When insect wings are glistening in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream,
Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the wood-thrush pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.

Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now
Goest down in glory! ever beautiful
And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou
Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool,
Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high
Climbest and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky.

Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair,
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Then softest gales are breat...

Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?
        I hear it speak.
Where is the shore will gratify my quest,
        Show what I seek?
Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,
        With halting tongue;
No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice
        Your groves among.

Whose is the loveliness I know is by,
        Yet cannot place?
Is it perfection of the sea or sky,
        Or human face?
Not yours, my pencil, to delineate
        The splendid smile!
Blind in the sun, we struggle on with Fate
        That glows the while.

Whose are the feet that pass me, echoing
        On unknown ways?
Whose are the lips that only part to sing
        Through all my days?
Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyes
  ...

Around the castle turrets fiercely moaned the autumn blast,
And within the old lords daughter seemed dying, dying fast;
While o'er her couch in frenzied grief the stricken father bent,
And in deep sobs and stifled moans his anguish wild found vent.

"Oh cheer thee up, my daughter dear, my Maude, he softly said,
As tremblingly he strove to raise that young and drooping head;
'I'll deck thee out in jewels rare in robes of silken sheen,
Till thou shalt be as rich and gay as any crowned queen."

"Ah, never, never!" sighed the girl, and her pale cheek paler grew,
While marble brow and chill white hands were bathed in icy dew;
"Look in my face - there thou wilt read such hopes are folly all,
No garment shall I wear again, save shroud and funeral pall."

"My Maude thou'rt...

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, This was mine!
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida o...

Fair Happiness, I've courted thee,
And used each cunning art and wile,
Which lovers use with maidens coy,
To win one tender glance or smile.
Thou hast been coy as any maid,
So lofty, distant, stern and cold,
And guarded from a touch of mine,
As miser guards his precious gold.

To win a smile from thee, did seem
A painful, fruitless thing to try,
Thy scornful, thin and cruel lips,
No pity gave thy steely eye.

Thy countenance, so sternly set,
Did seem to say how vain to knock
At thy heart's door, for all within
Was hard, as adamantine rock.

Thus unto me thy visage seem'd,
But faces do not always tell
The feelings of the heart within,
Or thoughts that underneath them dwell.

For e'en at times, I saw thy face
Relax, a...

When I watch you go by, in all your indolence,
To sound of instruments within the echoing hall
Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony,
And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul;

And when I contemplate, in colouring flames of gas,
Your pallid brow enhanced with a morbidity,
Where torches of the evening light a promised dawn,
Abd your alluring eyes, a master's artistry,

I think, how lovely! and how oddly innocent!
Massive remembrance, that great tower raised above,
Crowns her, and oh, her heart, bruised like a softened peach,
Is mellow, like her body, ripe for skilful love.

Are you the fruit of fall, when flavour is supreme?
Funeral vase, that waits for tears in darkened rooms,
Perfume that brings the far oases to our dreams,
Caressing ...

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

This life is all checkered with pleasures and woes,
    That chase one another like waves of the deep,--
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
    Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
    That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed.
    The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup--if existence would cloy,
    With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
    And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.
When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
    Thro' fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
    And neglected his t...

Part IV

Late Autumn

They who die young are blest. -
    Should we not envy such?
They are Earth's happiest,
    God-loved and favored much! -
They who die young are blest.


1

Sick and sad, propped among pillows, she sits at her window.

'Though the dog-tooth violet come
With April showers,
And the wild-bees' music hum
About the flowers,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the bob-white piped for hours,
And we heard the rain-crow's drum.

Now November heavens are gray;
Autumn kills
Every joy - like leaves of May
In the rills. -
Still I sit and lean and listen
To a voice that has arisen
In my heart - with eyes tha...

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,--
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

New days are dear, and cannot be unloved,
Though in deep grief we mourn, and cling to death;
Who has not known, in living on, a breath
Of infinite joy that has life's rapture proved?

If I have thought that in this rainbow world
The best we see was but a preface given
Of infinite greater tints in heaven,
And life or no, heaven yet would be unfurl'd, -

I did belie the soul-wide joys of earth,
And feelings deep as lights that dwell in seas.
Can heaven itself outlove such depths as these?
Live on! Life holds more than we dream of worth!

Where has Maid Quiet gone to,
Nodding her russet hood?
The winds that awakened the stars
Are blowing through my blood.
O how could I be so calm
When she rose up to depart?
Now words that called up the lightning
Are hurtling through my heart.

Oh, melancholy fragment of the night
Drawing thy lazy web against the sun,
Thou shouldst have waited till the day was done
With kindred glooms to build thy fane aright,
Sublime amid the ruins of the light!
But thus to shape our glories one by one
With fearful hands, ere we had well begun
To look for shadows--even in the bright!
Yet may we charm a lesson from thy breast,
A secret wisdom from thy folds of thunder:
There is a wind that cometh from the west
Will rend thy tottering piles of gloom asunder,
And fling thee ruinous along the grass,
To sparkle on us as our footsteps pass!

Tyrant of all our loves and friendships here,
Behold thy beauteous victim! - Ah! tis thine
To rend fond hearts, and start the tend'rest tear
Where joy should long in cloudless radiance shine.

Alas! the mourning Muse in vain would paint,
Blest shade! how purely pass'd thy life away,
Or, with the meekness of a favour'd saint,
How rose thy spirit to the realms of day.

'Twas thine to fill each part that gladdens life,
Such as approving angels smile upon; -
The faultless daughter, parent, friend, and wife, -
Virtues short-lived! they set just as they shone.

Thus, in the bosom of some winding grove,
Where oft the pensive melodist retires,
From his sweet instrument, the note of love,
Charms the rapt ear, but, as it charms, expires.

Farewell, p...

And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?-A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose,
(And sure the power of wisdom only knows,)
What need requireth thee:
So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
Some necessary cause must surely be;
But disappointments, pains, and every woe
Devoted wretches feel,
The ...

    All I could see from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood;
    I turned and looked another way,
    And saw three islands in a bay.
    So with my eyes I traced the line
    Of the horizon, thin and fine,
    Straight around till I was come
    Back to where I'd started from;
    And all I saw from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood.
    Over these things I could not see;
    These were the things that bounded me;
    And I could touch them with my hand,
    Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
    And all at once things seemed so small
    My breath came short, and scarce at all.
    But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
    Miles and miles above my head;
    So here upon my back I'll lie
    And look my f...

O giorno, o ora, o ultimo momento.

HE MOURNS HIS WANT OF PERCEPTION AT THAT MEETING.


    O Day, O hour, O moment sweetest, last,
O stars conspired to make me poor indeed!
O look too true, in which I seem'd to read.
At parting, that my happiness was past;
Now my full loss I know, I feel at last:
Then I believed (ah! weak and idle creed!)
'Twas but a part alone I lost; instead,
Was there a hope that flew not with the blast?
For, even then, it was in heaven ordain'd
That the sweet light of all my life should die:
'Twas written in her sadly-pensive eye!
But mine unconscious of the truth remain'd;
Or, what it would not see, to see refrain'd,
That I might sink in sudden misery!

MOREHEAD.


    Dark hour, last moment of t...

From that warm height and pure,
The peak undreamed of out of heavy air
Rising to heaven more strange and rare;
From that amazed brief sojourn, exquisite, insecure;

Fallen from thence to this,
From all immortal sunk to mortal sweet,
To slow gross joys from joy so fleet,
Fallen to mere remembrance of unsustainable bliss....

O harsh, O heavy air,
Difficult endurance, pain of common things!
The slow sun east to westward swings,
The flat-faced moon climbs labouring with a senseless stare.

From that inconceivable height----
O inward eyes that saw and ears that heard,
Spiritual swift wings that stirred
In that warm-flushing air and unendurable light;

When I was as mere down
On a swift-running youthful wind uptaken
Over tall trees, wh...