THE POET'S SONG.

THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose,

He passed by the town, and out of the street; A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat, And he sat him down in a lonely place,

And chanted a melody loud and sweet, That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
The snake slipt under a spray,

The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey,

And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,

But never a one so gay,

For he sings of what the world will be

When the years have died away."

THE PRINCESS:

A MEDLEY.

PROLOGUE.

SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people thither flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighboring borough with their Institute,
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son,
the son

A Walter too, - with others of our set.

And me that morning Walter showed the house, Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;
And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,

The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs
From the isles of palm and higher on the walls,
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.

And "this," he said, "was Hugh's at Agincourt;
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle.

With all about him,” — which he brought, and I
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mixt with these, a lady, one that armed
Her own fair head, and sallying through the gate,
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said, "To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth

And sister Lilia with the rest." We went

(I kept the book and had my finger in it)

Down through the park: strange was the sight to me; For all the sloping pasture murmured, sown

With happy faces and with holiday.

There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:
The patient leaders of their Institute

Taught them with facts. One reared a font of stone,

And drew, from butts of water on the slope,
The fountain of the moment, playing now
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball
Danced like a wisp and somewhat lower down
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired
A cannon: Echo answered in her sleep
From hollow fields and here were telescopes
For azure views; and there a group of girls

In circle waited, from the electric shock
Dislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lake
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied

And shook the lilies: perched about the knolls

A dozen angry models jetted steam :

A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon

Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past: