The bells :: :: University of Virginia Library

The bells

a collection of chimes

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey (1836-1907)

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“I thought how like these chimes
Are the Poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays,
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the Belfry of his brain!”
Belfry of Bruges.

TO MY MOTHER.

PROEM.

I. THE CHRISTENING.

I've christened these, my poesies, THE BELLS,
Because there is, or should be, in all rhymes,
A music soft and silv'ry as the chimes
That float at evening through the twilight dells,
Born in the belfry of some village church,
Hid by the ivy clamb'ring from its porch.

Because some verses have a solemn roll,
Sweetly sad, a melancholy swelling,
Like the deep bells of a cathedral, telling
The sad departure of another Soul
For the Eternal City! that far shore,
Where, like a sea, Time breaketh evermore!

Because in Bells there something is to me
Of rhythms and the poets of gone years—
A sad reverberation, breeding tears,
Touching the finer chords of memory!
Bells be the name! may their vibrations clear,
Fall in mild cadences upon thine ear!

II. TO MY FRIENDS.

Ye friends that gild my humbler way!
Ye stars that brighten year by year!
I know your hearts are with him here
Who seeks to tread a wider sphere;
I know the words that ye would say.

And thou, O friend! I have not seen!
Whose hand has never grasped my own,
Whose ear has never caught a tone
From lips of mine, to whom I'm known
In thoughts, and not by form or mien;

May I not hope some passing tone
May start thy sleeping memory,
May bring some clouded joy to thee?
'Twere sweet to know, though strangers we,
Thy heart is chiming with my own!

THE BELLS.

PRELUDE TO THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE.

The snow was on the house-top,
And on the poplars tall;
And the fire-light's hand was tracing
Weird pictures on the wall;

And nearer to the embers
I drew my little chair,
And gazing on the winking logs
I saw wild figures there.

Sometimes it was a castle
With turrets all a-gleam;
A draw-bridge, stretching like an arm,
Across the molten stream;

Gonfalons, and warriors
Encased in armor red;
And all the legends I had heard,
Came trooping thro' my head.

I thought of ruins hoary
Beside the Danube's wave,
Of Vogelweid whose treasures fed
The birds around his grave.

I thought of shadows sleeping
Around the Rodenstein;
And tales that hover bird-like o'er
The silver river Rhine.

And melody stole on me
Like a sweet midnight chime;
And 'mong the branches of my brain
I found this nest of rhyme.

THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE.

You'll see it through the hemlock boughs,
As down the moorland road you pass,
Standing ghostly, brown and still
In the shadow of a hill.

There is not a pane of glass
In any of the carven sashes;
But thick around them, like eye-lashes,
Hang the cobwebs old and gray!
In and out those glassless sockets,
Floats the lazy sun all day.
I have often heard it said
Hair grows on the coffined dead:
I know not if it be so;
But upon the belfry's crown,
Mosses of a dappled brown
And many curious colors grow!

In the steeple, where the swallows
Dart, like lightning, to and fro,
Swings the ponderous bell, which monks
In that tower long ago,
Hung with many pater nosters,
Chanted hymns and litanies!
Praying when, at eve, it swung
Between its lips its iron tongue,
What it said might reach far cities
And their sinful inmates save;
Telling with its solemn tolling
Time was ever, ever knolling
Mortals to the cold, damp grave!

As I stand, the twilight with me,
In the Steeple of St. Ayne,
Far I wander in the regions
Of the misty Land of Legends,
Painting pictures on my brain.
Olden scenes came back to me;
The past throws off its dusty shroud.—
The Abbot and the monkish train
In the old cathedral crowd,
Filling aisles and niches dim
With their pious murmuring;
And, as silver censers swing,
Swells and sinks their evening hymn.
To the gorgeous frescoed dome—
Paintings, brought from holy Rome—
Floats in clouds the soft perfume;
While the pensive evening gloom,
With a foot that seems to falter,
Mounts the carved steps of the altar,
Standing silently beside
An image of the Crucified!
Now the solemn chant of souls
Through gallery and cloister rolls!
While, as if with sudden pain,
Dolorous the Curfew tolls
In the Steeple of St. Ayne.

Now I see a marriage cortège,
Mailed knights and cavaliers;
Reeling plumes and glist'ning lances;
Maidens with their stolen glances;
Dames in kirtles of brocade—
All the pomp of other years.
Then the bride in white arrayed,
Milky roses on her brow,
White and beautiful as snow,
While her deep and blond eyes glisten
As the beams from Dian's bow.
On her bosom, budding forth
Like lilies from the pregnant earth,
Gems, as rich as those of Ind,
From the caverns of the East,
Rise and fall at every breath
As she gives her hand beneath
The benediction of the priest.
Hushed the epithalamium!
All the gaudy train is gone,
Priest, choragus; and deep Silence
Sits within the pews alone!

And, now through the open door
Streams the sunshine on the floor,
Throwing sparkles where the dismal,
Breathless shadows moped before.

By the marble urn baptismal,
Standeth two to whom is given
A revelation late from heaven!
A piece of clay! a little breath!
A form to toil and bear its cross
Like the Christ of Nazareth!

Now I see a funeral train,
Passing sorrowful and slow
Through the chiseled portico,
Where are shadows sad and solemn
Cast by many a fluted column.
To the altar's front they bear
Their lifeless charge and leave it there.
At the feet and at the head
Of the shrived and shrouded dead,
Candles burn. The sunlight's fingers,
Dipped in the window's hues,
Throw an iridescent light
On the coffin, and it lingers
Till the gibbous moon at night,
Looking through that painted window,
Throws her lovelier tints below.
Mournfully the funeral train,
Tearful, sad and slow,
Passes thro' the porch again,

While the bell within the steeple,
Throbbeth like a heart in wo!

'Tis gone! 'tis gone! I am alone,
With the calm, starry night alone,
In the old Steeple of St. Ayne!
The chanting, hooded monks are gone;
The marriage train has sought the regions
Of the misty Land of Legends;
And the sunshine through the door
Sleepeth not upon the floor;
And the dead one, borne so slow
Through the friezed portico,
Has come back again
To the charnel of my brain!
O'er these shadows—shadows all—
Reality has thrown a pall.
Yet the steeple loometh still
In the shadow of the hill;
Standing, shattered, yet sublime—
A tombstone to departed Time!

CHATTERTON.

I.

This eve my heart is floating upon tears,
A fallen rose-leaf floating on a stream.
In the dim shadow of departed years
I have been lying with a saddened dream—
A dream of poor, poor Chatterton!
That soul which, like the thousand-lanced sun,
Ate itself into night! that monarch soul!
Which foamed and muttered like the sobbing sea,
And broke a heart that it could not control.
Poor Chatterton! who does not weep for thee?

What bosom melts not at the mournful tale
Of thy short, fevered life? Thou diedst in scorn,
Like the proud moon that doth majestic sail
The ebon night, and sinks before the dawn.

II.

As the soft snow comes down
And fills each secret nook,
Robing the ice-stilled brook
And the house-tops of the town,
And the chimneys as they look,
With open mouths, to all
The flakes, till in a pall
Of white the earth is hid;
So did Ambition creep
Upon the child unbid.
Each grotto of his heart
It filled, each crevice deep,
E'en as the eye its lid.
'Twas of his soul a part.

III.

'Twas twilight ebb, and the boy was sitting
In a deep recess of the gothic hall;
Wildest thoughts across his heart were flitting,
Wild as the tracery upon the wall.

Upon a stair of stars the Night came down,
With footfalls noiseless as the stealthy air,
And like a mantle wrapped the shouldered town;
And still the child sat dreaming, brooding there.

The moon sleeked “anciente” Bristol with her beams,
And from St. Mary's swelled the midnight chime;
Still sat the boy, his hot brain moulding dreams
Which cluster, star-like, on the sky of Time!

[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]

V.

Morn broke on restless London, like a sea,
In rippling waves of light; the sun sent all
The sleepy stars to bed. The great city
Was awakened to wrangle in its thrall
Of crime and servitude; and in its streets,
Through which the pulse of greedy Traffic beats,
The crier's voice mixed with the rattling wheel;

And all the vast machinery din
Went on as if from out that place of sin
In the cold night, a spirit did not steal,
Winging its way thro' Heaven's starry fires,
To rest forever on th' eternal shore.
Morn broke on London, crowning all its spires
With gold—but Chatterton! he was no more.

VI.

In coffin roughly nailed,
They placed his boyish form
While yet his blood was warm,
His forehead scarcely paled;
And bore him quick along
Amid the heedless throng.
Ah! cruel hands that laid
That little weary frame
Within the grave they made,
With nought to tell his name;
It should not have been so;
No pauper ground should own
That shattered casket, tho'
The gem itself is gone!

He was cast into the burying-ground of Shoe-lane Work-house—the pauper's burying-ground—the end, so far as his clayey tabernacle was concerned, of all his dreamy greatness.— Mrs S. C. Hall.

H. W. L.

Like him of old, whose touch divine
Drew water from the senseless stone,
Thy words have drawn a silver tone
Of music from this heart of mine.

O Poet-soul! O gentle one!
Thy thought has made my darkness light;
The solemn Voices of the Night
Have filled me with an inner tone.

Their echoes linger on my ear;
The footsteps of the Angels come
Thro' the long entry to my room;
I almost fancy that I hear

A low, sweet breathing at the door,
And do not dare to move, for I
Would not dispel the fantasy
That grows upon me more and more.

To gain that near, that far off shore
We only cross a bridge of Sleep;
That bridge sinks not into the deep,
When we have passed, for evermore.

The unfleshed dead can cross again
Unto this sphere. O! I am sure
They're near us, when high thoughts and pure,
Like monarchs, pace our chamber'd brain.

O Bard of Shadows! thine the art
To lead us through the realm of dreams.
Robing the Real until it seems
Of the fair Ideal a part.

I'll drink thy praise in olden wine,
And in the cloak of fine conceite
I'll tell thee how my pulses beat,
How half my being runs to thine.

CRESCENT CITY AT NIGHT.

SEEN FROM THE FRENCH CATHEDRAL AT PLACE D'ARMES.

How grand to sit in this old steeple high,
And view the city with its veins of streets!
A muffled sound, like troubled winds that die,
Mounts to the house-tops and in space retreats.
The soot-faced chimneys whisper far beneath
With heads half hidden in their smoky breath!

Now, as Night draws her counterpane of black,
And tucks it closely round the horizon,
The lamp-fringed streets are lighted one by one—
Each seems a serpent with a glossy back!
With spectral fingers quiv'ring in the air,
The churches point to where “our Father” dwells;

Ava Maria from the tongues of bells
Floats to the zenith and the angels there,
Who, crowned with asphodel and twilight dim,
Are messengers between this world and Him!

SONG OF A HEART.

Ye who love Nature, and in Nature, God,
Listen to one whose heart is full of song
And gratitude unto his very lips.

His music is not art-born; it leaps forth
Untutored, like the daisies of the spring,
Or brooks that babble of their own free will.

In the sweet faces of the buds I see
The God that swings this flower-scented sphere,
Like a great censer, in the purple void!

I have a sense within me that perceives
His Presence in the blowing wind, and in
The footsteps of the crystal-footed Rain!

To him that holdeth Nature near his heart,
The brooks are hymning praises, and the sea
Is ever rolling some grand authem forth!

The grass that comes in April to the mounds
In grave-yards, and the vines that creep along
The humble porch of village churches, are

So many fingers pointing up to God!
So many holy monitors that tell
His majesty in silent eloquence!

O, Pilgrim to the Unseen Land! if thou
Art thirsty for the Living Waters; if
Thy lips do hunger for the Bread of Life,

And yet thou fearest “the cold feel of death,”
The grave—that gate-way to eternity
And Paradise—love Nature, for 'tis God.

THE ANGEL.

O! memory, the painter!
Limns upon my brain
The faces of beloved ones
I'll never see again!

There is one sainted picture—
O, fancy keep it near!—
'Mid golden hair, Madonna eyes,
Serene, and deep, and clear.

We knew she was an Angel,
We knew she could not stay!
And long we waited tearfully
To see her fly away!

We knew that she was passing
Thro' life untouched, serene,
As far from earth's impurities
As Christ from Magdalene.

The Angels wearied for her,
And so from Paradise
Death came, and kissed her tenderly,
His hand upon her eyes!

And as a flower at evening
Folds its leaves to rest,
She meekly crossed her whitened hands
Upon her peaceful breast:

Laid so white and beautiful,
So full of holy trust,
It seemed a shame to lay so pure
A flower in the dust.

We saw no seraph's pinions,
We saw no mystic things;
But going from our hearts we felt
An Angel's rustling wings!

FANNIE.

Fannie has the sweetest foot
Ever in a gaiter boot!
And the hoyden knows it,
And, of course, she shows it,—
Not the knowledge, but the foot,—
Yet with such a modest grace,
Never seems it out of place,
Ah, there are not many
Half so sly, or sad, or mad,
Or wickeder than Fannie.

Fannie has the blackest hair
Of any of the village girls;
It does not shower on her neck
In silken or coquettish curls.

It droops in folds around her brow,
As clouds, at night, around the moon,
Looped with lilies here and there,
In many a dangerous festoon.
And Fannie wears a gipsy hat,
Saucily—yes, all of that!
Ah, there are not many
Half so sly, or sad, or mad,
Or wickeder than Fannie.

Fannie wears an open dress—
Ah! the charming chemisette!
Half concealing, half revealing
Something far more charming yet.
Fannie drapes her breast with lace,
As one would drape a costly vase
To keep away mischievous flies;
But lace can't keep away one's eyes,
For every time her bosom heaves,
Ah, it peepeth through it;
Yet Fannie looks the while as if
Never once she knew it.
Ah, there are not many
Half so sly, or sad, or mad,
Or innocent as Fannie.

Fannie lays her hand in mine;
Fannie speaks with naïveté,
Fannie kisses me, she does!
In her own coquettish way.
Then softly speaks and deeply sighs,
With angels nestled in her eyes.
In the merrie month of May,
Fannie swears sincerely
She will be my own, my wife,
And love me dearly, dearly
Ever after all her life.
Ah, there are not many
Half so sly, or sad, or mad,
As my true-hearted Fannie.

MAUD OF ALLINGGALE.

PART I.

I.

The wind was toying with her hair,
As on the turret top she stood;
Her gaze was on the bending wood,
And in her eyes a dim despair.
Moaning Œnone, sad and pale,
Sweet Psyche when her love had gone
Were not more tearful or forlorn
Than Maud of Allinggale.

II.

And “Ah,” she said, “he will not come!
And I have waited all the day.”

Afar she saw the ocean spray,
Like lances glimmer in the gloom.
And then the moon came sideling up
Deep set within a milky girth:
And at the zenith turned on earth
Like an inverted cup.

III.

Two moons o'er sleeping earth had bent,
Then stately through the heavens strode,
Since Walter from the castle rode
Armed cap-à-pie for tournament:
“O Maud of Allinggale!” he said,
“A little while and I will come,”
And fondly o'er her drooped the plume
That floated from his head.

IV.

She heard his footsteps on the floor,
She saw him thro' the forest leaves,
The orange sunshine on his greaves;
And he was gone—for ever more;
For in the heart of that green wood,
Unknown, unseen by mortal eyes,
The Castle of a Thousand Dyes
Of fairy Monok stood.

V.

This queen immortal loved the knight,
And so she sent an airling brood
To lead him thro' the bosky wood
Until he knew no left nor right;
And as he paused upon a steep
That rose from out a fountain place,
They sprinkled dew-drops on his face,
And so he fell asleep.

VI.

And two white-breasted wood-nymphs took
The dreaming youth in their soft arms,
And bore him where a row of Palms
Shaddowed a draw-bridge on the brook;
And 'tween two cedars, old and gaunt,
Their summits tinged with yellow light,
They passed, and bore the sleeping knight
Into the fairy haunt.

VII.

They took the helmet from his brow,
Unlaced his breast-plate, white as milk,
And draped him with a robe of silk
Glittering like a frozen snow!

And in his coat of mail instead
They placed a form like Walter's made,
And laid it in the forest glade
As though that he were dead.

PART II.

I.

When Walter woke his dream-filled eyes
Were dazzled with the rainbow light;
“St. George!” he cried, “I'm lost to sight
And sense, be this not Paradise!”
He heard the trembles of a lute,
He saw the fountains leap in air,
And spread around him everywhere
The most delicious fruit.

II.

And chalices ambrosial brimmed,
Flagons of the costliest wine
Fresh from the vineyards of the Rhine,
And honey from the richest skimmed;

Rich cordials full of golden eyes;
And delicacies of all isles,
Scattered around him, in huge piles
Lay like wrecked argosies.

III.

The trilling of a thousand birds
Burst on him with canorous swells,
And the faint tinkling of far bells
Came rustling through his sense's chords.
The walls were rough with priceless stones,
The window niches diamond-laid,
And the long fluted colonnade
Was girt with wealth of zones.

IV.

And there were halls so vast and deep
The eye could scarcely reach half through;
E'en music's echo weary grew,
And tripping through them fell asleep!
Upon his raptured senses stole
The rarest perfume of the spheres
Rich with the crystal, star-born tears
Found in the rose's bowl.

V.

“What mystic things will fancy do!”
He said, and, as he spoke, white hands
Undid the glitt'ring silver bands
That held a gorgeous curtain to,
And drawing back the silken screen
His eyes beheld, on throne of gold,
Like Egypt's courtesan of old,
Monok, the fairy Queen.

VI.

“O! thou that sittest goddess like!”
He, kneeling, cried before the throne,
“Tell me if all my brain be gone!
And what these wondrous scenes that strike
My fancy captive? Whence thou art?
And whence this dulcet melody?
These nectar-laden gales, and why
This rustling in my heart?”

VII.

Then rich she made him with a smile,
And sweeping from her throne with pride,
She laid her hand on his and sighed,
Half laughing at him all the while;

And to his ear bent down her head,
With voice that had a cymbal's ring
“Sir Knight of Ainsworth thou art king
Of this domain!” she said.

VIII.

She led him to the 'nameled throne,
And placed a crown upon his brow,
And kneeling at his footstool low,
“Sir Knight,” she said, “I am thine own!”
Her breath, like a soft summer gale
Nursed in the heart of some sweet grot,
Was on his cheek, and he forgot
His Maud of Allinggale!

PART III.

I.

As Lady Maud, heart-sick and pale,
From Ainsworth's tower watched that night,
She saw a strange and flick'ring light
Moving across the darkened vale;

And nearer, nearer still it came,
Until she saw amid the gloom
The floating of a snowy plume.
Her lips half breathed a name.

II.

And down the spiral stair she sped,
And in the long torch-lighted hall
She saw upon a bloody pall
Walter of Ainsworth, lying dead.
O! wild and mournful was her wail!
Pale Venus when Adonis died
Had not a sorrow wilder-eyed,
Than Maud of Allinggale.

III.

“Whose hand did this?” and then a flood
Of tears o'er her eyelids broke;
And thus the knight of Lydwick spoke:
“We found him slain in yonder wood,
His red blood mingling with the brook,
And his large thoughtful, staring eyes
Fixed on a cloudlet in the skies
With melancholy look.

IV.

“We know not how Sir Walter fell;
But if 'twas in concerted fight,
We know he fell like a true knight.
Who struck the blow, it were not well
That he a knight of Ainsworth meet;
We 'd teach him that our Walter's death
Has made ten swords in each sheath,
And he should kiss our feet!”

V.

Then Lady Maud bent down her head
Upon the image's cold breast,
Like one that lieth down to rest;
They spoke to her, but she was dead!
Ah, why prolong the saddened tale?
In Ainsworth chapel, side by side,
Lies Walter's armor and his bride,
Sweet Maud of Allinggale.

TO MARIE.

As sea-shells whisper of the sleepless sea,
Memory whispers of the past and you,
Charming my bosom with its melody.
Those summer nights, which all too quickly flew,
Like singing birds upon their noiseless wings,
Ghost-like rise up before me, and I turn
To sip the chalice pleasing mem'ry brings.
There is one eve I cherish in my breast
Like holy water in a marble urn:
The sun was treading to the yawning West—
To that great grave-yard of the buried Days!
And at our feet a devious river rolled,
Squirming and gliding in the sunset's blaze,
Like a great serpent with a skin of gold!

We had been reading a young Bard, who'd stemmed
The sea of criticism, and unfurled
His daring colors to a charmed world;
In his rich heart our poorer hearts were hemmed.
Your voice was full of tears, and there stood
Two, trembling, on the threshold of your eyes.
O! much, my friend, I envied him who could
Lure two such angels out of paradise.

You bent above me, and your nighty hair,
Like dusk and sunset mixing, mixed with mine;
I felt a kiss, or 'twas a passing air
That had been loitering on lips divine.
Then you drew back, and with a crimson look
Gazed at the pebbles in the talking brook.

THE KNIGHT OF POESY.

Another Minstrel, panting for a name,
Enters the lists of Rhyme
To run a tilt with Time,
And bring, low kneeling at his feet, great Fame.

With vizard down, he comes as one in mask,
Like some adventurer of old
Who, till he won the Spurs of Gold,
Laid not aside his hauberk or his casque;
He comes, his name and prowess all untold.
Unknown, this Poet-knight,
Mounted on Pegasus, most famous steed!
Seeketh the Tournament of Poesy,
Full of the hope of glorious deed;

And dares in deadly fight—
Invoking first his patron Muse—
All knights that speak maliciously;
All that discourteously refuse
To press their goblet's mouth of wine,
When he shall give as toast divine,
His Ladye-love, the loveliest of the Nine—
Dark-veiled Melpomene!

For Beauty—be it in
A blue-bell's or a woman's eyes,
A rose's or a maiden's lips in bloom,
A forest, waving like a helmet plume,
Or the soft tintings of the sunset skies—
He has a soul that claims the chance
To blunt a sword or to break a lance.

Beauty's champion, he is Virtue's too;
For are not grace and goodness sisters twin?
Virtue is a beauty that within
Sheds radiance without, as does a light
Through the windows of a room at night,
Or flowers, breathing from a vase,
Or jewels from their case.

He loves all forms of loveliness,
And Nature sits within him like a heart,
Ruling with magic tenderness.
The air-winged birds that dart
Up the blue stair-case of the porphyry clouds;
The Autumn-fingered foliage that shrouds
A sleeping church-yard, or the evening dim,
Stalking majestically down
Upon the noisy and mast-fringèd town,
Or the winged and ever restless ships,
Or the murmuring of Ocean's lips,
Are everlasting joys to him;
For he is one whose bosom doubted never
“A thing of beauty” is “a joy forever.”

His war-cry shall be heard;
It is that mystic word
Which, on a banner in the twilight brown,
A youth once carried thro' an Alpine town—
Excelsior!

A CHRISTMAS CHIME.

THE GUESTS, AND WHAT THE STRANGE OLD MAN DOES IN THE OLD HOUSE EVERY CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

“All houses wherein men have lived and died,
Are haunted houses.”—
Longfellow.

The angels bend in heaven's arch to-night,
And sprinkle snowflakes on the city's streets;
The wind moans round the chimney-tops in fright
And sprightly hail taps every one it meets.

The lamps that stud the white and pearlèd way,
Glare like mad demons thro' the blinding storm;
Shop-windows watch the snow sprites as they play,
Or throw their rays upon each passing form.

'Tis Christmas night; and while from street to street,
The echo hurries, like a startled mouse,
And phantom laughs are mingling with the sleet,
An Old Man sits within an olden house.

The house is quaint, odd-fashioned, and antique;
Grim Time has passed his palm across the roof
And left it wrinkled! 'Tis so dark and bleak
At twilight play the children keep aloof.

There's not a sound in all its sombre halls,
And brooding silence sits upon the stair;
One can most see the “quiet as it crawls”
Along the entry through the biting air.

Why sits the Old Man in the big old room,
Watching the hearth-light o'er the mouldings climb?
The man and chamber in its ghostly gloom
Seem things forgotten in the flight of time.

Why sits he thus beside the wide-mouthed hearth?
Does he call up sweet forms that, like the leaves,
Have mixed with flowers in the wombed earth?
Or does he hear the hail upon the eaves?

The jingling sleigh-bells in the street below,
The goblin sleet that droppeth down the flue,
The huntsman wind that whistles to the snow—
Are these the noises that he listens to?

Or does he catch the echoes of the Past,
Like fine vibrations of a distant bell?
Do memories fall on him thick and fast
As hail without upon the snowy swell?

I wot not either; but the Old Man seems
A link between this mortal life and death—
A dreamy pilgrim to the Land of Dreams,
His life, a feather balanced on a breath.

He bends his head; he hears the panels creak;
Then by the chimney leaves his cushioned chair;
And, with a joy his moistened eyelids speak,
He draws three seats beside his own with care.

He holds his old hands out, as if to grasp
Some other hands; he sighs and smiles and sighs;
Now stands as if within some loving clasp—
His eyes intently gaze in other eyes!

And now he points his phantom guests their seats.
He heaps fresh fuel upon the fire-place;
And all is still, save one quick heart that beats
In yonder clock, within its coffin case.

O, what a queer Old Man! And does he see
Ethereal spirits seated in those chairs?
Do souls come back from God's eternity
To mingle with us and our daily cares?

I do believe it! and 'tis grand to feel
That, when the breezes lift our fevered hair,
Some friend's hand does it, and at ev'ry meal
The loved are near us, round us like the air!

I do believe they're with us all the day,
And o'er our holier hours vigils keep;
That they kneel with us when we kneel to pray,
And bend above us when we fall asleep.

But see, he smiles! O sure some airy one
Has twined a sunbeam round his parted lips;
He hears a voice, a voice for him alone—
We hear it not, nor see the ghost that trips

Around the arm-chair of the dreamy man.
A lip intangible his own lip nears;
It falls so kindly on his thin cheek wan,
The Old Man weeps, and slumbers in his tears.

And every year when holy Christmas comes,
He draws those chairs within the hearth-stone gleams,
And fondly all his viewless household sums,
Then falls asleep 'mid kisses, tears, and dreams.

EUDELE.

The soft wind moved the curtain's fold,
And rippled her gold waves of hair,
While like some voiceless lily's lip,
Touched by a gentle whiff of air,
Moved as by inward melody,
Her lips were trembling with a prayer,
Which lark-like soared from out this world of sin.
“To-morrow,” and she raised her eyes,
“I'll walk with Christ in Paradise.”
And thro' the window came the Twilight in.

The soft wind moved the curtain's fold,
And cooled her cheek with kisses faint;
And as she lay upon the bed,
The curls that clustered o'er her head
Were like the halo of a saint.

A light was breaking on her lips,
Like that which tinges mountain tips
At death of August days;
While with her on the pillow lay
The golden parasites of day—
The sunset's amber rays.
The flowers closed their eyelids up;
The harebell and the butter-cup,
The tulip and the sun-struck jessamine.
With whispered sighs and dainty feet,
The evening zephyrs tripped about;
Then, as a flower yields its sweet,
A pure spirit flitted out,
And thro' the window came the Twilight in.

We hid her in a green retreat,
With daisies at her heart and feet,
To guard her with sweet eyes;
And when we weep Eudele as dead,
We smile to think of what she said
Of “Christ” and “Paradise”—
Of that far sphere where neither sin
Nor sombre Twilight enter in.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP.

A RAINY DAY LYRIC.

All through that dreariest day,
Out of the window pane
We gazed, but our eyes could see
The rain,—nothing but rain.
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And danced upon the leaves.

The flowers that clomb the porch,
Violets like the skies,
Grew as dreamy and dim as
A tearful maiden's eyes.
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And trembled on the leaves.

A thrill, like a thrill of joy,
Ran through the fields of grain;
And they bowed their heads beneath
The blessing of the rain!
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And danced upon the leaves.

The barn grew solemn and brown,
The white-washed fence and wall;
And the “poplars” at the gate
Looked odd, and grim, and tall.
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And trembled on the leaves.

When seated around the hearth—
The evening meal was through—
We could hear the cunning rain
Come singing down the flue.
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And danced upon the leaves.

And when we went to our beds,
Still we could hear the rain;
It tried the kitchen door, and
Spit on the window pane!
Drip, drip, drip,
It said to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And trembled on the leaves.

Still does it haunt our dreams, that
Weariest, dreary rain,
That came from the mouths of clouds,
To bless the golden grain!
Drip, drip, drip,
It says to the sullen eaves;
Drip, drip, drip,
And trembles on the leaves.

TOUSOULIA.

A LEGEND OF THE MOHEGAN.

The Juniata rippled at her feet,
And like a fallen giant lay the sun
Aslant the silent trees. Tousoulia
Was sad. The maiden had been waiting through
Three crescent moons; had marked them orb and go,
Like dreamy Houris, down the stairs of night
To bathe in mists behind the purple hills;
And yet her Indian warrior came
Not back.

Thus to the stream that wandered by,
Thus to the shadows of the coming night
Tousoulia made her moan:

“The autumn has been breathing on the leaves,
And burnt them into redness with her lips;
And I am sadder than the Whip-po-will.

“The summer birds have floated to the south;
My lonely heart is vacant as their nests—
It shall be empty till my Chief comes home!

“There are no footfalls that can make me glad,
There are no warblings of the lover's lute,
At eventide, outside the wigwam door.

“No tender hands caress me as they used;
Only the lips of moonbeams kiss my breast;
And I am sadder than the Whip-po-will.

“When wilt thou come? and is the trail so long,
Three moons must stalk between thee and thy bride?
She waits for thee as eagerly, Lenape,

“As Earth for Spring to kiss it into buds!
The Bending Lily yearns for him who will
Made her as happy as a humming bird!”

And softly with her foot she stirred
A clump of water-lilies, and then grew as mute
As moulting robins.

Like a lark that skims
The outer surface of cerulean
Clouds, shot a canoe from out the shadow
Of the trailing trees; and, like a blood-hound
On its mistress' knee, it placed its long head
On the beach. Another and another,
And a third; while from them leaped a score of
Painted braves.

So softly came they, the Mohegan girl
Perceived them not till some dry branches cracked
Beneath their feet; then, springing up, she threw
Her arms around the neck of one who stalked
Majestically as a king—'twas not
Lenape. All rich with blushes she drew back
And, at a distance, followed them into
The Indian village.

The Council fire
Leaped high that night; a scalping party that
Had been three moons away, came opulent
In deeds and trophies back. And there were
Praises and welcomings for the returned,
Wailings and wild sorrowing for the dead.

The hungry fire was fed with brushwood; high
Into the night its flaming arms were stretched
Like one in prayer. Without the reaches of
Its radiancy stood Tousoulia,
With heart as full of tears as a cloud in
April time.

Each warrior told his
Own exploits with a wild eloquence; then
As the calm of stagnant winds before the
Lightning, with its fiery finger, pricks
The swollen cloud, and deluges the earth
With most delicious tears, a silence fell
Upon the plumed and dusky throng. Then, like
The moanings of a distant ocean, broke
Upon a hundred swarthy lips the name
Of all names that Tousoulia loved.

War Eagle rose; the hair had fallen from
His aged head as leaves from the grand oak
In autumn winds. With a big heart he spoke:

“When the Great Father scalps the forest trees,
And we have laid our store of bear-meat in,
Our young men must take panther skins and corn
To Nemhaw's wigwam, for he hath no son!”

The speaker paused, and thro' the stillness trilled
A laugh so fearful that the couchant braves
Sprang to their feet; the sleepy watch curs howled,
And frighted squaws drew nearer to the fire.
Tousoulia pressing through the wildered
Throng, stood by the crackling fire scornfully.

“The great Mohegan is not dead!” she cried.
“I hear the paddles of his bark canoe
Afar, afar!” she paused like one that hears
A sound i' the distance. “He will come. I'll wait
For him. He pants beneath the weight of scalps!
The great Mohegan is not dead!”

Alas! in the too sudden shock of wo, her brain
Had lost its equipoise, and her mind went
Wandering, like a bird whose nest has been
Destroyed.

Through weary length of autumn
Days, she sat beside the Juniata
Trailing her feet, the live long day, among
The globes of water-lilies, and 'twas thus
She made her moan unto the listening wood,
And to the mouthing wind, and to the stream
Whose voice was like the music of her own:

“When wilt thou come? and is the trail so long,
Three moons must stalk between thee and thy bride,
Whose heart is empty as a last year's nest?”

And to this day the spot is pointed out
Where sat the maniac girl, and saw three
Summers drop in leafy graves, waiting for
Him who never, never came to make her
“Happy as a humming bird.”

A MADRIGAL.

'Mong Nellie's curls I saw a rose to-night,
And I was vexed that I was not a rose,
A captive chained with ebon chains like those,
Silken and soft, and beautifully bright.

And then I wished myself the diamond speck
That glittered on the berther of her dress,
To tremble on the brink of loveliness,
To kiss the tempting whiteness of her neck.

And when I saw that saucy little foot
Peeping from 'neath her skirts with Sylph-like grace,
She must have read the wish upon my face,
The silly wish that I'd been born a boot!

I MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

“I might have been”'s a weary lay
Too often sang, and foolishly.
With deeper care on heart and brain,
More sorrowful and full of pain
You might have been,
You might have been—
Thank God for what you are!

You might have won a poet's crown,
And swayed the Janus-facéd town,
Wringing applauses from all men;
But purer you might not have been,
Might not have been;
Truer, you might not have been—
Thank God for what you are!

The gentle hand that clasps your own,
The lips that sway you with a tone,
Death might have chilled. Go not alone,
Like the complaining rain, and moan
“I might have been,
I might have been,”—
Thank God for what you are!

I have a prayer; 'tis not to crave
Exemption from a nameless grave,
Nor fame to stamp me with its seal;
'Tis that I may, when o'er me steal
The thoughts of what I might have been,
The thoughts of what I might have been,
Thank God for what I am.

[As falls a ray of transient golden light]

I.

As falls a ray of transient golden light
Through half-shut blinds upon the darkened floor,
And leaving, turns the twilight into night,
Making the shadows deeper than before:

II.

So through the darkened windows of my heart
Stole the warm, transient sunshine of thy love,
Then left me darkness. O! thy cruel art
Hath made me colder than a marble Jove.

III.

Think how cold! when I can meet thy glances
Nor feel the blood pulp warmer in my veins;
Time, Iconoclast! hath broke my fancies!
Memory, still a captive, is in chains.

IV.

[OMITTED] I know the ever restless thought
That reigns within thee; that thy dark eyes wear
A calm that happiness has never brought—
A Resignation, sister to Despair.

V.

Not do I view thee as the passing throng;
The surface pleases them: they do not probe;
I see thy woes in wit, and laugh, and song,
Like rotting monarchs in their ermine robe.

VI.

We are not married, and yet not unwed;
Unwed in joy, in sorrow we are one;
Though far apart, together we will tread
A path thro' life the twilight falls upon.

VII.

The twilight's on our faces, and our lives
Are but the echoes of one saddened tune.
Joy sank; grief rose, all passions that survives—
The night outlives its little silver moon.

THE TWO CITIES.

There are two worlds about us,
Two worlds in which we dwell—
Within us and without us.—
R. H. Stoddard.

'Twas dusk, and from my window
Upon the street below
I saw the people passing,
Like shadows, to and fro;

And faintly, very faintly
I heard the ceasing din;
And like the dusk without me
There was a dusk within.

And thoughts with eager footsteps,
Dim thoughts of joy and pain,
Filled the streets and by-ways of
The city in my brain.

A passing light and holy
Like that which softly falls
Through open gates in cloudlets
Upon cathedral walls,

Fell upon the towers of
The city in my mind;
My inward sight grew clearer
My outward vision blind.

Forgotten was the window;
There seemed no street below,
I did not see them passing,
The shadows, to and fro.

I was between Two Cities
In which my spirit dwells;
And I could hear the chimings
Of two sad sets of bells

Without the holy Trinity's;
And deep within my soul,
My heart was throbbing like a bell
When it has ceased to toll!

THE NIGHT WIND.

I feel like weeping when the dismal Wind
Talks to the chimney of an Autumn night—
So strangely talks with meaning undefined—
Or scolds the forest till it shrinks in fright,
And with its lips of leaves, all terror white,
Begs of the breeze to treat it less unkind.

To-night, before the supper lamps were lit,
The poor wind whistled such a doleful tune
My eyelids swelled like rain-fed clouds in June;
I drew my arm-chair near the hearth, to sit
And form the embers into figures quaint;
I fancied Vikings, bridges, castles drear;
But ah! that Wind, now growing loud, now faint,
Hung like a guilty conscience on my ear.

IMORE.

A LEGEND OF THE MINSTREL TIMES.

One day while sitting in the dim old woods,
Charmed with the braided notes of brooks and birds,
Sleep stole upon him like a pleasant thought.
His head was pillowed upon violets,
And lilies stood on tip-toe to his lips.
As thus he slept, an angel dropped among
The flowerets, the Lady Volant and
The Earl went by and saw him slumbering;
And ever after in the maiden's dream,
Was Imore sleeping by the rivulet.

Ah, he beheld her on that summer day
Through the sly openings of his roguish eyes;

And she was queenly as a budded moon!
Peerless as she whose nectared kisses cost
Mark Antony a kingdom! And he turned
From gay to sad, and haunted the old wood;
His cheeks grew pale as lilies in a rill;
He sang no longer like a morning lark,
But hummed around the lindens like a bee.

Once Lady Volant loved to sit and watch
From Odenwald's high tower, the red sun
Folding his purple pinions for the eve,
And the clear stars that cluster thick upon
The arch of night, like watery diamonds
On a ring of jet. But now she strayed far
In the leafy glens, and plucking roses,
Warm with the parting kiss that sunset gives,
Came melancholy with the twilight home.

One eve as she was roving thro' the glade,
She found the minstrel sleeping as before
Upon a couch of violets—as once
Diana found Endymion asleep,
Loving him ever after—and from out
His parted lips his breath came like the breath
Of hyacinths. Then whispered Volant
Softly to herself, “Methinks I could such

Honied sweetness from those full lips draw, as
Does a bee from the sweet honeysuckle.
Now by the blood that circles in these veins
And prompts me in this most delicious freak!
I'll taste them, and if he awakes I'll swear
That 'twas some spirit kissed him in his dream,
Not I; that I'm the daughter of an earl
And would not stoop to press a common lip:
Then I'll sweep by, majestic as the Night.”

Then, like a rain-bow, she bent over him,
With all the hues of autumn on her cheeks.
Raising the fringèd curtains of his eyes,
He threw both arms around her snowy neck
And punished her with kisses! She drew back
With angered orbs; then blushed, then thro' the wood
Leaped the silvery echoes of her laugh.
And then she called him “cruel, cruel boy,”
And asked him if the blue-bells did not close
Their eyes with envy, when he looked at them;
And then she laid her hand among his curls.
The evening melted, and night found them there—
Cupid and Psyche wooing in a wood!

“There is a clime,” he said, “a far off land
Of orange-bowers and magnolia trees,
With streams of gold fish gurgling 'mong the hills;
Where winter never throws a pall upon
The sweet-lipped flowerets, and May and June
Go, hand in hand, throughout the live-long year!”

Softly at night she left the castle gate
To wander with the minstrel to that land
Of never dying summer and blue skies.
They wandered off, and never more were seen
By any swine-herd of those dewy dells,
Nor by the Dryads, nor the Fauns, nor Fays,
Nor any of the sylvan train that dwell
By the cool fountains of that haunted wood.

FOREVER AND FOREVER.

AN IMITATION.

Sweet Nea held her hand in mine,
Beside us rolled the river;
“Wilt love me Nea?” and she said
“Forever and forever.”

And when the roses blushed again
I stood beside that river,
But Nea, darling! she was gone
Forever and forever.

She went with blossoms in the spring,
And shall I see her never?
Ah, yes! for those who love, love on
Forever and forever.

“There is another better world,”
Where pain and death are never;
There she and I shall live and love
Forever and forever.

A NEST OF SONNETS.

I.
THE LITTLE WITCHES AT THE CROSSINGS.

These imps of Want! these sprites of Poverty!
That flock the crossways of the muddy town
With brooms at ev'ry rain, whence come they, pray?
Spring they from earth, or do they tumble down,
Like animalculæ, in drops of rain?
How phantom-like they move about the street!
Are they dwarf Gnomes fresh from some cavern's brain,
Like those in Arab legends? Can hearts beat
In such odd creatures? Are they more than breath?

Look at those skinny out-stretched hands! Why they
Are spectral as the Witches in Macbeth!
Drop them a coin, pedestrian, thus may
You win their good will, which were best to own,
Since heaven can tell what elfs these are alone.

II.
PHŒBUS.

Dew-dappled Phœbus, with half-shaded eye,
Stalks through the portals of the eastern skies;
The stars that drop above the world on high,
Beneath his gaze close their cloud-lidded eyes;
He taps the dreaming city till it wakes
And hums and murmurs like an o'er turned hive;
With twit'ring birds the forest is alive,
And bends to see its shadow in the lakes!
In toying wavelets the soft zephyr breaks,
Bearing the perfume from the gummy pines;
Flowers, the drinking-cups of the god-sun,
Are brimmed with dew. His touch incarnadines
The dank hill tops, and all it falls upon—
The reeling grain-fields and the streams that run.

III.
THE NIGHT RAIN.

Piteous Rain! O how it sobs without!
Driven from Heaven like a sinning child,
Thrust from the Gates by scolding winds and wild,
It wanders weary, drearily about.
At me it peereth through the window panes,
And almost asks if I would let it in—
I'm not proclivous, weeping child of sin.
Then off it speeds and curses and complains;
Its footfalls sound with quick and nervous beat
On dismal miles of dimly-lighted street.
It pauses oft, as if its tim'rous ear
Had caught a sound—'twas only sighing leaves—
Then rushes onward with a trembling fear,
And seeks to hide beneath protruding eaves.

IV.
“THANATOPSIS.”

When one can die with the proud consciousness
That he will 'bide forever with the world,
And that when monarchs and their broods are hurled
Contemptuous down Oblivion's abyss,
He will span time like heaven's bow; God! this
Must set his blood to boiling, and with bliss
Fill his king-heart up to the very brim!
Yet I do know of a sublimer joy
Possessing which I would not envy him—
O faith! the alchemist that turns th' alloy
Of death to golden calm. 'Tis when the soul,
Uncaged, goes singing lark-like thro' the spheres
Confidingly to God, devoid of fears,
Having on earth paid Paradise its toll!

V.
NOON.

He's chosen the broad zenith for his seat;
His brow is sweaty, and his sultry breath
Fills the sick town, and in the crowded street
Men and o'er-ladened horses sink in death;
In rocky, dewless pastures, close beneath
The arms of trees the drowsy cattle meet;
The grain grows dry within its heated sheath;
Wild lilacs droop upon the sunny steep,
And winds in knolls have stol'n away to sleep.
A sense of something heavy spheres the air—
As if the earth lay in a horrid trance,
While through the still blue heaven with a stare
The Noon-king looketh, scorching with his glance,
Proud as a lion glaring from his lair.

VI.
TO ---

ON HIS BEING UNJUSTLY CRITICISED.

'Tis ever so, my friend, when one would climb
The rounds of his ambition up to fame,
And write, in blotless characters, his name
Upon the unrolled manuscript of Time,
There are some men who, as he 'tempts to rise,
Will envy him the wreath their fate denies,
And seek to wound him with their shafts of scorn.
There 're many such that mark thee on thy way.
Teach them this lesson, friend: He that is born
For greatness will be great! and enmity
Cannot unmake a Poet.—Did the thorn
That cut the brow of Jesus make him less?
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]

ELEGIAC.

He never wed with thoughts of death
Worm-eaten hearts and nighty pall,
Nor mystery, like the writings of
The fire-light's finger on the wall:

'Twas but to sink in fibered earth;
To go where buds and blossoms go
In winter time, to rest; then bloom
Through summers of eternal flow.

He wrestled nobly with his fate,
And strove to mask his soul's distress;
He passed, a spectre, through the gate
Of death alone and shadowless.

He was to me most like a stream
Which, in some darkened vein of earth
Flows thro' its rocky bowels, but
To daylight never bubbles forth.

BERTHABELL.

Where an ivy vine is creeping,
And tears of dew-drops weeping,
They tell me thou art sleeping,
Berthabell!

I have often sat alone
And read on the dark gray stone,
With green mosses over-grown,
“Berthabell.”

I know we laid thee there,
With thy forehead cold and fair!
But now thou art otherwhere,
Berthabell!

Thy soul stole forth in flowers,
That fainted 'neath the showers
On thy grave, in April hours,
Berthabell!

O! I nevermore will come
And be weeping at this tomb;
It is all too full of gloom,
Berthabell!

I will rather seek the glade
Where the willows throw their shade,
Where our shattered vows were made,
Berthabell!

I will watch the willow swing,
I will hear the streamlet sing,
And kind memory will bring
Berthabell!

ABOUT A TINY GIRL.

Ida, look me in the eyes!
Place your tiny lips on mine,
Rest one arm upon my brow,
Round my neck the other twine.

Did you leave your house of blocks
And the toy that pleases thee?
Did you see me sad and wan
That you clomb upon my knee,
Kissing me so tenderly?

Did your finer sense perceive
Something of unhappiness?
Did your inner vision see
What the others did not guess,
That you clomb upon my knee,
Kissing with such tenderness?

“Ida loves you very much,”
Don't I know it, dainty one?
There is not a single curl,
Tiny curls, like beams of sun!
Reeling from that busy head,
Floating as a golden charm,
That I would not give my hand,
Or my life to save from harm.

Ida, look me in the eyes!
Place your tiny lips on mine,
Rest one arm upon my brow,
Round my neck the other twine.

THE GENTLE HAND.

Where trips the blue Piscataqua along in maiden glee,
And throws herself upon the breast of her old lover—Sea,
I stood one August sunset with a gentle hand in mine,—
The sunbeams pouring in the deep like streams of yellow wine.

Upon our right the old Fort stood, forbidding as a frown,
And half within its shadow lay the little dingy town;
And here and there along the shore the fishing-smacks were hauled,
While boats, like lazy turtles, up and down the river crawled!

The Lighthouse with its eye of fire looked o'er the breakers swell,
Standing all calm and solemn, like some watchful sentinel;
And o'er the undulating lands our stretching eyes would mark
Old Portsmouth's spires tapering up half-way to meet the dark.

Low at our feet the ocean broke in long and frothy rolls,
And like a gem upon its breast we saw the Isle of Shoals!
O! dear to me the Fort, the town, the dimpled ocean's moan,
But dearer was the gentle hand I held within my own!

Like a lion that is wounded, but in scorn disdains to groan,
Creeps to some secretest cavern there to bleed and die alone,
The sun in sullen majesty was creeping to his lair,
His jagged sides a-panting and his red eye-balls a-glare.

The lovely moon, like Cypris, rose from out the jeweled sea,
And laid her lily hand upon the Light-house on the lee;
And touched the rocky bastion and the ramparts of the Fort,
And ran along the sleepy guns that gaped from ev'ry port.

It was a moon that might have lured the Mermaids from their caves,
From out the glaucous grottoes of their realms beneath the waves,
To sit upon the sloping strand and comb from out their hair
The sea-weed, and to have a chat with loving Mermen there.
O! dear to me the Fort and town asleep in light divine;
But dearer than the landscape was the hand I held in mine!

In brilliant, starry necklaces and bridal sheen arrayed,
The Moon stood out in heaven like a pale unwilling maid;

She loved the dewy Morning with his yellow curls of light;
She's doomed to wed another and to be the bride of Night.
I whispered this to Lillie as she turned her eyes above;
“'Tis sad,” she said, “'tis very sad to wed not where we love.”

The hand I pressed too ardently was drawn away from mine,
And eyes were turned toward me all bewitchingly divine;
I dared to take that hand again and soothe it in my own;
I dared to steal my arm around a half reluctant zone;
I told her how the waters kissed the islands in their sport,
And—we neither saw the Lighthouse, the islands, nor the Fort!

THE THREE CONCEITS.

(PRELUDE AFTER TENNYSON.)

It happened on a summer day that Hall
And Walter Everland, a young poet,
And Arthur Thornburn and my humble self,
Were in a church-yard near th' Academy,
Reading odd epitaphs. And tired out,
We stretched ourselves beneath the wedded boughs,
Of some tall lindens by the river side,
Cheating the laggard moments of their prey
Of weariness in drawing similes
From clouds, and trees, and rocks. Each one in turn,
Putting some question to the other three.
Thus when to me the lot of querist fell:

“What is this grave-yard like?” Then Hall replied,
“'Tis like a bee-hive with the bees
Dead in their cells!” And we grew solemn as
The shadows of the linden trees.

“What is this grave-yard like?” And Arthur said,
Resting his eyes upon the tombs,
“These bodies, lacking souls and tenantless,
Are like so many empty rooms!”

“What is this grave-yard like?” And Walter said,
“A flower garden where are sown
By Christ the seeds of many flowerets,
To blossom Resurrection Morn!”

And then we smiled, and placed upon his head
With loving hands a daisy wreath.
Who looks in the mild eyes of Faith, can draw
Sweet fancies from the realm of Death.

The twilight coming on us, we arose;
They to their studies went, I to my room

To think of those three quaint conceits, but most
Of Walter's; and I dropt asleep with his
Sweet fancy folded in my heart, and have
Felt nearer God and Heaven ever since.

100

EPIGRAMMATICAL.

Sir Criticus just made a caustic hit,
Though Criticus has not a whit of wit.
“These are my ‘Bells,’” said I. The critic took
The volume with a condescending look,
And ran his fingers o'er it here and there,
As school-boys o'er a rainbow colored map;
“The Bells,” quoth he; then grappling with a thought,
“Now, by the gods! Sir, you should have a ‘cap’
You may believe, Sir, what your critic tells,
You long have merited ‘a cap and bells!’”

101

TO SUE.

WRITTEN ONE RAINY NIGHT.

“The Past is with me, and I scarcely hear
Outside the weeping of the homeless rain.”

The cottage and the mill, Sue, that crazy talking mill
Whose hand caresses carelessly the wanton, romping rill!
The olden bridge above, and the music flow beneath;
The eddies, and the stars that came to join the water-wreath;

The trains from distant towns, Sue, whose shriekings startle night;
That looming factory hard by with window eyes of light;

102

The grave-yard near the Oaks, Sue, the breezes and their sighs;
The clouds that read the epitaphs with their dilating eyes!

The ruined Fort that stands, Sue, and frowns so in the night,
Where meets Piscataqua and toys with Ocean's lips of white;
The moon-light walks we've had and the walks without a moon,
Thro' woods stuck full of rosy eyes by airy-ankled June!

The gleaming of your eyes, Sue, the floating of your hair,
The echoes of your lips that trill and faint upon the air,
They all come back to-night, Sue, they all come back to-night;
My eyes behold the dusty Past and Memory holds the light.

The unforgiving winds, Sue, torment the tender rain;
A storm's without, I heed it not—I'm with you once again!

103

ANACREONTIC.

I.

The gleam that lies
In Fannie's eyes,
And vainly tries to hide its glow,
Has scarce to me
More witchery
Than that within my chalice now.
The bubbles rise and wink like eyes,
Like woman's eyes divinely glow!

II.

Come let me press thy ruby lips,
My Goblet! lips of wine!
Glide through my soul and flood my brain
With images divine!

104

Who would not kiss
A lip like this
Since every kiss a care dispels?
Each sweeter far
Than dew-drops are,
Or honey in the lily-bells.

III.

Mythology! By heaven there is
No heathen god but one!
My vine-browed Bacchus, purple-mouthed!
Astride his royal tun!
I am to-night
His proselyte,
And wrong or right I'll crown him king;
And I will quaff
A song, a laugh
From each fresh bowl our Hebes bring.

IV.

When dark-eyed Grief would fill my eyes
With tears unto the brim,
The Lethe of my woe I find
Beneath this goblet's rim.

105

O! who would wear
A brow of care
When we can share a cup like this?
What eye should grow
Down-cast with woe
When wine can pack a heart with bliss?

V.

Fate knows when we may meet again,
My merrie friends and true;
Then let's dissolve our souls in Hock,
As clouds dissolve in dew.
Come, let us press those ruby lips,
Our goblet's lips of wine!
And flood our souls and throng our brains
With images divine!
Who would not kiss
A lip like this
Since every kiss a care dispels?
Each sweeter far
Than dew-drops are
Or honey in the lily-bells!

106

WITH THE STARS AND THE STRIPES AROUND HIM.

“We found him as he had fallen from his horse, his sword still firmly grasped in his hand, and the flag he had died defending, drawn across his breast. He looked as though he had gone to sleep, expecting every moment to be roused by a call to arms. There was not a clear eye among us, when one of his friends severed two ringlets from the many that clustered on his forehead, to “send home” to his mother and betrothed. He was buried as he was found—the flag, the sword, the soldier, in one grave!”—

Letters from the Rio Grande.

Let him lie i' the dark narrow grave you have made,
Let him lie, as when dead, you found him;
Let him sleep with his hand on the dinted blade,
And the stars and the stripes around him!
But first cut a lock from his long chestnut hair
For one that the hero left weeping;
And another “send home,” and with them tell where
The son and the lover are sleeping.

107

When long winter nights, at the home of his birth,
Are shortened with legend and story,
Some voice in the household will tell of his worth,
And speak of his death and his glory;
And fancy will picture the place where he sleeps,
Beside him the blue winding river,
The long sloping flats where the chaparral sweeps,
And Summer breathes softly forever.

The mother will weep as she thinks of “her boy,”
The ties that so tenderly bound him;
But the lad at her side will think 'twere a joy
To sleep with a banner around him!
And she, the dark-eyed and the beautiful one,
Who waited so long for her lover,
Will fall asleep tearful, and dream until morn
Of the joys and the love-meetings over.

When another shall kneel at the feet of the fair
To win her with sighs and with vowing,
She'll tell him her heart, as he pleading kneels there,
Is tombed where a river is flowing.

108

The ringlet you cut from the pale marble brow
Of our comrade, warrior-hearted,
She'll press to her lips, and remember her vow
Of faith to the dear one departed.

Lead the war-horse back to the cool hazel-hurst
Where the mild Merrimack is roving;
When his eye grows dim he'll be tenderly nurst
By those that will never cease loving.
Lead the war-horse back! There's a horrible stain
On the saddle seat, ah, and gory!
'Tis the heart's blood of one for his Country slain—
Death, death is the price of all glory!

Let him sleep by the wave of the Rio Grande
With no proud sculptured urn above him,
There are tablets enough in his own dear land,
The sorrowing, sad hearts that love him.
Let him lie i' the dark narrow grave you have made,
Let him lie as when dead, you found him,
Let him sleep with his hand on the dinted blade
And the stars and the stripes around him!

109

THE LACHRYMOSE.

“Beauty still walketh on the earth and air,
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold
As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled.”

This World's as beautiful to-day as when
It dropped fresh from the fingers of a God!
The Philomel makes heavenly the night,
And Roses bring a blush to earth's great cheeks
Each summer time. The sun has not grown dim.
The same wild breezes sweep our Southern vales,
And wake rough music on th' Atlantic's wave
That brushed the dew-drop from the crocus leaf
In Eden's solitude. I cannot see
That earth is tired out, and wrinkled like
An aged face; that it has fallen in
The “sere and yellow leaf.” I think that it
Is vastly young, and destined yet to swing
Some thirty thousand centuries in air!

110

Perdition catch these lachrymosic bards
That moan forever about weary earth
And sea! as if their dismal dactyles could
Improve it much. There is one poet who
Has risen up like a great rocket with
A burst of stars, he's going to “tinker” it!
Kind heaven help him! 'twere a pretty job!
For my own part I am content if I
Can tinker joy, making it water-proof
To keep out Tears! As to all theories
And schism and the like, I do bequeath
Them unto learned heads. A Poet can
Do much by writing purely, but far more
By living as he writes. Who would reform
The world, let him reform himself, teaching
By example more than precept.

Now I,
Who am no Bard, but a mere poetling,
A “ballad monger” stringing fancies on
A thread of rhyme, a literary bee
Humming round the world and drawing sweetness
From it, I—a poet be it written
Of the ephemeral sort, who, dying,
Would be missed about as much as yonder
Butterfly—do not think myself better

111

Than my neighbor, but I've faith enough to
Trust the unseen hands that toss the ocean
Up, those hands that garner whirlwinds i' the air,
With tinkering this leaky world!

112

THE OLD HOUSE.

The Old House alone,
A queer and crumbling pile,
And though its shattered gables tell—
Faintly, like the pulses of a bell—
Of days and years, mayhap of centuries flown,
I cannot help but smile.

The Old House stands alone,
Over the windows and the oaken door,
There's something in the mouldings that's so quaint;
No knocker rings upon those pannels more;
Some urchin wrung it off!
In these degenerate days an urchin is no saint,
But dares to laugh and scoff
At things that bear the holy taint,
And impress of the Past.

113

Its windows boast not one whole pane of glass;
And tho' it pains me, let it still be said
That I have broken many a square, alas!
My heart has since its reparation made.
I'm grieving now I ever threw a stone;
They used to graze the damp discolored walls,
And wake the sleeping echo in the halls
And that would go from room to room and moan.
Besides, the windows always blushed so red,
When Sunset stooped to catch the winged gulls,
Or stripped him, shameless, for his ocean bed;
But now they seem like eyeless skulls
Of some poor mortals dead!

That structure seems ideal!
There's such an indistinctness in its form,
I sometimes doubt if really it be real.
So oft its roof hath felt the drenching storm,
So oft it has been danced upon by hail,
That contour seems washed out!
And when I view it 'tis with half a doubt,
As dimly through a veil.

That ancient House might tell a startling tale
Could its cracked wainscots and dark closets speak;

114

A tale to make the laughing lip turn pale
And send the heart's blood bubbling to the cheek.
Ere I was born, when my grandsire was young,
A legend curious, rather wild withall,
Around that lonely mansion hung;
And at some future time,
Should I possess the quantity of rhyme,
That legend shall be sung.

Those chambers drear, deserted save by storms,
Shall hear again the pleading Lover's sigh;
I'll clutch the Past! bring back its phantom forms,
And light with passion many an orbless eye.
From disused graveyards of this dear old town,
I'll drag the helpless and long slumbering dead;
With plumes I'll deck full many a fleshless head,
With clanking spurs full many a fleshless heel;
Marshall the dead in some undying fight,
Robe them in silks as if for banquet night—
The flippant Fop, the Warrior in his steel!

[OMITTED]
O, let me tell thee one thing, trembling House!
That in thy days of former pomp gone by,

115

When light feet danced where crawls secure the mouse,
And thy bare walls were hung with drapery—
I tell thee truly—when thy haunted halls
Were scenes of Bridal, Birth, and Revelry,
And Funeral wails resounded in thy walls,
None in those hours of pain and joy gone by
Could love thee then more fondly now than I.

The mansion of the late Hon. Theodore Atkinson, Court street, Portsmouth, N. H.

116

MY HIGHLAND MARY.

How sweetly comes the picture now!—
The breathless wood, that August noon,
When 'mong the panting leaves you sang
“Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon!”
The very streamlets, gurgling low,
On happy ways did tarry,
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs
To hear my Highland Mary!

And when the evening touched the trees,
And we turned homeward, you and I,
I blush to own “a body” kissed
“A body,” “Coming thro' the Rye!”
The very streamlets, gurgling low,
On happy ways did tarry,
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs
To hear my Highland Mary!

117

Was ever moon more milky white,
Did ever stream have softer swells,
Than when at Sagamore I heard
The music of “Those Evening Bells!”
Ah, memory calls each cadence back
And trembles with a dim delight;
And Fancy listens till it hears
The warblings of that “Stilly Night!”
The very streamlets, gurgling low,
On happy ways did tarry,
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs
To hear my Highland Mary!

118

TWILIGHT IDYL.

I.

How softly comes the Evening down
And weds the vapors of the town!
Bending o'er its tumult wild
As above her restless child
Bends the mother, singing lowly
Some refrain of melancholy.

II.

Voices heard at twilight hour
Have a deep, a touching power;
Distant sounds seem clearer, nearer,
And the Dead are nearer, dearer!
Forms and faces seem to wear
Touches of diviner air.

119

III.

'Neath the glimpses of the moon,
Flowers pale, and droop, and swoon,
Truant streams steal out of glens,
Over violet-scented fens,
Through the tall grass of the meadow,
Throwing back Diana's shadow.

IV.

The phantom fingers of the Breeze
Play upon the slumberous trees
Their wondrous, untaught minstrelsy!
Making every leaf a key!
Every twig a flat or sharp!
Every sycamore a harp!

V.

The music voice of distant rills
Humming in the hearts of hills
Steals upon me like a stream
Of music thro' a saddened dream,
Or, as with a murmuring breath
Thoughtful memory whispereth.

120

VI.

And, more charming than the chimes
Floating through a poet's rhymes,
From the hill-brows and the dells
Comes a tinkling tongue that tells
Of grazing herd, while from the hill
Pipes the plaintive Whip-po-will!

VII.

The Evening comes as softly down
Upon my heart as on the town;
Bends above its tumult wild
As above her restless child
Bends the mother, singing lowly
Some refrain of melancholy.

121

THE GOLDEN ISLAND.

I.

I know an Island sitting in the sea,
As stately as a God!
With great blue waves forever at its feet
Cringing like worshipers!
And when the crowned sun
Urges his hot steeds thro' the gates of day,
A golden shower falls on it the while.
Queen Cleopatra never bore
A brighter jewel on her bosom's swell
Than seems this Island sitting in the sea.

II.

And when the coy young Moon
Becomes enamored of her beauty in the wave,

122

As did Narcissos in the minstrel's rhyme—
That sea-kist isle is flushed with silver light,
And Beauty like a spirit haunteth it.
O! it was grand of April nights to hear
That strange old ocean talking to himself!
Though Autumn blasts have filled them since,
My ears still hold the silver strains
Of those wind-ditties that all summer haunt
That Golden Island sitting in the sea.

III.

I've but to close my eyes, and I behold
Those curving wavelets in the cold moonlight,
Tumbling above each other on the shore,
Showing the stars their red phosphoric veins!
O sprite of Thought! thy dainty fingers wipe
The city's dust from out my blinded eyes.
Like Him that called dead Lazarus from the tomb,
Thou call'st “Come forth!” and lo!
The buried Past lifts up its coffin lid,
And stalketh forth with dust upon his brow!
Twelve of the eighteen Summers of my life,
Like Twelve white Maidens tending on a Queen,
Stand, flower-decked, round Memory!
O, thou fine sprite! what treasures thou hast piled

123

In the mind's store-house! Memory unlocks
The tomb of the departed Years, and shows
Them in their royalty stretched out like Kings!
O! sweet the pictures that she brings to me—
Dim woods with pulses of a scented wind,
And twilight shadows hanging on the trees
Like birdlings half asleep!
And forms and faces that in soul-land move;
But dearer than the first of these,
That Golden Island setting in the sea.

IV.

Æolus is a king there,
And his rough-tuned lips
Voice sea-born melodies for Neptune's ear!
And Echo's hoyden daughters sit
Upon the rocks, and mimic ocean,
Who moans all the while, like an old man
Whose years have led him to the gate of Death.
The sea-gulls screech around it,
And the lark above
Hangs a sweet drop of music in the air!
O! 'tis a spot fit for a Deity,
Grand as the isles of the Hesperides,
That Golden Island sitting in the sea.

124

THE BARD.

Quaint-thoughted Rumor whispered of a Name,
And said that Fame had set another star
Within the glorious galaxy that brows
Old England's forehead! and that she had paused,
And had been listening to a Titan bard
Attentively as Summer to the Wren!
It spake of one, a child of Penury,
In whose veins ran red blood as beautiful
As pulses of the purple wine; his song
As the full gushes of a ripening soul—
Rare music drops wrung out by anguish from
A heart sphered with humanity, a-flush
With inward Spring, and drunk with love of this
Dear World. One that made Fate a menial,
And with a holy purpose in his soul,
Rose from obscurity above his peers
Like a full moon that leaves a dismal swamp
And sits in heaven 'mong the stars and night!

125

Not long I waited for the winds to waft
This freighted soul o'er the Atlantic wave;
For soon the Western Hemisphere bursts forth
In murmurs, like a Memnon touched at morn.
And well I knew that proud Columbia hailed
Another son of song, and stretched her hands
To laurel him. His Book came; and I felt
The Passion that ran through it like a vein,
Was born of Genius, and that the skill
Which flung his fevered being into song,
Would write his name upon the hearts of men
In characters Time's finger cannot blot.

I read and read until my heart was flushed
With a new pleasure; a diviner Light
Came on me, and its golden-fingers touched
My being into tears, as the lightning
Breaks a cloud and ravishes its wealth of
Rain. I read and read, and tho' my eyes grew
Dim with weariness, my soul still thirsted
For those draughts of thought inspiring as Wine!
And all one summer day I bent above
His book, like a pale lily o'er a stream,
And saw my own heart-fancies mirrored on
His page with wilder beauty. . . .

126

I read and read until the day and dusk
In married colors flooded through the blinds,
And darkness laid his black hand on the page.
And with the taper burning at my side,
The Midnight came upon me ere I'd done
With stars like drops of fire upon her breast!
I turned to look at them and wondered why
Such God-like beauty doomed the sinful world.
I thought of those great souls that, dying, leave
Behind the shadow of their godliness;
Who wrestled all their lives with some great Wrong,
As Jacob did with the mysterious
Angel one long still night at Penuel.
Dear God! when will Contention come and sleep
In the soft lap of Peace? And when shall Right
Throw off its galling chains, as in the spring
The brooks leap from their icy manacles
With an exuberance of joy? Dear God!
When this is so, shall not the Sun go down
Upon the world with a great flushing light,
And rise amid a chorus of the stars
In Paradise?

127

HOPE.

AN EXCERPT FROM AN ANCIENTE RIME.

When from darke chaos was create ye earthe,
When firsté ye sun glowed from its heighte,
When Nature gave ye pond'rous mountains birthe,
And peerless Daye succeeded lovelie Nighte,
When planates glowed tho' brighte in day, ye colde
Dotted ye mantle stretched from pole to pole.

'Twas then that Hope with calm cerulean eye,
Ne decked in statelie robes of Pride,
Descended from her throne on highe
And sought alike ye rich and poor man's side,
To soothe his woe and bluntkeen miserie's barbe,
And clothe ye Future in a brighter garbe.

128

She woke ye slumbering Genius, bade him rise;
From Sorrow's eye she wiped ye falling tear,
Smiled sweetlie on Ambition's soaring eyes,
And hovered even o'er Death's gloomy bier.
Who ceased to smile she bade them smile agayne
And in anticipation, banished present payne!

129

LILLYAN.

O, dreamy-eyèd maiden!
With Peri beauty laden,
Lillyan! did thy southern skies
Blend those sea-shell dyes
On thy soft cheeks, Lillyan?

Lillyan sits through April noons
In the shadow of the eaves
Twining flowerets in her hair:
I would be the crumpled leaves
On the breast of Lillyan!
Dainty Lady Lillyan.
Her sweet face haunts me where I rove,
Her sunny glances bless me,
Her gentler smiles caress me,
And, O! my soul's a-flush with love
Of that sad gipsy, Lillyan.

130

Lillyan in a place of flowers
Slept one summer day;
Lillyan did not hear my footsteps
As I passed that way;
And, I wis,
I planted a long nectared kiss
Upon the lips of Lillyan,
The rare-ripe lips of Lillyan!

And she oped her frighted eyes
With a glance of scorn,
For the proudest little Lady
That was ever born
Is this self-same Lillyan,
This dainty darling Lillyan.

Like a shattered April rainbow
Up the skies, I saw the blood go
Through the cheeks of Lillyan;
And then kneeling at her feet,
“Did the kiss I gave thee, Sweet,
Fall on those red lips with such pain?”
She said “Yes! take it back again.”—
O! that roguish Lillyan.

131

IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE.

133

Scene IV. A road by the church-yard of Eld; the town and the Castles of Craige and Edenwold seen in the distance.— Blanchette and Ivan sitting near the gate.
BLANCHETTE.
Wilt thou not
Finish, Ivan, the sad tale that thou wert
Telling me last eve? I feel my path
Has been a bridge of flowers, when I think
Of thy captivity.

IVAN.
Where left I off?

134

BLANCHETTE.
'Twas where they dragged thee in a noisome cave
After the battle, faint with heavy chains,
And streaked with thine own blood.

IVAN.
O, let the Past
Sleep in a shroud! Why should we ever strew
The thorns of olden sorrows on our way—
The memory of wilted hopes—when joys
Of present blossoming, like roses, wait
For plucking?

BLANCHETTE.
It is these sombre phases
Of our lives that make the bright seem brighter.
In the soft blending of the light and shade
All of the limner's cunning lies. We find
No joy till we have had a twilight on
The heart. We cannot see the sun, 'less
It is partly dimmed with clouds, for it would
Dazzle us. And if bliss should, like rivers,
Ever through our beings leap, we would grow
Surfeited and sick, like pet canaries
Fed on lucious sweets. Is it not so?

135

IVAN.
O, thou canst see God's hand in sunshine and
In shade! To thee, whose spirit wears on earth
A pure touch of heaven's divinity,
Those things are plain, that unto coarser souls
Seem swathed in darkness. O my better heart!
My soul-philosopher! teach me thy faith,
Thy subtle faith, that sees in every wo
An Angel masking or a Joy disguised!

BLANCHETTE.
Wilt thou not tell the tale? 'Tis such a one
As should be told at sunset, when the clouds
Turn their flushed faces on departing day,
And then grow sad and sadder by degrees,
As the great orb hides underneath the earth!
Tell me it quickly! or the dusk will set
Its signet on the zenith, and the night
Will cap it with a moon.

IVAN.
'Twas a great cave
Where sunbeams never were, and night and day
Were one; full of dark precipices,
Yawning and moaning ever, and deep streams

136

Writhing and squirming, like black serpents, 'mong
Stalagmites centuries old. Echo roamed
Through all the caverns like a demon king,
With lips brimful of startling cadences.
In the unearthly light of burning brands,
Forms, more horrible than those of Comus
And his crew, dug in the rocky-veinéd ribs
And in the bowels of their prison house,
Bringing forth precious jewels. Men were there
Who never saw the sun, nor felt the breath
Of evening on their cheeks. Born in that realm
Of Cerberus, at tales of planates poised
In viewless air; earth's ragged cloak of snow;
The Sister Months, and crystal tides, and ships
They'd ope their eyes with wonderment; and birds
With hearts of melody were myths to them.
Here did I dwell the long and lonely years;
The hours went by as slow and sombrely
As funeral trains—each bore a dead hope
With it. Even now, in this rich moment
Of serenest bliss, the thoughts of that drear
Cave, fall on my heart like clouds, darkening it.
I'll not let these cold and clammy mem'ries
Finger the gilt from off this golden hour!
No more! no more! I'm all too weary, love,
Of this dark episode in my heart's Life!

137

BLANCHETTE.
What! leave it all unfinished like a strain
Of music broken by the wind? Oh, no!
Tell what kind angel took thee by the hand
And through those palaces, stalactite hung,
Led thee to rosy daylight and to me.

IVAN.
An angel! Ah, thou sayest rightly, for
It was. If ever God sent angel to
This earth, Madene was one. A miner's child,
Born in the rocky navel of that cave,
She grew up with strange thoughts, wild joys, and tears
Ran thro' her being like rare music thro'
A dream. Her soul lay in her hazel eyes
Like a white lily in a brook. There was
An atmosphere of purity around
Her, and of love, a tenderness, a grace
That loving nature robed her with, not art.
She was a star in that dark spot, a light
Gilding the darkness.

BLANCHETTE.
And you loved her?

138

IVAN.
Very much. She nursed me in my sickness
With the gentlest care, and sang low songs
And soothed me like a child. 'Tis not 'mid thrones
And palaces we find the noblest hearts.
Costlier diamonds are hid in the earth
Than ever yet have decked a coronal.
In the lone paths and by-ways of this world,
Souls, rich in their own wealth, spring up and die
Like flowerets unnoticed. She was one
That shall make heaven beautiful, and earth
Is lovelier while she lives. Through weary,
Weary nights and days o' pain she tended me.
When strength returned, my grateful lips were filled
With language; but how beggared 'twas to clothe
The promptings of my soul. I spoke to her
Of “home”—“dear home” framed like a picture in
My thought; of one that waited for me, with
Heart-trembles and most anxious eyes; and she
Would drink my words in with a thirsty ear.
When thro' the toil of day, I'd sit me down
Upon the margent of some inky stream,

139

Hearing it echo through the dull deaf caves,
She'd find me ever, and sit at my feet.
Once, as I told her of thee, Blanch, starting
From out a seeming reverie, she cried,
“Tell me no more of this dark-tressèd one!
I love thee, stranger of the outer world!
Have loved since first our glances met; my mouth
Has burned upon thy forehead in thy sleep;
Mine eyes have fed on thee while wrapped in dreams!”
“O, say not so,” I whispered, “say not so!
Thou art much dearer to me than my life;
'Twere thine could it but serve thee;—but my love—
I beg thee do not ask it.” Her hand fell
Coldly on my own. “'Twas a wild, wild dream,”
She said, “but over now. We will no more
Of it. From this time forward I have one
Great aim in life—thy liberty; for she
Thou lovest must be worthy thee.” I could
Have worshiped her, so full of holiness
She seemed, so full of paradise. Blanchette,
I do believe this world is linked to that
Next better world by souls like her's.

140

BLANCHETTE.
And I.
She must have fallen through the fingers of
The angels, (never meant for earth) into
That cave; and they, mayhap, have ever since
Been searching for her. I am listening.

IVAN.
'Twas two years after this she came one night
And drew me from a labyrinth of dreams.
“Come,” she spoke wildly, “I have seen a light,
Not like the torches that we use, but soft
And clear and lovely as an eye.” We went.
It was a star she saw glimmering through
A rupture in the rock, half hidden by
A fallen tree, and creeping vines, and leaves
Of many summer times. My heart was full.
I felt Æolus' lips upon my brow,
And I could hear, among the trees without,
The wind's wild symphonies. I turned to bless
Her—she was gone. Men hurried to and fro
In the rotunda of the cave with lights.
My absence was discovered; at a bound
I gained the opening, and thrust back the leaves,
And stood out in the night—glorious night!

141

Peopled with planate worlds! The river crossed,
I hid me in the woods, and cooled my lips
With mangos, sweetest fruit Pomona hangs
Upon the trees. I slept in shady glens
By day, and traveled under covert of
The night. The war had broken out afresh.
I joined my comrades on a battle eve;
Once more I led them in victorious
Charge. The fame, the wealth, the rank
I won, I lay them at thy feet! ****

(An hour later, sunset; a mist seen on the mountains.)
BLANCHETTE.
The birds are mute, and all the winding streams,
With pebbly eyes, flow on subdued. The woods
Are spotted o'er with carmine, ribbed with gold,
And the great sun goes rippling down the West!

IVAN.
And Twilight, like some dark Egyptian Queen,
Stalks down the mountain side!

142

BLANCHETTE.
Soon Night will come,
Cloud-capped and starry-eyed, with Saturn, Mars
And Venus in her train!

IVAN.
How like a dream
It is! The town below us slumbering
In the dusk, and the faint throbbing of its
Many hearts; the mournful curfew stealing
On the night, and the sweet bulbul singing
To the rose; and thou, my love, thou seemest
The most unreal of all.

BLANCHETTE.
There is a sad,
Dim beauty in the scene that touches me.
Morn walking o'er the coral-grottoed deep,
Is not so 'witching as the dreamy haze
That cloaks this landscape; and I would not match
One scintillation of mild Hesperus
'Gainst all his amber beams. The village lamps
Are lighted; darkness screens the chimney-tops,

143

The carven gables; nought is visible
Save twinkling lamps, except when some gude-wife
The window curtain lifts, and watches for
Her husband; then a gleam of light runs out,
Spanning the darkness like a fairy bridge!

IVAN.
And Castle Craige, looms 'mid the shadows up,
With window eyes of fire; but Edenwold
Is bleak and gloomy as a blasted tree.
Come, love, let's leave these quiet, quiet graves;
A church-yard is a dismal place at night,
And we should not be sad. Ere Evening sweeps
In purple robes again across the sky.
The sweet-lipped bell that silent, drowsy hangs
In yon old belfry of the ivied church,
Shall tune its tongue and chime our marriage morn.
To-morrow, love! to-morrow!

144

NIGHT SCENE.

One cloud was gabled like a country house
With latticed windows, vine hid, through which looked
The melting eyes of stars. From out one side
Was hung the moon like a great lantern in
The crowded porch of some quaint village inn!
[OMITTED] The far dim woods
Were tipped with amethyst; beneath me stretched
The town of Eld bespangled with its lights;
Above me, drooped the linings of the clouds!
And I could hear, like one in trance, the feet
Of cascades tripping musically down
Emerald hills, while ever and anon
The Nightingale sent trembles thro' the night.

University of Virginia Library

PROEM.

I. THE CHRISTENING.

II. TO MY FRIENDS.

THE BELLS.

PRELUDE TO THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE.

THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE.

CHATTERTON.

I.

II.

III.

V.

VI.

H. W. L.

CRESCENT CITY AT NIGHT.

SEEN FROM THE FRENCH CATHEDRAL AT PLACE D'ARMES.

SONG OF A HEART.

THE ANGEL.

FANNIE.

MAUD OF ALLINGGALE.

PART I.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

PART II.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

PART III.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

TO MARIE.

THE KNIGHT OF POESY.

A CHRISTMAS CHIME.

THE GUESTS, AND WHAT THE STRANGE OLD MAN DOES IN THE OLD HOUSE EVERY CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

EUDELE.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP.

A RAINY DAY LYRIC.

TOUSOULIA.

A LEGEND OF THE MOHEGAN.

A MADRIGAL.

I MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

[As falls a ray of transient golden light]

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

THE TWO CITIES.

THE NIGHT WIND.

IMORE.

A LEGEND OF THE MINSTREL TIMES.

FOREVER AND FOREVER.

AN IMITATION.

A NEST OF SONNETS.

I. THE LITTLE WITCHES AT THE CROSSINGS.

II. PHŒBUS.

III. THE NIGHT RAIN.

IV. “THANATOPSIS.”

V. NOON.

VI. TO ---

ON HIS BEING UNJUSTLY CRITICISED.

ELEGIAC.

BERTHABELL.

ABOUT A TINY GIRL.

THE GENTLE HAND.

I.
THE LITTLE WITCHES AT THE CROSSINGS.

II.
PHŒBUS.

III.
THE NIGHT RAIN.

IV.
“THANATOPSIS.”

V.
NOON.

VI.
TO ---