head;

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VII

more

That leads to the throne,

In the fountain of youth That opes the child's olden

The fleeting reflection Regions Elysian!

Of some bygone perfection
Ah, too holy vision

That still lingers in me?
For thy skirts to be holden
By soiled hand of mortal!
It wavers, it scatters,

YUSSOUF
'T is gone past recalling!
A tear's sudden falling

A STRANGER came one night to Yussouf's The magic cup shatters,

tent, Breaks the spell of the waters,

Saying, “ Behold, one outcast and in dread, And the sand cone once more,

Against whose life the bow of power is With a ceaseless renewing,

bent, Its dance is pursuing

Who flies, and bath not where to lay his On the silvery floor, O'er and o'er,

I come to thee for shelter and for food, With a noiseless and ceaseless renew- To Yussouf, called through all our tribes ing

The Good.'”

“This tent is mine," said Yussouf, “but no 'T is a woodland enchanted! If you ask me, Where is it?

Than it is God's; come in and be at peace; I can but make answer,

Freely shalt thou partake of all my store “ 'T is past my disclosing;'

As I of His who buildeth over these Not to choice is it granted

Our tents his glorious roof of night and By sure paths to visit

day, The still pool enclosing

And at whose door none ever yet heard Its blithe little dancer;

Nay.”
But in some day, the rarest
Of many Septembers,

So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, When the pulses of air rest,

And, waking him ere day, said: “Here is And all things lie dreaming

gold; In drowsy haze steaming

My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight; From the wood's glowing embers, Depart before the prying day grow bold.” Then, sometimes, unheeding,

As one lamp lights another, nor grows And asking not whither,

less, By a sweet inward leading

So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. My feet are drawn thither, And, looking with awe in the magical That inward light the stranger's face made mirror,

grand, I see through my tears,

Which shines from all self-conquest; kneelHalf doubtful of seeing,

ing low, The face unperverted,

He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's The warm golden being

hand, Of a child of five years;

Sobbing:

• Sheik, I cannot leave thee And spite of the mists and the error,

so; And the days overcast,

I will repay thee; all this thou hast done Can feel that I walk undeserted, Unto that İbrahim who slew thy son!” But forever attended By the glad heavens that bended “ Take thrice the gold,” said Yussouf, " for O'er the innocent past;

with thee Toward fancy or truth

Into the desert, never to return, Doth the sweet vision win me ? My one black thought shall ride away from Dare I think that I cast

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VIII

Feels through its gladdened fibres go And, as her incense floats and curls
The tingle and thrill and vassal glow In airy spires and wayward whirls,
Of instincts loyal to the sun.

Or poises on its tremulous stalk
A flower of frailest revery,

So winds and loiters, idly free,
O thou of home the guardian Lar,

The current of unguided talk, And, when our earth hath wandered far Now laughter-rippled, and now caught Into the cold, and deep snow covers

In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. The walks of our New England lovers,

Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, Their sweet secluded evening-star !

A sweetly unobtrusive third; 'T was with thy rays the English Muse For thou hast magic beyond wine, Ripened her mild domestic hues;

To unlock natures each to each; 'T was by thy flicker that she conned The unspoken thought thou canst divine; The fireside wisdom that enrings

Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech With light from heaven familiar things; With whispers that to dream-land reach By thee she found the homely faith

And frozen fancy-springs unchain In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th, In Arctic outskirts of the brain : When Death, extinguishing his torch, Sun of all inmost confidences, Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ; To thy rays doth the heart unclose The love that wanders not beyond

Its formal calyx of pretences, His earliest nest, but sits and sings

That close against rude day's offences, While children smooth his patient wings; And open its shy midnight rose ! Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs

Thou holdest not the master key Life in the withered words ! how swift With which thy Sire sets free the mystic recede

gates Time's shadows ! and how glows again Of Past and Future: not for common fates Through its dead mass the incandescent Do they wide open fling, verse,

And, with a far-heard ring, As when upon the anvils of the brain Swing back their willing valves melodiIt glittering lay, cyclopically wrought

ously; By the fast - throbbing hammers of the Only to ceremonial days, poet's thought!

And great processions of imperial song Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,

That set the world at gaze, The aspirations unattained,

Doth such high privilege belong: The rhythms so rathe and delicate,

But thou a postern-door canst ope They bent and strained

To humbler chambers of the selfsame And broke, beneath the sombre weight

palace Of any airiest mortal word.

Where Memory lodges, and her sister

Hope,

Whose being is but as a crystal chalice What warm protection dost thou bend Which, with her various mood, the elder Round curtained talk of friend with friend,

fills While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, Of joy or sorrow, To softest outline rounds the roof,

So coloring as she wills Or the rude North with baffled strain With hues of yesterday the unconscious Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems Gifted upon her natal morn

Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with By him with fire, by her with dreams,

thee: Nicotia, dearer to the Muse

For thee I took the idle shell,
Than all the grape's bewildering juice, And struck the unused chords again,
We worship, unforbid of thee;

But they are gone who listened well;

VII

morrow.

IX