Poems by Anne C. Lynch. With illustrations by Durand, Huntington, Darley, Duggan, Rothermel, etc

The flowers of romance that I cherished,
Around me lie withered and dead;
The stars of my youth's shining heaven,
Were but meteors whose brightness misled;
And the day-dreams of life's vernal morning,
Like the mists of the morning have fled.

But one flower I have found still unwithered;
Like the night-scented jasmin it gleams;
And beyond where the fallen stars vanished,
One light pure and hallowed still beams;
One love I have found, deep and changeless,
As that I have yearned for in dreams.

Too often the links have been broken,
That bound me in friendship's bright chain;
Too often has fancy deceived me
To blind or to charm me again;
And I sigh o'er my young heart's illusions,
With a sorrow I would were disdain.

But now, as the clouds return earthward,
From the cold and void ether above;
As on pinions all drooping and weary,
O'er the waste flew the wandering dove;
O'er the tide of the world's troubled waters,
I return to the ark of thy love.

Here, at length, my tired spirit reposes;
Here my heart's strongest tendrils entwine;
Here its warmest and deepest affections
It lays on earth's holiest shrine:
Dearest mother, receive the devotion
Of the life thou hast given from thine.

Here, pressed to thy bosom, the tempests
That sweep over life's stormy sea,
Have beat, in their impotent fury,—
They were winged with no terror for me;
If I shrank from the fearful encounter,
If I trembled—it was but for thee.

The spirit of Song that lies buried
In silence or sleep in the breast,
Unlike the wild music of Memnon,
Is charmed by the sunshine to rest;
In the clash of contending emotions
Are its harmonies only expressed.

When, at moments, my soul has been shaken,
In the strife with the world's rushing throng;
Or moved by some holier impulse,
As borne by its current along;
This spirit aroused, has responded,
And uttered these fragments of song.

I know they are but passing echoes,
For which time has no place and no name;
But hereafter, in loftier numbers,
Might I seek for the guerdon of fame—
Might I gather its evergreen laurels—
I would twine them around thy loved name.

But I mark now a pallor that deepens,
And spreads o'er thy brow and thy cheek;
And, filled with a fearful foreboding,
My strong heart grows nerveless and weak;
And shrinks back appalled from the anguish,
The blow beneath which it would break.

Oh, leave me not yet, gentle spirit,
Though our loved and our lost, gone before,
In the Better Land watch for thy coming,
And call thee away to that shore;
These clasped arms are strong to detain thee—
Leave, leave me not yet, I implore!

Oh God! let this cup but pass from me,
When thy bitterest draught would be thrown;
Not yet those sweet ties rend asunder
Heart with heart, life with life that have grown!
Not yet can I bear life's great burden,
And tread its dark wine-press alone.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

There are countless fields the green earth o'er,
Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore;
Where hostile ranks in their grim array,
With the battle's smoke have obscured the day;
Where hate was stamped on each rigid face
As foe met foe in the death embrace;
Where the groans of the wounded and dying rose,
Till the heart of the listener with horror froze,
And the wide expanse of the crimsoned plain
Was piled with its heaps of uncounted slain:—
But a fiercer combat, a deadlier strife,
Is that which is waged in the Battle of Life.

The hero that wars on the tented field,
With his shining sword and his burnished shield,
Goes not alone with his faithful brand,
Friends and comrades around him stand;
The trumpets sound and the war-steeds neigh,
To join in the shock of the coming fray,

And he flies to the onset, he charges the foe,
Where the bayonets gleam and the red tides flow;
And he bears his part in that conflict dire,
With an arm all nerve, and a heart all fire.
What though he fall! at the battle's close,
In the flush of the victory won, he goes,
With martial music and waving plume,
From a field of fame to a laurelled tomb.
But the hero that wars in the Battle of Life,
Must stand alone in the fearful strife;
Alone in his weakness or strength must go,
Hero or craven to meet the foe;
He may not fly,—on that fated field,
He must win or lose, he must conquer or yield.

Warrior who com'st to this battle now,
With a careless step and a thoughtless brow,
As if the field were already won;
Pause, and gird all thy armor on.
Myriads have come to this battle-ground,
With a valiant arm and a name renowned,
And have fallen vanquished, to rise no more,
Ere the sun was set, or the day half o'er.

Dost thou bring with thee hither a dauntless will,
An ardent soul that no blast can chill;

Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved;
Canst thou say to the mountain—“Be thou moved;”
In thy hand does the sword of truth flame bright;
Is thy banner emblazoned—“For God and the Right;”
In the might of prayer, dost thou strive and plead?
Never had warrior greater need.
Unseen foes in thy pathway hide;
Thou art encompassed on every side.
There Pleasure waits, with her syren train,
Her poison flowers and her hidden chain;
Hope, with her Dead Sea fruits, is there;
Sin is spreading her gilded snare;
Flattery courts, with her hollow smiles;
Passion with silvery tone beguiles;
Love and Friendship their charmed spells weave:
Trust not too deeply, they may deceive.
Disease with a ruthless hand would smite,
And Care spread o'er thee a with'ring blight;
Hate and Envy, with visage black,
And the serpent Slander are on thy track;
Guilt and Falsehood, Remorse and Pride,
Doubt and Despair in thy pathway glide;
Haggard Want, in her demon joy,
Waits to degrade thee and then destroy;
Palsied Age in the distance lies,
And watches his victim with rayless eyes;

And Death, the insatiate, is hovering near,
To snatch from thy grasp all thou holdest dear.
No skill may avail, and no ambush hide;
In the open field must the champion bide,
And face to face, and hand to hand,
Alone in his valor confront that band.

In war with these phantoms that gird him round,
No limbs dissevered may strew the ground;
No blood may flow, and no mortal ear
The groans of the wounded heart may hear,
As it struggles and writhes in their dread control,
As the iron enters the riven soul.
But the youthful form grows wasted and weak,
And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek;
The brow is furrowed, but not with years;
The eye is dimmed with its secret tears,
And streaked with white is the raven hair:
These are the tokens of conflict there.

The battle is over; the hero goes,
Scarred and worn, to his last repose.
He has won the day, he has conquered Doom,
He has sunk unknown to his nameless tomb.
For the victor's glory no voices plead,
Fame has no echo, and earth no meed.

But the guardian angels are hovering near;
They have watched unseen o'er the conflict here,
And they bear him now, on their wings away,
To a realm of peace,—to a cloudless day.
Ended now is the earthly strife,
And his brow is crowned with the Crown of Life.

ASPIRATION.

SONNET.

The planted seed consigned to common earth,
Disdains to moulder with the baser clay;
But rises up to meet the light of day,
Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth;
And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray,
Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales,
Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales.
So this immortal germ within my breast
Would strive to pierce the dull, dark clod of sense,
With aspirations wingéd and intense;
Would so stretch upward, in its tireless quest,
To meet the Central Soul, its source, its rest;
So in the fragrance of the immortal flower,
High thoughts and noble deeds, its life it would outpour.

A THOUGHT BY THE SEA-SHORE.

“Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.”

Bury me by the sea,
When on my heart the hand of Death is press'd.
If the soul lingers ere she join the bless'd,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then 'mid the forest shades I would not lie,
For the green leaves, like me, would droop and die.

Nor 'mid the homes of men,
The haunts of busy life, would I be laid:
There ever was I lone, and my vexed shade
Would sleep unquiet then:
The surging tide of life might overwhelm
The shadowy boundaries of the silent realm.

No sculptured marble pile,
To bear my name, be reared upon my breast,—
Beneath its weight my free soul would not rest:
But let the blue sky smile,

The changeless stars look lovingly on me,
And let me sleep beside this sounding sea—

This ever-beating heart
Of the great Universe; here would the soul
Plume her soiled pinions for the final goal,
Ere she should thence depart,—
Here would she fit her for the high abode,—
Here, by the sea, she would be nearer God.

I feel His presence now,
Thou mightiest of his vassals, as I stand
And watch beside thee on the sparkling sand,
Thy crested billows bow;
And, as thy solemn chant swells through the air,
My spirit, awed, joins in thy ceaseless prayer.

Life's fitful fever o'er,
Here then would I repose, majestic sea;
E'en now faint glimpses of eternity
Come o'er me on thy shore:
My thoughts from thee to highest themes are given,
As thy deep distant blue is lost in Heaven.

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. N. P. WILLIS.

In life's freshness, and its fulness,—
In thy womanhood's young bloom,
While thy brow was all unclouded
With a darkening ray of gloom,—
The Angel Death hath said to thee,
“Thy Father calls thee home.”

And, as fades some lovely vision
In the morning's gathering light,
Or as sinks some unsphered radiance
From the starry crown of night,
Or as dies some burst of music,—
Thou hast vanished from our sight.

Far across the foaming waters,
From the country of thy birth,
From thy childhood's friends and memories,
From thy father's silent hearth,
A strange soil unveils its bosom,
And must clasp thee, earth to earth.

But the soft Spring sky bends o'er thee,
As thou goest to thy rest,
And Mount Auburn's green recesses
Soon in beauty will be drest;
And with waving leaves and blossoms,
Welcome in their lovely guest.

And when Summer all her glory
O'er that hallowed scene shall shed,
Then shall come the loved and living,
With hushed voice and noiseless tread;
And with tears bedew the flowers,
In that city of the dead.

There, where winds sigh through the pine trees,
Where the silver water flows;
Where the pale stars keep their vigils,
And the genial sunlight glows,
Oh, how calm will be thy slumber!
How I envy thy repose!

There, young mother,—with thy nursling
Safely pillowed on thy heart,
Safely shielded from the tempest,
From the poison and the dart,—
Ye will fade away together,
As the violets depart.

But not thus, oh gentle stranger,
Shall thy loved remembrance flee;
In the hearts where thou wast cherished,
The sweet memories of thee,
Like the evergreens above thee,
Fresh and beautiful shall be.

SONNET.

ON SEEING THE IVORY STATUE OF CHRIST.

The enthusiast brooding in his cell apart
O'er the sad image of the Crucified,—
The drooping head, closed lips and piercéd side,—
A holy vision fills his raptured heart;
With heavenly power inspired, his unskilled arm
Shapes the rude block to this transcendent form.
Oh Son of God! thus, ever thus, would I
Dwell on the loveliness enshrined in Thee;
The lofty faith, the sweet humility;
The boundless love, the love that could not die.
And as the sculptor, with thy glory warm,
Gave to this chiselled ivory thy fair form,
So would my spirit, in thy thought divine,
Grow to a semblance, fair as this, of Thine.

ON A PICTURE OF HARVEY BIRCH.

I know not if thy noble worth
My country's annals claim,
For in her brief, bright history
I have not read thy name.

I know not if thou e'er didst live;
Save in the vivid thought
Of him who chronicled thy life,
With silent suffering fraught.

Yet, in thy history I see
Full many a great soul's lot;
Who joins that martyr-army's ranks,
That the world knoweth not;—

Who cannot weep “melodious tears,”
For fame or sympathy;
But who, in silence, bear their doom,
To suffer and to die;—

For whom no poet's harp is struck,
No laurel wreath is twined;
Who pass unheard—unknown, away,
And leave no trace behind;—

Who, but for their unwavering trust
In Justice, Truth, and God,
Would faint upon their weary way,
And perish by the road.

Truth, Justice, God! Oh mighty faith,
To bear us up unharmed;
The gates of Hell may not prevail
Against a soul so armed.

THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.

Speak low—tread softly through these halls;
Here genius lives enshrined,—
Here reign, in silent majesty,
The monarchs of the mind.

A mighty spirit-host they come,
From every age and clime;
Above the buried wrecks of years,
They breast the tide of Time.

And in their presence-chamber here,
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,
The gifted and the great.

Oh, child of Earth! when round thy path
The storms of life arise,
And when thy brothers pass thee by,
With stern, unloving eyes,—

Here shall the Poets chant for thee
Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
And Prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.

Come, with these God-anointed kings,
Be thou companion here;
And in the mighty realm of mind,
Thou shalt go forth a peer!

LINES

TO ONE WHO WISHED TO READ A POEM I HAD WRITTEN.

Nay, read it not, thou wouldst not know
What lives within my heart,
For from that fount it does not flow;
'Tis but the voice of Art.

I could not bid my proud heart speak,
Before the idle throng;
Rather in silence would it break
With its full tide of Song.

Yes, rather would it break, than bare,
To cold and careless eyes,
The hallowed dreams that linger there,
The tears and agonies.

My lyre is skillful to repress
Each deep, impassioned tone;
Its gushing springs of tenderness
Would flow for one alone.

The rock, that to the parching sand
Would yield no dewy drop,
Struck by the pilgrim prophet's wand,
Gave all its treasures up.

My heart then, is my only lyre;
The prophet hath not spoken,
Nor kindled its celestial fire;
So, let its chords be broken.

I would not thou shouldst hear those lays,
Though harsh they might not be;
Though thou, perchance, might'st hear and praise,
They would not speak of me.

AN IMITATION.

As once I dreamed, methought I strayed
Within a snow-clad mountain's shade;
From whose far height the silence bore
One charméd word, “Excelsior!”

And, as upon my soul it fell,
It bound me with a fearful spell;
It shut the sweet vale from my sight,
And called me up that dazzling height

I could not choose but heed its tone,
And climb that dreary path alone;
And now around me hung the gloom,
Where the storm-spirit makes his home

Upon my head the tempests beat;
Dark caverns opened at my feet;
The thunders rolled, the lightnings flashed
And fierce the swollen torrents dashed.

'Twas gained, that mountain's stormy pass;
But, chilled beside a mer de glace,
My heavy heart in vain would soar,—
The heart hears not “Excelsior!”

The heart's home is the vale below,
Where kind words greet, where fond eyes glow;
It withers 'neath those frozen skies,
Where the aspiring thought would rise.

Above me the eternal snows
In the cold sunlight's glare arose,
And a dread Presence seemed to brood
O'er the appalling solitude.

But now, on that unquiet dream,
Did one of stateliest aspect beam;
Whose brow thought's kingly impress bore,
Whose soul thrilled to “Excelsior!”

Though but one moment o'er my way
Did the bright form beside me stay;
In that pale brow and speaking eye,
Methought I saw my Destiny!

And as, far up the heaven-crowned height,
Thou seem'dst to vanish from my sight;

Thine image yet beside me stood,
And filled the voiceless solitude.

No longer drear that mountain waste.
For o'er its snows thy steps had passed;
No longer dread, in upper air,
That mountain's crest, for thou wert there!

DAY-DAWN IN ITALY.

Italia! in thy bleeding heart,
I thought, e'en hope was dead;
That from thy scarred and prostrate form,
The spark of life had fled.

I thought, as Memory's sunset glow
Its radiance o'er thee cast,
That all thy glory and thy fame
Were buried in the past.

Twice Mistress of the world! I thought
Thy star had set in gloom;
That all thy shrines and monuments
Were but thy spirit's tomb.

The mausoleum of the world,
Where Art her spoils might keep;
Where pilgrims from all shrines might come,
To wonder and to weep.

The thunders of the Vatican
Had long since died away;
Saint Peter's chair seemed tottering,
And crumbling to decay.

Thy ancient line of Pontiff Kings
Was to the past allied;
And oft in Freedom's holy wars,
They fought not on her side.

The sacred banner of the Cross
Was trailing, soiled and torn;
And often had the hostile ranks
That blessed ensign borne.

But from her death-like slumber now,
The seven-hilled city wakes:
Italia! on thy shrouded sky,
A gleam of morning breaks.

Along the Alps and Appenines
Runs an electric thrill;
A golden splendor lights once more
The Capitolian hill.

And hopes, bright as thy sunny skies,
Are o'er thy future cast;

The future that upon thee beams,
As glorious as thy past.

The laurels that thy Cæsars wore,
Were dyed with crimson stains;
Their triumphs glittered with the spoil
Won on thy battle plains.

But for thy Pontiff Prince, to-day,
A laurel might'st thou twine,
Unsullied as the spotless life
He lays upon thy shrine.

For him might the triumphal car
Ascend the hill again;
No slaves, bound to the chariot wheels,
Should swell the lengthened train:—

Such train, as in her proudest days,
Was never seen in Rome,—
Of captives from the dungeon freed,—
Of exiles welcomed home.

When, gazing on the doubtful strife,
The Hebrew leader prayed,
The friends of Israel gathered round,
His drooping hands they staid.

And thus around the Patriarch's chair,
The friends of Freedom stand,—
All eager, though it falters not,
To stay his lifted hand.

And in a clearer, firmer tone,
Is heard their rallying cry;
From Ætna to the Alps it sounds:
“For God and Liberty!”

FROM DE VIGNY.

Come on the sea, beloved,
Fearless and free;
Leave friends and wealth behind;
Come, come with me.
My bark on the water shines
A fairy thing;—
See her pennon, mast, and keel!
She is but a little shell,
Yet there I am king.

The earth was made for the slave,
Oh maiden free!
But for man, the stern and brave,
The boundless sea.
The waves breathe in their flow
A mystery,
And tenderly they sing,
In their soft murmuring,—
Love, Liberty.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

Why should we weep for thee,
Since thou hast gone unsullied back to heaven,
No stain upon thy spirit's purity,
No sin to be forgiven?

Love watched thee from thy birth,
Fond hearts around thee tireless vigils kept;
And o'er thy tender soul the storms of earth
Had never rudely swept.

Thou art spared a fearful lore—
A knowledge all attain who linger here;
The changed, the cold, the dead, were words that bore
No import to thine ear.

Methought I saw in thee,
Thus early as I marked by many a token,
A soul that might not war with Destiny,
A heart that could be broken.

But sinless, tearless, gone,
Undimmed, unstained, who would not thus have died!
For thee then let these vain regrets be done,
These selfish tears be dried.

Go to thy little bed!
The verdant turf is springing fresh and fair,
The flowers thou lovedst shall blossom o'er thy head,
The spring birds warble there.

And while to shapeless dust
Thy cherub form is gently mouldering back,
Our thoughts shall upward soar, in hopeful trust,
On thy freed spirit's track.

TEACHING THE SCRIPTURES.

Child of the thoughtful brow,
The speaking eye and the confiding look!
List to those teachings now,
And make thy guiding star that Blessed Book.

If bright thy course of life,
'Twill shed around thy path a holier ray;
If dark with storms and strife,
'Twill beam like sunlight on thy dreary way.

Come while around thee clings
The joyousness and innocence of birth;
Come, ere thy spirit's wings
Are wet with tears and stained with hues of earth.

Like tendrils of the vine,
Those deep affections with thy heart inwove,
Must round some prop entwine;
They ask some object for their wealth of love.

And if that object be
Earth-born and mortal, they will languish still:
There is a vacancy
In woman's heart, that God alone can fill.

SONNET.

FAITH.

Securely cabined in the ship below,
Through darkness and through storm I cross the sea,
A pathless wilderness of waves to me:
But yet I do not fear, because I know
That he who guides the good ship o'er that waste
Sees in the stars her shining pathway traced.
Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze;
Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass,
Through thornset barren and through deep morass:
But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways,
And bare my head unshrinking to the blast,
Because my Father's arm is round me cast;
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp
The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp.

WASHINGTON.

ON HUNTINGTON'S PICTURE OF WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHANY IN EARLY LIFE.

More proudly on thy winding course,
Dark Alleghany! flow;
The noblest burden thou couldst bear
Is on thy waters now.

But calm be every turbid wave,
And hushed be wind and storm:
There lies a Nation's destiny
Within that gallant form.

A spirit that shall stem a tide
More deep and dark than thine;
That on a night of War shall bid
The star of Victory shine.

A spirit that through coming time
Shall bear a hallowed name;
The glory of old conquerors
Shall pale before his fame.

And young Ambition on his course
Shall turn his eagle eye;
And men invoke his sainted shade
In threat'ning anarchy.

No baleful meteor shall he be,
To dazzle from afar;
But in the firmament of Fame
A fixed, a polar star!

TO ****, WITH FLOWERS.

Go, ye sweet messengers,
To that dim-lighted room,
Where lettered wisdom from the walls
Sheds a delightful gloom;

Where sits in thought profound,
One in the noon of life,
Whose flashing eye and fevered brow
Tell of the inward strife;

Who in those wells of lore,
Seeks for the pearls of truth,
And to Ambition's fever dream
Gives his repose and youth.

To him, sweet ministers,
Ye shall a lesson teach,—
Go in your fleeting loveliness,
More eloquent than speech.

Tell him in laurel wreaths
No perfume e'er is found,
And that upon a crown of thorns
Those leaves are ever bound.

Thoughts fresh as your own hues
Bear ye to that abode,—
Speak of the sunshine and the sky,
Of Nature and of God.

TO A CHILD.

I love to look on that eye of blue,
For tears have not yet worn a channel through;
And the few bright summers since thy birth,
Have left thee a stranger still on earth.

A stranger—and all, to thine untaught eyes,
Is bright with the hues of paradise.
The rapture of being thrills thy frame,
And sorrow thou know'st not even by name.

Thy innocent thoughts, unswayed by art,
Gush from the depths of thy guileless heart;
Like a harp when the wandering breezes sigh,
Answering each touch with melody.

I would, sweet one, I might wish for thee,
That a stranger thus thou shouldst ever be;
That time might not lift the enchanted veil,
Nor breathe in thine ear his mournful tale.

But those who are bid to this feast of life,
Must drink the cup,—must abide the strife:—
Then it were better to wish for thee,
Strength for the conflict, and victory.

AN APOLOGY FOR SADNESS.

When, in the miser's eager gaze,
His countless treasures lie,
Then most his coward spirit sinks,
With dread of poverty.

And when I felt within my grasp,
The treasure of thy love;
The insatiate avarice of the heart
Fierce with my spirit strove.

It troubled the clear fountain where
My thirsting soul had quaffed,
And mingled tears of bitterness
With the delicious draught.

A DIRGE FOR O'CONNELL.

Throw open, once again,
The portals of the tomb;
And give, among the glorious dead,
Another hero room!

Unclose your shadowy ranks,
Illustrious shades, unclose!
The valiant Leader, crowned with years,
Goes down to his repose.

The champion of Peace,
On many a well-fought field,
Whose bloodless victories left no stain
On his untarnished shield.

A king, though on his brow
No jewelled crown might shine;
A king, although his patriot blood
Flowed from no royal line.

A sovereign o'er that realm,
No boundaries can confine;
Whose throne was in a nation's heart;
Who reigned by right divine.

A soldier of the Cross,
Who bore a stainless brand;
The preacher of a new Crusade,
To rescue a lost land.

Rome! to thy care is given
The heart whose throbs are o'er;
Eternal City! to thy charge,
Take this one relic more!

And Erin, sad and lorn!
Take thou the sacred trust;
And let the soil he loved so well,
Commingle with his dust.

And Fame, take thou in charge
The patriot's renown;
And gather from your amaranth fields,
Another fadeless crown!

SONNET.

ON A PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

If the young mother clasp, for the first time,
The mortal child that earthly love has given,
With a deep joy preluding that of heaven;
Who shall describe thy ecstacy sublime,
Oh Virgin mother! when upon thy ear
The message of the announcing angel fell,
In heavenly tones to calm thy rising fear,
And thy approaching glory to foretell.
Was ever mother so divinely blest,
As when, the glow of Heaven yet clinging round him,
Before the weight of human grief had bound him,
The gentle Christ-child to thy heart was prest?
Oh, blessed among women! joy like thine
What hand shall dare describe! alas, not mine.

LINES

TO FREDERIKA BREMER.

“Hereafter, when I no more belong to earth, I should love to return to it as a spirit, and impart to men the deepest of that which I have suffered and enjoyed, lived and loved. And no one need fear me; should I come in the midnight hour to a striving and unquiet spirit, it would be only to make it more quiet, its night-lamp burn more brightly, and myself its friend and sister.”—

Miss Bremer's Letter.

Hereafter!—nay, thou hast thy wish e'en here;
To many a striving spirit dost thou come,
Sweet lady, from thy far-off northern home,
Like a blest presence from another sphere,
And love and faith, the night-lamps of the soul,
Have burned with brighter flame at thy control.

A friend and sister art thou now to those
Who weep o'erburdened with life's weary load,
And faint and toil-worn tread the desert road;
To them thou beckonest from thy high repose:
Thou'st gained that steep where endless day appears,
That faith whose followers are baptized with tears.

There came no voices from thy distant shore;
We heard no echo of thy country's lyres,
We saw no gleaming of her household fires;
A cloud had hung thy land and language o'er,
Until thy pictured thoughts broke on our eyes
Like an Aurora of thy native skies.

Thy name is loved through all our fair wide land:
Where the log-cabins of our western woods
Are scattered through the dim old solitudes,
Where, glowing with young life, our cities stand,
There go thy white-winged messengers, as went
Of old the angels to the patriarch's tent.

My harp is tuneless and unknown to fame;
A few weak chords, alas! chance-strung and frail,
O'er which sweeps fitfully the passing gale.
Would it indeed were worthier of its theme,
That it might bear across the distant sea
The homage of unnumbered hearts to thee.

THE DUMB CREATION.

Deal kindly with those speechless ones,
That throng our gladsome earth;
Say not the bounteous gift of life
Alone is nothing worth.

What though with mournful memories
They sigh not for the past?
What though their ever joyous Now
No future overcast?

No aspirations fill their breast
With longings undefined;
They live, they love, and they are blest,
For what they seek they find.

They see no mystery in the stars,
No wonder in the plain;
And Life's enigma wakes in them
No questions dark and vain.

To them earth is a final home,
A bright and blest abode;
Their lives unconsciously flow on
In harmony with God.

To this fair world our human hearts
Their hopes and longings bring,
And o'er its beauty and its bloom
Their own dark shadows fling.

Between the future and the past
In wild unrest we stand;
And ever as our feet advance,
Retreats the promised land.

And though Love, Fame, and Wealth and Power,
Bind in their gilded bond,
We pine to grasp the unattained—
The something still beyond.

And, beating on their prison bars,
Our spirits ask more room,
And with unanswered questionings,
They pierce beyond the tomb.

Then say thou not, oh doubtful heart,
There is no life to come;
That in some tearless, cloudless land,
Thou shalt not find thy home.

ON A PICTURE.

When Summer o'er her native hills
A veil of beauty spread,
She sat and watched her gentle fold,
And twined her flaxen thread.

The mountain daisies kissed her feet,
The moss sprung greenest there;
The breath of Summer fanned her cheek,
And tossed her wavy hair.

The heather and the yellow gorse
Bloomed over hill and wold,
And clothed them in a royal robe
Of purple and of gold.

There rose the sky-lark's gushing song;
There hummed the laboring bee;
And merrily the mountain stream
Ran singing to the sea.

But while she missed from those sweet sounds,
The voice she sighed to hear;
The song of bee, and bird, and stream,
Was discord to her ear.

Nor could the bright green world around
A joy to her impart,
For still she missed the eyes that made
The summer of her heart.

EVENING HYMN.

On the swift flying hours
Another bright day,
With its tears and its smiles,
Has vanished away.
Thou who dost number
Our days as they flee,
May each that departs
Bear us nearer to thee!

On the wide sea of life
Soon our barks will be tost,
And the sweet ties that bind us
Be broken and lost.
Father in Heaven,
Be our guide to that shore,
Where night never cometh,
Where partings are o'er.

PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS.

Greece! hear that joyful sound,
A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill;
Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations round,
Wake with convulsive thrill.
Athenians! gather there; he brings you words
Brighter than all your boasted lore affords.

He brings you news of One,
Above Olympian Jove. One, in whose light
Your gods shall fade like stars before the sun.
On your bewildered night,
That Unknown God of whom ye darkly dream,
In all his burning radiance shall beam.

Behold, he bids you rise
From your dark worship at that idol shrine;
He points to Him who reared your starry skies,
And bade your Phœbus shine.
Lift up your souls, from where in dust ye bow;
That God of gods commands your homage now.

But brighter tidings still!
He tells of One whose precious blood was spilt,
In lavish streams upon Judea's hill,
A ransom for your guilt,—
Who triumphed o'er the grave, and broke its chain;
Who conquered Death and Hell, and rose again.

Sages of Greece! come near—
Spirits of daring thought and giant mould.
Ye questioners of Time and Nature, hear
Mysteries before untold!
Immortal life revealed! light for which ye
Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy.

Searchers for some first cause,
'Midst doubt and darkness—lo! he points to One,
Where all your vaunted reason, lost, must pause,
And faint to think upon,—
That was from everlasting, that shall be
To everlasting still, eternally.

Ye followers of him
Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity!
Your fancies fade,—your master's dreams grow dim
To this reality.
Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound!
Skeptic! dispel those doubts, the Truth is found.

Greece! though thy sculptured walls
Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung,
And, through thy temples and thy pillared halls,
Immortal poets sung,—
No sounds like these have rent your startled air,
They open realms of light, and bid you enter there.

BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE.

“Let there be light.”

Light to the darkened mind
Bear, like the sun, the world's wide circle round,
Bright messengers that speak without a sound!
Sight on the spirit blind
Shall fall where'er ye pass; your living ray
Shall change the night of ages into day;—
God speed ye on your way!

In closet and in hall,
Too long alone your message hath been spoken:
The spell of gold that bound ye there is broken;
Go forth and shine on all;
The world's inheritance, the legacy
Bequeathed by Genius to the race are ye;
Be like the sunlight, free!

A mighty power ye wield!
Ye wake grim centuries from their deep repose,
And bid their hoarded treasuries unclose,
The spoils of time to yield.

Ye hold the gift of immortality;
Bard, sage, and seer, whose fame shall never die,
Live through your ministry.

Noiseless upon your path,
Freighted with lore, romance, and song, ye speed,
Moving the world, in custom and in creed,
Waking its love or wrath.
Tyrants, that blench not on the battle-plain,
Quail at your silent coming, and in vain
Would bind the riven chain.

Shrines, that embalm great souls!
Where yet the illustrious dead high converse hold,
As gods spake through their oracles of old;
Upon your mystic scrolls,
There lives a spell to guide our destiny;
The fire by night, the pillared cloud by day,
Upon our upward way.

TO THE MEMORY OF CHANNING.

“The Prophets, do they live forever?”—
Zech. i. 5.

Those spirits God ordained,
To stand the watchmen on the outer wall,
Upon whose souls the beams of truth first fall;
They who reveal the ideal, the unattained,
And to their age, in stirring tones, and high,
Speak out for God, Truth, Man, and Liberty—
Such prophets, do they die?

When dust to dust returns,
And the freed spirit seeks again its God,
To those with whom the blessed ones have trod;
Are they then lost? No, still their spirit burns
And quickens in the race; the life they give,
Humanity receives, and they survive,
While Hope and Virtue live.

The landmarks of their age,
High Priests, Kings of the realm of mind, are they,
A realm unbounded as posterity;
The hopeful future is their heritage;

Their words of truth, of love, and faith sublime,
To a dark world of doubt, despair, and crime,
Re-echo through all time.

Such kindling words are thine,
Thou, o'er whose tomb the requiem soundeth still,
Thou from whose lips the silvery tones yet thrill
In many a bosom, waking life divine;
And since thy Master to the world gave token
That for Love's faith the creed of fear was broken,
None higher have been spoken.

Thy reverent eye could see,
Though sinful, weak, and wedded to the clod,
The angel soul still as the child of God,
Heir of His love, born to high destiny:
Not for thy country, creed, or sect speak'st thou,
But him who bears God's image on his brow,
Thy brother, high or low.

Great teachers formed thy youth,

“In this town I pursued my theological studies. I had no professor to guide me, but I had two noble places of study. One was yonder beautiful edifice, now so frequented as a public library; the other was the beach—the roar of which has so often mingled with the worship of this place—my daily resort; dear to me in the sunshine, still more attractive in the storm. Seldom do I visit it now without thinking of the work which there, in the sight of that beauty, in the sound of those waves, was carried on in my soul. No spot on earth has helped to form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice in praise amidst the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I poured out my thanksgiving and contrite confessions. There, in reverential sympathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of the power within. There struggling thoughts and emotions broke forth, as if moved to utterance by Nature's eloquence of winds and waves. There began a happiness surpassing all worldly pleasures—all gifts of fortune;—the happiness of communing with the work of God.”—

Dr. Channing's Discourse at Newport, Rhode Island.

As thou didst stand upon thy native shore,
In the calm sunshine, in the ocean's roar;
Nature and God spoke with thee, and the truth,
That o'er thy spirit then in radiance streamed,
And in thy life so calmly, brightly beamed,
Shall still shine on undimmed.

Ages agone, like thee,
The faméd Greek with kindling aspect stood,
And blent his eloquence with wind and flood,
By the blue waters of the Egean Sea;
But he heard not their everlasting hymn;
His lofty soul with error's cloud was dim,
And thy great teachers spake not unto him.

ODE

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY.

A glorious vision burst
On Europe's dazzled sight,
Upon that day when first
Columbia sprang to light;—
When our New World, till then concealed,
In virgin beauty stood revealed.

But more sublime that day
When the young nation rose,
And cast her chains away,
And dared her tyrant foes:
Thrones quaked, and despots trembled then,
For bonds were rent and slaves were men.

The torch of Liberty,
Relighted on that day,
Streamed over land and sea
With brighter, holier ray.
Hail to our Country! hail to thee,
Auspicious day that saw her free!

Let the star-spangled flag
Upon the free air float;
Let hill, and vale, and crag,
Prolong the cannon's note:
“Live the Republic!” let this be
The watch-word of our liberty.

ODE.

Our patriot sires are gone,
The conqueror Death lays low
Those veterans one by one,
Who braved each other foe;—
Though on them rests death's sable pall,
Yet o'er their deeds no shade shall fall.

No, ye of deathless fame!
Ye shall not sleep unsung,
While freedom hath a name,
Or gratitude a tongue;—
Yet shall your names and deeds sublime
Shine brighter through the mists of Time.

Oh, keep your armor bright,
Sons of those mighty dead,
And guard ye well the right,
For which such blood was shed!
Your starry flag should only wave
O'er Freedom's home, or o'er your grave.

SONNET.

Oh! in that better land to which I go,
Say, shall I know thee as I know thee here;
And will thy presence dim that glorious sphere,
As it hath darkened all the earth below?
Oh! will that voice enchain my listening ear,
Whose “frozen music” stops my pulses now;
And shall I meet in that fair land of bliss
Those calm, cold eyes that chill me so in this?
Shall I bear hence e'en memory of thee?
Unheeded then will pass the Angel throngs;
I shall not hear the Seraph's burning songs,
And heaven itself will be all dark to me.
Oh give me rather that drear, hopeless faith,
That sees no morn beyond the night of death!

A FAREWELL TO OLE BULL.

There was a fountain in my heart
Whose deeps had not been stirred;
A thirst for music in my soul
My ear had never heard;—

A feeling of the incomplete
To all bright things allied;
A sense of something beautiful,
Unfilled, unsatisfied.

But, waked beneath thy master-hand,
Those trembling chords have given
A foretaste of that deep, full life
That I shall know in Heaven.

In that resistless spell, for once,
The vulture of Unrest,
That whets its beak upon my heart,
Lies, charmed, within my breast.

Pale Memory and flushed Hope forget;
Ambition sinks to sleep;
And o'er my spirit falls a bliss
So perfect that I weep.

Oh, Stranger! though thy Farewell notes
Now on the breeze may sigh,
Yet, treasured in our thrilling hearts,
Their echo shall not die.

Thou'st brought us from thy Northern home
Old Norway's forest tones,
Wild melodies from ancient lands,
Of palaces and thrones.

Take back the “Prairie's Solitude,”
The voice of that dry sea,
Whose billowy breast is dyed with flowers,
Made audible by thee.

Take back with thee what ne'er before
To Music's voice was given,
The anthem that “Niagara” chaunts
Unceasingly to Heaven;—

The spirit of a People waked
By Freedom's battle cry;

The “Memory of their Washington,”
Their song of victory.

Take back with thee a loftier Fame,
A prouder niche in Art,
Fresh laurels from our virgin soil,
And—take a Nation's heart!

TO A POET, PAINTER AND MUSICIAN.

Three Muses one day
Had a serious fray,
Concerning a youth who had wandered astray,
And fast up Parnassus was taking his way.
They each urged a claim,
Each gave him her name,
And each vowed to crown him with chaplets of fame.
Frown followed retort,
Till to cut it all short,
They decided to carry the case up to court.
Apollo averred,
That from all he had heard,
The claim of exclusiveness seemed quite absurd;
And he gave his decree
That this soul should be free
For the “joint occupancy” of the whole three.

SONNET.

THE BEE

The honey-bee that wanders all day long,
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips,—
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely press'd
Within the poison chalice. Thus, if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet,
In all the varied human flowers we meet,
In the wide garden of humanity,
And like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,
Hived in our hearts it turns to nectar there.

LINES.

Sing me that song again,
That wild, impassioned lay;
The tumult of my throbbing brain
Thy voice shall charm away.

Pour that harmonious flood
Upon my thirsting ear;
'Twill cool the fever of my blood
Those silvery notes to hear.

Sing me that mournful song,
That song of love and woe,
That these full fountains, closed so long,
Once more may overflow.

And while those gentle strings
Thy fairy hand sweeps o'er,
Upon thy music's trembling wings
My fainting soul shall soar.

LINES

ON READING SOME VERSES ENTITLED “A FAREWELL TO LOVE.”

Oh, stern indeed must be that minstrel's heart,
In the world's dusty highway doomed to move,
Who with life's sunshine and its flowers can part,
Who strikes his harp, and sings, Farewell to Love!

To Love! that beam that colors all our light,
As the red rays illume the light of day;
Whose rose-hue, once extinguished from the sight,
Leaves the life-landscape of a dull, cold gray.

To Love! the ethereal, the Promethean spirit,
That bids this dust with life divine be moved;
The only memory that we still inherit
Of the lost Eden where our parents roved.

Oh, hopeless bard, recall that farewell strain,
Nor from thy breast let this fond faith depart;
Recall that utterance of thy cold disdain,
Thy doubt of Love, the atheism of the heart.

And on the altar reared within thy soul,
Let the rekindled flame again aspire
And guard it round by all things beautiful,
As vestal forms watched o'er the sacred fire;—

That fire that once extinguished on the shrine,
Gave fearful sign of coming woe to Rome,
As the quenched brightness of this light divine
Forebodes to thee a dark and loveless doom.

THE WASTED FOUNTAINS.

“And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters; they came to the pits and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty.”—

Jeremiah xiv. 3.

When the fitful fever of the soul
Is awakened in thee first;
And thou goest like Judah's children forth,
To slake thy burning thirst;—

And when dry and wasted, like the springs
Sought by that little band,
Before thee, in their emptiness,
Life's broken cisterns stand;—

When the ripened fruits that tempted,
Turn to ashes on the taste;
And thine early visions fade and pass,
Like the mirage of the waste;—

When faith darkens, and hopes languish,
In the shade of gathering years;
And the urn thou bear'st is empty,
Or o'erflowing with thy tears,

Because those transient springs have failed thee,
And those founts of youth are dried;
Wilt thou, among the mouldering stones,
In weariness abide?

Wilt thou sit among the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken,
Till the silver chord is loosened;
Till the golden bowl is broken?

Up, and onward! towards the east,
Green oases thou shalt find;
Streams that rise from higher sources,
Than the pools thou leav'st behind.

Life has import more inspiring
Than the fancies of thy youth;
It has hopes as high as heaven;
It has labor,—it has truth.

It has wrongs that may be righted,—
Noble deeds that may be done;—
Its great battles are unfought,
Its great triumphs are unwon.

There is rising from its troubled deeps,
A low, unceasing moan;
There are aching, there are breaking
Other hearts besides thine own.

From strong limbs, that should be chainless,
There are fetters to unbind;
There are words to raise the fallen;
There is sight to give the blind.

There are crushed and broken spirits,
That electric thoughts may thrill;
Lofty dreams to be embodied,
By the might of one strong will.

There are God and Truth above thee,—
Wilt thou languish in despair?
Tread thy griefs beneath thy feet,—
Scale the walls of Heaven by prayer.

'Tis the key of the Apostle,
That opens Heaven from below;
'Tis the ladder of the patriarch,
Whereon angels come and go.

CHRIST BETRAYED.

Eighteen hundred years agone
Was that deed of darkness done—
Was that sacred, thorn-crowned head
To a shameful death betrayed,
And Iscariot's traitor name
Blazoned in eternal shame.
Thou, disciple of our time,
Follower of the faith sublime,
Who with high and holy scorn
Of that traitorous deed dost burn,
Though the years may never more
To our earth that form restore
The Christ-Spirit ever lives—
Ever in thy heart he strives.
When pale Misery mutely calls;
When thy tempted brother falls;
When thy gentle words may chain
Hate, and Anger, and Disdain,
Or thy loving smile impart

Courage to some sinking heart;
When within thy troubled breast
Good and evil thoughts contest;
Though unconscious thou may'st be,
The Christ-Spirit strives with thee.

When he trod the Holy Land,
With his small disciple band,
And the fated hour had come
For that august martyrdom—
When the man, the human love,
And the God within him strove—
As in Gethsemane he wept,
They, the faithless watchers, slept:
While for them he wept and prayed,
One denied and one betrayed!

If to-day thou turn'st aside
In thy luxury and pride,
Wrapped within thyself and blind
To the sorrows of thy kind,
Thou a faithless watch dost keep—
Thou art one of those who sleep:
Or, if waking thou dost see
Nothing of Divinity
In our fallen, struggling race;
If in them thou seest no trace
Of a glory dimmed, not gone,

Of a Future to be won—
Of a Future, hopeful, high—
Thou, like Peter, dost deny:
But if, seeing, thou believest,
If the Evangel thou receivest,
Yet, if thou art bound to Sin,
False to the Ideal within,
Slave of Ease or slave of Gold,
Thou the Son of God hast sold!

SONNET.

Oh thou who once on earth, beneath the weight
Of our mortality didst live and move,
The incarnation of profoundest love;
Who on the Cross that love didst consummate;
Whose deep and ample fullness could embrace
The poorest, meanest of our fallen race:
How shall we e'er that boundless debt repay?
By long loud prayers in gorgeous temples said?
By rich oblations on thine altars laid?
Ah, no! not thus thou didst appoint the way:
When thou wast bowed our human woe beneath,
Then as a legacy thou didst bequeath
Earth's sorrowing children to our ministry—
And as we do to them, we do to thee.

HAGAR.

Untrodden, drear, and lone,
Stretched many a league away,
Beneath a burning, noonday sun,
The Syrian desert lay.

The scorching rays that beat
Upon that herbless plain,
The dazzling sands, with fiercer heat,
Reflected back again.

O'er that dry ocean strayed
No wandering breath of air,
No palm trees cast their cooling shade,
No water murmured there.

And thither, bowed with shame,
Spurned from her master's side,
The dark-browed child of Egypt came,
Her woe and shame to hide.

Drooping, and travel-worn,
The boy upon her hung;
Who, from his father's tent, that morn,
Like a gazelle had sprung.

His ebbing breath failed fast,
Glazed was his flashing eye;
And in that fearful, desert waste,
She laid him down to die.

But when, in wild despair,
She left him to his lot,
A voice that filled that breathless air,
Said, “Hagar, fear thou not.”

Then o'er the hot sands flowed
A cooling, crystal stream,
And angels left their high abode,
And ministered to them.

Oft, when drear wastes surround
My faltering footsteps here,
I've thought, I too heard that blest sound
Of “Wanderer, do not fear.”

And then, to light my path
On through the evil land,
Have the twin angels, Hope and Faith,
Walked with me, hand to hand.

SONNET.

LOVE.

Go forth in life, oh friend! not seeking love;
A mendicant, that with imploring eye
And outstretched hand asks of the passers by
The alms his strong necessities may move.
For such poor love to pity near allied,
Thy generous spirit may not stoop and wait,
A suppliant, whose prayer may be denied,
Like a spurned beggar's at a palace gate:
But thy heart's affluence lavish uncontrolled;
The largess of thy love give full and free,
As monarchs in their progress scatter gold;
And be thy heart like the exhaustless sea,
That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow,
Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.

THE IDEAL.

“How the shadow the Ideal throws before it darkens the actual.”—
Zanoni.

“La vie est un sommeil, l'amour en est le rêve.”

A sad, sweet dream; it fell upon my soul
When song and thought first woke their echoes there,
Swaying my spirit to its wild control,
And with the shadow of a fond despair
Darkening the fountain of my young life's stream—
It haunts me still, and yet I know 'tis but a dream.

Whence art thou, shadowy presence, that canst hide
From my charmed sight the glorious things of earth?
A mirage o'er life's desert dost thou glide?
Or, with those glimmerings of a former birth,
A “trailing cloud of glory,” hast thou come
From some bright world afar, our unremembered home?

I know thou dwell'st not in this dull cold Real,
I know thy home is in some brighter sphere;
I know I shall not meet thee, my Ideal!
In the dark wanderings that await me here—
Why comes thy gentle image then to me,
Wasting my night of life in one long dream of thee?

The city's peopled solitude, the glare
Of festal halls, moonlight and music's tone,
All breathe the sad refrain, thou art not there;
And even with Nature, I am still alone;
With joy I watch her summer bloom depart—
I love drear winter's reign—'tis winter in my heart.

And if I sigh upon my brow to see
The deepening shadow of Time's fleeting wing,
'Tis for the youth I might not give to thee,—
The vanished brightness of my first sweet spring;
That I might give thee not the joyous form,
Unworn by bitter tears, unblighted by the storm.

And when the hearts I should be proud to win,
Breathe, in those tones that woman holds so dear,
Words of impassioned homage unto mine,
Coldly and harsh they fall upon my ear;
And as I listen to the fervent vow,
My weary heart replies, “Alas! it is not thou!”

And when the thoughts within my spirit glow,
That would outpour themselves in words of fire,
If some kind influence bade the music flow,
Like that which woke the notes of Memnon's lyre;
Thou, sunlight of my life! wakest not the lay—
And song within my heart unuttered dies away.

Depart, oh shadow! fatal dream, depart!
Go, I conjure thee; leave me this poor life,
And I will meet with firm, heroic heart,
Its threatening storms and its tumultuous strife,
And with the Poet-Seer will see thee stand,
To welcome my approach to thine own Spirit-land.

THE IDEAL FOUND.

I've met thee, whom I dared not hope to meet,
Save in the enchanted land of my day-dreams:
Yes, in this common world, this waking state,
Thy living presence on my vision beams—
Life's dream embodied in reality,
And in thine eyes I read indifference to me!

Yes, in those star-like eyes I read my fate,
My horoscope is written in their gaze;
My “house of life,” henceforth, is desolate:
But the dark aspect my firm heart surveys,
Nor faints, nor falters even for thy sake:
'Tis calm, and nerved, and strong: no, no, it shall not break!

For I am of that mood that will defy—
That does not cower before the gathering storm;
That face to face will meet its destiny,
And undismayed confront its darkest form.

Wild energies awaken in this strife,
This conflict of the soul with the grim phantom, Life.

But ah! if thou hadst loved me—had I been
All to thy dreams that to mine own thou art—
Had those dark eyes beamed eloquent on mine,
Pressed for one moment to that noble heart,
In the full consciousness of faith unspoken,
Life could have given no more—then had my proud heart broken!

The Alpine glacier from its height may mock
The clouds and lightnings of the winter sky,
And from the tempest and the thunder's shock,
Gather new strength to lift its summit high;
But kissed by sunbeams of the summer day,
It bows its icy crest and weeps itself away.

Thou know'st the fable of the Grecian maid,
Wooed by the veiled immortal from the skies,—
How, in his full perfection, once she prayed,
That he would stand before her longing eyes;
And how that brightness, too intense to bless,
Consumed her o'erwrought heart with its divine excess.

To me there is a meaning in the tale.
I have not prayed to meet thee: I can brook
That thou should'st wear to me that icy veil;
I can give back thy cold and careless look:
Yet, shrined within my heart, still thou shalt seem,
What there thou ever wert, a beautiful, bright dream!

IMAGE WORSHIP.

Why mounts my blood to cheek and brow,
Like an ascending flame,
Whene'er from careless lips I hear
The accents of thy name?

Why, when my idle fancy seeks
Some pictured form to trace,
Beneath my pencil still will grow
The features of thy face?

Why comes thy haunting shadow thus
Between the world and me,
To bind my spirit with a charm
That blinds to all but thee?

To bid me watch thine upward course,
Thy path from mine so far;
As earth, 'mid all the hosts of heaven,
Watches the polar star?

100

Thy cold and polished courtesy,
Each look and tone of thine,
Might well have roused the woman's pride
In duller souls than mine.

They tell me, too, thy heart is light,—
That more than once thou'st loved;
And 'mid all flowers of loveliness
That bee-like thou hast roved.

Why is it, then, while o'er thy heart
There comes no thought of me,
The good, the true, the beautiful,
All speak to me of thee?

Think'st thou 'tis what the world calls love,
Love that return is seeking?
No—I would scorn a love I sought,
Although my heart were breaking.

It is because within the human heart
There is an altar to an Unknown God,
Who from the gods of this world dwells apart,
And in the Unseen, the Unreal, has his abode.

101

This disembodied thought the soul pursues,
And seeking in the visible a sign,
She moulds an image, like the apostate Jews,
And sets her idol on the vacant shrine.

Thus worshipped once an Indian maid the sun;
Thus was an Arab boy won by a star;
Thus loved a maid of France the god in stone;
And thus did Numa love a shape of air.

What were the sun, the star, the god, to them,
The fond idolaters! thou art to me;
And rapturous as a poet's earliest dream,
Is the sweet worship that I give to thee.

The world around me is so dark and cold,
Life hath for me such draughts of bitter sadness,
Oh, bid me not the mocking Real behold!
Oh, wake me not from this delicious madness!

102

THE IMAGE BROKEN.

'Twas but a dream; a fond and foolish dream;
The calenture of a delirious brain,
Whose fever thirst creates the rushing stream.
Now to the actual I awake again:
The vision to my gaze one moment granted,
Fades in its light away, and leaves me disenchanted.

The image that my glowing fancy wrought,
Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast:
Thus I renounce the worship that I sought;
Of my own idol the iconoclast.
The echo of “Eureka, I have found!”
Falls back upon my heart, a vain and empty sound.

Oh disembodied being of my mind,
So wildly loved, so fervently adored;
In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined,
And my heart's incense on the altar poured;

103

Now do I know, that clad in mortal guise,
Ne'er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise.

That only in the vague, cold realm of thought,
Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,
Now do I know that I shall never find
But fragments of thy soul within earth's clay enshrined.

Thou whom I have not seen, and shall not see,
Till the sad drama of this life be o'er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee:
Thou still art mine, I thine, forevermore;
And this belief shall be the funeral pyre
Of all less noble love,—of all less high desire.

Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring
Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most,
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
And on thy altar lay the holocaust;
And in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume, I consecrate to thee.

104

To love's sweet tones my heart shall never thrill,
Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,
Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill.
Thus will I live, in widowhood of soul,
Until, at last, my lingering exile o'er,
Upon some lovelier star, too bless'd, we meet once more.

Oh, tell me not, that now indeed I dream;
That these aspirings mocked at last will be:—
Gleams of a higher life, to me they seem
A sacred pledge of immortality.
Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find:
Oh Love, thou art too strong! Oh God, thou art too kind!

105

TO ---.

Within these leafless trees,
That bare against the sky,
Their naked branches rear;
Leaves, buds, and blossoms lie.

So beauty's myriad forms,
Within thy soul are sleeping;
While thou, upon their sleep,
A wintry spell art keeping.

But soon the leaves and flowers
Shall burst their living tomb,
And fill the air around
With perfume and with bloom.

And buried in thy heart,
Shall thought's fair blossoms lie,
Forever unrevealed,
To wither and to die?

106

SONNET.

THE SUN AND STREAM.

As some dark stream within a cavern's breast,
Flows murmuring, moaning for the distant sun,
So ere I met thee, murmuring its unrest,
Did my life's current coldly, darkly run.
And as that stream, beneath the sun's full gaze,
Its separate course and life no more maintains,
But now absorbed, transfused far o'er the plains,
It floats, etherealized in those warm rays;
So in the sunlight of thy fervid love,
My heart, so long to earth's dark channels given,
Now soars, all pain, all doubt, all ill above,
And breathes the ether of the upper heaven:
So thy high spirit holds and governs mine;
So is my life, my being, lost in thine!

107

ON SEEING MRS. KEAN AS CONSTANCE IN KING JOHN.

'Twas no illusion; from the Past the veil was rent away;
The tide that never changes ebbed, and bore me to that day,
When in the lists and on the field brave deeds of arms were done,
When England blushed beneath the rule of recreant King John.

Scenes from that dim and buried Past came thronging on the gaze,
In all the splendid pageantry of those heroic days.
There Angiers' towers and battlements in stately grandeur frowned
Upon the engines of grim war grouped threat'ningly around:

108

And where the gathering warlike ranks in burnished armor gleamed,
The sacred Oriflamme of France, the Red Cross Banner streamed:
There Templars came with cross and sword, vowed to the Holy Land,
There were the fiery feudal lords, each with his vassal band:

And in his scarlet robes arrayed, the haughty legate strode,
As when above the prostrate King, in ancient days he trode.
Forgetful, for the hour I lived in that chivalric age,
Amid the stirring scenes portrayed on History's varied page.

But when the gentle Constance came and bowed her queenly head
To that wild tempest of the soul, that grief profound and dread,
The pageant vanished from my sight, I only heard her words,
I only felt the woe that thrilled the heart's electric chords.

109

Years bring decay and change and death to kingdom and to clime,
But human sympathy and love are changeless through all time:
In the eternal Now they live, though centuries o'er them roll;
They bloom forever fresh and young, immortal as the soul.

Thou, on whose brow the coronet of injured Constance shone,
Who to the glittering circlet gav'st a lustre not its own,—
Thou canst recall those lovely forms the faded Past inurns;
Thou summonest, and the shapeless dust to life and youth returns.

Thou hast the spell, the magic power, the heart's deep founts to move,
To wake the latent ecstacies of Hope, Despair and Love,—
And many a poet's loveliest dream now bears thy form and face,
Speaks in thy sweet, impassioned voice, and wears thy matchless grace.

110

THE WOUNDED VULTURE.

A kingly vulture sat alone,
Lord of the ruin round,
Where Egypt's ancient monuments
Upon the desert frowned.

A hunter's eager eye had marked
The form of that proud bird,
And through the voiceless solitude
His ringing shot was heard.

It rent that vulture's pluméd breast,
Aimed with unerring hand,
And his life-blood gushed warm and red
Upon the yellow sand.

No struggle marked the deadly wound,
He gave no piercing cry,
But calmly spread his giant wings,
And sought the upper sky.

111

In vain with swift pursuing shot
The hunter seeks his prey,
Circling and circling upward still
On his majestic way.

Up to the blue empyrean
He wings his steady flight,
Till his receding form is lost
In the full flood of light.

Oh wounded heart! oh suffering soul!
Sit not with folded wing,
Where broken dreams and ruined hopes
Their mournful shadows fling.

Outspread thy pinions like that bird,
Take thou the path sublime,
Beyond the flying shafts of Fate,
Beyond the wounds of Time.

Mount upward! brave the clouds and storms!
Above life's desert plain
There is a calmer, purer air,
A heaven thou, too, may'st gain.

112

And as that dim, ascending form
Was lost in day's broad light,
So shall thine earthly sorrows fade,
Lost in the Infinite.

113

SONNET.

TO ---.

Ah no! my love knows no vain jealousy:
The rose that blooms and lives but in the sun,
Asks not what other flowers he shines upon,
If he but shine on her. Enough for me,
Thus in thy light to dwell, and thus to share
The sunshine of thy smile with all things fair.
I know thou'rt vowed to Beauty, not to Love
I would not stay thy footsteps from one shrine,
Nor would I bind thee by a sigh to mine.
For me—I have no lingering wish to rove;
For though I worship all things fair, like thee,
Of outward grace, of soul-nobility;
Happier than thou, I find them all in one,
And I would worship at thy shrine alone!

114

MEMORY.

Maiden of the lofty brow,
Mournful eye and cheek of snow;
Thou whose gaze is ever cast
On the pageant of the Past;
Tell me what thou seest there;
Tell me what its voices bear.

“Wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes,
Gorgeous visions on them rise.
In the distance, dim and far,
I see the glorious pomp of war:
Grecian phalanx, Persian host,
Darken now yon rocky coast;
Now the youth of Macedon,
Half the trembling earth hath won;
Now o'er barbaric hordes and kings,
The Roman eagle flaps his wings.
Where the Crusaders' ranks advance,
I see their burnished armor glance;
And turban'd Turk, in eastern garb,
Spur to the charge his fiery barb.

115

Kings and nobles I behold;
Steel-clad knights and barons bold;
Slaves and serfs, a countless band,
Throng the misty, phantom-land.

“Through cathedrals, old and dim,
Echo anthem, prayer, and hymn;
And holy priests, in flowing stoles,
Chaunt masses for departed souls.
I see the breathing forms of Art,
From the Grecian marble start;
Immortal pictures live and glow,
From Raphael and Angelo.
And voices, like the rushing blast,
Swell through this temple of the past:
Homer strikes his thrilling strings,
And to the listening ages sings;
Shakspeare's voice joins in the chime,
Echoing through the vaults of Time;
With the two to whom 'tis given
To lift the veil that curtains Heaven.
And while these changing shades appear,
And while these voices greet mine ear,
Still, with vision backward cast,
I must mourn the vanished past.”

116

HOPE.

Maiden! in whose kindling eye,
Burns the fire of prophecy,
On whose brow its glories shine,
Priestess at the hidden shrine;
Tell me what fair visions rise,
As the future greets thine eyes.
Thither where thou still dost turn,
Does a bright Shekinah burn?
Does thy outstretched, beckoning hand,
Point us to a promised land,
Where the rage of War no more
Shall drench the crimsoned earth with gore?
Where no more, with features gaunt,
Shall stalk the haggard form of Want,
Nor Misery's wail, nor Famine's cries
Upon the ear of Plenty rise,
When the voice of Liberty
Shall bid the earth's oppressed go free?
Thou, on whom the Future beams,
Tell me, are these idle dreams?

117

“As the messenger went forth,
Seeking o'er the deluged earth,
So, my gaze hath wandered wide,
O'er the Future's troubled tide.
As across the waters dark,
The bird returned to that lone bark,
With the leaf of olive tree,
So return I unto thee.
Not yet do wind and wave subside;
Not yet do land and sea divide;
No verdant earth the vision cheers,
No peak of Ararat appears;
But spanning all that troubled sky,
The Bow of Promise shines on high.”

118

TO ---.

I do not ask if an illustrious name
Has shed upon thy birth its purple glow;
Nor do I ask what titles thou canst claim,
What ribbon favors, such as kings bestow.

Why should I, when upon thy brow I see,
In its expression of all lofty things,
The insignia of that true nobility
That bears the impress of the King of kings?

119

TO ---, IN OBSCURITY.

In full-orbed splendor now the queen of Night,
Among the stars walks in her pride of place,
And now again we miss that flood of light
That overflowed the azure fields of space.

But though her brightness meets no more the gaze,
As in her wonted orbit she declines,
Yet not extinguished are her silver rays,—
She shines in shadow, but not less she shines.

Soon will she rise again upon the sight,
Passing the darkened shape that bids her wane;
Then shall we see her, in unclouded light,
Take her own place among the stars again.

120

THE DYING SYCAMORES.

A beauty like young womanhood's
Upon the green earth lies,
And June's sweet smile hath waked again
All summer's harmonies.

The insects hum their dreamy song,
The trees their honors wear,
And languid with its perfume spoils
Sighs the voluptuous air.

A gorgeous wealth of leaf and bloom
Enchants the dazzled sight;
And over earth and sky there smiles
A Presence of delight.

From yon sad dying Sycamores,
Alone a shadow falls,—
As from the ghastly form of Death,
In Egypt's banquet-halls.

121

Against the soft blue sky they stand,
Their naked limbs outspread,
And to the throbbing life around,
They murmur of the dead.

Spring, with her soft and odorous breath,
Hath sighed o'er them in vain,
Nor sun, nor dew, nor summer shower,
Awakes their bloom again.

Oh stately monarchs of the wood,
What blight hath o'er ye passed?
What canker wastes your noble hearts?
What spell is on ye cast?

I watch ye where a thousand forms
With life and beauty glow,
Till half I deem that on ye lies
Some weight of human woe.

Sad emblems are ye of those hearts
In this fair world of ours,
Who live unloving and unloved,
Oh dying Sycamores.

122

LINES

ON AN INCIDENT OBSERVED FROM THE DECK OF A STEAMBOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

Where the dark primeval forests
Rise against the western sky,
And “the Father of the Waters”
In his strength goes rushing by:

There an eagle, flying earthward
From his eyrie far above,
With a serpent of the forest
In a fierce encounter strove.

Now he gains and now he loses,
Now he frees his ruffled wings;
And now high in air he rises;
But the serpent round him clings.

In that death embrace entwining,
Now they sink and now they rise;
But the serpent wins the battle
With the monarch of the skies.

123

Yet his wings still struggle upward,
Though that crushing weight they bear;
But more feebly those broad pinions
Strike the waves of upper air.

Down to earth he sinks a captive
In that writhing, living chain;
Never o'er the blue horizon
Will his proud form sweep again.

Never more in lightning flashes
Will his eye of terror gleam
Round the high and rocky eyrie,
Where his lonely eaglets scream.

Oh majestic, royal eagle,
Soaring sunward from thy birth,
Thou hast lost the realm of heaven
For one moment on the earth!

124

TO ---.

Give me but the energy,
That guides thy dauntless will;
Give me but thy ardent hope,
That no reverse can chill;

Thy buoyant soul, that on life's sea,
No billows can o'erwhelm,
When Faith sits smiling through the clouds,
And Reason holds the helm;

Give me these qualities of thine,
In such a meet alliance,
And I, like thee, upon the fates
Will smile a calm defiance.

125

TO AN ASTRONOMER.

Upon the Professor we'll waste not a glance,
Since he has no eyes for us poor terrestrials;
With his heart can we have any possible chance,
When he gives us for rivals a host of celestials?
What cares he for eyes, whether hazel or blue,
Or for any slight charms such as we share between us,—
When, his glass in his hand, he can sit the night through,
And ogle at leisure Diana and Venus.

126

TO ---.

This life is to thee like a region enchanted,
O'er which thy rich fancy its rose-color throws;
The hours as they pass thee with visions are haunted,
And thou dream'st them away in inglorious repose.

Around thee bold hearts the rude war are waging,
But thou dreamest on still through the roar and the strife;
Around thee, oh sleeper! the conflict is raging,
And they need thy strong arm in the Battle of Life!

127

EROS.

As when untaught and blind,
To the mute stone the pagan bows his knee,
Spirit of Love! phantom of my own mind!
So have I worshipped thee!

When first a laughing child,
I gazed on nature with a wondering eye,
I learned of her in calm and tempest wild,
This thirst for sympathy.

I saw the flowers appear,
And spread their petals out to meet the sun,
The dew-drops on their glistening leaves draw near
And mingle into one.

And if a harp was stirred
By the soft pulses of some wandering sound,
Attuned to the same key, then I have heard
Its chords untouched respond.

128

Fast through the vaulted sky,
Giving no sound or light, when storms were loud,
I saw the electric cloud in silence fly,—
Seeking its sister cloud.

I saw the winds, and sea,
And all the hosts of heaven in bright array,
Governed by this sweet law of sympathy,
Roll on their destined way.

And then my spirit pined,
And, like the sea-shell for its parent sea,
Moaned for those kindred souls it could not find,
And panted to be free.

And then came wild despair,
And laid her palsying hand upon my soul,
And her dread ministers were with her there,
The dagger and the bowl.

Oh God of life and light,
Thou who didst stay my hand in that dread hour,
Thou who didst save me in that fearful night,
Of maddening passion's power!

129

Before thy throne I bow;
I tear my worshipped idols from their shrine;
I give to thee, though bruised and aching now,
This heart,—oh! make it thine.

I've sought to fill in vain
Its lonely, silent depths with human love:
Help me to cast away each earthly chain,
And rise to thee above.

130

BONES IN THE DESERT.

Where pilgrims seek the Prophet's tomb
Across the Arabian waste,
Upon the ever-shifting sands,
A fearful path is traced.

Far up to the horizon's verge,
The traveller sees it rise,—
The line of ghastly bones that bleach
Beneath those burning skies.

Across it, tempest and simoom
The desert sands have strewed,
But still that line of spectral white
Forever is renewed.

For while along that burning track,
The caravans move on,
Still do the way-worn pilgrims fall,
Ere yet the shrine be won.

131

There the tired camel lays him down
And shuts his gentle eyes;
And there the fiery rider droops,
Toward Mecca looks and dies.

They fall unheeded from the ranks:—
On sweeps the endless train,
But there, to mark the desert path,
Their whitening bones remain.

As thus I read the mournful tale,
Upon the traveller's page,
I thought how like the march of life
Is this sad pilgrimage.

For every heart hath some fair dream,
Some object unattained,
And far off in the distance lies
Some Mecca to be gained.

But beauty, manhood, love and power
Go in their morning down,
And longing eyes and outstretched arms,
Tell of the goal unwon.

132

The mighty caravan of life
Above their dust may sweep,
Nor shout, nor trampling feet shall break
The rest of those who sleep.

Oh! fountains that I have not reached,
That gush far off e'en now,
When shall I quench my spirit's thirst
Where your sweet waters flow.

Oh! Mecca of my life-long dreams,
Cloud palaces that rise
In that far distance, pierced by hope,
When will ye greet mine eyes.

The shadows lengthen toward the East
From the declining sun,
And the pilgrim, as ye still recede,
Sighs for the journey done.

133

SONNET.

THE LAKE AND STAR.

The mountain lake, o'ershadowed by the hills,
May still gaze heavenward on the evening star,
Whose distant light its dark recesses fills,
Though boundless distance must divide them far;
Still may the lake the star's bright image bear,
Still may the star, from its blue ether dome,
Shower down its silver beams across the gloom,
And light the wave that wanders darkly there.
Star of my life! thus do I turn to thee
Amid the shadows that above me roll;
Thus from thy distant sphere thou shinest on me;
Thus does thine image float upon my soul,
Through the wide space that must our lives dissever
Far as the lake and star, ah me! forever.

134

TO A SILENT POET.

I see the sons of Genius rise,
The nobles of our land;
And foremost in the gathering ranks
I see the poet band.

That Priesthood of the beautiful,
To whom alone 'tis given
To lift our spirits from the dust,
Back to their native heaven.

But there is one amid the throng,
Not past his manhood's prime;
The laurel wreath upon his brow,
Has greener grown with time.

And in his eye yet glows the light
Of the celestial fire;
But cast beside him, on the earth,
Is his neglected lyre.

135

The lyre, whose high, heroic notes
A thousand hearts have stirred,
Lies mute,—the skillful hand no more
Awakes one slumbering chord.

Oh poet! rouse thee from thy dreams!
Wake from thy voiceless slumbers!
And once again give to the breeze
The music of thy numbers.

Sing, for our country claims her bard,
She listens for thy strains;
Sing, for upon our jarring earth,
Too much of discord reigns.

136

TO THE VENERABLE GENERAL GAINES.

Though Time has silvered o'er thy honored head,
And left some traces on thy gallant form,
Upon thy soul no hoar-frost has he shed,
Nor chilled the heart that yet beats true and warm.

And he, in whom the glow of early feeling,
Youth's fire and ardor, are not dimmed and cold,
Who still life's morning freshness is revealing,—
Howe'er Time's record stands, can ne'er grow old.

The fabled fountain of immortal youth,
That Ponce de Leon sought with such unrest,
In far-off southern isles, thou'st found in truth;
Its living waters gush within thy breast.

137

TO MRS. KEAN.

Of those fair characters the bards create,
Round which thy genius added charms has thrown,
Of those sweet natures thou dost personate,
There is not one more lovely than thine own.

138

SONNET.

A REMEMBRANCE.

Night closes round me, and wild threatening forms
Clasp me with icy arms and chain me down,
And bind upon my brow a cypress crown,
Dewy with tears, and Heaven frowns dark with storms;
But the one glorious memory of thee
Rises upon my path to guide and bless,
The bright Shekinah of the wilderness,
The Polar Star upon a trackless sea,
The beaming Pharos of the unreached shore.
It spans the clouds that gather o'er my way,
The rainbow of my life's tempestuous day.
Oh, blessed thought! stay with me evermore,
And shed thy lustrous beams where midnight glooms,
As fragrant lamps burned in the ancient tombs.

139

ON A PICTURE OF RUTH.

Fresh, through the mist of ages past,
Thou risest on our view,
As when from Judah's waving fields,
Thy footsteps brushed the dew.

Yet 'tis not for thy beauty's sake
We thus remember thee;
Although a chieftain's captive heart
Attests its potency;—

Not for the quiet interest
Thy simple story brings;
And not that from thy side there sprung
A line of prophet-kings.

But for that changeless, deathless love,
The true soul only knows,
That still, as darker lowers the night,
Serener, brighter glows.

140

That love that led thee forth to seek
The stranger's chill abode,—
Upon whose altar thou couldst lay
Thy home, thy land, thy God.

141

SONNET.

TARPEIA.

“Give me the bracelets that your warriors wear,”
The Roman traitress to the Sabine cried,
“Give me the toys, and I will be your guide,
And to your host the city's gates unbar.”
Then to the walls each eager warrior rushed,
And on the base Tarpeia as he passed,
Each from his arm the massive circlet cast,
Till her slight form beneath the weight was crushed.
Thus are our idle wishes. Thus we sigh
For some imagined good yet unattained;—
For wealth, or fame, or love, and which once gained
May like a curse o'er all our future lie.
Thus in our blindness do we ask of fate,
The gifts that once bestowed may crush us with their weight.

142

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

There was no bell to peal thy funeral dirge,
No nodding plumes to wave above thy bier,
No shroud to wrap thee but the foaming surge,
No kindly voices thy dark way to cheer,
No eye to give the tribute of a tear.
Alone, “unknell'd, uncoffin'd,” thou hast died,
Without one gentle mourner lingering near;
Down the deep waters thou unseen didst glide,
With Ocean's countless dead to slumber side by side.

Thou sleep'st not with thy fathers. O'er thy bed,
The flowers that deck their tombs may never wave;
To plead remembrance for thee, o'er thy head
No sculptur'd marble shall arise. Thy grave
Is the dark boundless deep, whose waters lave
The shores of empires. When thou sought'st thy rest
Within their silent depths, they only gave
A circling ripple, then with foaming crest
The booming waves roll'd o'er their unconscious guest.

143

'Tis said that far beneath the wild waves rushing,
Where sea-flowers bloom and fabled Peris dwell,
That there the restless waters cease their gushing,
And leave their dead within some sparkling cell,
Where gems are gleaming, and the lone sea shell
Is breathing its sweet music. And 'tis said
That Time, who weaveth over Earth a spell
Of blight and ruin, o'er the Ocean's dead
He passeth lightly on, with trackless, silent tread.

Then, though no marble e'er shall rise for thee,
No monument to mark thy last long home,
Thine ocean grave unhonored shall not be,—
The coral insect there shall rear a tomb
That age shall ne'er destroy; and there shall bloom
The fadeless ocean flowers. And though the glare
Of the bright sunbeams ne'er shall light its gloom,
Yet glancing eyes and forms unearthly fair
Shall throng around thy couch, and hymn a requiem there.

Now fare thee well! I will not weep that thou
Didst pass so soon away; for though thou wert
Still in thy boyhood's prime, and thy fair brow
Undimmed by age; yet sad was thy young heart,
For thou hadst seen the light of life depart,

144

And Love had thrown his wild and burning spell
Around thee, and with deep, insidious art
Had maddened thee. Then sounded loud the knell
Of all thy bright young dreams. My earliest friend, farewell!

145

TO ---.

In the noble army of Reform
Thou art a pioneer;
And bravely wields thy good right arm,
The broadsword and the spear.

Thou may'st not see the battle's close,
The victory may'st not win:
But the scars upon thy spirit prove,
Thou hast not lived in vain.

146

ON A PICTURE.

Why bends she o'er that glittering toy
With such an earnest gaze,
As if those flashing jewels cast
Love glances in their rays?

By that high, thought-enthronéd brow—
That deep and soul-lit eye,
I know 'tis not the passing dream
Of woman's vanity.

I know that in its golden links
Some talisman is set,
And for the heart it rests upon,
'Tis Love's own amulet.

Oh, may that heart, so joyous now,
No heavier burden bear;
The beauty of that noble brow,
No deeper shadow wear.

147

Alas! how vain the wish, for souls
That wildest rapture know,
Must vibrate with a keener pang,
To every note of woe.

148

THE MEDITERRANEAN.

[A SCHOOL COMPOSITION.]

Hail! thou eternal flood, whose restless waves
Roll onward in their course, as wild and free,
As if the shores they lashed were not the graves
Of mouldering empires; When I think of thee,
Thou dost remind me of that ebbless sea—
The sea of Time, whose tide sweeps unconfined,
Its channel Earth, its shores Eternity;
Whose billows roll resistless o'er mankind;—
Like that thou rollest on, nor heed'st the wrecks behind.

Thy shores were empires; but the tide of Time
Rolled o'er them, and they fell; and there they lie,
Wrecked in their greatness, mouldering, yet sublime
And beautiful in their mortality.
And god-like men were there, the wise and free;
But what are they who now look o'er thy waves?
They're but as worms that feed on their decay;
They kneel to stranger lords—a land of slaves,
Of men whose only boast is their ancestral graves.

149

Upon thy shores the Holy Prophets trod,
And from their hill-tops came the voice of One
Whom thou obeyest, even the Eternal God;
And on thy breast the star of Bethlehem shone:
That star, though quenched in blood, hath risen a sun,
And other climes are radiant with its light;
But thy fair shores, alas! it shines not on,
Save when some land, with its effulgence bright,
Reflects the heavenly rays upon their moral night.

Philosophy hath decked her form divine,
In all her loveliest draperies, and wrought
Her brightest dreams by thee, thy shores her shrine,
Thy sons her oracles, the kings of thought;
But they have passed, and, save their names, are naught,
And their bright dreams are buried like their clay,
Or shattered, like the fanes where they were taught.
But though religions, empires, men decay,
Thou, restless, changeless flood—thou dost not pass away.

There Poesy hath woven such fair dreams,
That man hath deemed them bright reality;
There she hath peopled hills, and vales, and streams,

150

And thy blue waters with her phantasy;
And fabled gods left heaven to roam by thee:
There she embodied passions of the heart,
In such fair forms, that frail mortality
Failed to conceive, until triumphal Art
Bade from the Parian stone the immortal image start.

The loftiest bards, whose names illume the past,
Have sung upon thy shores; and thy deep tone
Ceased at their Orphean lyres;—but now the last,
“The pilgrim bard,” whose matchless song alone
Had made thy name immortal as his own,—
A stranger of the north, but, “as it were
A child of thee,” his spirit too hath flown.
Thus have the greatest passed. Thine azure air
Still echoes to their song, but thou alone art there.

Thine empires, one by one, have fall'n, and now
The last is crumbling in decay:—yes, she,
The coronet upon thy furrowed brow,
The mistress of the world, the queen of thee,
The paradise of earth, sweet Italy;
Stript of her queenly robes, in dust she lies,
Enchained by slaves, nor struggling to be free.
There hath she fallen, as the dolphin dies,
More brightly beautiful in her last agonies.

151

But though thy shores are sepulchres, that Time
Hath peopled with dead empires; though they are
But shattered wrecks, and every other clime
Hath sprung from their decay; yet Nature there
Hath made their pall of beauty sadly fair;
And they shall be, while thy blue waves shall foam,
The Mecca of the world,—the altar, where
Science, Devotion, Genius, Art shall come,
And feel as Moslems feel above their prophet's tomb.

And thou, unchanging flood, that wanderest on,
Through that dark path of ruin and decay,
Still must thou roll untended and alone.
Men shall arise, and shine, and pass away,
Like the bright bubbles of thy glittering spray;
And thrones shall totter, kingdoms be laid waste—
Yea, empires rise and fall along thy way,
Like the dark heavings of thy troubled breast;
But thou shalt still roll on—for thee there is no rest.

152

TO THE SUN.

Thou glorious lamp of Space! Thou that dost flood
The void of heaven with brightness! in thy glow
Unnumbered worlds, age after age, have trod
In their appointed paths, and yet thy flow
Of brightness hath not ebbed.—Before thy brow
The stars still veil themselves; thy burning glance
Is all unquenched, undimmed, unchanged e'en now,
As when the finger of Omnipotence
Pointed to thee thy throne amid the vast expanse.

Yes, all unchanged.—As on that morn when rang
The shout of joy as forth thy rays were spread,
While all the morning stars together sang,
So thou art now. The morning stars have fled,
The towering hill with age has bowed its head,
The sea has changed its home with the dry land,
The earth has gathered in her countless dead,
Again and yet again—but thou dost stand,
Exhaustless and unmoved, upheld by God's own hand.

153

Thy beams rest not alone where monarchs dwell,
They linger round the cottage of the poor,
And pierce the grating of the captive's cell;
And when thou lookest on the lowliest flower
That lifts its head to thee for one short hour,
Thy glances just as mildly, gently burn
As when thou gazest on the loftiest tower,
Or on the countless worlds that round thee turn.
Oh! what a lesson here might human frailty learn.

Thou look'st upon the earth, and in thy rays
She brings her increase forth. Thine early light
Unfolds the bud, and thy intenser gaze
The blushing summer flower. Thou takest thy flight
And o'er the earth then walks the starry night;
Thou guidest the waters of the unquiet main,
Whose billows foam and tremble in their might—
For o'er the winds of heaven thou hold'st thy reign,
From the soft, flower-kissed breeze to the wild hurricane.

When I behold thy bright, alchemic glance
A flood of gold-light o'er the landscape throw,
And every cloud that decks the blue expanse,
Beneath thy gaze with deepening blushes glow;
Or when I see thee tint the heavenly bow,

154

Or in thy gaze the icebound waters melt,
As spring returns before thy burning brow,
I wonder not that Persia's children knelt,
And deemed thou wast the Heaven wherein the Eternal dwelt.

Thou isle of brightness 'mid an azure sea!
As oft I gaze on thee at closing day,
I feel my spirit fluttering to be free,—
To cast its bonds of ignorance away,
And learn thy mysteries; and then I say,
Peace, restless spirit!—yet a little time
And your frail prison will have changed to clay,
And thou shalt stand before the throne of Him
To whose veiled brow of light this glorious lamp is dim!

155

ON A PICTURE OF MY FATHER.

I strive in vain those features to restore
To Memory's faded tablets, which on me,
From the mute ivory, beam so lovingly,
And to recall their living light once more.
In vain I strive to pierce that veil of years,
And turn away all blinded with my tears.
But sometimes when the garish day is passed,
And night and sleep their spell upon me cast,
Thou comest to me, my father, from above,
And then for that brief moment I am blest,
For I am folded to thy sheltering breast;
And in the sacred rapture of thy love
A holy spell is on my spirit laid:
This mighty hunger of my heart is stayed.

156

BYRON AMONG THE RUINS OF GREECE.

[A SCHOOL COMPOSITION.]

On that sweet shore the blue Ægean laves,
Where loveliness is wedded to decay,—
Beauty to desolation,—'mid the graves
Of an immortal race, and ruins, gray
With the dim veil of years, a sleeper lay;—
And in his dream, Time's never-ebbing tide
Rolled back, and bore him to that earlier day,
When Greece was decked in beauty, like a bride,
Glory upon her path and freedom by her side.

Against the radiance of her azure sky,
Rose many a pillared fane, divinely wrought,
Whose marble forms defied mortality;—
There pale Philosophy unveiled, and taught
Her mystic lore, and waged her war of thought,
And all her bright and baseless visions wove;—
There Art her never-dying treasures brought:
He saw Apelles' glowing canvas move,
And at Pygmalion's prayer the statue wake to love.

157

Then came her bards, her orators and sages;—
Once more he heard those voices that had rung
Down through the vista of succeeding ages:
“The blind old bard of Scio's isle” there strung
His matchless lyre, and breathed the earliest song:
And now Demosthenes before him stood,
Pouring his tide of eloquence, that strong,
Deep and o'erwhelming, swayed the multitude,
As the invisible wind sways the wild ocean's flood.

Armed warriors too were there, their helmets gleaming
On deathless Marathon's green, sea-girt plain,
That now with Persia's choicest blood was streaming:
Thermopylæ's “three hundred” fought again;
Again its pass was piled with countless slain,
From the invader's host, as on that day
When Sparta's bravest sons had vowed to drain
Their heart's best blood for her. There, as he lay,
These glorious visions passed, in beautiful array.

The dreamer woke,—he rested there alone,
By that high temple whence had Pallas fled:
Where once she lingered, now the crescent shone,
And round him wandered many a turbanned head,

158

Treading in mockery o'er the immortal dead;
And conscious Nature there, as if to screen
The nakedness of Ruin, had outspread
Her gayest flowers to deck her saddest scene,
And hung, o'er mouldering walls, her tapestry of green.

And many a Grecian slave to Turkish foe
In hopeless bondage bowed the unwilling knee,
And, all too weak to strike the avenging blow,
To rend the galling chains of slavery,
And write their names once more among the free,
But humbled in despair, unmoved behold
Their shrine defaced, their altars borne away,
By every plunderer, even the hallowed mould
Of Marathon itself, exchanged for foreign gold.

And as he mused upon her buried worth,
'Mid her fallen columns and her ruined fanes,—
That none were there to lead her children forth;
To strike with them, and burst their servile chains,
And with their blood to wash away the stains
That their great name on Freedom's record dyed,—
He touched his harp, and the enchanting strains,
The world was hushed to hear—and then aside
Bade Poesy retire, and made sad Greece his bride.

159

A fitting bride for one like him, who stood
On that high steep, where few have dared their flight;
Against whose name Time's all resistless flood
Shall dash in vain; who, through decay and blight
And desolation, dazzled with the light
That fast consumed him, where he stood on high,
Like a lone star on the dark brow of night:—
He sleeps upon that shore—a Grecian sky,
For a high soul like his, were fitting canopy.

Rest, warrior bard! Above thy head shall bloom
The greenest laurel of Peneus' tide;—
Genius shall come a pilgrim to thy tomb,
And for her champion Freedom turn aside,
To weep the bitter tears she may not hide;
And thy young handmaid, Poesy, shall shed
Her brightest halo there; and Greece, thy bride,
Shall give to thee (and oh, can more be said!)
A name to live with hers—a home among her Dead.

160

SCIENCE.

Darkness sat brooding o'er the infant world,
That in chaotic gloom and silence lay,
Till from the throne of Light the sun was hurled;
Then that eternal night was changed to day,
And his effulgent, life-imparting ray,
O'er the wide waste of waters moved along:
The land and sea divided, and away
From out their depths young Nature startled sprung,
And in the light rejoiced till the blue heavens rung.

Even thus, oh! Science, hath thy glorious light
Rolled the dark clouds of Ignorance away,
Dispelled the darkness of a deeper night,
Than that which once o'er chaos thickly lay—
The darkness of the mind; and thy mid-day
Is still far distant—yet nor time nor space
Is unillumined with thy heavenly ray:
The clouds are rent that shrouded Nature's face,
And now she stands unveiled in all her loveliness.

161

Onward thou movest on thy tireless wing,
Through air and sea to Earth's remotest shore,
And givest a name to every living thing,
The beast, the bird, the insect or the flower,
The jewel of the mine, the sparkling ore.
Thou knowest the mysteries of the unseen air;
Thou lightest the caverns of the deep, whose floor
Yields to thy hand its pearls and treasures rare,
And every tinted shell that breathes its music there.

Now on the bosom of the swelling flood
That clasps the earth, and by whose wave-worn side
In ages past our trembling fathers stood,
Nor dared to breast the deep and trackless tide,
Our floating palaces majestic ride,
Their canvas whitening every foreign strand;
For thou, oh Science, thou art there our guide—
Like that bright pillar reared at God's command,
To light his wandering sons through Egypt's desert land.

And by the radiance of that heavenly light
Now man may mark the wandering comet's way,
Measure the swiftness of the sunbeam's flight,
Command the elements and they obey.

162

O'er the whole earth he holds his godlike sway;
He bids the river from its course be driven,
And lo! it flows where'er he points the way;
And from the skies the lightning he has riven,
As erst Prometheus stole the sacred fire from heaven.

Science! illumined by thy living rays,
A brighter glory lights the dome of night;
There thou dost open to our wondering gaze
System on System round those worlds of light,
In silence winging their harmonious flight.
And when weak sense returns to earth again,
There we behold, when thou dost guide our sight,
Above, around, where'er our gaze hath been,
“Infinity without, Infinity within.”

Here hath thy sister, Art, upreared for thee
A stainless shrine where fair young spirits led
To seek thy smile, shall bow the willing knee:
They would not ask the radiance thou didst shed
Around a Newton's or a Franklin's head;
Albeit a milder and a gentler ray,
That through this world with loveliness o'erspread,
They may not roam along the sunny way
In dark and dreary night while all around is day.

163

May time tread lightly through these classic halls;
Long may their columns stand through coming years,
When we who kneel within these snowy walls
Have passed away to yonder blessed spheres,
Secure from change, from parting, and from tears,
Where our enfranchised spirits shall explore
Those boundless realms beyond the tide of years,
Rapt, at the shrine of all creating power,
Through endless time to learn, and wonder, and adore.

164

TO A FRIEND,

ON BEING ASKED FOR SOME VERSES.

I thought the Soul of Song had made
This heart of mine her sepulchre;
For all her golden dreams had fled,
And I could win no note from her.

But when for thee thou bid'st her sing,
That spell dissolves her icy chain;
She slowly plumes her drooping wing,
And strikes her shattered chords again.

For more than lifeless would she be,
If thou shouldst bid her wake in vain;
And lost her chords, if still for thee
She could not wake one living strain.

165

For thee—that hours of deep distress,
And days of gloom with kindness lit,
Till half I blessed the bitterness
That gave me thee to sweeten it.

For thee—that when, despairing long,
I said, “No friend has earth for me,”
Didst bid the tones die on my tongue,
And I could utter, “only thee.”

For thee—that when my mother earth
Shall call me to her sheltering breast,
Of all I know wilt weep alone
Above my nameless place of rest.

But see! her wings refuse to fly;
Her chords are harsh from silence long;
Alas! thy gentle sorcery
Hath summoned but the ghost of Song.

She hovers o'er her living tomb,
She seeks once more her grave and chain,
As spectres haunt the midnight gloom:
Sweet friend, awake her not again.

166

If o'er the wind harp's gentle strings
The threatening tempest rudely flies,
It does not wake more thrilling strains—
The chords are rent, the music dies.

Thus is my harp, thus is my song—
I woo in vain its sweetness fled,
The storms have swept the chords too long,
The music of my soul is dead.

167

TO THE CENTURY PLANT.

Plant of a hundred years! destroying Time
Passes thy gentle race with hurrying tread,
Leaves their bright petals colorless and dim,
Strews with their withered leaves the mossy bed,
And sweeps them onward with the countless dead,
Ere the swift passing of the summer hour—
But, beauteous flower, above thy towering head
An age hath passed and left no trace of power:
Plant of a hundred years, thou seem'st Time's favorite flower!

I would that he had passed less lightly o'er thee,
And on thy polished leaves some record made,
Of all the scenes that long since passed before thee,
When round thee waved a forest, in whose shade
The Indian lover wooed his dusky maid,—
When the red warriors lit their council fires,
As peal'd the war-cry over hill and glade,
And then in triumph raised the funeral pyre
Of the ill-fated captive, bride, or son, or sire.

168

Alas, fair flower! they've vanished from the earth,
That wronged and injured race, and none are here
Of all the friends that knew thee at thy birth,—
No longer near thee rests the wearied deer,
Thy sister flowers have faded with each year;
Still thou remainest, though they all have flown,
Like some strange being from another sphere,
Or like some aged man, sad and alone,—
May I not linger here, when those I love are gone!

169

WRITTEN AT TIVOLI FALLS,

(NEAR ALBANY.)

Sweet Tivoli! upon thy grassy side,
Whene'er I linger through the summer day,
And the soft music of thy silvery tide
So sweetly wiles the lagging hours away,
I cannot deem but thou art e'en as fair
As that Italian vale whose name thy waters bear.

O'er the old rocks thou boundest on thy way,
And wood, and glen, re-echo to thy song;
And then thy waters, weary of their play,
Through the long grass glide silently along,
So slow, and calm, as scarce to break the rest
Of the young flowers that sleep upon thy placid breast.

And sure no flowers are lovelier than these
That bloom so sweetly on thy grassy side,
And none more fair than the young forest trees,
That bathe their branches in thy crystal tide;

170

No sounds are sweeter than the winds at play
Amid these trembling pines at close of summer day.

Here by thy side I cannot feel alone;
Above my head the sheltering branches bend,
And at my feet the flowers; and thy low tone
Breathes softly in my ear, and, like a friend
Soothing my spirit, comes the perfumed air,
To kiss my fevered brow and play amid my hair.

Oh! when I turn me from the busy throng,
Chilled with their frozen words and heartless smiles,
I wander here, and thy melodious song,
And this sweet scene, my sadder mood beguiles;
And when I mingle with the crowd again,
More calm and holy thoughts flow through my burning brain.

Oft as I wander in these shadowy groves
My wayward fancy spreads her truant wing,
And through the past delightedly she roves,
From its recesses many a scene to bring
Of that far time, when, 'mid the deepening shade,
The Indian lover wooed, and won, his dusky maid.

171

And then she bears me on through future years,
When her frail prison will have passed away,
And she will look, with eyes undimmed by tears,
Upon the glories of a brighter day;
And still thy waves will glide as soft along;
And still thy praise be sung in many a sweeter song.

172

LA FAYETTE.

The wail of France comes o'er the sea,—
She mourns for thee, departed chief;
And we, the children of the Free,
Re-echo back the notes of grief.

Thy course was like the morning sun,
That lights two worlds, the east and west;
Thy brilliant, glorious race is run,
Thou takest thine eternal rest.

Thy fame shall pass from age to age,
From clime to clime, from sire to son;
And History, on her glowing page,
Shall write thy name with Washington.

173

TO ---.

The brilliant west is glowing,
With sunset's farewell ray;
The silver waves are flowing,
On to the distant sea;

The pale bright stars are keeping
Their watch through night's still hours;
The dews in joy are weeping
Above the new-born flowers;

The city's hum is dying
Upon the perfumed breeze,
That wanders, softly sighing,
Among the flower-crowned trees.

But my vagrant thoughts are roaming
To loved ones far away;
I heed not twilight's coming,
Nor flowers, nor winds at play.

174

Of a low, sweet voice I'm dreaming,
More soft than the southwinds are,
Of a gentle eye that is beaming,
More bright than the Evening Star;

And I read as many pages
In the depths of that hazel eye,
As were read by the Chaldean sages,
In the glittering stars on high;

And the dreams that float under the cover
Of those snowy lids of thine,
The thoughts in that young heart that hover,
I have magic power to divine.

175

THE EARTH TO THE SUN.

Oh Sun! oh glorious Sun!
The spell of winter binds me strong and dread
In the dark sleep, the coldness of the dead;
And song and beauty from my haunts are gone.

The skies above me lower,
The frozen tempests beat upon my breast,
That wearily by its snow-shroud is prest;
And the wild winds rave o'er me in mad power.

At thine averted gaze,
Benumbed and desolate, I droop and die:
Life of my life! Lord of my destiny!
Shine on me with thy life-imparting rays.

Look from thy radiant throne,
And o'er this waste, drear and unlovely now,
Young summer's gorgeous loveliness shall glow,
And beauty clasp me in her magic zone.

176

Fair landscapes shall arise,
O'er which a sky of tenderest blue shall bend,
Where forest, hill, and vale, and stream shall blend
In beauty like a dream of Paradise.

And in thy living beams
The flowers shall wake, and every dewy cup
Shall send the homage of its perfume up,
And give thy brightness back in rosy gleams.

A full deep symphony,
The voice of streams, the air's melodious sighs,
Songs from all living things shall mingling rise
In one eternal hymn of love to thee

In vain, oh Earth, in vain;—
What heeds the Sun, if light or shadow rest
Upon the bosom in his smile so blest,
Or if thou perish in thine icy chain.

If from the shining host,
Like the lost Pleiad, thou wert stricken down,
He would not miss thee from his starry crown—
He would not mark one ray of brightness lost.

177

Then for the song and bloom,
The untold wealth of beauty, buried deep
Within thy frozen heart, in death-like sleep,
Oh! mourn thou not within thy conscious tomb.

178

TO ---.

Upon the sea of life,
Outspread thy spirit's sails;—
Go in thy genius forth, and breast
Its billows and its gales.

Weigh anchor and depart—
Why linger on the shore?
Seize helm and guide thy spirit's bark
These untried waters o'er.

Dread only the dead calm,
Heed not the sky's dark frown;
And if to shipwreck thou art doomed,
Go in the tempest down.

179

BRYANT.

Like the antique Grecian marbles,
Is his soul with beauty fraught,
And as polished and enduring
Is the sculpture of his thought.

In the Pantheon of our country,
The Valhalla of her fame,
On the record of her poets,
First of all is traced his name.

180

DURAND.

Upon his canvas Nature starts to life,
Clear waters flow, majestic trees arise,—
The earth and air with beauty's shapes are rife,
And over all there bend his glorious skies.

Yes, this is Nature—living, breathing, warm,
Ere yet her face the blight and storm have crossed;
Yes, this is Nature, in that radiant form
She wore of old, ere Paradise was lost.

181

TO DR. ---.

I know those subtle elements
Thou dost administer,
Have power to stay the parting breath,
The languid pulse to stir.

And not less potent is thy smile,
Thy sympathizing tone,
Thy tender heart that ever makes
The sufferer's pain its own.

182

TO A POET'S WIFE.

She, who in lonely pride may wear
The laurel on her brow,
And sit beneath its chilling shade,
Is far less blest than thou.

A higher happiness is thine,
To hear the voice of Fame
Re-echo in her silver tones,
The one beloved name.

183

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”

Sweet child of fairy land! since first
I dwelt, with tearful eye,
Upon the page that tells thy tale,
Long years have glided by.

Then, in thy fabled history,
No marvel could I see;
For then the worlds of thought and sense
Were fairy lands to me.

The fields and meadows were as bright
As those where thou didst stray;—
And gaily through their tangled flowers,
Like thee I took my way.

And while I walked that sunny path,
Nor doubt nor fear was mine;
For childhood's trustfulness and faith
Are ever strong, like thine.

184

Alas! that coming years should throw
Dark shadows o'er our way;
And leave us with this aching sense
Of glory passed away.

185

TO ---.

Thou dost not dwell in this dark world of ours,
Where sorrow, want, and crime, and misery reign;
Where famine stalks; where war's dread tempest lowers;
Where stands the scaffold, and where clanks the chain.

But far upon the future's unreached shore,
The promised land to be our heritage;
There thou, in trancéd visions, dost restore
The vanished glories of the Golden Age.

186

CHENEY.

The Paint-King, envious of his cunning art,
To him the tinted palette would not lend;
So has he dipped the pencil in his heart,
And with his light and shade its hues still blend.

187

TO ---.

They may talk of the eloquence famous in story;
Of the names that through ages continue to shine;
There never has fallen more true oratory
From the lips of a mortal, than falleth from thine.

With pathos and passion, oh! not more replete
Is the bard, though at Helicon's fountain he sips;
Nor his accents more glowing, persuasive, and sweet,
Though the bees of Hymettus had fed on his lips.

188

TO --- ---.

Like the river's current rapid;
Like the lightning's flash intense;
Was the rushing, fiery torrent
Of thy fervid eloquence.

And the multitude that listened
To each breathing, burning word,
Like the ocean by the tempest,
To its quiet depths was stirred.

189

EPIGRAM.

A draught from Helicon could once inspire
The bard to wing in song his loftiest flight;
But poets of these later times require
A draft from Wall Street, payable at sight.

190

TO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I have not met thee in this outward world,
Bounded by time and space; but in that realm,
O'er which imagination holds her reign,
There have I seen thy spirit face to face,
Majestic, and yet lovely. There have I
Sat at thy feet to listen to thy voice,
And as the symphony sublimely rose,
Reverence and awe had held me spell-bound there,
But that there fell upon my listening ear
Low breathing sighs, the sound of falling tears,
The under-tone of human love and woe,
That touched the trembling chords of sympathy,
And drew me near to thy great woman's heart.

Thou crownéd queen of Song! from this free land
That owns allegiance only unto God
And Genius, his anointed, o'er the sea
I send my vows of homage, and my heart
Sends love and blessings unto thee and thine.

191

SONNET.

MILTON.

Oh bard! what though upon thy mortal eyes
There fell no glimmering ray of earthly light,
And the deep shadow of eternal night
Shut from thy gaze our lovely earth and skies,
Yet was it to thy spirit's vision given
To gaze upon the splendors of that shore
Eye had not seen, nor heart conceived before.
Then didst thou, Poet Laureate of heaven,
Sing of those courts and of that angel host,
Of that majestic Spirit who in vain
Dared, warred, and fell, never to rise again,
And of that Paradise so early lost,
In strains “posterity shall not let die,”
In “thoughts that wander through eternity.”

192

NIGHTFALL IN HUNGARY.

As when the sun in darkness sets,
And night falls on the earth,
Along the azure fields above
The stars of heaven come forth;

So when the sun of Liberty
Grows dim to mortal eyes,
From out the gloom, like radiant stars,
The world's true heroes rise.

The men of human destiny,
Whom glorious dreams inspire;
High-priests of Freedom, in whose souls
Is shrined the sacred fire.

The fire that through the wilderness
In steadfast lustre streams;
That on the future, dim and dark,
Sheds its effulgent beams.

193

Thus, oh Hungaria! through the night
That wraps thee in its gloom,
Light from one burning soul streams forth,
A torch above thy tomb.

Thy tomb! oh no—the mouldering shroud
The worm awhile must wear,
Ere, from its confines springing forth,
He wings the upper air.

Thy tomb! then from its door ere long
The stone shall roll away,
Thou shalt come forth, and once again
Greet the new-risen day.

The day that prayed and waited for
So long, shall surely rise,
As surely as to-morrow's sun
Again shall greet our eyes.

What though before the shape evoked
The coward heart has quailed,
And when the hour, the moment came,
The recreant arm has failed:—

194

What though the apostate wields the sword
With fratricidal hand,
And the last Romans wander forth
In exile o'er the land:—

What though suspended o'er thee hangs
The Austrian's glittering steel;
What though thy heart is crushed beneath
The imperial Cossack's heel:—

Not to the swift is given the race,
The battle to the strong;
Up to the listening ear of God
Is borne the mighty wrong.

From Him the mandate has gone forth,
The giant Power must fall;
Oh Prophet! read'st thou not the doom,
The writing on the wall?

The slaves of Power, the sword, the scourge,
The scaffold and the chain,
Awhile may claim their hecatombs
Of hero martyrs slain.

195

But they that war with Tyranny
Still mightier weapons bear;
Winged, arrowy thoughts, that pierce like light,
Impalpable as air.

Thoughts that strike through the triple mail,
That spread, and burn, and glow,
More quenchless than that fire the Greeks
Rained on their Moslem foe.

Rest, rest in peace, heroic shades,
Whose blood like water ran:
For every crimson drop ye shed,
Shall rise an arméd man.

Rest, rest in peace, heroic souls,
Who wander still on earth;
Thoughts, your immortal messengers,
Are on their mission forth.

The pioneers of Liberty,
Invincible they throng;
They scale and undermine the towers
And battlements of Wrong.

196

Speak! Sages, Poets, Patriots, speak!
And the dark pile shall fall,
As at the Prophet's trumpet tones
Once fell the city's wall.

197

REQUIEM.

To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit, in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?

Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.

Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way;—
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.

198

We heard their voices in the gushing song
That rose like incense from thy poet heart;
We saw the footsteps of the shining throng
Glancing upon thy pathway, high apart,
Where in thy radiance thou didst walk the earth,
Thou child of glorious birth.

But the way lengthened and the song grew sad,
Breathing those tones that find no echo here;
Aspiring, soaring, but no longer glad,
Its mournful music fell upon the ear:
'Twas the home-sickness of a soul that sighs
For its own native skies.

Then he that to earth's children comes at last,
The angel-messenger, white-robed and pale,
Upon thy soul his sweet oblivion cast,
And bore thee gently through the shadowy vale,
The fleeting years of thy brief exile o'er,
Home to the blissful shore.

199

PROMETHEUS.

SONNET.

Thou brave old Titan, that in chains didst lie,
Bound to the rock on the Caucasian hill,
Who by sublime endurance didst defy
Imperial Jove and all his shapes of ill;
As I invoke thy spirit here to-day,—
From the old Pagan world thou speak'st to me,
I hear thy voice across Time's sounding sea,
Bid me thus bear and conquer.—I obey.
Henceforth, like thee, I will endure and wait
On life's bleak summit bound, without dismay.
Then in thine iron car roll on thy way,
Thou stern, relentless power that men call Fate,
Loose then thy bolts thou dark and threat'ning sky—
Thou vulture at my heart, feed to satiety!

200

WEBSTER.

“When I and all those that hear me shall have gone to our last home, and when the mould may have gathered on our memories, as it will on our tombs:”—

Webster's Speech in the Senate, July, 1850.

The mould upon thy memory!—No,
Not while one note is rung,
Of those divine, immortal songs
Milton and Shakspeare sung;—
Not till the night of years enshrouds
The Anglo-Saxon tongue.

No! let the flood of Time roll on,
And men and empires die;—
Genius enthroned on lofty heights
Can its dread course defy,
And here on earth, can claim the gift
Of immortality:

201

Can save from that Lethean tide
That sweeps so dark along,
A people's name;—a people's fame
To future time prolong,
As Troy still lives and only lives
In Homer's deathless song.

What though to buried Nineveh
The traveller may come,
And roll away the stone that hides
That long forgotten tomb;—
He questions its mute past in vain,
Its oracles are dumb.

What though he stand where Balbec stood
Gigantic in its pride;
No voice comes o'er that silent waste,
Lone, desolate and wide;—
They had no bard, no orator,
No statesman,—and they died.

They lived their little span of life,
They lived and died in vain;—
They sank ingloriously beneath
Oblivion's silent reign,
As sank beneath the Dead Sea wave
The Cities of the Plain.

202

But for those famed, immortal lands,
Greece and imperial Rome,
Where Genius left its shining mark,
And found its chosen home,
All eloquent with mind they speak,
Wood, wave and crumbling dome.

The honeyed words of Plato still
Float on the echoing air,
The thunders of Demosthenes
Ægean waters bear,
And the pilgrim to the Forum hears
The voice of Tully there.

And thus thy memory shall live,
And thus thy fame resound,
While far-off future ages roll
Their solemn cycles round,
And make this wide, this fair New World
An ancient, classic ground.

Then with our Country's glorious name
Thine own shall be entwined;
Within the Senate's pillared hall
Thine image shall be shrined;
And on the nation's Law shall gleam
Light from thy giant mind.

203

Our proudest monuments no more
May rise to meet the sky,
The stately Capitol o'erthrown,
Low in the dust may lie;
But mind, sublime above the wreck,
Immortal—cannot die.

University of Virginia Library

DEDICATION.

TO MY MOTHER.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

ASPIRATION.

SONNET.

A THOUGHT BY THE SEA-SHORE.

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. N. P. WILLIS.

SONNET.

ON SEEING THE IVORY STATUE OF CHRIST.

ON A PICTURE OF HARVEY BIRCH.

THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.

LINES

TO ONE WHO WISHED TO READ A POEM I HAD WRITTEN.

AN IMITATION.

DAY-DAWN IN ITALY.

FROM DE VIGNY.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

TEACHING THE SCRIPTURES.

SONNET.

FAITH.

WASHINGTON.

ON HUNTINGTON'S PICTURE OF WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHANY IN EARLY LIFE.

TO ****, WITH FLOWERS.

TO A CHILD.

AN APOLOGY FOR SADNESS.

A DIRGE FOR O'CONNELL.

SONNET.

ON A PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

LINES

TO FREDERIKA BREMER.

THE DUMB CREATION.

ON A PICTURE.

EVENING HYMN.

PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS.

BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE.

TO THE MEMORY OF CHANNING.

ODE

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY.

ODE.

SONNET.

A FAREWELL TO OLE BULL.

TO A POET, PAINTER AND MUSICIAN.

SONNET.

THE BEE

LINES.

LINES

ON READING SOME VERSES ENTITLED “A FAREWELL TO LOVE.”

THE WASTED FOUNTAINS.

CHRIST BETRAYED.

SONNET.

HAGAR.

SONNET.

LOVE.

THE IDEAL.

THE IDEAL FOUND.

IMAGE WORSHIP.

THE IMAGE BROKEN.

TO ---.

SONNET.

THE SUN AND STREAM.

ON SEEING MRS. KEAN AS CONSTANCE IN KING JOHN.

THE WOUNDED VULTURE.

SONNET.

TO ---.

MEMORY.

HOPE.

TO ---.

TO ---, IN OBSCURITY.

THE DYING SYCAMORES.

LINES

ON AN INCIDENT OBSERVED FROM THE DECK OF A STEAMBOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

TO ---.

TO AN ASTRONOMER.

TO ---.

EROS.

BONES IN THE DESERT.

SONNET.

THE LAKE AND STAR.

TO A SILENT POET.