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 silverly,

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

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;

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;

Into the moonlight,
Whiter than snow,
Waving so flower-like
When the winds blow;

Into the starlight
Rushing in spray,
Happy at midnight,
Happy by day;

Ever in motion,

Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward. Never aweary;

Glad of all weathers,
Still seeming best,
Upward or downward,
Motion thy rest;

Full of a nature
Nothing can tame,
Changed every moment,
Ever the same;

Ceaseless aspiring, Ceaseless content,

And all his brethren cried with one ac

cord, "Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer! Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!"

He to his heart with large embrace had taken

The universal sorrow of mankind, And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind.

He could interpret well the wondrous voices Which to the calm and silent spirit come; He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices In the star's anthem than the insect's hum.

He in his heart was ever meek and humble, And yet with kingly pomp his numbers

Where'er there lingers but a shadow of wrong,

There still is need of martyrs and apostles,

There still are texts for never-dying song: From age to age man's still aspiring spirit Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes,

And thou in larger measure dost inherit What made thy great forerunners free and wise.

Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain

Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain,

They all may drink and find the rest they seek.

Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven,

A silence of deep awe and wondering; For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even, To hear a mortal like an angel sing.

Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet,

And find a bottom still of worthless clay; Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,

Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,

And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking, One God-built shrine of reverence and

love;

Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches

Around the centre fixed of Destiny, Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches The moving globe of being like a sky; Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer

Him to whose heart his fellow-man is

nigh,

Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer

Than that of all his brethren, low or

high;

To him the smiling soul of man shall listen, Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside, And once again in every eye shall glisten The glory of a nature satisfied.

His verse shall have a great commanding motion,

Heaving and swelling with a melody Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,

And all the pure, majestic things that be. Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence

To make us feel the soul once more sublime,

We are of far too infinite an essence

To rest contented with the lies of Time. Speak out! and lo! a hush of deepest wonder

Shall sink o'er all this many-voiced scene, As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder Shatters the blueness of a sky serene.

THE FATHERLAND

WHERE is the true man's fatherland?
Is it where he by chance is born?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Is it alone where freedom is,

Where God is God and man is man? Doth he not claim a broader span For the soul's love of home than this? Oh yes! his fatherland must be As the blue heaven wide and free!

Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

Where'er a single slave doth pine,

Where'er one man may help another, Thank God for such a birthright, brother,

That spot of earth is thine and mine! There is the true man's birthplace grand, His is a world-wide fatherland!

THE FORLORN

THE night is dark, the stinging sleet, Swept by the bitter gusts of air, Drives whistling down the lonely street, And glazes on the pavement bare.

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim Through the gray sleet-clouds as they pass,

Or, governed by a boisterous whim,

Drop down and rustle on the glass.

One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl
Faces the east-wind's searching flaws,
And, as about her heart they whirl,

Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze; Yet dares she not a shelter seek,

Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow
Streams outward through an open shut-
ter,

Adding more bitterness to woe,
More loneliness to desertion utter.

One half the cold she had not felt
Until she saw this gush of light
Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt
Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within,
Singing sweet words her childhood knew,
And years of misery and sin

Furl off, and leave her heaven blue.

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
Outwearied in the drifting snow,
Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks
No longer of its hopeless woe:

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,

Old meadows, green with grass, and trees That shimmer through the trembling haze And whiten in the western breeze,

Old faces, all the friendly past

Rises within her heart again,
And sunshine from her childhood cast
Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,
From man's humanity apart,
She hears old footsteps wandering slow
Through the lone chambers of the heart.

Outside the porch before the door,
Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,
She lies, no longer foul and poor,
No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily
Against the opening door did weigh,
And there, from sin and sorrow free,
A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told

That she had found a calm release, And that, from out the want and cold, The song had borne her soul in peace.