SEAT of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree

The narrowing soul with narrowing dungeon bind,

Yet was his free of motion as the wind, And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, in fee.

In charmed communion with his dual mind

He wandered Spain, himself both knight and hind,

Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. His humor wise could see life's long deceit,

Man's baffled aims, nor therefore both despise ;

His knightly nature could ill fortune greet

Like an old friend. Whose ever such kind eyes

That pierced so deep, such scope, save his whose feet

By Avon ceased 'neath the same April's skies?

GOLD of the reddening sunset, backward thrown

In largess on my tall paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear didst never

tease

His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown

From him whose life no fairer boon hath known

Than that what pleased him earliest still should please.

And who hath incomes safe from chance as these,

Gone in a moment, yet for life his own? All other gold is slave of earthward laws;

This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, And on the topmost leaves makes glori ous pause

Of parting pathos ere it yield to night: So linger, as from me earth's light with draws,

Dear touch of Nature, tremulously bright!

TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN.

So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon Blow their faint Hunt's-up from the good-time gone;

Or, on a morning of long-withered May, Larks tinkle unseen o'er Claudian arches gray,

That Romeward crawl from Dreamland; and anon

My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness

on,

To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. In happier times and scenes I seem to be,

And, as her fingers flutter o'er the strings,

The days return when I was young as she,

And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings

PESSIMOPTIMISM.

YE little think what toil it was to build A world of men imperfect even as this, Where we conceive of Good by what we miss,

Of Ill by that wherewith best days are filled;

A world whose every atom is self-willed, Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's kiss,

Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled.

Yet this is better than a life of caves, Whose highest art was scratching on a bone,

Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint; Better, though doomed to hear while Cleon raves,

To see wit's want eterned in paint or

THE BRAKES.

WHAT countless years and wealth of brain were spent

To bring us hither from our caves and huts,

And trace through pathless wilds the deep-worn ruts

Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent Prudence may guide if genius be not lent,

Genius, not always happy when it shuts Its ears against the plodder's ifs and buts,

Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the

event.

The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of filame

Consume morn's misty threshold, are

exact

As bankers' clerks, and all this starpoised frame,

One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt;

This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame

Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact.

A FOREBODING.

WHAT were the whole void world, if thou wert dead,

Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day,

And make the hours that danced with Time away

Drag their funereal steps with muffled head?

Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red,

From thee the violet steals its breath in May,

From thee draw life all things that grow not gray,

And by thy force the inappy stars are sped.

Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow Fills all my earth and heaven, as when in Spring,

Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know,

And grasses brighten round her feet to cling;

Nay, and this hope delights all nature so That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing.

UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES.

WHAT mean these banners spread,
These paths with royal red
So gaily carpeted?
Comes there a prince to-day?
Such footing were too fine
For feet less argentine
Than Dian's own or thine,
Queen whom my tides obey.

Surely for thee are meant
These hues so orient
That with a sultan's tent
Each tree invites the sun;
Our Earth such homage pays,
So decks her dusty ways,
And keeps such holidays,
For one, and only onc.

My brain shapes form and face,
Throbs with the rhythmic grace
And cadence of her pace
To all fine instincts true;
Her footsteps, as they pass,
Than moonbeams over grass
Fall lighter, and, alas,
More insubstantial too!

ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS

LIGHT of triumph in her eyes,
Eleanor her apron ties;
As she pushes back her sleeves,
High resolve her bosom heaves.
Hasten, cook! impel the fire
To the pace of her desire;
As you hope to save your soul,
Bring a virgin casserole,
Brightest bring of silver spoons,
Eleanor makes macaroons!

474

AUSPEX.

While you thought 't was You thinking as newly

As Adam still wet with God's dew, You forgot in your self-pride that truly The whole Past was thinking through

you.

Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger,

With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought

In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your

Fine brain with the goad of their thought.

As mummy was prized for a rich hue

The painter no elsewhere could find, So 't was buried men's thinking with which you

Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind.

I heard the proud strawberry saying,

Only look what a ruby I've made!" It forgot how the bees in their maying

Had brought it the stuff for its trade.

And yet there's the half of a truth in it,

And my Lord might his copyright sue; For a thought 's his who kindles new youth in it,

Or so puts it as makes it more true.

The birds but repeat without ending
The same old traditional notes,
Which some, by more happily blending,
Seem to make over new in their
throats;

And we men through our old bit of song

run,

Until one just improves on the rest, And we call a thing his, in the long

run,

Who utters it clearest and best.

AUSPEX.

My heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days, to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,

Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

THE LESSON.

Had they been swallows only,
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,-
Woe's me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion,
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.

THE PREGNANT COMMENT. OPENING one day a book of mine, I absent, Hester found a line Praised with a pencil-mark, and this She left transfigured with a kiss.

When next upon the page I chance,
Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance
And whirl my fancy where it sees
Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees,
Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse,
Still young and glad as Homer's verse.
"What mean," I ask, "these sudden
joys?

This feeling fresher than a boy's?
What makes this line, familiar long,
New as the first bird's April song?
I could, with sense illumined thus,
Clear doubtful texts in Eschylus!"

Laughing, one day she gave the key,
My riddle's open-sesame;

Then added, with a smile demure, Whose downcast lids veiled triumph