This way and that he lets him fly,

Thy high-heaped canvas yearning!

shoreward

ease.

The friend who gave our board such gust, Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He'll do it handsomely, I trust,

And John H-write his epitaph!

O, born beneath the Fishes' sign,

Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Massic wine,

And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest !

And when they come his deeds to weigh,
And how he used the talents his,
One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay
(If trout had scales), and 't will outsway
The wrong side of the balances.

ODE TO HAPPINESS.

SPIRIT, that rarely comest now
And only to contrast my gloom,
Like rainbow-feathered birds that

bloom

A moment on some autumn bough
That, with the spurn of their farewell,
Sheds its last leaves, - thou once didst
dwell

With me year-long, and make intense
To boyhood's wisely vacant days
Their fleet but all-sufficing grace

Of trustful inexperience,

While soul could still transfigure sense, And thrill, as with love's first caress, At life's mere unexpectedness.

Days when my blood would leap and

run

As full of sunshine as a breeze,

Or spray tossed up by Summer seas That doubts if it be sea or sun ! Days that flew swiftly like the band

That played in Grecian games at strife, And passed from eager hand to hand

The onward-dancing torch of life! Wing-footed thou abid'st with him Who asks it not; but he who hath Watched o'er the waves thy waning path, Shall nevermore behold returning

Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, A moment glimpsed, then seen no

more,

Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace Away from every mortal door.

Nymph of the unreturning feet,

How may I win thee back? But no, I do thee wrong to call thee so; 'Tis I am changed, not thou art fleet : The man thy presence feels again, Not in the blood, but in the brain, Spirit, that lov'st the upper air Serene and passionless and rare,

Such as on mountain heights we find
And wide-viewed uplands of the
mind;

Or such as scorns to coil and sing
Round any but the eagle's wing

Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in relentless eyes

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.

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;

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,
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.

WAIT a little do we not wait? Louis Napoleon is not Fate, Francis Joseph is not Time;

Crime;

Cannon-parliaments settle naught;
Venice is Austria's, - whose is Thought?
Minié 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;
We have looked on many things;
Since the stars first curved their rings,

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,
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne :
"Sister, stint not length of thread !
Sister, stay the scissors dread !
On Saint Helen's granite bleak,
Hark, the vulture whets his beak!"
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!

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

The Bonapartes, we know their bees
That wade in honey red to the knees;
Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep
sound

In dreamless garners underground:
We know false glory's spendthrift_race
Pawning nations for feathers and lace;
It may be short, it may be long,
"T is reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid
Wrong.

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

The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin Can promise what he ne'er could win ; Slavery reaped for fine words sown,

System for all, and rights for none,
Despots atop, a wild clan below,
Such is the Gaul from long ago;
Wash the black from the Ethiop's face,
Wash the past out of man or race!
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!

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

'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 ere 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.

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

Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs,
Old instincts hardening to new beliefs;
Patience a little; learn to wait;
Hours are long on the clock of Fate.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,
But only God endures forever!

THE MINER.

Down mid the tangled roots of things
That coil about the central fire,
I seek for that which giveth wings
To stoop, not soar, to my desire.

Sometimes I hear, as 't were a sigh,

The sea's deep yearning far above, "Thou hast the secret not," I cry,

"In deeper deeps is hid my Love."

They think I burrow from the sun,

In darkness, all alone, and weak; Such loss were gain if He were won,

For 't is the sun's own Sun I seek.