Instead of answering cannon comes a small
White flag; the iron gates are open flung,
And flowers along the invaders' pathway fall.
The city's conquerors feast their foes among,
And their brave flags are trophies on her wall.

W

LISTENING TO MUSIC.

HEN on that joyful sea

Where billow on billow breaks; where swift waves follow

Waves, and hollow calls to hollow;

Where sea-birds swirl and swing,

And winds through the rigging shrill and sing;

Where night is one vast starless shade;

Where thy soul not afraid,

Though all alone unlonely,

Wanders and wavers, wavers wandering:

"I COUNT MY TIME BY TIMES THAT I MEET THEE."

I

COUNT time by times that I meet thee;

my

These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons

And nights; these my old moons and my new moons.

Slow fly the hours, or fast the hours do flee,

If thou art far from or art near to me:

If thou art far, the birds' tunes are no tunes;
If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes,—
Darkness is light, and sorrow cannot be.

Thou art my dream come true, and thou my dream,
The air I breathe, the world wherein I dwell;
My journey's end thou art, and thou the way;
Thou art what I would be, yet only seem;
Thou art my heaven and thou art my hell;
Thou art my ever-living judgment day.

MORS TRIUMPHALIS.

I

'N the hall of the king the loud mocking of many at one; While lo! with his hand on his harp the old bard is undone!

One false note, then he stammers, he sobs like a child, he is failing, And the song that so bravely began ends in discord and wailing.

Can it be it is they who make merry, 'tis they taunting him?
Shall the sun, then, be scorned by the planets, the tree by the limb!
These bardlings, these mimics, these echoes, these shadows at play,
While he only is real:-they shine but as motes in his day!

All that in them is best is from him; all they know he has taught;
But one secret he never could teach, and they never have caught,-
The soul of his songs, that goes sighing like wind through the reeds,
And thrills men, and moves them to terror, to prayer, and to deeds.

Has the old poet failed, then,—the singer forgotten his part?
Why, 'twas he who once startled the world with a cry from his heart;
And he held it entranced in a life-song, all music, all love;

If now it grow faint and grow still, they have called him above.

Ah, never again shall we hear such fierce music and sweet,-
Surely never from you, ye who mock,-for his footstool unmeet;
E'en his song left unsung had more power than the note ye prolong,
And one sweep of his harp-strings outpassioned the height of your song.

But a sound like the voice of the pine, like the roar of the sea
Arises. He breathes now; he sings; oh, again he is free.
He has flung from his flesh, from his spirit, their shackles accursed,
And he pours all his heart, all his life, in one passionate burst.

And now as he chants those who listen turn pale-are afraid;
For he sings of a God that made all, and is all that was made;
Who is maker of love, and of hate, and of peace, and of strife;
Smiles a world into life; frowns a hell, that yet thrills with his life.

And he sings of the time that shall be when the earth is grown old,
Of the day when the sun shall be withered, and shrunken, and cold;
When the stars, and the moon, and the sun,-all their glory o'erpast,-
Like apples that shrivel and rot, shall drop into the Vast.

And onward and out soars his song on its journey sublime,
Mid systems that vanish or live in the lilt of his rhyme;
And through making and marring of races, and worlds, still he sings
One theme, that o'er all and through all his wild music outrings;-

This one theme: that whate'er be the fate that has hurt us or joyed,
Whatever the face that is turned to us out of the void;

Be it cursing or blessing; or night, or the light of the sun;
Be it ill, be it good; be it life, be it death, it is ONE;-

One thought, and one law, and one awful and infinite power;
In atom, and world; in the bursting of fruit and of flower;

The laughter of children, and roar of the lion untamed;

And the stars in their courses-one name that can never be named.

But sudden a silence has fallen, the music has fled;

Though he leans with his hand on his harp, now indeed he is dead!
But the swan-song he sang shall for ever and ever abide

In the heart of the world, with the winds and the murmuring tide.

THE CELESTIAL PASSION.

WHITE and midnight sky, O starry bath,

Wash me in thy pure, heavenly, crystal flood;
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath—
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!

Receive my soul, ye burning, awful deeps;

Touch and baptize me with the mighty power
That in ye thrills, while the dark planet sleeps;
Make me all yours for one blest, secret hour!

O glittering host, O high angelic choir,

Silence each tone that with thy music jars;
Fill me even as an urn with thy white fire
Till all I am is kindred to the stars!

Make me thy child, thou infinite, holy night,-
So shall my days be full of heavenly light!

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

TEL

ELL me what is this innumerable throng

Singing in the heavens a loud angelic song?

These are they who come with swift and shining feet

From round about the throne of God the Lord of Light to greet.

Oh, who are these that hasten beneath the starry sky

As if with joyful tidings that through the world shall fly?—

The faithful shepherds these, who greatly were afeared

When, as they watched their flocks by night, the heavenly host appeared.

Who are these that follow across the hills of night

A star that westward hurries along the fields of light?

Three wise men from the East who myrrh and treasure bring

To lay them at the feet of him their Lord and Christ and King.

What babe new-born is this that in a manger cries?

Near on her lowly bed his happy mother lies.

Oh, see the air is shaken with white and heavenly wings-
This is the Lord of all the earth, this is the King of Kings.

THOU

ON A PORTRAIT OF SERVETUS.

HOU grim and haggard wanderer who dost look With haunting eyes forth from the narrow page,— I know what fires consumed with inward rage

Thy broken frame, what tempests chilled and shook! Ah, could not thy remorseless foeman brook

Time's sure devourment, but must needs assuage

His anger in thy blood, and blot the age

With that dark crime which virtue's semblance took! Servetus! that which slew thee lives to-day,

Though in new forms it taints our modern air; Still in heaven's name the deeds of hell are done: Still on the high-road, 'neath the noon-day sun, The fires of hate are lit for them who dare Follow their Lord along the untrodden way.