THE PAST.

THOU unrelenting Past!

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn

Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,

And glorious ages gone

Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,

Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth,

Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,

Thou hast my earlier friends-the good-the kind,

Yielded to thee with tears

The venerable form-the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring

The lost ones back-yearns with desire intense,

And struggles hard to wring

Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain-thy gates deny

All passage save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye

Thou giv'st them back-nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide

Beauty and excellence unknown-to thee

Earth's wonder and her pride

Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labours of good to man,

Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,—

And

Love, that midst grief began,

grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name

Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;

With thee are silent fame,

Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a space are they

Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last ;

Thy gates shall yet give way,

Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair

Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,
Shall then come forth to wear

The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished-no!

Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago,

And features, the great soul's apparent seat.

All shall come back, each tie

Of pure affection shall be knit again ;

Alone shall Evil die,

And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold

Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her, who, still and cold,

Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.

"UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD."

UPON the mountain's distant head,

With trackless snows for ever white,
Where all is still, and cold, and dead,
Late shines the day's departing light.

But far below those icy rocks,

The vales, in summer bloom arrayed,
Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks,
Are dim with mist and dark with shade.

'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts,
And eyes where generous meanings burn,
Earliest the light of life departs,

But lingers with the cold and stern.

THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee.

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,

Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.

Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse