Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, And broke, beneath the sombre weight VII. What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, By him with fire, by her with dreams, Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech VII. Thou holdest not the master key gates Of Past and Future: not for common fates Do they wide open fling, And, with a far-heard ring, Only to ceremonial days, Where Memory lodges, and her sister Whose being is but as a crystal chalice So coloring as she wills With hues of yesterday the unconscious morrow. IX. Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with thee: For thee I took the idle shell, And struck the unused chords again, But they are gone who listened well; Some are in heaven, and all are far from me: Even as I sing, it turns to pain, And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell: Enough; I come not of the race That hawk their sorrows in the marketplace. Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please; Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace! As if a white-haired actor should come back Some midnight to the theatre void and black, And there rehearse his youth's great part Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, heart, And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts! FANCY'S CASUISTRY. How struggles with the tempest's swells Swing back their willing valves melo- As tower to tower confusedly tells diously; News of disaster. But on my far-off solitude Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes? Pay gentle allegiance To the fine quiet that sublimes But where is Truth? What does it mean, The world-old quarrel? Such questionings are idle air: Of fame or gold, but just to wear TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT, And when the storm o'erwhelms the WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND shore, I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, The light revolves amid the roar So still and saintly, TROUT. FIT for an Abbot of Theleme, For the whole Cardinals' College, or Now large and near, now more and The Pope himself to see in dream more Withdrawing faintly. This, too, despairing sailors see Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee In sudden snow, then lingeringly Wane tow'rd eclipse, While through the dark the shuddering sea Gropes for the ships. And is it right, this mood of mind Seeing the life of humankind Before his lenten vision gleam, He lies there, the sogdologer! His precious flanks with stars besprent, Worthy to swim in Castaly! The friend by whom such gifts are sent, For him shall bumpers full be spent, His health be Luck his fast ally! I see him trace the wayward brook To The events in line of battle go; I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend, (0, stew him, Ann, as 't were your friend, In death's dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow The muffled marches. O Duty, am I dead to thee That drifts tow'rd Silence? And are those visioned shores I see But sirens' islands? My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, As who would say, "T is those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean That win the laurel"; With amorous solicitude!) I see him step with caution due, Grave as in church, for who plies you, From all our common stock o' sins The unerring fly I see him cast, That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash! a whirl! he has him fast! We tyros, how that struggle last Confuses and appalls us oft. Unfluttered he: calm as the sky Looks on our tragi-comedies, This way and that he lets him fly, Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward 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 Or such as scorns to coil and sing Of souls that with long upward beat - Man ever with his Now at strife, Not unto them dost thou consent A life like that of land-locked seas, Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent 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 | There 's One hath swifter feet than large And lessen in such tranquil wise 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: But "No," she answers, "I am she That other whom you seek forlorn 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; Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! System for all, and rights for none, 'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings, So dreamers prate; did man ere live Smooth sails the ship of either realm, THE MINER. Down mid the tangled roots of things 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. |