is the lime; bright is the willow's spray;
Glory and joy are everywhere abroad,
Nor from our hearts that laugh aloud His praise,
His goodness who has made the Spring so fair,
Down scattering such bright blessings on our ways,
Painting His power and mercy everywhere.
O well our hearts may we in gladness raise
To Him who takes for us such gracious care!

IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL—BEFORE MICHAEL ANGELO'S “LAST JUDGMENT.”

So the last trump shall sound, and all earth's dead
Shall gather to the mighty angel's cry,
All souls that ever wore mortality,
All flesh, to death, that ever bow'd the head.
Then from the throne shall the awful words be said,
Utter'd by Highest Justice, crown'd on high,
Dooming the unrighteous everlastingly,
While into bliss the pure of heart are led.
O what a soul was his this sight who saw,
Who gave its terrors by us to be seen
To seize all living souls with trembling awe,
As if, with him, spectators they have been
Of the just vengeance of eternal law,
Or shook appall'd even now in the dread scene.

AT DULWICH.

Dear lie the meadows of full many a May,
Deep-grass'd and daisied, in my memory's sight;
Elms of how many a Spring, my thoughts, delight;
Blooms of what vanish'd years may sweet my way;
Dark hours are glorified with day on day
Departed, set into the past's dim night;
All lustres of my past, my present, light,
And dearer grow the longer that they stay.
Yet this glad day more dear will memory mark;
This day more surely will oblivion spurn;
Ne'er to be whelm'd in the pursuing dark,
But dearer, fairer, ever to return,
Till, cold, my ear can hear no more May's lark,
And suns no more for my closed eyes shall burn.

AT ANTWERP—BEFORE RUBENS' “DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.”

O holiest spirit, most bless'd that e'er wore
On earth these frail robes of mortality,
So for our human sake, Christ, didst thou die
The death that thieves and malefactors bore,
Making the Cross, how sacred! evermore.
“God, why hast thou forsaken me!”—that cry
Shrieks through all ages thy wan agony
As when, first heard, the accursèd night it tore,
And Mary knew it by the abhorrèd tree,
And swoon'd from that wild wail in love and awe.
And thou who here hast given to man to see
What shuddering earth, darkening her darkness, saw
Surely the tongue of God thou cam'st to be
To tell how He was given to death's fell maw!

[Venice! Dear friends, how comes she to your eyes?]

Venice! Dear friends, how comes she to your eyes?
An Aphrodité rising from the sea,
Clasp'd half in waves, half in fierce glare, does she,
As Turner painted her, before you rise?
Or, nearer view'd, where the gondola plies
The oar through palaces that ruin see
Wan in their chambers, seems she, friends, to be
She who on Canaletto's canvas lies?
“The Stones of Venice” you have brought away
For after-visions in your Boston air;
The halls where Titian's colours pale the day,
Which Veronese so throng'd with forms, how fair!
Which Tintoretto dyed—these with you stay
With the flush'd splendours of St. Mark's bright square.

[On the Rialto, too, your steps have been]

On the Rialto, too, your steps have been
And press'd the stones that Shylock's garment swept,
What time, blood-thirsting, he the appointment kept
With him who spat upon his gabardine.
The white doge-haunted palace you have seen
Where Byron loved and wrote; your hearts have leapt,
Thinking, beneath those leads, what souls have wept
Whom from the awful Ten no love could screen.
And you have stilly cut her hush'd lagune,
Your gondolier low-chanting to the oar,
While the soft splendour of the quiet moon
Silver'd her palaces, peopled no more
With rule and grandeur. Friends, may God full soon
Unto her hands, freedom and strength restore.

[Ah, those Italian lakes! My town-dull'd eyes]

Ah, those Italian lakes! My town-dull'd eyes
Weary to see them, lapp'd in the blue shade
By the deep hush of their still mountains made,
Dark with the purple of their violet skies,
Or crimson-stain'd with all the thousand dyes
That flush their waters when their sunsets fade,
Or purpled with deep nights whose moons are stay'd
To glass them in their deeps till morning rise.
Ah me, what music is in each sweet name!
Como—La Guarda—what sweet sights they bring
To eyes that have not seen them, to their shame!
What calming music to the soul they sing!
Dear friends, their glassy sweetness with you came,
And with you ever to my thoughts will cling.

[When the laburnum droops its golden rain]

When the laburnum droops its golden rain,
And lilacs flush with gladness all our ways,
When red and white-hued hawthorns scent our days,
For you in thought we shall not look in vain;
With the dear May-time you shall come again.
Violets shall whisper of you—daisies raise
Your forms, dear friends, your faces to our gaze,
As when we saw together field and lane,
And laugh'd aloud in gladness at the Spring.
Come, let us please us with the dear-loved thought
That thrushes of you, friends, shall ever sing,
That by the larks' your voices shall be brought,
That, when each hedge and bough with twitters ring,
From each sweet sound, your dear tones shall be caught.

BEFORE THE DULWICH GALLERY.

O cherry-tree, in my hush'd thoughts still white
As when we saw your sweet snows in the sun!
Bless God! the joy of beauty's but begun
When the eye sees it; bright and yet more bright,
It shines for ever in the memory's sight,
With gathering loveliness from fancy won;
Therefore is beauty's value summ'd by none,
Its priceless endlessness of new delight.
Friends, as you speed across the summer sea,
Golden beneath the glory of the day,
Or silver'd by the night, that tree shall be
A haunting gladness which will not away;
There in your thought 'twill bloom eternally,
An endless memory of our hours of May.

IN THE CAPITOL—BEFORE THE FAUN OF “PRAXITELES,”

Look! From this Faun the teeming brain of him
Who is your glory, gather'd mystic lore,
Which a new birth of strange, sweet wonder bore,
Of airy shadows that before us swim,
Of teachings, through their veiling beauty dim,
Yet sweet unto our souls for evermore.
So beauty ever adds to its dear store;
Its sweets, the forms that hold them, overbrim,
And flow into the soul that for them waits,
Soon from its depths, new-born, to re-appear.
So beauty, beauty, evermore creates;
Laugh on, O Faun! for ever laughing here;
Henceforth your mirth's sweet worth, man higher rates!
Henceforth, to all you shall be doubly dear!

IN THE VATICAN—BEFORE THE APOLLO BELVEDERE.

Wonder and worship! Lo, this place hath grown
Awful with the still presence of the god!
Yonder, behold him, glorious as he trod
The air triumphant. There he breathes in stone
Immortal anger, but not wrath alone,
But radiance that rains violets on the sod,
And calls up amaranth where his feet have trod,
And hyacinths' purple, by his glory sown.
Utter no word! The chamber's air is fill'd
Not with his glory only, but with theirs,
The great of centuries, who here have still'd
Their thoughts and dreams, ambitions, fears and cares.
Who, in the air those radiant splendours gild,
To give one thought to aught less heavenly, dares?

AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM—BEFORE “THE TURNERS.”

Look! How his colours glorify the place
With lustres by no eyes of mortals seen,
Save his and such as his, whose sight hath been
Strengthen'd to look on Nature's robeless grace,
The awful beauty of her unveil'd face.
Yet seems she here transfigured in each scene—
Bright with a glory that hath never been;
Immortal radiance shines from out all space,
“The light that never was on sea or land,”
Ideal splendours that his soul's eye saw,
Flash'd into colours from his radiant hand,
Scenes that seem sinning against truth's clear law
To grosser gazers who before them stand,
But stilling you, dear friends, to praise and awe.

AT FLORENCE—BEFORE THE “VENUS DE MEDICI.”

Bless'd was the soul to which this marble thought,
In its still perfectness, by God was given,
Which stood translated then from earth to heaven,
Up to the Gods' high courts an instant caught,
By strong desire of that for which it sought,
The immortal grace for which its thought had striven.
And, lo! the veiling clouds a moment riven,
He, to our eyes, eternal beauty brought,
The radiance of this glory, to all time.
There stands she with the eyes that ruined Troy;
There looks she as she press'd hush'd Ida's thyme,
And smiled to love and death the Dardan boy,
Earth's beauty perfected to grace sublime,
The Queen of all the fulness of all joy.

IN THE VATICAN—BEFORE THE FRESCOES OF THE “STANZE DI RAFFAELLO.”

What dreams divine—what fancies not of earth,
What sweet imaginings, how heavenly fair,
Possess'd these rooms when Raphael breathed their air
And to their blest walls gave eternal worth
With these fair forms which from his brain had birth.
Here is his presence round us everywhere,
In the bright glory which these still ones share
With those whose grandeur girdles the world's girth,
The shapes of awfulness which hover near,
The Sistine's wonders, from the mighty thought
Of Angelo. Fitly the greatness here
Companions his, whose wondrous pencil wrought
There the dread scene that shakes all souls with fear,
With awe and horror from God's presence caught.

IN ITALY—1860.

Friends, you have dwelt not only in her Past,
But her proud Present, for 'twas yours to see
The surging waves of tossing Italy
Stilling from tempest, with their sky o'ercast,
Foretelling storm, how soon, how long to last,
Ere the great land of bygone rules be free,
And know no fetterers but the engirdling sea
And the embracing mountains round her cast.
You to the freedom of your Western hearts
Caught the dear accents, alien to her tongue
So long, the shout that from her Florence starts,
The cry that, to her God, Bologna flung,
And in your prayers and praise all had their parts,
Who, when she rose to smite, to help her sprung.

[So this is yours, our Wordsworth's pictured face]

So this is yours, our Wordsworth's pictured face,
Great poet of the quiet lakes and hills,
Who with the gentle peace of nature stills
The fever of our lives. A peaceful place
God gave him 'mongst our toils, so the great race
He sprang from, 'mid their labours, cares and ills,
With the calm blessedness he felt, he fills,
With love of wisdom, beauty, good and grace.
When you last came, you held his living hand,
And, with what reverence, heard his every word.
Through a sweeet day, with you, he of your land
Of freemen talked, or thought or feeling stirred
With converse of his art, rolling his grand
Deep verse out. O that I that voice had heard!

[What! Gad's Hill's haunted greenness you have seen.]

What! Gad's Hill's haunted greenness you have seen.
There is a subtle spirit in its air;
The very soul of humour homes it there;
So is it now: of old so has it been;
Shakespeare from off it caught the rarest scene
That ever shook with laughs the sides of care;
Falstaff's fine instinct for a Prince grew where
That hill—what years since!—showed its Kentish green.
Fit home for England's world-loved Dickens, here
How fitly first the breath of earth he drew.
Here did the spirit of Shakespeare linger near
His dreaming cradle, as the boy he grew,
Whispering what fancies into his young ear,
Rare wit, deep humour, O how dear and true!

IN THE DULWICH GALLERY—BEFORE MURILLO'S “FLOWER-GIRL.”

So smiled she in the hour in which he drew
This gladness for us; so still smiles she now.
That laugh that then he gave her does not bow
To time or death, immortal, ever new
Delight, as when beneath his hand there grew
That red arch'd lip, that mirthful swarthy brow,
On which Art's dear love never will allow
One aging wrinkle, to her darling true.
Ah me! before these ever-laughing eyes,
Ah me! before these ever-blooming flowers,
What eyes have stood through vanish'd centuries!
What smiles have flitted through what bygone hours!
What hearts have beat on which the sod now lies,
And daisies whiten in May's gentle showers!

THACKERAY.

Your own home heard our Fielding call you friend;
Here you have found what welcome in his home,
Have chatted with him of your hours in Rome,
Your Paris days, till night almost had end.
What light to the charm'd hours you've seen him lend!
What priceless memories over the far foam
You bear! what flashes to illume your home,
That mirth through all your future days shall send,
Drawn from the nights 'twas yours with him to see!
How you are stored with laughs for all your years!
His wit, his wisdom, shall your fellows be
With time, with time, who, as he flies, endears
Such gifts divine of gracious memory;
What wit more wise has charm'd all living ears!

ITALY.

Hers is the home of Art, beauty's own clime;
Voiceless and whitest sculpture loves her well;
There painting's mightiest marvels ever dwell;
There architecture's grandeurs skywards climb;
Wan Dante makes her sweetest tongue sublime;
Her words her Petrarch's softest sorrows tell;
Through her tones, Ariosto's wonders swell,
And the great tale her Tasso told to time.
Boccaccio, Raphael, Angelo are hers;
Hers are Cellini's, Machiavelli's fames;
Hers is that mightiest memory that stirs
The souls of men, when, Rome, our wonder names.
What lustre Venice on her tale confers!
What glory she from radiant Florence claims!

MRS. BROWNING.

And you who have known this Miriam of our days,
Who, with clear clash of cymbals and with song
Triumphant, grand sweet words to ring as long
Through time as Shakespeare's, flings up prayer and praise
Unto God's footstool, fittest souls to raise
From out the earthly sloughs of sin and wrong,
Up into heaven's clear azure, borne along,
Wing'd by her words, to where heaven's lustre plays
Upon them, so to walk again the earth
With spirits that show still the light of heaven,
That have known henceforth always a new birth
Of meeker, lowlier hearts unto them given
By her great thoughts, to all of what dear worth,
From whose raised hearts, they earthliest thoughts have driven.

AT MILAN—IN THE CONVENT OF THE MADONNA DELLE GRAZIE.

A Dream of Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper.”

Enter! and, entering, still your souls with awe;
Behold the blessèd ones! the Man Divine,
Even as he brake the bread and gave the wine,
And made His heart meek to obey the law,
The nearing doom even now His dear eyes saw.
“One of ye shall betray me.” Those divine
Bow'd lips still utter it. Still, (O how fine
Was thy great genius, Leonardo!) awe,
O what deep love, wonder and horror, here
On these bless'd faces, in these eyes, we see,
Eager for ever, while in shame and fear,
Judas' soul shrinks aghast eternally.
O mightiest master, as our Raphael dear,
Match'd with this wonder here, what art may be?

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

You knew him, friend, this wonder, ere the night
Received him, and he vanish'd, seen no more
Of men, he who into death's darkness bore
What radiance and what blackness from our sight,
He form'd for our bewilderment, delight,
Our admiration, loathing, praise. Death tore
Never so strange a page from life before;
What wonder if we read it not aright?
His was a music tender, strange and wild;
The ghosts of many a weird, wan melody
Wailed from his lines; wan faces through them smiled;
The sense of horror there unceasingly
Haunts us, to terror and to awe beguiled
By what we know not—what we feel, not see.

AT ALFRED TENNYSON'S.

So you have breathed a week in the very home
Of our sweet dreamer of all golden dreams;
As, thro' my thought, his name's bright radiance streams,
With it, what countless lustrous fancies come,
In whose bright presence well may men grow dumb
With love and worship. Wonder well beseems
The eyes dear friends, on which their lustre beams,
Brightness, alas, dim to the eyes of some.
Ah me! what shapes of heavenly beauty rise
With the dear utterance of his world-loved name!
What forms of majesty time lives to prize,
Splendours that earliest from his rare brain came,
And grandeurs later lent to our blest eyes,
With whose eternal life shall live his fame!

AT ROME—IN THE FORUM.

Hark to the clash of arms, the trumpets' blare!
Through shouting streets, the out-pour'd city's roar,
By face-throng'd roofs, by every bough-wreath'd door,
By wide-ope'd temples flush'd with garlands fair,
Through the vast wonder of the gazing air,
The spoils and marvels of the triumph pour,
Boasts lost to Macedon for evermore,
Statue and vase emboss'd and paintings rare,
Great priceless cups her Philip loved to drain,
Ancestral gold, by Alexander worn,
Gems that flashed glory on his mighty reign,
Treasures unsumm'd from her cleft phalanx torn
By Rome's fierce legions on loud Pydna's plain.
See, Perseus chain'd—Æmilius chariot-borne.

IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.

These stones were trod by Raleigh's prison'd feet;
Think, then, what vast thoughts breathed within this cell,
What radiant fancies by your eyes loved well,
Fancies still in our souls, with music sweet;
How his great spirit's wings here vainly beat
These bars for issue, weak are words to tell,
For flight to that far unknown world, where dwell
Nations he planted—English hearts that meet
With reverence the grand utterance of his name
Who was the sun of our great Queen's bright reign
And our abhorrèd Stuart's worst of shame,
To hide whose baseness time must strive in vain;
Link'd is that crown'd sin to his living fame
Whose mortal like earth yearns to know again.

WRITTEN IN NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE'S “TRANSFORMATION.”

I.

[O mightiest name of death! O awful Rome!]

O mightiest name of death! O awful Rome!
How has he writ in marble on thy hills
His presence! Death thy stony valleys fills;
There, with the ghostly past, he makes his home;
Yet, in the shadows of thy mighty dome,
What life eternal lives, a breath that stills
His boasts to dumbness, and, thy conqueror, kills.
Who breathe thy air, deathless henceforth become;
For ears that hear, thy lips have mystic lore:
To those who question thee in the weird might
Of genius, lo, thy thousand tongues restore
The spells that scare Oblivion to flight.
Greatness is in thy touch. Lo, here, once more
To one thou giv'st thy glory as his right.

II.

[Here is the life of Rome. The air of death]

Here is the life of Rome. The air of death,
Silence and solitude and awe are here;
Spectres of grandeur, at whose bygone breath
Earth still'd and trembled, from these leaves appear;
From these weird words steal wonder and strange fear,
An awful past, which he who listeneth
In solemn awe, with trembling heart may hear,
Hearing what from her stones the Bygone saith.
Here is the double life that haunts Rome's hills,
Power spelt in ruins—art that wreathes all time,
Beauty eternal which the rapt air fills
With reverence from fit souls from every clime.
Hawthorne, henceforth, here, with life's joys and ills,
Rome's thoughts are with me, and her dreams sublime.

III.

[“From evil, good; from sin and sorrow, peace]

“From evil, good; from sin and sorrow, peace,
A holier future and a loftier faith.”
This, to the soul, thy mystic volume saith,
Hawthorne, and bids Doubt's spectral night to cease,
Offering, from its dread gloom, what blest release!
If any say, “Evil accuses Him,
From whom is all, of evil,” here in dim
Wan characters is writ, “Good hath increase,
Even from the stifling ill with which it strives.
God's wisdom is not ours. From blackest ill,
Souls, sorrow-deepen'd, have won whitest lives.
Bless Him for all things. All things are His will:
His stroke the granite of our hearts but rives
That light may enter, and His ends fulfil.”

JOHN RUSKIN.

I.

[Our poet-priest of art you should have seen]

Our poet-priest of art you should have seen,
Who makes its voice one deep-toned hymn to God,
Who'd have its paths with feet the holiest trod,
Such as where Pisa's time-smooth'd graves are green
And silent, in her Holy Field have been,
And girt with tender beauty its dear sod,
Memmi, Orcagna, and he, dear to God,
Gaddi. Nor have such. by him, been unseen
Breathing amongst us, with whom art is prayer,
Each work is worship, where, nor faint nor dim
Glory to God is wrought in beauty rare,
In shapes and colours, through which upward swim
Sweet incense, which our awed souls skywards bear.
Hunt and Rosetti, so your hands praise Him.

II.

[His words, I know, are priceless thoughts with you]

His words, I know, are priceless thoughts with you;
You should have had his face, friends, in your sight
For your remembrance, wonder and delight;
For he is one of England's rarest few,
Mating our days with the great times that knew
Our mother-tongue grow grander in its flight
From Milton's pen, pleading sublime for right,
And the rich organ-roll full pealing through
Our holy Taylor's strains of heavenly thought.
Then looking on him, in him, friends, your eyes
Had seen one who from Truth's own lips has caught
Wisdom and faith her lightest words to prize,
Knowing, through her, God's wondrous will is wrought
That art, a child uttering her words, is wise.

III.

[When I remember how my hours go by]

When I remember how my hours go by,
My days to months, my months to dead years grow,
Then the swift shortness of my life I know,
How little I may do or ere I die;
Then do I feel how time I waste, and cry
“Art woos me lovingly her charms to show,
I, still thrust from her; will it still be so?
Will life be fruitless everlastingly?
O will no season of sweet leisure be,
Release from all this care for things, how poor,
For my chain'd thoughts, so yearning to be free,
Doom'd still such daily task-work to endure.
Art gives you gold; O were it so with me!
That she would give my needs, O were I sure!”

IN PARIS—AT THE LOUVRE—BEFORE MURILLO'S “IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.”

Half could I worship thee as pictured here,
O thou Maid-mother of the Child divine,
Around whose pathway heaven's own lightnings shine,
Filling thee with a love that conquereth fear,
Making thee to the heart of man, how dear!
Yea, sacred, even unto eyes like mine
That are not Rome's, sacred, nay all divine,
Until to bow to thee my soul is near.
O mighty master, light of thy great Spain,
Many thy canvases that wake our awe;
But for one like this, eyes must look in vain,
Fill'd with the glory here thy bless'd eyes saw,
Rapt up on high to where the splendours reign,
Archangels worship, and but love is law.

IN LONDON—BEFORE HOLMAN HUNT'S “FINDING OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.”

So worshipped Gaddi; so Masaccio sent
His heart up in a holy hymn to heaven;
Such incense, from Ghiberti's spirit given,
An offering fair, up to God's footstool went.
These held their masteries but as talents lent
By their high Lord; not to His labour driven
Went they, of those to win His smile who've striven,
To tell His power, His glory, ever bent.
To his work their reverent spirit has he brought,
For the vain praise of man having less care,
Than to refresh his soul with the blest thought,
His pencil has made righteousness more fair
Unto dull'd eyes. Friends, he this wonder wrought,
Like Fra Angelico, in the might of prayer.

[And of our great ones, him you should have known]

And of our great ones, him you should have known,
Kingsley, in whom fire of the altar burns,
The flame of God's old Hebrew ire, that turns
His words to lightnings, and the awful tone
Of thunders, kin to the wrathful wonders shown
To Pharaoh's hardness, so his spirit yearns
To smite out sin, while from his Lord he earns
Love, the best guerdon which he seeks alone.
For him, we bless God. Of such have we need
In this our day, troubled with evil sore,
Great want of shepherds, such as he, to feed
Fitly our hungering souls. O had we more
Like him, not eaten up with earthly greed,
But with desire of Him the Cross who bore.

AT ROME—BEFORE ST. PETER'S.

By the Janiculum, how awful stands
The shadowing vastness of its mighty dome,
Fit fellow of the memories that home
In her who was the ruler of all lands.
Before this mightiest toil of human hands,
This glory of the glories of great Rome,
To stand, O well across the ocean foam,
Friends, have you come. Faith here high-throned commands
Men's souls, as strength here once their spirits swayed;
So is earth always subject to these hills;
Here art, sublime by the vast grandeur made
Of Angelo, heaven with his glory fills,
The while all lands bow to her as he bade,
And every soul before her greatness stills.

AT ROME—IN ST. PETER'S.

Enter and wonder. Here, in the might of art,
Would superstition chain men's prostrate souls;
Here homes the soaring spirit that controls
The reason through the impulse of the heart,
Giving the brain in man's belief no part,
Faith wrought from feeling. But time forward rolls,
And more is needed by earth's hungering souls
Than beauty, at whose awfulness we start,
Can feed them with. Therefore of change men dream;
Therefore, in the vast shadow of this dome,
Are fear and trembling, and the alien gleam
Of bayonets; therefore does the soldier home
In thy hush'd palaces that peaceful seem
Until the breeding earthquake shake thee, Rome.

IN LONDON—BEFORE ST. PAUL'S.

O would that men would treat this wonder right,
Our own St. Peter's, this vast thought of Wren!
This marble marvel should not vainly then
Be fitly sought for by men's eager sight;
Then were it thrown wide open to the light,
Throned in clear space, not prison'd in this den
Of houses mean that shut that up from men
Which should be all men's wonder and delight.
O mighty art thou London, but one thing
Thou lackest greatly—souls to make thee great
Like those that bade great Brunelleschi fling
Grandeur o'er Florence and Ghiberti's gate
Crown her with glory; then the earth should ring
With this world's wonder, fitly seen though late.

IN LONDON—IN TRAFALGAR-SQUARE—BEFORE THE STATUE OF GENERAL SIR CHARLES JAMES NAPIER.

We are the living Romans of the earth,
Strong-nerved, high-thoughted, for that we are free;
Therefore earth-rulers are we and shall be.
While we, self-ruled, still hold our great rights worth
The blood that won them. Free, there is no dearth
To-day of ancient greatness with us. We
Lack not great souls that give us deeds to see
From which our greater future leaps to birth.
Look, Cæsar's spirit homed in that strong brain;
That brow, that eagle-look—all Rome is there.
Strong the high wreaths of victory to gain,
But, greater than the Roman, quick to spare,
The stricken ask'd his mercy not in vain.
Bless God, O land, thy days such souls still bear.

GARIBALDI.

Did you not hear it! Crept not that name by,
A muttering earthquake, through your Roman air?
Her new Rienzi, lo, his shadow there,
And the Sardinian victor's, gloom her sky,
To her soul-fetterers, everlastingly,
A terror and a horror everywhere.
Born all things greatly to endure, to dare,
With antique greatness, ruin to defy,
Still held he on, still holds he on the same,
Ever alike, in failure and success;
Unchanged alike, though baseness brand his name,
Or justice crown it. Italy, O bless
Him, through all time, through whom thy free life came,
Thy great free life of strength and blessedness!

AT FLORENCE—IN FRA ANGELICO'S CELL IN THE CONVENT OF ST. MARK.

Mighty was Launcelot, great Tristram strong,
Yet, stain'd with sin both, strength might not avail
To help them venturing for the Holy Grail;
To Galahad, spotless of all shame and wrong,
All white of heart, did that bless'd quest belong,
And strong in pureness, arm'd in the heavenly mail
Of holiness, he sought and did not fail,
And God's own knight, shines radiant still in song.
So, strong the most bless'd wreaths of art to win,
Are holiest thoughts and blessèdest desires,
Life that lives pure from spot of self or sin,
And, to show forth God's glory, never tires.
So fame, Angelico, thou findest in
Prayers that burn heavenward, in what holy fires.

AT ROME—IN THE FORUM.

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF TASSO.

“They learn in suffering what they teach in song:”
So was it with the life we gaze on here?
No; the great glory of his tale is clear
From the deep shadow of his mortal wrong;
Gladness and faith to his great strain belong,
Sung not alone to be sweet to man's ear,
But in the higher hope, the faith more dear,
That He who will'd it would approve his song.
Strange that this brow in awe we look on here,
God should have will'd such anguish to have known,
That madness, from its suffering and its fear,
Its heart's despair, could give it rest alone!
Yet those eyes saw the mighty vision clear,
And made its glory his, its joy our own.

FLORENCE.

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF DANTE.

How changed from the young face Giotto drew!
That surely the dread vision had not seen,
That scarcely through the torturing gloom had been,
Or known the sights this pain-worn visage knew;
What do these deep lines and this woeful hue,
These features, cold and thin, and smileless, mean?
Deep wrath and hate in those sad eyes have been,
In that aged brow, woes felt but by the few;
What matters all? That sorrow-wrinkled brow
God's hand hath smoothed; those weary eyes have rest;
The peace it cried for, that tried heart has now;
Anguish and ire no more disturb that breast;
God bade him weep and sing, and now we bow
To his great glory, who through tears is blest.

AT FLORENCE—IN SANTA CROCE—BY THE TOMB OF MACHIAVELLI.

Here lies his dust; where is the spirit now
That, subtle as the serpent, here once wrought,
And train'd for hell how many a sceptred thought?
Where is the soul that schemed 'neath that still brow,
That to all ill full action dared allow,
So that it grasp'd the glittering prize it sought,
So that the crowns of time to heads it brought
That here in dust before death's footstool bow?
Come here, ye kings; ye subtle brains, come here,
Who, evil, wrought for thrones, dare hold for good,
Doth not a voice here cry to you to care
For heaven's hereafter? rightly understood
Are earth and hell here. Death speaks everywhere;
Would ye would heed his still words as ye should!

AT PISA—IN THE CAMPO SANTO—BEFORE THE FRESCOES AND TOMB OF BENOZZO GOZZOLI.

Sleep on, Benozzo, in her Holy Field,
By thee made holier. From thy pencil here,
What prayers, what solemn hymns, full-toned and clear,
Unto thy God their praise and glory yield!
These through the speeding centuries have peal'd
Strains to the raptured souls of men how dear,
Strains fit to rise in reverence to His ear
Before whose light, their sight, archangels shield.
Our God forgot, we work alone for men,
For man's poor praises now alone have care;
So Art, that wore celestial radiance then,
And heavenly robes she may no longer wear,
She shall not know her olden power till when
She too our prayers to heaven again shall bear.

MILAN, 1860.

Greatness dies not; from grandeur, grandeur springs;
From glory, glory evermore is born;
Therefore has she, who was the oppressor's scorn,
Found might in memory to tread down kings,
Making a present with whose deeds earth rings;
Therefore sits she, chain'd 'mongst the lands, forlorn,
No longer; in that strength rising, has torn
Her right to live greatly from the crowned things
That wrought her evil. She hath stung the heel
That crush'd the iron into her great soul.
Freedom is hers, grasp'd mid the clash of steel;
Tyrants no more her thoughts, her tongue control;
Free is the course; her past does she not feel
Shouting her on again to glory's goal!

IN LONDON—BEFORE MR. CROPSEY'S “AUTUMN ON THE HUDSON.”

Forgot are summer and our English air;
Here is your Autumn, with her wondrous dyes;
Silent and vast your forests round us rise;
God, glorified in nature, fronts us there,
In his transcendent works, as heavenly fair
As when they first seem'd good unto His eyes.
See, what a brightness on the canvas lies!
Hues, seen not here, flash on us everywhere;
Radiance that nature here from us conceals,
Glory with which she beautifies decay
In your far world, this master's hand reveals,
Wafting our blest sight from dimm'd streets away,
With what rare power! to where our awed souls kneel
To Him who bade these splendours light the day.

TO MARY HOWITT.

So should a life be lived, that genius lifts
To higher duties than life asks from all;
So art in blessèd influences should fall
Upon all hearts—using its mighty gifts
Man's thoughts and common acts to purify,
Breeding a loftier life and nobler aims,
A faith that liveth not in forms and names,
But in the deeds that fit a soul to die;
And well thy blessèd influence may we prize,
Moving about our paths in deeds of love,
In gentle words and household charities;
Well therefore may our reverence, above
The glare of useless fames, thy memory raise,
Throning thee in our love as high as in our praise.

TO MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

Out have I been this morning—out—away,
Far from the bustling carefulness of towns,
Through April gleams and showers—on windy downs,
By rushy meadow-streams with willows grey;
In thick-leaf'd woods have hid me from the day
Sultry with June—and where the windmill crowns
The hills' green height, the landscape that renowns
Thy own green county, have I, as I lay
Crushing the sweetness of the flowering thyme,
Track'd through the misty distance. Village greens
All shout and cheerfulness in cricket time,
Red winter firesides—autumn cornfield scenes,
All have I seen, ere I my chair forsook,
Thanks to the magic of thy breezy book.

TO KEATS.

O nightingale, thou wert for golden Junes,
Not for the gusts of March! Oh, not for strife
With wind and tempest was thy Summer life,
Mate of the sultry grasshopper, whose tunes
Of ecstasy leap faint up steaming noons,
Keen in their gladness as the shrilling fife.
With smiles not sighs thy days should have been rife,
With quiet, calm as sleeps 'neath harvest moons;
Thee, nature fashion'd like the belted bee,
Roamer of sunshine, fellow of the flowers,
Hiving up honied sweets for man, to see
No touch of tears in all thy radiant hours;
Alas, sweet singer, that thou might'st not live
Sunn'd in the gladness that thou cam'st to give!

TO LEIGH HUNT.

A RECOLLECTION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF “ION.”

Yes, I have sat before it; I have heard,
Heard with the plaudits of delightful tears,
The heart's real praises of sweet hopes and fears,
Life give a breathing utterance to each word,
Each phrase that in the hush of thought has stirr'd
My pulse so often; still to Fancy's ears
Wander low tones, in which again it hears
The gentle thoughts that have so oft recurr'd;
O dream of sorrow, ever be thy name,
Ion, a tender glory unto him
Who gave thy sweetness to the world's charm'd ears,
Gave thee, a thought to haunt the tongue of fame,
A sad sweet memory human eyes to dim,
A gentle moan of music wed to tears.

WRITTEN IN MACAULAY'S “LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME.”

The plunge of standards, reeling to and fro,
Barks winter-tost upon a howling sea—
Rome's bucklers' conquering glare, I, battling, see;
Her swoop of death upon the warring foe;
The thrust, the grapple, and the yell below
The gloom of dust—cries, now that on, now flee—
Fierce trumpets blaring aye tempestuously,
That thunder to the stormy battle blow,
And now the rushing roar of flight I hear,
Loading with awe the pulses of the wind—
Before—the shriek of death—the yell of fear—
The slaughtering shout of victory, behind.
O wondrous art! so giving one to look
On Rome's fierce life! O marvel of a book!

MOTHERWELL'S GRAVE.

A memory writ in tide-swept sands,—a name
Graven on running waters, was the doom
That, from the dusky portals of the tomb,
Thou sawest, Motherwell, await thy fame;
And who thy dark imaginings dare blame?
Upon thy nameless grave the wild-flowers bloom;
Nature, the resting-place of him by whom,
Unto the city where he dwelt, there came
A glory and a sanctity, alone
Hath deck'd with beauty. Oh, to Glasgow shame,
That to her poet hath not given a stone,
Graving her proudest honour in her claim
To him whose memory hath a life sublime,
Enlink'd unto the sweetest tears of time.

AT ROME—ON THE PINCIAN HILL.

Sweet were those sunsets from the Pincian seen,
When day died westward from the hills of Rome,
To rise in glory on your far dear home
And the loved paths from which your feet have been
So long. Oh, then remember'd was the scene
Before you? Did not, from its wonders, roam
Memory and love, across the wild far foam,
To nestle fondly 'neath your vines' dear green,
And the flush'd roses that hang trailing o'er
Your Boston casements, looking for each face
Familiar once there, now there seen no more?
Ah, dear will be the hours that, the sweet grace
Of those loved rooms, to your worn eyes restore,
That in them find your feet a resting-place.

[Would God had homed me near your fireside, friends]

Would God had homed me near your fireside, friends,
Nor sunder'd us by all the vasty sea—
Though nought to close-link'd hearts can distance be,
And friendship's power, the power of space transcends.
If but to hear your tongues this brief while lends
Such dearness to the hours you talk'd with me,
What were each day, if everlastingly
Mingled our lives until their mortal ends?
What radiant hours, how swift—paced then were mine,
Hours turning all they touch'd of life to gold,
Hours wing'd with converse of all souls divine,
Painters and poets given to earth of old,
And of those with us, spirits rare and fine,
Whose names by glory more and more are told.

[Yours be a life of pleasure, lapp'd in ease]

Yours be a life of pleasure, lapp'd in ease,
Ease by the nobleness of labour won,
By service to man's thought and fancy done.
Your calling gives you power men's souls to seize
And lift them skyward. Not alone to please
The sense, should art go forth beneath the sun,
But, by her beauty, that man may be won
To heights on earth from which heaven clear he sees.
Friends, you will nobly do God's bidding here;
Your path be pleasantness, through which your feet
May journey onwards still in joy, not fear,
While love and friendship make your hours, how sweet!
The radiance of the eternal day to meet,
And, with white lives, before The Throne appear.

BEFORE MR. JOHN RUSKIN'S “TURNERS,” AT DENMARK HILL.

Yes, here his soul should dwell—in this sweet air,
Soothed into calm by Nature's quietness;
Here where Art's dearest dreams for ever bless
His eyes and thoughts with sights how passing fair;
Such life is fitting for a life so rare;
Not fitly were it rounded in with less
Of thoughtful peace and tranquil happiness,
Afar from days of toil and haunts of care.
So shall his great thoughts to their native height,
In the blest ease of unvexed leisure, rise,
A glory and a gladness, to the sight
Of all empowered such gifts divine to prize,
The fancies fine that from his brain have flight,
The heavenly truths he calls before our eyes.

WRITTEN IN DR. HOLMES'S “ELSIE VENNER.”

Well may this book be closed with gentle tears,
With awe and tenderest pity and hushed thought,
Deep brooding o'er the fancies it has brought
To still our souls with its wild dreams and fears.
Strangely the story grasps us and endears
Its beauty, with such monstrous horror fraught,
The soul for which such hate and love so fought,
Whose tale each heart with painful pity hears.
Yet here, far more than power and beauty, more
Than Art's perfection, feeds with joy the soul;
Here love learns pity for crime, loathed before,
Even weeps for sin beyond the soul's control,
And, with the tenderness of heaven broods o'er
All woes that earth has, since God wills the whole.

WRITTEN IN “EMERSON'S ESSAYS.”

I.

[Prophets thou hast, O earth, even as of old]

Prophets thou hast, O earth, even as of old;
See that thou know'st them! Well it is that thou
Shut'st not thine ears, so dinned with nothings now,
To the great teachings by their rapt tongues told;
Diverse those tongues, yet wisdom all unfold
Harmonious, for to one God they vow
Their living hours, and at one altar bow,
Bidding all, in all things, one faith behold;
Some act like Havelock, and in thund'rous deeds
Preach nobleness even in the gaze of death;
So Livingstone, our lives, with greatness feeds;
Others sustain our souls with holiest breath
And wisdom priceless. Such he wisely heeds
Who takes to heart what Emerson still saith.

II.

[O that my soul might from his living tongue]

O that my soul might from his living tongue
Drink wisdom! that I might my ears rejoice
With the deep teachings of that far-off voice
Upon whose precious utterances have hung
Such souls uncounted—from whose breath have sprung
Lives that make angels gladden. Many a choice,
'Twixt sin and pureness hath that loftiest voice
Fixed for the holiest. High his wrath hath rung
O'er the poor tumult of abounding wrong
And evil multitudinous, and, bright
As the white lightning, hath scorched down the strong
And blustering sinfulness that, not in night
Cowered from high God, but thrust and brawled along
In noon's clear brightness, and in all men's sight.

III.

[Therefore, O Wisdom, throne him with the wise]

Therefore, O Wisdom, throne him with the wise
Whose glories brighten through the glooms of time,
By death and the past's darkness made sublime,
Made the dear worship of all human eyes.
Let us our Prophets of the Present prize,
Our Saints and Heroes, that, in every clime,
Sun our great days and sanctify our time,
Not leaving to the future the surprise
To know a greatness unto us unknown.
Need have we in the pathways of to-day
To know such guides as he, by whom is shown,
Begirt with snares and thorns, the narrow way,
That straitest road that we must tread alone,
If we fit offerings at God's feet would lay.