A dim, sweet, twilight voice it is.
Where to-day's accustomed blue
Is over-grayed with memories,

With starry feelings quivered through.

Thy voice is like a fountain
Leaping up in sunshine bright,
And I never weary counting
Its clear droppings, lone and single,
Or when in one full gush they mingle,
Shooting in melodious light.

Thine is music such as yields
Feelings of old brooks and fields,
And, around this pent-up room,
Sheds a woodland, free perfume;
O, thus forever sing to me!
O, thus forever!

The green, bright grass of childhood bring to me,
Flowing like an emerald river,

And the bright blue skies above!
O, sing them back, as fresh as ever,
Into the bosom of my love,

The sunshine and the merriment,
The unsought, evergreen content,
Of that never cold time,

The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went
Through and through the old time!

Peace sits within thine eyes,

With white hands crossed in joyful rest,
While, through thy lips and face, arise
The melodies from out thy breast;

She sits and sings,

With folded wings

And white arms crost,

"Weep not for passed things,
They are not lost:

The beauty which the summer time
O'er thine opening spirit shed,

The forest oracles sublime

That filled thy soul with joyous dread,

The scent of every smallest flower

That made thy heart sweet for an hour, —
Yea, every holy influence,

Flowing to thee, thou knewest not whence,
In thine eyes to-day is seen,

Fresh as it hath ever been;

Promptings of Nature, beckonings sweet,
Whatever led thy childish feet,
Still will linger unawares

The guiders of thy silver hairs;
Every look and every word
Which thou givest forth to-day,
Tell of the singing of the bird
Whose music stilled thy boyish play."

Thy voice is like a fountain,
Twinkling up in sharp starlight,

When the moon behind the mountain
Dims the low East with faintest white,
Ever darkling,

Ever sparkling,

We know not if 't is dark or bright; But, when the great moon hath rolled round, And, sudden-slow, its solemn power Grows from behind its black, clearedged bound, No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth Into a waving silver flower.

1841.

THE MOON.

My soul was like the sea,
Before the moon was made,
Moaning in vague immensity,
Of its own strength afraid,
Unrestful and unstaid.

Through every rift it foamed in vain,
About its earthly prison,

Seeking some unknown thing in pain,
And sinking restless back again,

For yet no moon had risen:

Its only voice a vast dumb moan,
Of utterless anguish speaking,
It lay unhopefully alone,

And lived but in an aimless seeking.

So was my soul; but when 't was full
Of unrest to o'erloading,
A voice of something beautiful
Whispered a dim foreboding,
And yet so soft, so sweet, so low,
It had not more of joy than woe;
And, as the sea doth oft lie still,
Making its waters meet,
As if by an unconscious will,
For the moon's silver feet,
So lay my soul within mine eyes

When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise.
And now, howe'er its waves above

May toss and seem uneaseful,
One strong, eternal law of Love,

With guidance sure and peaceful,

As calm and natural as breath,

Moves its great deeps through life and death.

REMEMBERED MUSIC.

A FRAGMENT.

THICK-RUSHING, like an ocean vast
Of bisons the far prairie shaking,
The notes crowd heavily and fast
As surfs, one plunging while the last
Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.

Or in low murmurs they began,
Rising and rising momently,

As o'er a harp Æolian

A fitful breeze, until they ran
Up to a sudden ecstasy.

And then, like minute drops of rain
Ringing in water silvery,

They lingering dropped and dropped again,
Till it was almost like a pain

1840.

To listen when the next would be.

SONG.

TO M. L.

A LILY thou wast when I saw thee first,
A lily-bud not opened quite,

That hourly grew more pure and white,
By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed:
In all of nature thou hadst thy share;
Thou wast waited on

By the wind and sun;

The rain and the dew for thee took care;
It seemed thou never couldst be more fair.

A lily thou wast when I saw thee first,
A lily-bud; but O, how strange,

How full of wonder was the change,

When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full bloom burst!
How did the tears to my glad eyes start,
When the woman-flower

Reached its blossoming hour,

And I saw the warm deeps of thy golden heart!

Glad death may pluck thee, but never before
The gold dust of thy bloom divine

Hath dropped from thy heart into mine,
To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore;
For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries away
Some impulses bright

Of fragrance and light,

Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray,
To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of day.

ALLEGRA.

I WOULD more natures were like thine,
That never casts a glance before,
Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine
So lavishly to all dost pour,

That we who drink forget to pine,
And can but dream of bliss in store.

Thou canst not see a shade in life;
With sunward instinct thou dost rise,
And, leaving clouds below at strife,
Gazest undazzled at the skies,
With all their blazing splendors rife,
A songful lark with eagle's eyes.

Thou wast some foundling whom the Hours
Nursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth;
Some influence more gay than ours

Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, As if thy natal stars were flowers

That shook their seeds round thee on earth.

And thou, to lull thine infant rest,

Wast cradled like an Indian child;
All pleasant winds from south and west
With lullabies thine ears beguiled,
Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest,
Till Nature looked at thee and smiled.

Thine every fancy seems to borrow
A sunlight from thy childish years,
Making a golden cloud of sorrow,
A hope-lit rainbow out of tears,
Thy heart is certain of to-morrow,
Though 'yond to-day it never peers.

I would more natures were like thine,
So innocently wild and free,

Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine,
Like sunny wavelets in the sea,

Making us mindless of the brine,

In gazing on the brilliancy.

THE FOUNTAIN.

INTO the sunshine,

Full of the light,

Leaping and flashing

From morn till night!