Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks,
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,

Lie wrapt in their blankets
Asleep on the hills.

-What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?-

'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
--The leader is fairest,

But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollows!

They stream up again!

What seeks on this mountain

The glorified train ?—

They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,

Their endless abode.

-Whose praise do they mention?

Of what is it told?—

What will be for ever;

What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.

The day in his hotness
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,

The stars in their calm.

DOVER BEACH.

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;-on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd!

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges dicar
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

PALLADIUM.

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;
And Hector was in Ilium, far below,

And fought, and saw it not-but there it stood!

It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.
Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight
Round Troy-but while this stood, Troy could not fall.

So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.
Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;
Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;
We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!

We shall renew the battle in the plain
To-morrow;-red with blood will Xanthus be;
Hector and Ajax will be there again,
Helen will come upon the wall to see.

Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,
And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,

And fancy that we put forth all our life,

And never know how with the soul it fares.

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high Upon our life a ruling effluence send.

And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;

And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.

MORALITY.

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.

But tasks in hours of insight wil'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return

All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling, task'd morality-

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.
And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek!

'Ah child!' she cries, 'that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?

'There is no effort on my brow-
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.

Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once-but where?

'I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,

I saw it in some other place.

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, And lay upon the breast of God.'

MEMORIAL VERSES.

APRIL, 1850.

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
Lut one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb –
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of passion with eternal law;

And yet with reverential awe

We watch'd the fount of fiery life

Which served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:

Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,

Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

He took the suffering human race,

He read each wound, each weakness clear;

And struck his finger on the place,

And said: Thou ailest here, and here!

He look'd on Europe's dying hour

Of fitful dream and feverish power;

His eye plunged down the weltering strife, The turmoil of expiring life