TO A FRIEND. But for her lore of self-denial stern. That such a man could spring from our decays

Fans the soul's nobler faith until it burn.

TO A FRIEND

WHO GAVE ME A GROUP

Yet, while his gift by those fair limbs is prest,

Through some fine sympathy of nature knows

That, seas between us, she is still his guest.

2.

AND GRASSES, AFTER A DRAWING of DÜRER.

TRUE as the sun's own work, but more refined,

It tells of love behind the artist's eye, Of sweet companionships with earth and sky,

And summers stored, the sunshine of the mind.

What peace! Sure, ere you breathe, the fickle wind

Will break its truce and bend that grass

plume high,

A momentary vision may renew

Of him who counts it treasure that he knew,

Though but in passing, such a priceless good,

And, like an elder brother, felt his mood

Uplifted by the spell that kept her true, Amid her lightsome compeers, to the

few

Summer's triumphant poem of the rose: Enough for me to watch the wavering chase,

Like wind o'er grass, of moods across

her face,

Fairest in motion, fairer in repose. Steeped in her sunshine, let me, while I

may,

Partake the bounty: ample 't is for me That her mirth cheats my temples of

their gray, Her charm makes years long spent seem yet to be.

grave to gay,

All these are good, but better far is she.

brake, Far heard across the New World and the Old.

NEW ENGLAND's poet, rich in love as years,

Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks

Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks

Thy steps allure us, which the woodthrush hears

As maids their lovers', and no treason fears; Through thee her Merrimacs and Agiochooks

And many a name uncouth win gracious looks,

Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears: Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold

Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake

That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as

bold

dreamed some exiled artist from his pain

Back to his Athens and the Muse's clime,

So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime,

Purged by Art's absolution from the

stain

Of the polluting city-flood, regain
Ideal grace secure from taint of time.
An Attic frieze you give, a pictured

song;

Curtis, skilled equally with voice and

pen

To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men,

That voice whose music, for I 've heard you sing

Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips with haste,

Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with good taste,

First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it came to you, Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew,

Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours;

Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors

Had swung on flattered hinges to admit Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit;

At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve?

And both invited, but you would not swerve,

All meaner prizes waiving that you might

In civic duty spend your heat and light, Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet

disdain

your head

And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid:

there we are

I wish they might be, agreed; I hate to speak, still more what makes the need;

But I must utter what the voice within Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin; I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, That none may need to say them after me. "T were my felicity could I attain The temperate zeal that balances your brain;

But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan,

And one must do his service as he can. Think you it were not pleasanter to speak

Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek?

To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, un

seen

In private box, spectator of the scene Where men the comedy of life rehearse, Idly to judge which better and which

worse

Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part?

Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, In happy commune with the untainted brooks,

To dream all day, or, walled with silent books,

To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning noise,

Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys?

I love too well the pleasures of retreat Safe from the crowd and cloistered from

the street;

The fire that whispers its domestic joy, Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy,

And knew my saintly father; the full days,

Not careworn from the world's soulsquandering ways,

Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread,

Nor break my commune with the undy

ing dead;

Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, That come unbid, and claimless glide

away

gent Past,

Where Spanish castles, even, were built

No

distant tree but by his shape was known,

Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. This learning won by loving looks I hived

As sweeter lore than all from books derived.

I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood,

Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood,

Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod,

But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod,

Or succory keeping summer long its trust Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust:

These were my earliest friends, and latest

too,

Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. For years I had these treasures, knew their worth,

Estate most real man can have on earth. I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and woes;

Too well these Capuas could my muscles

was'e,

Not void of toils, but toils of choice and

taste;

These still had kept me could I but have quelled

The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled.

But there were times when silent were my books

As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, When verses palled, and even the woodland path,

By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath,