Through tent, and cot, and proud saloon,

This audible delight

Of nightingales that love the noon,

Of larks that court the night,We feel it all, the hopes and fears

That language faintly tells,

The spreading smiles, the passing tears,—

The meetings and farewells.

These harmonies that all can share,

When chronicled by one,

Enclose us like the living air,
Unending, unbegun ;—
Poet! esteem thy noble part,

Still listen, still record,
Sacred historian of the heart,
And moral nature's lord!

NAPLES AND VENICE.

OVERLOOKING, overhearing,

Naples, and her subject bay Stands Camaldoli, the convent, Shaded from the inclement ray. Thou, who to that lofty terrace

Lovest on summer eve to go,
Tell me, poet! what thou seest,
What thou hearest, there below!

Beauty, beauty, perfect beauty!
Sea and city, hills and air,
Rather blest imaginations
Than realities of fair.

Forms of grace alike contenting,
Casual glance and steadfast gaze,
Tender lights of pearl and opal
Mingling with the diamond blaze.
Sea as is but deepen'd ether:

White as snow-wreaths sunbeshone Lean the palaces and temples

Green and purple heights upon. Streets and paths mine eye is tracing, All replete with clamorous throng, Where I see and where I see not Waves of uproar roll along. As the sense of bees unnumber'd, Burning through the walk of limes,As the thought of armies gathering Round a chief in ancient times,— So from Corso, Port, and Garden Rises life's tumultuous strain, Not secure from wildest utterance Rests the perfect-crystal main. Still the all-enclosing beauty

Keeps my spirit free from harm,— Distance blends the veriest discords Into some melodious charm. -Overlooking, overhearing,

Venice and her sister isles, Stands the giant Campanile,

Massive mid a thousand piles.

Thou who to this open summit
Lovest at every hour to go,
Tell me, poet! what thou seest,
What thou hearest, there below.
Wonder, wonder, perfect wonder!
Ocean is the city's moat;

On the bosom of broad ocean

Seems the mighty weight to float:
Seems, yet stands as strong and stable
As on land e'er city shall,-
Only moves that ocean-serpent,
Tide-impell'd, the great canal.
Rich arcades and statued pillars,

Gleaming banners, burnish'd domes,-
Ships approaching,-ships departing,—
Countless ships in harbour-homes.
Yet so silent! scarce a murmur
Wing'd to reach this airy seat,
Hardly from the close piazza

Rises sound of voice or feet. Plash of oar or single laughter,

Cry or song of gondolier,-
Signals far between to tell me

That the work of life is here.
Like a glorious maiden dreaming
Music in the drowsy heat,
Lies the city, unbetokening

Where its myriad pulses beat.
And I think myself in cloudland,—
Almost try my power of will,
Whether I can change the picture,
Or it must be Venice still.
When the question wakes within me,
Which hath won the crown of deed,
Venice with her moveless silence,

Naples with her noisy speed? Which hath writ the goodlier tablet

For the past to hoard and show,
Venice in her student stillness,

Naples in her living glow?
Here are chronicles with virtues
Studded as the night with stars,—
Records there of passions raging
Through a wilderness of wars:
There a tumult of ambitions,

Power afloat on blood and tears,-
Here one simple reign of wisdom
Stretching thirteen hundred years:
Self-subsisting, self-devoted,

There the moment's hero ruled,— Here the state, each one subduing, Pride enchain'd and passion school'd: Here was art the nation's mistress, Art of colour, art of stone,There before the leman pleasure Bow'd the people's heart alone. Venice! vocal is thy silence,

Can our soul but rightly hear; Naples! dumb as death thy voices, Listen we however near.

PASTORAL SONG.

I WANDER'D by the brook-side,

I wander'd by the mill,-
I could not hear the brook flow,

The noisy wheel was still;
There was no burr of grasshopper,
No chirp of any bird,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

I sat beside the elm-tree,

I watcht the long, long shade,
And as it grew still longer,

I did not feel afraid;
For I listen'd for a footfall,

I listen'd for a word,

But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
He came not,-no, he came not,-
The night came on alone,-
The little stars sat one by one,
Each on a golden throne;
The evening air past by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirr'd,-
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
Fast silent tears were flowing,
When something stood behind,—
A hand was on my shoulder,

I knew its touch was kind:
It drew me nearer-nearer,—

We did not speak one word, For the beating of our own hearts Was all the sound we heard.

SONG OF THOUGHTS.

LET the lays from poet-lips

Shadow forth the speech of heaven,―

Let melodious airs eclipse

All delight to senses given; Yet to these my notes and words

Listen with your heart alone, While the thought that best accords Makes a music of its own.

Ye that in the fields of love

Feel the breath and bloom of spring. While I sing, securely rove,―

Rest in safety, while I sing.-
Ye that gaze with vain regret

Back towards that holy ground,
All the world between forgot
Spirit-rockt from sound to sound.

All indifference, all distrust,

From old friendships pass away! Let the faces of the just

Shine as in God's perfect day! Fix the faintest, fleetest smile,

E'er athwart your path has gleam'd— Take the charm without the wile,

Be the beauty all it seem'd!

Mid the flowers you love the best,
Summer pride or vernal boon-
By your favourite light carest,

Blush of eve or glow of noon,—
Blend the strains of happiest days
With the voices held most dear;
Children cast on weary ways!

Rest in peace and pleasaunce here.

Be the future's glorious page
In my tones to youth reveal'd;
Let the ruffled brow of age

With eternal calm be seal'd:
High as heaven's ethereal cope,
Wide as light's rejoicing ray,
Thoughts of memory! Thoughts of hope!
Wander, wander, while ye may.

RICH AND POOR.

WHEN God built up the dome of blue,
And portion'd earth's prolific floor,
The measure of his wisdom drew

A line between the rich and poor;
And till that vault of glory fall,

Or beauteous earth be scarr'd with flame, Or saving love be all in all,

That rule of life will rest the same.

We know not why, we know not how,
Mankind are framed for weal or wo-
But to the eternal law we bow;

If such things are, they must be so.
Yet, let no cloudy dreams destroy

One truth outshining bright and clear,
That wealth is only hope and joy,
And poverty but pain and fear.

Behold our children as they play!

Blest creatures, fresh from nature's hand; The peasant boy as great and gay

As the young heir to gold and land; Their various toys of equal worth,

Their little needs of equal care, And halls of marble, huts of earth,

All homes alike endear'd and fair.

They know no better! would that we
Could keep our knowledge safe from worse;
So power should find and leave us free,

So pride be but the owner's curse;
So, without marking which was which,
Our hearts would tell, by instinct sure,
What paupers are the ambitious rich!

How wealthy the contented poor!

Grant us, O God! but health and heart,
And strength to keep desire at bay,
And ours must be the better part,

Whatever else besets our way.
Each day may bring sufficient ill;
But we can meet and fight it through,
If hope sustains the hand of will,
And conscience is our captain too.

STANZAS.

BECAUSE, from all that round thee move, Planets of beauty, strength, and grace, I am elected to thy love,

And have my home in thy embrace, I wonder all men do not see

The crown that thou hast set on me. Because, when prostrate at thy feet,

Thou didst emparadise my pain,— Because thy heart on mine has beat, Thy head within my hands has lain, I am transfigured, by that sign,

Into a being like to thine.
The mirror from its glossy plain
Receiving still returns the light,
And being generous of its gain,

Augments the very solar might:
What unreflected light would be,
Is just thy spirit without me.

Thou art the flame, whose rising spire
In the dark air sublimely sways,
And I the tempest that swift fire

Gathers at first, and then obeys:
All that was thine ere we were wed
Have I by right inherited.

Is life a stream? Then from thy hair
One rosebud on the current fell,
And straight it turn'd to crystal there,
As adamant immovable:

Its steadfast place shall know no more
The sense of after and before.

Is life a plant? The king of years

To mine nor good nor ill can bring ;Mine grows no more; no more it fears Even the brushing of his wing; With sheathed scythe I see him go,I have no flowers that he can mow.

THE FRIENDSHIP FLOWER. WHEN first the Friendship-flower is planted Within the garden of your soul, Little of care or thought are wanted

To guard its beauty fresh and whole; But when the one empassion'd age

Has full reveal'd the magic bloom,
A wise and holy tutelage

Alone can shun the open tomb.
It is not absence you should dread,—
For absence is the very air
In which, if sound at root, the head
Shall wave most wonderful and fair;
With sympathies of joy and sorrow

Fed, as with morn and even dews,
Ideal colouring it may borrow
Richer than ever earthly hues.
But oft the plant, whose leaves unsere
Refresh the desert, hardly brooks

The common-peopled atmosphere

Of daily thoughts, and words, and looks;

It trembles at the brushing wings

Of many a careless fashion-fly, And strange suspicions aim their stings To taint it as they wanton by.

Rare is the heart to bear a flower,

That must not wholly fall and fade, Where alien feelings, hour by hour, Spring up, beset, and overshade; Better, a child of care and toil,

To glorify some needy spot, Than in a glad redundant soil

To pine neglected and forgot.

Yet when, at last, by human slight,
Or close of their permitted day,
From the sweet world of life and light
Such fine creations lapse away,-
Bury the relics that retain

Sick odours of departed pride,Hoard as ye will your memory's gain, But let them perish where they died.

THE MEN OF OLD.

I KNOW not that the men of old
Were better than men now,

Of heart more kind, of hand more bold,
Of more ingenuous brow:

I heed not those who pine for force
A ghost of time to raise,

As if they thus could check the course
Of these appointed days.

Still it is true, and over true,

That I delight to close
This book of life self-wise and new,
And let my thoughts repose
On all that humble happiness,
The world has since foregone,-
The daylight of contentedness

That on those faces shone!

With rights, though not too closely scann d,
Enjoyed, as far as known,-
With will by no reverse unmann'd,—
With pulse of even tone,-
They from to-day and from to-night
Expected nothing more,
Then yesterday and yesternight
Had proffer'd them before.

To them was life a simple art
Of duties to be done,

A game where each man took his part,
A race where all must run;

A battle whose great scheme and scope
They little cared to know,
Content, as men at arms, to cope
Each with his fronting foe.

Man now his virtue's diadem

Puts on and proudly wears,

Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,

Like instincts, unawares:

Blending their souls' sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,
They went about their gravest deeds,
As noble boys at play.

And what if nature's fearful wound
They did not probe and bare,
For that their spirits never swoon'd

To watch the misery there,

For that their love but flow'd more fast,

Their charities more free,

Not conscious what mere drops they cast
Into the evil sea.

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet,

It is the distant and the dim

That we are sick to greet:

For flowers that grow our hands beneath We struggle and aspire,

Our hearts must die, except they breathe The air of fresh desire.

But, brothers, who up reason's hill

Advance with hopeful cheer,
Oh! loiter not, those heights are chill,
As chill as they are clear;
And still restrain your haughty gaze,
The loftier that ye go,
Remembering distance leaves a haze
On all that lies below.

ON LADY C, IN DECLINING HEALTH.

GENTLY supported by the ready aid

Of loving hands, whose little work of toil
Her grateful prodigality repaid

With all the benediction of her smile,
She turned her failing feet
To the soft-pillow'd seat,
Dispensing kindly greetings all the while.

Before the tranquil beauty of her face

I bow'd in spirit, thinking that she were
A suffering angel, whom the special grace
Of God intrusted to our pious care,
That we might learn from her
The art to minister

To heavenly beings in seraphic air.
There seem'd to lie a weight upon her brain,

That ever prest her blue-vein'd eyelids down, But could not dim her lustrous eyes with pain, Nor seam her forehead with the faintest frown; She was as she were proud,

So young, to be allow'd

To follow Him who wore the thorny crown.

Nor was she sad, but over every mood,

To which her lightly-pliant mind gave birth, Gracefully changing, did a spirit brood, Of quiet gayety and serenest mirth;

And thus her voice did flow,

So beautifully low,

A stream whose music was no thing of earth.

Woman divine! ideal best-beloved,

Here was thy image realized to me; In sensible existence lived and moved The vision of my sacred phantasy;

Madonna! Mary mine!

Her look, her smile, was thine,-
And gazing on that form, I worshipt thee.

THE LONG-AGO.

EYES which can but ill define

Shapes that rise about and near, Through the far horizon's line

Stretch a vision free and clear: Memories feeble to retrace

Yesterday's immediate flow, Find a dear familiar face

In each hour of long-ago.

Follow yon majestic train

Down the slopes of old renown,
Knightly forms without disdain,

Sainted heads without a frown;
Emperors of thought and hand
Congregate, a glorious show,
Met from every age and land
In the plains of long-ago.

As the heart of childhood brings
Something of eternal joy,
From its own unsounded springs,
Such as life can scarce destroy;
So, remindful of the prime

Spirits, wandering to and fro,
Rest upon the resting time
In the peace of long-ago.
Youthful hope's religious fire,
When it burns no longer, leaves
Ashes of impure desire

On the altars it deceives;
But the light that fills the past
Sheds a still diviner glow,
Ever farther it is cast

O'er the scenes of long-ago.

Many a growth of pain and care,

Cumbering all the present hour, Yields, when once transplanted there, Healthy fruit or pleasant flower; Thoughts that hardly flourish here, Feelings long have ceased to blow, Breathe a native atmosphere

In the world of long-ago.

On that deep-retiring shore

Frequent pearls of beauty lie, Where the passion-waves of yore Fiercely beat and mounted high: Sorrows that are sorrows still Lose the bitter taste of woe; Nothing's altogether ill In the griefs of long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,

Ghastly tenements of tears, Wear the look of happy shrines Through the golden mist of years: Death, to those who trust in good, Vindicates his hardest blow; Oh! we would not, if we could, Wake the sleep of long-ago! Though the doom of swift decay Shocks the soul where life is strong, Though for frailer hearts the day

Lingers sad and overlong,Still the weight will find a leaven, Still the spoiler's hand is slow, While the future has its heaven, And the past its long-ago.

PRINCE EMILIUS OF HESSEN-DARM

STADT.

FROM Hessen-Darmstadt every step
To Moskwa's blazing banks,
Was Prince Emilius found in fight,
Before the foremost ranks;
And when upon the icy waste,
That host was backward cast,
On Beresina's bloody bridge,
His banner waved the last.

His valour shed victorious grace

On all that dread retreat,

That path across the wildering snow,
Athwart the blinding sleet;

And every follower of his sword
Could all endure and dare,
Becoming warriors strong in hope,
Or stronger in despair.

Now, day and dark, along the storm
The demon Cossacks sweep;

The hungriest must not look for food,
The weariest must not sleep;
No rest, but death, for horse or man,
Whichever first shall tire;-
They see the flames destroy, but ne'er
May feel the saving fire.

Thus never closed the bitter night,

Nor rose the savage morn, But from that gallant company Some noble part was shorn, And, sick at heart, the prince resolved, To keep his purposed way,

With steadfast, forward looks, nor count
The losses of the day.

At length beside a black-burnt hut,
An island of the snow,-
Each head in frigid stupor bent

Toward the saddle bow,

They paused, and of that sturdy troop, That thousand banded men,

At one unmeditated glance,
He number'd only ten!

Of all that high triumphant life
That left his German home,
Of all those hearts that beat beloved,
Or lookt for love to come,

This piteous remnant hardly saved
His spirit overcame,

While memory raised each friendly face,
And called each ancient name.

Then were his words serene and firm

66

Dear brothers, it is best

That here, with perfect trust in Heaven,
We give our bodies rest;

If we have borne, like faithful men,
Our part of toil and pain,

Where'er we wake, for Christ's good sake,

We shall not sleep in vain."

Some utter'd, others lookt assent,

They had no heart to speak;
Dumb hands were prest, the pallid lip,
Approacht the callous cheek;

They laid them side by side; and death
To him at least did seem

To come attired in mazy robe
Of variegated dream.

Once more he floated on the breast

Of old familiar Rhine,

His mother's and one other smile
Above him seemed to shine;

A blessed dew of healing fell

On every aching limb,

Till the stream broaden'd and the air
Thicken'd and all was dim.

Nature has bent to other laws,

If that tremendous night

Past o'er his frame exposed and worn,

And left no deadly blight;

Then wonder not that when refresht

And warm he woke at last,
There lay a boundless gulf of thought
Between him and the past.

Soon raising his astonisht head
He found himself alone,
Shelter'd beneath a genial heap

Of vestments not his own;
The light increast the solemn truth
Revealing more and more,-
His soldiers corses self-despoiled,
Closed up the narrow door.

That very hour, fulfilling good,
Miraculous succour came,
And Prince Emilius lived to give
This worthy deed to fame.
Oh, brave fidelity in death!

Oh, strength of loving will!
These are the holy balsam drops
That woful wars distil.