The life broad - basking 'neath their

feet, — Man ever with his Now at strife,

Pained with first gasps of earthly air,

Then praying Death the last to spare, Still fearful of the ampler life.

With deepened eyes and bated breath,

Like one that somewhere hath met Death: But “No," she answers,

I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity;

That other whom you seek forlorn

Half earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, and our race Wears still some sadness on its face:

He wins me late, but keeps me long, Who, dowered with every gift of passion, In that fierce flame can forge and fashion

Of sin and self the anchor strong;
Can thence compel the driving force
Of daily life's mechanic course,
Nor less the nobler energies
Of needful toil and culture wise;
Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure
Who can renounce, and yet endure,
To him I come, not lightly wooed,
But won by silent fortitude."

VILLA FRANCA

1859

Not unto them dost thou consent

Who, passionless, can lead at ease
A life of unalloyed content

A life like that of land-locked seas,
Who feel no elemental gush
Of tidal forces, no fierce rush

Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent

'Twixt continent and continent. Such quiet souls have never known

Thy truer inspiration, thou

Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow Spray from the plunging vessel thrown

Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath,

Where the frail hair-breadth of an if Is all that sunders life and death: These, too, are cared for, and round these Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace;

These in unvexed dependence lie, Each 'neath his strip of household sky; O'er these clouds wander, and the blue Hangs motionless the whole day through; Stars rise for them, and moons grow

large And lessen in such tranquil wise As joys and sorrows do that rise

Within their nature's sheltered marge; Their hours into each other flit

Like the leaf-shadows of the vine And fig-tree under which they sit,

And their still lives to heaven incline With an unconscious habitude,

Unhistoried as smokes that rise From happy hearths and sight elude

In kindred blue of morning skies. Wayward! when once we feel thy lack, 'T is worse than vain to woo thee back!

Yet there is one who seems to be
Thine elder sister, in whose eyes
A faint far northern light will rise

Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee; She is not that for which youth hoped,

But she hath blessings all her own,
Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,

And faith to sorrow given alone:
Almost I deem that it is thou
Come back with graver matron brow,

Wait a little: do we not wait ?

a
Louis Napoleon is not Fate,
Francis Joseph is not Time;
There's One hath swifter feet than Crime;
Cannon-parliaments settle naught;
Venice is Austria's, whose is Thought ?
Minie is good, but, spite of change,
Gutenberg's gun has the longest range.

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

Wait, we say: our years are long;
Men are weak, but Man is strong;
Since the stars first curved their rings,
We have looked on many things;
Great wars come and great wars go,
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow;
We shall see him come and gone,
This second-hand Napoleon.

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

We saw the elder Corsican,
And Clotho muttered as she span,
While crowned lackeys bore the train,

My search is for the living gold;

Him I desire who dwells recluse, And not his image worn and old,

Day-servant of our sordid use.

'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings,
And snares the people for the kings;
“ Luther is dead; old quarrels pass;
The stake's black scars are healed with

grass;
So dreamers prate; did man e'er live
Saw priest or woman yet forgive ?
But Luther's broom is left, and eyes
Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies.

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever.

If him I find not, yet I find

The ancient joy of cell and church, The glimpse, the surety undefined,

The unquenched ardor of the search.

Happier to chase a flying goal

Than to sit counting laurelled gains, To guess the Soul within the soul

Than to be lord of what remains.

Smooth sails the ship of either realm,
Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ;
We look down the depths, and mark
Silent workers in the dark

Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise,

Beyond my nature's utmost scope; Be ever absent from mine eyes

To be twice present in my hope !

GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY

DAIMON ’t was printed in the book

And, as I read it slowly, The letters stirred and changed, and took Jove's stature, the Olynıpian look

Of painless melancholy.

He paused upon the threshold worn:

“ With coin I cannot pay you; Yet would I fain make some return; The gift for cheapness do not spurn,

Accept this hen, I pray you.
“ Plain feathers wears my Hemera,

And bas from ages olden;
She makes her nest in conimon hay,
And yet, of all the birds that lay,

Her eggs alone are golden.”
He turned, and could no more be seen;

Old Baucis stared a moment, Then tossed poor Partlet ou the green, And with a tone, half jest, half spleen,

Thus made her housewife's comment:

“What 's Beauty ?” mused I; “is it told

By syuthesis ? analysis ?
Have you not made us lead of gold ?
To feed your crucible, not sold
Our temple's sacred chalices ?”

Then o'er my senses came a change;

My book seemed all traditions,
Old legends of profoundest range,
Diablery, and stories strange

Of goblins, elves, magicians.
Old gods in modern saints I found,

Old creeds in strange disguises;
I thought them safely underground,
And here they were, all safe and sound,

Without a sign of phthisis.

“The stranger had a queerish face,

His smile was hardly pleasant, And, though he meant it for a grace, Yet this old hen of barnyard race

Was but a stingy present. "She's quite too old for laying eggs,

Nay, even to make a soup of; One only needs to see her legs, You might as well boil down the pegs I made the brood-ben's

coop

of !

Truth was, my outward eyes were closed,

Although I did not know it; Deep into dream-land I had dozed, And thus was happily transposed

From proser into poet.

So what I read took flesh and blood,

And turned to living creatures: The words were but the dingy bud That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud,

To human forms and features.

“Some eighteen score of such do I

Raise every year, her sisters;
Go, in the woods your fortunes try,
All day for one poor earthworm pry,

And scratch your toes to blisters !".
Philemon found the rede was good,

And, turning on the poor hen, He clapt his hands, and stamped, and

shooed, Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood,

To house with snipe and moor-hen. A poet saw and cried: “Hold ! hold !

What are you doing, madman ? Spurn you more wealth than can be

told, The fowl that lays the eggs of gold,

Because she 's plainly clad, man ?”

I saw how Zeus was lodged once more

By Bancis and Philemon;
The text said, “Not alone of yore,
But every day, at every door

Knocks still the masking Demon.”

Rightly? That 's simply: 't is to see

Some substance casts these shadows Which we call Life and History, That aimless seem to chase and flee

Like wind-gleams over meadows.

Simply? That's nobly: 't is to know

That God may still be met with, Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow These senses fine, this brain aglow,

To grovel and forget with.

Here was the bird's primeval nest,

High on a promontory Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest To brood new æons 'neath her breast,

The future's unfledged glory.
I know not how, but I was there

All feeling, hearing, seeing;
It was not wind that stirred my hair
But living breath, the essence rare

Of unembodied being.
And in the nest an egg of gold

Lay soft in self-made lustre,
Gazing whereon, what depths untold
Within, what marvels manifold,

Seemed silently to muster!

Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me,

No chemistry will win you; Charis still rises from the sea: If you can't find her, might it be

Because you seek within you ?

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A

FRIEND

Daily such splendors to confront

Is still to me and you sent? It glowed as when Saint Peter's front, Illumed, forgets its stony wont,

And seems to throb translucent.

The friend was Miss Jane Norton, sister of Mr. C. E. Norton.,

ALIKE I hate to be your debtor,
Or write a mere perfunctory letter;
For letters, so it seems to me,
Our careless quintessence should be,
Our real nature's truant play