I,
p ()0 LM S
BY
W. D. HOWELLS.
B&  S'I( 0) N
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.
I S 7 
I
I
Q7
Ia r
vg 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co.,
CAMBRIDGE. 
CONTENTS.
PAGE
3
13
.   19
'TTHE PILOT'S STORY
FORLORN  i. t, r. -~..
A PLEASURE-PAIN..
*     *.        26
.27
I AUU....              29
.    31
~..         32
. 49
*     *      *         51
*.*.. 54
*     *. 59
..          77
79
. 84
86
. 97
98
-%BUBBLES....
4 LOST BELIEFS...
Louis LEBEAU'S CONVERSION
CAPRICE....
'SWEET CLOVER....
. THE ROYAL PORTRAITS..
THE FAITHFUL OF THE GONZAGA
1 THE FIRST CRICKET
THE MULBERRIES...
BEFORE THE GATE.
CLEMENT..
BY THE SE.;.
SAINT CHRISTOPHER...
ELEGY ON JOHN BUITLER HOWELLS
THANKSGIVING....
A SPRINGTIIME.....
- IN EARLIEST SPRING.!'  I;. 
I-N AUGUST.
-TffE E —,IPTY IIOUSE.
100
105
106
108 
THE DOUBT 
THE THORN..
THE MiYSTERIES..
THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS
FOR ONE OF THE KILLED
THE Two WIVES..
. 127
129
.ER.E.....  130
TH S B D....131
VAGARY~.....  133
134
.  136
138
.  139
B      LEREAVED..
THE S-Now-BIRDS
VAGARY.
FEUERBILDER.
AVERY....
BOPEEP: A PASTORAL.
WHILE SHE SANG..
NAMING THE BIRD.
A POET....
CONVENTION. ~....
THE POET'S FiREINDS.
141
143
148
160
163
170
171
. 172 
THE PILOT'S STORY.
I.
T was a story the pilot told, with his back to
his hearers,
Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the
globe of the jack-staff,
Holding, the boat to the shore and out of the
sweep of the current,
Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the
drift-wood,
Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic
obeisance.
II.
All the soft, damp air was fill of delicate per       fume
From the young willows in bloom on either bank
of the river,
Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent
senses
Ill a luxurious dream of the river and land of the
lotus. 
4               The Pilot's Story.
Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were
withered;
In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and
of crimson
Folated in slumber serene; and the restless river
beneath them
Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in
its bosom;
Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of
the cypress;
Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's
expanses,
Beautiful, wood-grown isles, with the gleam of the
swart inundation
Seen through the swaying  boughs  and slender
trunks of their willows
And on the shore beside us the cotton-trees rose
in the evening,
Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the in       scrutable sadness
Of the mute races of trees.  While hoarsely the
steam from her'scape-pipes
Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted
again to the silence,
Trembling through all her frame with the mighty
pulse of her engines,
Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad
Mississippi, 
ltze Pilot's Story.
Bank-full, sweeping on, with tangled masses of
drift-wood,
Daintily breathed about with whiffs of silvery va      por,
Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow
ali,ghted,
And the belated blackbird paused on the way to
its nestlings.
III.
It was  the  pilot's story:   " They  both came
aboard there, at Cairo,
From a New Orleans boat,and took passag,e with
us for Saint Louis.
She was a beauLtiftil woman, with  just enough
blood from her mother
Darkening her eyes and her hair to make her
race known to a trader
You would have thought she was white.   The
man that was with her, - you see schiel,
Weakly good-inatured aid kind, and weakly good       natured and vicious,
Slender of body and soul, fit neither for loving
nor hating.
I was a youngster then, and only learning the
river, -
Not over-fond of the wheel.  I used to watch them
at monte,
5 
The Pilot's Story.
Down in the cabin at night, and learned to know
all of the gamblers.
So when I saw this weak one staking his money
against them,
Betting upon the turn of the cards, I knew what
was coining:
They never left their pigeons a single feather to
fly with.
Next day I saw them together, - the stranger and
one of the gamblers:
Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair
and moustaches,
Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes fromnt his
villanous forehead.
On together they moved, still earnestly talking in
whispers,
On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman
alone by the gangway.
Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and, be       holding her master,
Greeted him with a smile that was more like a
wife's than another's,
Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the
dread apprehension
Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the
frce of the gambler,
Dark and lustful and fierce and full of merciless
cunning.
6 
The Pilot's  Stoi'y.
Something was spoken so low that I could not
hear what the words were;
Only the womnan started, and looked from one to
the other,
With imploring eyes, bewildered hands,  and a
tremor
All through her franme: I saw her from where I
was standing, she shook so.
'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white
lips of her master
Died a sickly smile, and he said,'Louise, I have
sold you.'
God is my judge! May I never see such a look
of despairing,
Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast
on her master,
Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he
had stabbed her,
Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian
woman
Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old
Pocahontas!
Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the
throat of the dying,
Came  back  her  voice,  that,  rising,  fluttered,
through wild incoherence,
Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while
she answered:
7 
IThe  Pilot's  Stony.
'Sold me? sold me? sold-   And you promised
to give me my freedom! -
Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in
Saint Louis!
What will you say to our boy, when he cries for
me there in Saint Louis?
What will you say to our God.-Ah, you have
been joking! I see it!No. God! God! He shall hear it, - and all of
the angels in heaven,Even the devils in hell! - and none will believe
when they hear it!
Sold me!'- Her voice died away with a wail,
and in silence
Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face
with her fingers."
IV.
In his story a moment the pilot paused, while we
listened
To the salute of a boat, that, rounding the point
of an island,
Flamed toward us with fires that seemed to burn
from the waters,Stately and vast and swift, and borne on the heart
of the current.
Then, with the mighty voice of a giant challenged
to battle,
8 
The  Pilot's Story.
Rose the responsive whistle, and all the echoes of
island,
Swanmp-land, glade, and brake replied with a
myriad clamor,
Like wild birds that are suddenly startled from
slumber at midnight,
Then were at peace once more; and we heard the
harsh cries of the peacocks
Perched on a tree by a cabtin-door, where the
white-headed settler's
White-headed children stood to look at the boat
as it passed them,
Passed them so near that we heard their happy
talk and their laughter.
Softly the sunset had  faded, and now on the
eastern horizon
Hulng, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star of
the evening.
V.
Still with his back to us standing, the pilot went
on with his story:"All of us flocked round the womnan. The chil      dren cried, and their mothers
Hugged  them  tight to their breasts; but the
gambler said to the captain,'Put me off there at the town that lies round the
bend of the river.
9 
10              T/be Pilot's Story.
Here, you! rise at once, and be ready now to go
with me.'
Roughly lie seized the woman's arm and strove to
uplift her.
She- she seemed not to heed him, but rose like
one that is dreaming,
Slid from his grasp, and fleetly mounted the steps
of the gangway,
Up to the hurricane-deck, in silence, without lam       entatioin.
Straight to the stern of the boat, where the wheel
was, she ran, and the people
Followed her fast till she turned and stood It bay
for a moment,
Looking them in the face, and in the face of the
gambler.
Not one to save her,'- not one of all the compas       sionate people!
Not one to save her, of all the pitying angels in
heaven!
Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there
before her!
Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence
and horror.
Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of
passion
Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in
the night-time. 
The Pilot's Story.
White, she stood, and mute, till he put forth his
hand to secure her;
Then she turned and leaped,   in mid-air flut      tered a moment, -.
Down then, whirling, fell, like a broken-wilnged
bird from a tree-top,
Down on the cruel wheel, that caught her, and
hurled her, and crushed her,
And in the foaming water plunged her, and hid
her forever."
VI.
Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but
we heard him
Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope for
stopping. Then, turning,"This is the place where it happened," brokenly
whispered the pilot.
"Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in
the night-time."
Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay
in the starlight,
Cheerful with lamps. Below we could hear them
reversing the engines,
And the great boat glided up to the shore like a
giant exhausted.
Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps
to the eastward
11 
12              Tlte Pilot's Story.
Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling
wake into silver.
All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath
of the willows
Smote with a mystical sense of infinite sorrow
upon us. 
Forlorn.
FORiLORN.
I.
ED roses, in the slender vases burning,
Breathed all uponi the air,
The passion and the tenderness and yearning,
The waiting and the doubting and despair.
II.
Still with the music of her voice was haunted,
Through all its charmed rhymes,
The open book of sich a one as chanted
The things he dreamed in old, old summer-times.
III.
The silvern chords of the piano trembled
Still with the music wrung
From them; the silence of the room dissembled
The closes of the songs that she had sligg.
IV.
The languor of the crimnson shawl's abasement,  Lying without  a stir
13 
Forlorn.
Upon the floor,- the absence at the casement,
The solitude and hush were full of her.
V.
Without, and going from the room, and never
Departing, did depart
Her steps; and one that came too late forever
Felt them go heavy o'er his broken heart.
VI.
And, sitting in the house's desolation,
He could not bear the gloom,
The vanishing encounter and evasion
Of things that were and were not in the room.
VII.
Through midnight streets he followed fleeting
visions
Of faces and of forms;
He heard old tendernesses and derisions
Amid the sobs and cries of midnight storms.
VIII.
By midnight lamps, and from the darkness utinder
That lamps made at their feet,
He saw sweet eyes peer out in innocent wonderi,.
And sadly follow after him down the street.
14 
Forlorn.
IX.
The noonday crowds their restlessness obtruded
Between him and his quest;
At unseen corners jostled and eluded,
Against his hand her silken robes were pressed.
x.
Doors closed upon her; out of garret casements
He knew she looked at him; 
In splendid mansions and in squalid basements,
Upon the walls he saw her shadow swiim.
XI.
Fromn rapid carriages she gleamed upon him,
Whirling away from sight;
From all the hopelessness of search she won him
Back to the dull and lonesome house at night.
XII.
Full early into dark the twilights saddened
Within its closed doors;
The echoes, with the clock's monotony maddened,
Leaped loud in welcome from the hollow floors;
XIII.
But gusts that blew all day with solemn laughter
From wide-mouthed chimney-places,
15 
fo} lorn.
And the strange noises between roof and rafter,
The wainscot clamor, and the scampering races
XIV.
Of  mice  that chased each other  through  the
chambers,
And lup and down the stair,
And rioted among the ashen embers,
And left their frolic footprints everywhere,
Xv.
Were hushed to hear his heavy tread ascending
The broad steps, one by one,
And toward the solitary chamber tending,
Where the dim phantom of his hope alone
XVI.
Rose up to meet him, with his growing nearer,
Eager for his embrace,
And moved, and melted into the white mirror,
And stared at him with his own haggard face.
xVII.
But, turning, he was'ware /er looks beheld him
Out of the mirror white;
And at the window yearning arms she held him,
Out of the vague and sonmbre fold of night.
16 
Forlorln.
xvJII.
Sometimes she stood behind him, looking over
His shoulder as he read;
Sometimes he felt hler shadowy presence hover
Above his dreamful sleep, beside his bed;
XIX.
And rising from his sleep, her shadowy presence
Followed his light descent
Of the long stair; her shadowy evanesenece
Through all the whispering rooms before him
went.
XX.
Upon the earthy draught of cellars blowing
His shivering lamp-flame blue,
Amid the damp and chill, he felt her flowing
Around him from the doors he entered through.
XXI.
The spiders wove their webs upon the ceiling;
The bat clung to the wall;
The dry leaves through the open transom stealiug,
Skated and danced adown the empty hall.
XXII.
About him closed the utter desolation,
About him closed the gloom;
17
B 
Forlorn.
The vanishing encounter and evasion
Of things that were and were not in the room
XXIII.
Vexed him forever; and his life forever
Immured and desolate,
Beating itself, with desperate endeavor,
But bruised itself, against the round of fate.
XXIV.
The roses, in their slender vases burning,
Were quenched long before;
A dust was on the rhymes of love and yearnin,g;
The shawl was like a shroud upon the floor.
xxv.
Her music from the thrilling chords had perished;
The stillness was not moved
With memories of cadences long cherished,
The closes of the songs that she had loved.
XXVI.
But not the less he felt her presence never
Out of the room depart;
Over the threshold, not the less, forever
He felt her g,oing on his broken heart.
c2
18 
Pleasure-IPaiin.
PLEASURE-PAIN.
"Das Vergniigen ist Nichts als ein h6chst angenehmer
Schmerz. "- HEINRICH HEINE.
I.
ULL of beautiful blossoms
Stood the tree in early May:
Came a chilly gale from the sunset,
And blew the blossoms away;
Scattered them through the garden,
Tossed them into the mere:
The sad tree moaned and shuddered,
"Alas! the Fall is here."
But all through the glowing summer
The blossomless tree throve fair,
And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow,
With sunny rain and air;
And when the dim October
With golden death was crowned,
Under its heavy branches
The tree stooped to the ground.
I'll) 
Pleasure-Pain.
In youth there comes a west-wind
Blowing our bloom away,A chilly breath of Autumn.
Out of the lips of May.
We bear the ripe fruit after,
Ah, me! for the thought of pain! -
We know the sweetness and beauty
And the heart-bloom never again.
II.
One sails away to sea,
One stands on the shore and cries;
The ship goes down the world, and the light
On the sullen water dies.
The whispering shell is mute,
And after is evil cheer:
She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain,
Many and many a year.
But the stately, wide-winged ship
Lies wrecked on the unknown deep;
Far under, dead in his coral bed,
The lover lies asleep.
20 
Pleasure-Pain.
III.
Throug,h the silent streets of the city,
In the night's unbusy noon,
Up and down in the pallor
* Of the languid summer moon,
I wander, and think of the village,
And the house in the maple-gloom,
And the porch with the honeysuckles
And the sweet-brier all abloom.
Mv soul is sick with the fragrance
Of the dewy sweet-brier's breath:
O darling! the house is empty,
And lonesomer than death!
If I call, no one will answer;
If I knock, no one will come:
The feet are at rest forever,
And the lips are cold and dumb.
The summer moon is shining
So wan and large and still,
And the weary dead are sleeping
In the graveyard under the hill.
21 
Pleasure-Pain.
IV.
We looked at the wide, white circle
Around the Autumn moon,
And talked of the change of weather:
It would rain, to-morrow, or soon.
And the rain camne on the morrow,
And beat the dying leaves
From the shuddering boughs of the maples
Into the flooded eaves.
The clouds wept out their sorrow;
But in my heart-the tears
Are bitter for want of weeping,
In all these Autumn years.
V.
The bobolink sings in the meadow,
The wren in the cherry-tree:
Come hither, thou little maiden,
And sit upon my knee;
And I will tell thee a storv
I read in a book of rhyme;
I will but fain that it happened
To me, one summer-time,
22 
Pleatstre —Paijt.
When we walked thro,ugh the meadow,
And she and I were young.
The story is old and weary
With being said and sunig.
The story is old and weary:
Ah, child! it is known to thee.
Who was it that last night kissed thee
Under the cherry-tree?
VI.
Like a bI)ird of evil presage,
To the lonely house on the shore
Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck,
And shrieked at the bolted door,
And flapped its wings in the gables,
And shouted the well-known names,
And buffeted the windows
Afeard in their shuddering frames.
It was night, and it is morning, -
The summer sun is bland,
The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
In to the summer land.
The white-cap waves come rocking,, rocking,
In the sun so soft and bright,
23 
Plects24   e-Paiii.
And toss and play with the dead man
Drowned in the storm last night.
VII.
I remember the burning brushwood,
Glimmering all day long
Yellow and weak in the stnlight,
Now leaped up red and strong,
And fired the old dead chestnut,
That all our years had stood,
Gaunt and gray and ghostly,
Apart from the sombre wood;
And, flushed with sudden summer,
The leafless boughs on high
Blossomed in dreadful beauty
Against the darkened sky.
We children sat telling stories,
And boasting what we should be,
When we were men like our fathers,
And watched the blazing tree,
That showered its fiery blossoms,
Like a rain of stars, wve said,
Of crimson and azure and purple.
That night, when I lay in bed,
24 
Pleascstre-Pain.
I could not sleep for seeing,
Whenever I closed my eyes,
The tree in its dazzling splendor
Against the darkened skies.
I cannot sleep for seeing,
With closed eyes to-night,
The tree in its dazzling splendor
Dropping its blossoms bright;
And old, old dreams of childhood
Come thronging my weary brain,
Dear, foolish beliefs and longings:
I doubt, are they real again.
It is nlothing, and nothing, and nothing,
That I either think or see:
The phantoms of dead illusions
To-nig,ht are haunting mie.
2
25 
I2  _ Augtst.
IN AUGUST.
LL the long August afternoon,
The little drowsy stream
Whispers a melancholy tune,
As if it dreamed of June
And whispered in its dream.
The thistles show beyond the brook
Dust on their down and bloom,
And out of many a weed-grown nook
The aster-flowers look
With eyes of tender gloom.
The silent orchard aisles are sweet
With smtell of ripening fruit.
Through the sere grass, in shy retreat,
Flutter, at coming feet,
The robins strange and mute.
There is no wind to stir the leaves,
The harsh leaves overhead;
Only the querulous cricket grieves,
And shrilling locust weaves
A song of Summer dead.
26 
Thte ~mipty House.
THE EMPTY HOUSE.
HTE wet trees hang above the walks
Purple with damps and earthish stains,
And strewn by moody, absent rains
With rose-leaves from the wild-grown stalks.
Unmoown, in heavy, tangled swaths,
The ripe June-grass is wanton blown;
Snails slime the untroddenl threshold-stone;
Along, the sills hang drowsy moths.
Down the blank visage of the wall,
Where many a wavering trace appears,
Like a forgotten trace of tears,
From swollen eaves the slow drops crawl.
Where everything was wide before,
The curious wind, that comes and goes,
Finds all the latticed windows close,
Secret and close the bolted door.
And with the shrewd and curious wind,
That in the arch6d doorway cries,
27 
The Empty B?ouse.
And at the bolted portal tries,
And harks and listens at the blind,
Forever lurks my thougoht about,
And in the ghostly middle-night
Finds all the hidden windows bright,
And sees the guests go in and out,
And lingers till the pallid dawn,
And feels the mystery deeper there
In silent, gust-swept chambers, bare,
With all the midnight revel gone;
But wanders through the lonesome rooms,
Where harsh the astonished cricket calls,
And, from the hollows of the walls
Vanishing, start unshapen glooms;
And lingers yet, and cannot come
Out of the drear and desolate place,
So full of ruin's solemn grace,
And haunted with the ghost of home.
28 
29
BUBBLES.
I.
STOOD on the brink in childhood,
And watched the bubbles go
From the rock-fretted, sunny ripple
To the smoother tide below;
And over the white creek-bottom,
Under them every one,
Went golden stars in the water,
All luminous with the sun.
But the bubbles broke on the surface,
And under, the stars of gold
Broke; and the hurrying water
Flowed onward, swift and cold.
II.
I stood on the brink in manhood,
And it came to my weary brain,
And my heart, so dull and heavy
After the years of pain, —
Babbles. 
30
That every hollowest bubble
Which over my life had passed
Still into its deeper current
Some heavenly gleam had cast;
That, however I mocked it gayly,
And guessed at its hollowness,
Still shone, with each bursting bubble,
One star in my soul the less.
Bubbles. 
Lost Beliel.
LOST BELIEFS.
NE  after one they left us;
The sweet birds out of our breasts
Went flying away in the morning:
Will they come again to their nests.
Will they come again at nightfall,
With God's breath in their song?
Noon is fierce with the heats of summer,
And summer days are long!
O my Life, with thy upward liftings,
Thy downward-striking roots,
Ripening out of thy tender blossoms
But hard and bitter fruits! -
In thy boughs there is no shelter
For the birds to seek again.
The desolate nest is broken
And torn with storms and rain!
31 
32          Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
LOUIS LEBEAU'S CONVERSION.
-ESTE RDAY, while I moved with the lan     guid crowd on the Riva,
Musing with idle eyes on the wide lagoons and the
islands,
And on the dim-seen seaward glimmering sails in
the distance,
Where the azure haze, like a vision of Indian      Summner,
Haunted the dreamy sky of the soft Venetian
December,
While I moved unwilled in the mellow warmth of
the weather,
Breathing air that was full of Old World sadness
and beauty
Into my thought came this story of free, wild life
in Ohio,
When the land was new, and yet by the Beautifiul
River
Dwelt the pioneers and Indianl hunters and boat      men. 
Louis Lebeau's Conversions.         33
Pealed from the campanili,  responding  from
island to island,
Bells of that ancient faith whose incense and sol      emn devotions
Rise from a hundred shrines in the broken heart
of the city;
But in my revery heard I only the passionate
voices
Of the people that sang in the virgin heart of the
forest.
Autumnn was in the land, and the trees were golden
and crimson,
And from the luminous boughs of the over-elms
and the maples
Tender and beautiful fell the light in the worship      pers' faces,
Softer than lights that stream through the saints
on the windows of churches,
While the balsamy breath of the hemlocks and
pines by the river
Stole on the winds through the woodland aisles
like the breath of a censer.
Loud the people sang old camp-meeting anthems
that quaver
Quaintly yet from lips forgetful of lips that have
kissed them;
2* 
c 
34         Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Loud they sang the songs of the Sacrifice and
Atonement,
And of the end of the world, and the infinite ter       rors of Jtldgment  -
Songs of ineffable sorrow, and wailing, compassion       ate warning
Unto the generations that hardened their hearts to
their Savior;
Songs of exultant rapture for them that confessed
him and followed,
Bearing his burden and yoke, enduring and en       tering with him
Into the rest of his saints, and the endless reward
of the blessed.
Loud the people sang; but through the sound of
their singing
Broke inarticulate cries and moans and sobs from
the mourners,
As the glory of God, that smote the apostle of
Tarsus,
Smote them and strewed them to earth like leaves
ill the breath of the whirlwind.
Hushed at last was the sound of the lamenta      tion and singing;
But from the distant hill the throbbing drum of
the pheasant 
Louis Lebeau's Conversions.
Shook with its heavy pulses the depths of the
listening silence,
When from his place arose a white-haired exhorter,
and faltered:
Brethren and sisters in Jesus! the Lord hath
heard our petitions,
So that the hearts of his servants are awed and
melted within them,
Even the hearts of the wicked are touched by his
infinite mercy.
All my days in this vale of tears the Lord hath
been with me,
He hath been good to me, he hath granted me
trials and patience;
But this hour hath crowned my knowledge of
him and his goodness.
Truly, but that it is well this day for me to be
with you,
Now might I say to the Lord,-' I know thee,
my God, in all ftilness;
Now let thy servant depart in peace to the rest
thou hast promised!'"
Faltered and ceased. And now the wild and
jubilant imusic
Of the singing burst from the solemn profoiund of
the silence,
3.11) 
36            Louis Lebeat's Cotversion.
Surged in triumph, and fell, and ebbed again into
silence.
Then from the group of the preachers arose the
greatest among them,
He whose days were given in youth to the praise
of the Savior,
He whose lips seemed touched, like the prophet's
of old, from the altar,
So that his words were flame, and burned to the
hearts of his hearers,
Quickening the dead among them, reviving the
cold and the doubting.
There he charged them pray, and rest not from
prayer while a sinner       -
In the sound of their voices denied the Friend of
the sinner:
Pray till the night shall fall, - till the stars are
faint ill the morning,
Yea, till the sun himself be faint in that glory and
brightness,
Faint in the light which shall dawn in mercy for
penitent sinners."
Knieeling, he led them in prayer; and the quick
and sobbing responses
Spake how their souls were mroved with the might
and the grace of the Spirit. 
Louis Lebeaut's Conversion.
Then while the converts recounted how God had
chastened and saved them,
CIildren, whose golden locks yet shone with the
lingering effulgence
Of the touches of Him who hiessed little children
Old men, whose yearning eyes were dimmed with
the far-streaming bri,ghtness
Seen through the opening gates in the heart of
the heavenly city,
Stealthily through the harking woods the lengthen         ing shadows
Chased the wild things to their nests, and the
twilight died into darklness.
Now the four great pyres that were placed
there to light the encampment,
High on platforms raised above the people, were
kindled.
Flaming aloof, as it were the pillar by night in the
Desert
Fell their crimson light on the lifted orbs of the
preachers,
Fell on the withered brows of the old men, and
Israel's mothers,
Fell on tlhe bloom of youth, and the earnest devo         tion of manhood,
37 
38          Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Fell on the anguish and hope in the tearful eyes
of the mourners.
Flaming aloof, it stirred the sleep of the luminous
maples
With warm summer-dreams, and fainit, luxurious
languor.
Near the four great pyres the people closed in a
circle,
In their midst the mourners, and, praying with
them, the exhorters,
And on the skirts of the circle the unrepentant
and scorners,
Ever fewer and sadder, and drawn to the place of
the mourners,
One after one, by the prayers and tears of the
brethren and sisters,
And by the Spirit of God, that was mightily striv       ing within them,
Till at the last alone stood Louis Lebeau, uncon       verted. 
Louis Lebeati, the boatman, the trapper, the
hunter, the fighter,
From  the unlucky French of Gallipolis he de       scended,
Heir to Old World want and New World love of
adventure. 
Lo?tis Lebeau's Conversion.         39
Vague was the life he led, and vague and gro      tesque were the rumors
Through which he loomed on the people, —the
hero of mythical hearsay,
Quick of hand and of heart, impatient, generous,
Western,
Taking the thought of the young in secret love
and in envy.
Not less the elders shook their heads and held
him for outcast,
Reprobate, roving, ungodly, infidel, worse than a
Papist,
With his whispered fame of lawless exploits at St.
Louis,
Wild affrays and loves with the half-breeds out on
the Osage,
Brawls at New Orleans, and all the towns on the
rivers,
All the  godless  towns of  the  many-ruffianed
rivers.
Only she who loved him the best of all, in her
loving
Knew him the best of all, and other than that of
the rumors.
Daily she prayed for him, with conscious and ten       der effusion,
That the Lord would convert him. But when her
father forbade him 
Loitis Lebeait's Conversion.
Unto her thought, she denied him, and likewise
held him for outcast,
Turned her eyes when they met, and would not
speak, though her heart broke.
Bitter and brief his logic that reasoned from
wrong unto error:
"This is their praying and singing," he said,
"that makes you reject me,
You that were kind to me once.  But I think my
fathers' religion,
With a light heart in the breast and a friendly
priest to absolve one,
Better than all these conversions that only be       wilder and vex me,
And  that have  made men so hard  and womrnen
fickle and cruel.
Well, then, pray for my soul, since you would not
have spoken to save me, -
Yes; for I go from these saints to my brethren
and sisters, the sinners."
Spoke  and went, while her  ftint lips fashioned
unuttered entreaties,Went, and came again in a year at the time of
the meeting,
Haggard and wan of face, and wasted with passion
and sorrow.
40 
Loutis Lebeau's Conversion.,
Dead in his eyes was the careless smile of old,
and its phantom
Haunted his lips in a sneer of restless, incredulous
mocking.
Day by day he came to the outer skirts of the
circle,
Dwelling on her, where she knelt by the white      haired exhorter, her father,
With his hollow looks, and never moved from his
silence.
Now, where he stood alone, the last of impeni       tent sinners,
Weeping, old friends and comrades came to him
out of the circle,
And with their tears besought him to hear what
the Lord had done for them.
Ever he shook them ofi; not roughly, nor smiled
at their transports.
Then the preachers spoke and painted the terrors
of Judgment,
And of the bottomless pit, and the flames of hell
everlasting.
Still and dark he stood, and neither listened nor
heeded;
But when the fervent voice of the white-haired
exhorter was lifted,
41 
Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Fell his brows in a scowl of fierce and scornful
rejection.
"Lord, let this soul be saved!" cried the fervent
voice of the old man;
"For that the Shepherd rejoiceth more truly for
one that hath wandered,
And hath been found again, than for all the
others that strayed not."
Out of the midst of the people, a womanl old
and decrepit,
Tremulous through the light, and tremulous into
the shadow,
Wavered toward him with slow, uncertain paces
of palsy,
Laid her quivering hand on his arm and brokenly
prayed him:
"Louis Lebeau, I closed in death the eyes of your
mother.
On my breast she died, in prayer for her fatherless
children,
That they might know the Lord, and follow him
always, and serve him.
0, I conjure you, my son, by the name of your
mother in glory,
Scorn not the grace of the Lord!"  As when a
summer-noon's tempest
42 
Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Breaks in one swift gush of rain, then ceases and
gathers
Darker and gloomier yet on the lowering front of
the heavens,
So broke his mood in tears, as he soothed her, and
stilled her entreaties,
And so he turned again with his clouded looks to
the people.
Vibrated then from the hush the accents of
mournfullest pity,
His who was gifted in speech, and the glow of the
fires illtumined
All his pallid aspect with sudden and marvellous
splendor:
"Louis Lebeau," he spake, "I have known you
and loved you from childhood;
Still, when the others blamed you, I took your
part, for I knew you.
Louis Lebeau, my brother, I thought to meet you
in heaven,
Hand in hand with her who is gone to heaven
before us,
Brothers through her dear love! I trusted to
greet you and lead you
Up from the brink of the River unto the gates of
the City.
43 
44          Lotois Lebeaut's Conzversio,.
Lo! my years shall be few on the earth.   0  my
brother,
If I should die before you had known the mercy
of Jesus,
Yea, I think it would sadden the hope of glory
within me"
Neither yet had the will of the sinner yielded
an answer;
But from his lips there broke a cry of unspeakable
an,guish,
Wild and fierce and shrill, as if some demon witlhin
him
Rent his soul with the ultimate pangs of fiendish
possession;
And with tho outstretched arms of bewildered
imploring toward them,
Death-white unto the people he turned his face
firm the darkness.
Out of the sedge by the creek a flight of clam       orous killdees
Rose from their timorous sleep with piercing and
itcrant challenge,
\Wheeled in the starlight, and fled away into dis       tance and silence.
White in the vale lay the tents, and beyond them
glided the river, 
Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Wnhere the broadhorn * drifted slow at the will of
the current,
And where the boatman listened, and knew not
how, as he listened,
Somethingo touched through the years the old lost
hopes of his childhood,Only  his sense was filled with low, monotonous
nurmurs,
As of a faint-heard prayer, that was chorused with
deeper responses.
Not with the rest was lifted her voice in the
fervent responses,
But in hei soul she prayed to Him  that heareth
in secret,
Aslking for light and for strength to learn his will
and to do it:
"0,  make me clear to know if the hope that rises
within me            ~
Be not part of a love unmeet for me here, and
forbidden!
So, if it be not that, make me strong for the evil
entreaty
Of the days that shall bring me question of self
and reproaches,
* The old-fashlioned flatboats were so called.
45 
46          Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
When the unrighteous shall mock, and my breth       ren and sisters shall doubt me!
Make me worthy to know thy will, my Savior,
and do it!"
In her pain she prayed, and at last, through her
mute adoration,
Rapt from all mortal presence, and in her rapture
uplifted,
Glorified she rose, and stood in the midst of the
people,
Looking on all with the still, unseeing eyes of
devotion,
Vague, and tender, and sweet, as the eyes of the
dead, when we dream them
Living and looking on us, but they cannot speak,
and we cannot,
Knowing only the peril that threatened his soul's
unrepentance,
Knowilng only the fear and error and wtong that
withheld him,
Thinking, "In doubt of me, his soul had perished
forever!"
Touched with no feeble shame, but trusting her
power to save him,
Through the circle she passed, and straight to the
side of helr lover,
Took his hand in her own, and mutely imnplored
him all instant, 
Louis Lebeau's Conversion.
Aiswering, giving, forgiving, confessing, beseech       ing him all things;
Drew him then with her, and passed once more
through the circle
Unto her place, anid knelt with him there by the
side of her father,
Trembling as women tremble who greatly venture
and triumph,But   in her innocent breast was the saint's sub      lime exultation.
So was Louis converted; and thotugh the lips
of the scorners
Spared not in after years the subtle taunt and
derision
(What time, meeker gTown, his heart held his
hand from its answer),
Not the less lofty and pure her love and her faith
that had saved him,
Not the less now discerned was her inspiration
from heaven
By the people, that rose, and embracing and
weeping together,
Poured forth their jubilant soings of victory and
of thaniksg,iving,
Till from the embers leaped the dying, flame to
behold them,
47 
48         JLotis Lebeau's Co~,version.
And the hills of the river were filled with rever       beranit echoes,
Echoes that out of the years and the distance stole
to me hither,
WThile I moved unwilled in the mellow warmth of
the weather;
Echoes that mingled and fainted and fell with the
fluttering murmurs
In the hearts of the hushing bells, as from island
to island
Swooned the sound on the wide lagoons into pal       pitaut silence. 
Cap)rice.
CAPRICE.
I.
HE hung the cage at the window:
"If he goes by," she said,
IHe will hear nmy robin singing,
And when he lifts his head,
I shall be sitting here to sew,
And he will bow to me, I know."
The robin sang, a love-sweet song,
The young mnan raised his head;
The maidenl turned away and blushed:
" I am a fool!" she said,
And went on broidering in silk
A pink-eyed rabbit, white as milk.
II.
The youing man loitered slowly
By the house three timnes that day;
She took her bird from the window:
"He need not look this way."
She sat at her piano long,
And sighed, and played a death-sad song.
3                         1)
49 
Caprice.
But when the day was done, she said,
"I wish that he would come!
Remember, Mary, if he calls
To-nig,ht - I'm not at home."
So when he rang, she went - the elf!
She went and let him in herself.
II1.
They sang fill long together
Their songs love-sweet, death-sad;
The robin woke from his slumber,
And rang out, clear and glad.
" Now go! " she coldly said; "'t is late; "
And followed him -to latch the gate.
He took the rosebud from her hair,
While, " You shall not!" she said;
He closed her hand within his own,
And, while her toingue forbade,
Her will was darkened in the eclipse
Of blinding love upon his lips. 
Sweet Clover.
SWEET CLOVER.
- AMyv letters back to me."
I.
IKNOW they won the faint perfilme,
That to their faded pages clings,
From gloves, and handkerchiefs, and things
Kept in the soft and scented gloom
Of some mysterious box — poor leaves
Of sunmmer, now as sere and dead
As any leaves of summer shed
From crimson bougohs when autumn grieves!
The ghost of fragrance! Yet I thrill
All through with such delicious pain
Of soul and sense, to breathe again
The sweet that haunted memory still.
And under these December skies,
As bland as May's in other climes,
I move, and muse my idle rhymes
And subtly sentimeneltalize.
51 
Sweet Clover.
I hear the music that was played,
The songs that silence knows by heart! -
I see sweet burlesque feigning art,
The careless grace that curved and swayed
Through dances and through breezy walks;
I feel once more the eyes that smiled,
And that dear presence that beguiled
The pauses of the foolish talks,
When this poor phantom of perfume
Was the Sweet Clover's living soul,
And breathed from her as if it stole,
Ah, heaven! fronm her heart in bloom!
II.
We have not many wvays with pain:
We weep weak tears, or else we laugh;
I doubt, not less the cup we quaff,
And tears and scorn alike are vain.
But let me live my quiet life;
I will not vex my calm with grief,
I only know the pang was brief,
And there an end of hope and strife.
52 
Sweet Clover.
And thong  I put the letters by:
In years the sweetness shall not pass;
More than the perfect blossonm  was
I count its ling,ering memory.
Alas! with Time dear Love is dead,
And not with Fate.  Anid who can guess
How weary of our happiness
We might have been if we were wed?.
Vcnice, S1861.
53 
PRoyal Port}aits.
THE ROYAL PORTRAITS.
(AT LUDWIGSHOF.)
I.
C ONFRONTING each other the pictuies stare
Into each other's sleepless eves;
And the daylight into the darkness dies,
From year to year in the palace there
But they watch and guard that no device
Take either one of themn unaware.
Their majesties the king and the queen,
The parents of the reigning prince:
Both put off royalty many years since,
With life and the gifts that have always beenii
Given to kings from God, to evince
His sense of the mighty over the mnean.
I cannot say that I like the face
Of the king; it is something fat and red;
And the neck that lifts the royal head
Is thick and coarse; and a scanty grace
Dwells in the dull blue eyes that are laid
Sullenly on the queen in her place.
54 
Royal Portra-its.
He must have been a king in his day
'T were wetto pleasure in work and sport:
One of the heaven-anointed sort
Who ruled his pe.ple with iron sway,
And knew that, thlrough good and evil report,
God meant him to rule and them to obey.
There are many other likenesses
Of the king in his royal palace there;
You find him depicted everywhere,In his robes of state, in his hunting-dress,
In his flowing, wigx, in his powdered hair,
A king in all of them, none the less;
But most himself in this on the wall
Over against his consort, whose
Laces, and hoops, and high-hleeled shoes
Make her the finest lady of all
The queens or courtly dames you choose,
In the ancestral portrait hall.
A glorious blonde: a luxury
Of luring blue and wanton gold,
Of blanched rose and crimson bold,
Of lines that flow voluptuously
In tender, languorous curves to fold
Her form ill perfect symmetry.
55 
Royal Portraits.
She might nave been false. Of her withered dust
There scarcely would he einough to write
Her guilt in now; and the dead have a right
To outr lenient doubt if not to our trust:
So if the truth cannot make her white,
l,et us be as merciful as we — must.
II.
'IThe queen died first, the queen died youing,
Buit the king was very old when he died,
Rotten with license, and lust, and pride;
And the usual Virtues came and hung
Their cypress wreaths on his tomb, and wide
Throughout his kingdom his praise was sung'.
How the queen died is not certainly known,
And faithful subjects are all forbid
To speak of the niirder which some one did
One night while she slept in the dark alone:
History keeps the story hid,
And Fear only tells it in undertone.
Up from your startled feet aloof,
In the fitmous Echo-Pooin, with a bound
Leaps the echo, and round and round
Beating itself against the roof,
A horrible, gasping, shuddering soiund,
l)ies ere its terror can uttter proof
56 
P-oyal Portraits.
Of that it knows.  A door is fatst,
And none is suffered to enter there.
His sacred imajesty could not bear
To look at it towar,d the last,
As he grew very old. It opened where
Thlle queen died youing so many years past.
III.
How the queen died is not certainly known
But in the palace's solitude
A harking dread and horror brood,
And a silence, as if a mortal groan
Had been hushed the moment b)efore, and would
Break forth again when youL were gone.
The present king has never dwelt
In the desolate palace. From year to year
In the wide and stately garden drear
The snows and the snowy blossoms melt'
Unheeded, and a ghastly fear
Through all the shivering leaves is felt.
By night the gathering shadows creep
Along the dusk and hollow halls,
And the slumber-lroken palace calls
With stifled moans from its nightmare sleep;
And then the ghostly moonlight falls
Athwart the darkness brown and deep.
3 *
57 
-loyal Portraits.
At early dawn the light wind sighs,
And through the desert garden blows
The wasted sweetness of the rose;
At noon the feverish sunshine lies
Sick inll the walks.  But at evening's close,
When the last, long rays to the windows rise,
And with miany a blood-red, wrathful streak
Pierce through the twilight glooms that blur
His cruel vigilance and her
Regard, they light fierce looks that wreak
A hopeless hate that cannot stir,
A voiceless hate that cannot speak
In the awful calm of the sleepless eyes;
And as if she saw her murderer glare
On her face, and he the white despair
Of his victim kindle in wild sturmise,
Confronted the conscious pictures stare,
And their secret back into darkness dies.
58 
The Fctitlful of the Gonzaya.
THE FAITHFUL OF THE GONZAGA.?
I.
EDERIGO, the son of the Marquis,
Downcast, through the garden goes:
He is hurt with the grace of the lily,
And the beauty of the rose.
For what is the grace of the lily
But her own slender grace.
Anld what is the rose's beauty
But the beauty of her face  -
Who sits beside her window
Waiting to welcome him,
*I- The author of this ballad has added a thread of evident
love-story to a most romantic incident of the history of ilantua,
hvlich occurred in.tlhe fifteenth century. Itc relates the incideit so nearly as lie found it in the Crontche:fonitovane, that
lie is ashamed to say how little his invention has been employed
in it.  The hero of the story, Federigo, becaimc the third Marquis of Miintua, and was a prince greatly beloved and honored
by his subjects.
59 
60        Tlte Faitlful of the Gonzatya.
That comes so lothly toward her
With his visage sick and dim.
"Ah! lily, I come to break thee!
Ah! rose, a bitter rain
Of tears shall beat thy light out
That thou never burnl again!"
II.
Federigo, the son of the Marquis,
Takes the lady by the hand:
"Thoui  must bid me God-speed on a journey,
For I leave my native land.
"From Mantua to-morrow
I go, a banished man;
Make me glad for truth and love's sake
Of my father's curse anld ban.
"Our quarrel has left my mother
Like death upon the floor;
And I come from a filrious presence
I nevcr shall enter morc.
"I would not wed the woman
HI-Ic had chosen for my bride,
For mry hleart had been before hirm,
With his statecraft anld his pridce. 
T'he Fcait/lfil of the Go6zzcya.
"I swore to him by my princehood
In nmy love I would be free;
And I swear to thee by miy manhood,
I love no one but thee.
"Let the Dluke of Bavaria marry
His daughter to whom he will:
There where my love was given
My word shall be faithful still.
"There are six true hearts will follow
My truth wherever I go,
And thou equal truth wilt keep me
In welfare and in woe."
The maiden answered him nothing
Of herself, but his words again
Came back through her lips like an echo
From an abyss of pailn;
And vacantly repeatinug
" In welfare and in woe,"
Like a dream from the heart of fever
From her arms she felt him go.
III.
Out of Mantua's gate at daybreak
Seven comrades wander forth
61 
62        T'he Faithful of the Gonzaga.
On a path that leads at their humor,
East, west, or south, or north.
The prince's laugh rings lightly,
"What road shall we take from home I"
And they answer, "We never shall lose it
If we take the road to Rome."
And with many a jest and banter
The comrades keep their way,
Journeying out of the twilight
Forward into the day,
When they are aware beside them
Goes a pretty minstrel lad,
With a shy and downward aspect,
That is neither sad nor glad.
Over his slender shoulder,
His mandolin was slung,
And around its chords the treasure
Of his glden tresses hung.
Spoke one of the seven companions,
"Little minstrel, whither away  " -"
"With seven true-hearted'comrades
On their journey, if I may." 
The Faithful of the Gonzaga.
Spoke one of the seven comnpanions,
"If our way be hard and long  " -
"I will lighten it with my music
And shorten it with my song."
Spolt one of the seven companions,
"But wh:at are the songs thou know'st I "
" 0, I know many a ditty,
But this I sing the most:
" How once was an humble maiden
Beloved of a great lord's son,
That for her sake and his troth's sake
Was banished and undone.
"And forth of his father's city
Ile went at break of day,
And the maiden softly followed
Behind him on the way
"In the figure of a minstrel,
And prayed him of his love,
' Let me go with thee and serve thee
Wherever thou may'st rove.
"' For if thou goest in exile
I rest banished at home,
63 
64        Tlie Faithaful of the Gonzaga.
And where thou wanderest with thee
My fears in anguish roam,
"' Besetting thy path with perils,
Making thee hungry and cold,
Filling thy heart with trouble
And heaviness untold.
"'But let me go beside thee,
And banishment shall I)be
Honor, and riches, and country,
And home to thee and me!'"
Down falls the minstrel-mnaiden
Before the Marquis' son,
And the six true-hearted comrades
Bow round them every one.
Federigo, the son of the Marquis,
From its scabbard draws his sword:
"Now swear by the honor and fealty
Ye bear your friend and lord,
"That whenever, and wherever,
As long as ye have life,
Ye will honor and serve this lady
As ye would your prince's wife!" 
'The Faithfutl of the Gonzayga.
IV.
Over the broad expanses
Of garlanded Lombardy,
Where the gentle vines are swinging
In the orchards from tree to tree;
Through Padua from Verona,
From the sculptured gothic town,
Carved from ruin upon ruin,
And ancienter than renown;
Through Padua from Verona
To fair Venice, where she stands
With her feet on subject waters,
Lady of many lands;
From Venice by sea to Ancona;
From Ancona to the west;
Climbing many a gardened hillside
And many a castled crest;
Through valleys dim with the twilight
Of their gray olive trees;
Over plains that swimin with harvests
Like golden noonday seas;
Whence the lofty campanili
Like the masts of ships arise,
E
65 
66       CThe Faithful of tle Gonzaga.
And like a fleet at anchor
Under them, the village lies;
To Florence beside her Arno,
In her many-marbled pride,
Crowned with infamy and glory
By the sons she has denied;
To pitiless Pisa, where never
Since the anguish of Ugolin
The moon in the Tower of Famine t
Fate so dread as his hath seen;
Out through the gates of Pisa
To Livorno onl her bay,
To Genoa and to Naples
The comrades hold their way,
Past the Guelph in his town beleaguered,
Past the fortressed Ghibelline,
Through lands that reek with slaughter,
Treason, and shame, and sin;
t " Breve pertugio dentro dalla Muda,
La qual per me ha ii titol della fame
E in che conviene ancor ch'altri si chitida,
3I'avea mostrato per lo suo foranime
Piu lune gia."              DANTE, L'Inferno. 
The Faithful of the Gonzaga.g
By desert, by sea, by city,
High hill-cope and temple-dome,
Through pestilence, hlunger, and horror,
Upon the road'to Rome;
While every land behind them
Forgets them as they go,
And in Mantua they are remembered
As is the last year's snow;
But the Marchioness goes to her chamber
Day after day to weep,For the changeless heart of a mother
The love of a son must keep.
The Marchioness weeps in her chatmber
Over tidings that come to her
Of the exiles she seeks, by letter
And by lips of messenger,
Broken hints of their sojourn and absence,
Comfortless, vague, and slight,
Like feathers wafted backwards
From passage birds in flight. +
t "As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in its flight."
67 
68         The Faithiful of the Gonzaga.
The tale of a drunken sailor,
In whose ship they went to sea;
A traveller's evening story
At a village hostelry,
Of certain comrades sent him
By our Lady, of her grace,
To save his life from robbers
In a lonely desert place;
Word from the monks of a convent
Of gentle comrades that lay
One stormy night at their convent,
And passed with the storm at day;
The long parley of a peasant
That sold them wine and food,
The gossip of a shepherd
That guided them through a wood;
A boatman's talk at the ferry
Of a river where they crossed,
And as if they had sunk in the current
All trace of them was lost;
And so is an end of tidings
But never an end of tears, 
lThe Faithfil of the Gonzaga.
Of secret and friendless sorrow
Through blank and silent years.
V.
To the Marchioness in her chamnber
Sends word a messenger,
Newly come from the land of Naples,
Praying for speech with her.
The messenger stands before her,
A minstrel slender and waln:
"In a village of my country
Lies a Mantuan gentleman,
"Sick of a smouldering fever,
Of sorrow and poverty;
And no one in all that country
Knows his title or degree.
"But six true Mantuan peasants,
Or nobles, as some men say,
Watch by the sick man's bedside,
And toil for him, night and day,
" Hewing, digging, reaping, sowing,
Bearing burdens, and far and nigh
Begging for him on the highway
Of the strangers that pass by;
69 
70          The Fait7ful of the Gonzaqa.
"And they look whenever you meet them
Like broken-hearted men,
And I heard that the sick man would not
If he could, be well again;
"For they say that he for love's sake
Was gladly banished,
But she for whom he was banished
Is worse to him, now, than dead,
"A recreant to his sorrow,
A traitress to his woe."
From her place the Marchioniess rises,
The minstrel turns to go.
But fast by the hand she takes him,
His hand in her clasp is colld, -
"If gold may be thy guerdou
Thou shalt not lack for gold;
"And if the love of a mother
Can bless thee for that thou hlast doiie,
Thou shalt stay and be his brother,
Thou shalt stay and be my son."
"Nay, my lady," answered the minstrel,
And his face is deadly pale, 
ltie Faithful of the Gonzaga.
"Nay, this must not be, sweet lady,
But let my words prevail.
"Let me go now from your presence,
And I will come again,
When you stand with your son beside you,
And be your servant then."
VI.
At the feet of the Marquis Gonzaga
Kneels his lady on the floor;
"Lord, grant me before I ask it
The thing that I implore."
So it be not of that ingrate. "
Nay, lord, it is of him."
'Neath the stormy brows of the Marquis
His eyes are tender and dinm.
" He lies sick of a fever in Naples,
Near unto death, as they tell,
In his need and pain forsaken
By the wanton lie loved so well.
"Now send for him and forgive him,
If ever thou loved'st me,
Now send for him and forgive him
As God shall be good to thee."
7 1 
72         The Faitlfitl of the Gonzayca.
"Well so, -- if he turn in repentance
And bow himself to my will;
That the high-born lady I chose him
May be my daughter still."
VII.
In Mantua there is feasting
For the Marquis' grace to his son;
In Mantua there is rejoicing
For the prince come back to his own.
The pomp of a wedding procession
Pauses under the pillared porch,
With silken rustle and whisper,
Before the door of the church.
In the midst, Federigo the bridegroom
Stands with his high-born bride;
The six true-hearted comrades
Are three on either side.
The bridegroom is gray as his father,
Where they stand face to face,
And the six true-hearted comrades
Are like old men in their place.
The Marquis takes the comrades
And kisses them one by one: 
The Faithftl of the Gonzaya.
"That ye were fast and faithful
And better than I to my son,
"Ye shall be called forever,
In the sign that ye were so true,
The Faithful of the Gonzaga,
And your sons after you."
VIII.
To the Marchioness comes a courtier:
"I am prayed to bring you word
That the minstrel keeps his promise
Who brought you news of my lord;
"And he waits without the circle
To kiss your highness' hand;
And he asks no gold for guerdon,
But before he leaves the land
"He craves of your love once proffered
That you suffer him for reward,
In this crowning hour of his glory,
To look on your son, my lord."
Through the silken press of the courtiers
The minstrel faltered in.
His clasped hands were bloodless,
His face was white and thin;
4
. 73 
74        The Faithftl of the Gonzaya.
And he bent his knee to the lady,
But of her love and grace
To her heart she raised him and kissed himn
Upon his gentle face.
Turned to her son the bridegroom,
Turned to his high-born wife,
"I give you here for your brother
Who gave back my son to life.
"For this youth brought me news from Naples
How thou layest sick and poor,
By true comrades kept, and forsaken
By a false paramour.
"Wherefore I charge you love him
For a brother that is mny son."
The comrades turned to the bridegroom
In silence every one.
But the bridegroom looked. on the minstrel
With a visage blank and changed,
As his whom the sight of a spectre
From his reason hath estranged;
And the smiling courtiers near them
On a sudden were still as death; 
The Faitliful of the Gonzaga.
And, sutbtly-stricken, the people
Hearkened and held their breath
With an awe uncomprehended
For an unseen agony:Who is this that lies a-dying,
With her head on the prince's knee?
A light of anguish and wonder
Is in the prince's eye,
" 0, speak, sweet saint, and forgive me,
Or I cannot let thee die!
"For now I see thy hardness
Was softer than mortal ruth,
And thy heavenly guile was whiter,
My saint, than martyr's truth."
She speaks not and she moves not,
But a blessed brightness lies
On her lips in their silent rapture
And her tender closed eyes.
Federigo, the son of the Marquis,
He rises from his knee:
"Aye, you have been good, my father,
To them that were good to mine.
75 
76         The Faithful of the Goinzaga.
"You have given them honors and titles,
But here lies one unknown
Ah, God reward her in heaven
With the peace he gives his own!" 
IYle First Cricket.
THE FIRST CRICKET.
H me! is it then true that the year has waxed
unto waning,
And that so soon must remain nothing but lapse
and decay, —
Earliest cricket, that out of the midsummer mid      night cotnplaining,
All the faint summer in me takest with subtle
dismay?
Though thou bringest no dream of frost to the
flowers that slumber,
Though no tree for its leaves, doomed of thy
voice, maketh moan,
Yet with th' unconscious earth's boded evil my
soul thou dost cumber,
And in the year's lost youth makest me still
lose my own.
Answerest thou, that when nights of December are
blackest and bleakest,
And when the fervid grate feigns me a May in
my room,
77 
78               t'he First Cricket.
And by my hearthstone gay, as now sad in my,
garden, thou creakest,
Thou wilt again give me all,-dew and fra       grance and bloom.
Nay, little poet! full many a cricket I have that
is willing,
If I but take him down out of his place on my
shelf,
Me blither lays to sing than the blithest known to
thy shrilling,
Full of the rapture of life, May, morn, hope, and
himself:
Leaving me only the sadder; for never one of my
singers
Lures back the bee to his feast, calls back the
bird to his tree.
Hast thou no art can make me believe, while the
summer yet lingers,
Better than bloom that has been red leaf and
sere that must be. 
I'le Mlulberries.
THIE MULBERRIES.
I.
O N the Rialto Bridge we stand;
The street ebbs under and makes no sound;
But, with bargains shrieked on every hand,
The noisy market rings around.
" Jf?ulberries, fine mulberries, here!"
A tunefil voice, -. and light, light measure;
T'hough I hardly should count these mulberries
dear,
If I paid three times the price for my pleasure.
Brown hands splashed with mulberry blood,
The basket wreathed with mulberry leaves
Hiding the berries beneath themn; - good!
Let us take wvhatever the young rogue gives.
For yoti know, old friend, I have n't eaten 
A mulberry since the ignorant joy
Of anything sweet in the mouth could sweeten
All this bitter world for a boy.
79 
The Mulberries.
II.
0, I mind the tree in the meadow stood
By the road near the hill: when I clomb aloof
On its branches, this side of tho girdled wood,
I could see the top of our cabin roof.
And, looking westward, could sweep the shores
Of the river where we used to swim
Under the ghostly sycamores,
Haunting the waters smooth and dim;
Anrid eastward athwart the pasture-lot
And over the milk-white buckwheat field
I could see the stately elm, where I shot
The first black squirrel I ever killed.
And southward over the bottomn-land
I could see the mellow breadths of farm
From the river-shores to the hills expand,
Clasped in the curving river's arm.
In the fields we set our guileless snares
For rabbits and pigeons and wary quails,
Content with the vaguest feathers and hairs
From doubtful wings and vanished tails.
And in the blue summer afternoon
We used to sit in the mulberry-tree:
80 
t'he Jf]ulberries.
The breaths of wind that remembered June
Shook the leaves and glittering berries free;
And while we watched the wagons go
Across the river, along the road,
To the mill above, or the mill below,
With horses that stooped to the heavy load,
We told old stories and made new plans,
And felt our hearts gladden within us again,
For we did not dream that this life of a man's
Could ever be what we know as men.
We sat so still that the woodpeckers catme
And pillaged the berries overhead;
From his log the chipmonlk, waxen tame,
Peered, and listened to what we said.
III.
One of iius long ago was carried
To his grave on the hill above the tree;
One is a farmer there, and married;
One has wandered over the sea.
And, if you ask me, I hardly know
Whether I'd be the dead or the clown,The clod above or the clay below, -
Or this listless dust by fortune blown
4*                       F
81 
hY'e Jhtlberries.
To alien lands. For, however it is,
So little we keep with us in life:
At best we win only victories,
Not peace, not peace, 0 friend, in this strife.
But if I could turn fromn the long defeat
Of the little successes once more,land be
A boy, with the whole wide world at my feet,
Under the shade of the mulberry-tree,.
From the shame of the squandered chances, the
sleep
Ofthe will that cannot itself awaken,
Frornm'the promise the future Call never keep,
From the fitful purposes vague and shaken,
Then, while the grasshopper sang out shrill
In the grass beneath the blanching thistle,
And the afternoon air, with a tender thrill,
Harked to the quail's complaining whistle, -
Ah me! should I paint the morrows again
In quite the colors so faint to-day,
And with the imperial mulberry's stain
Re-purple life's doublet of hodden-gray.
( K:lIow again the losses of disillusion I 1
For the sake of the hope, have the old deceit 1
82 
The  iuvlberries.
Ill spite of the question's bitter infusion,
Don't you find these mulberries over-sweet?
All our atoms are changed, they say;
And the taste is so different since then;
'We live, but a world has passed away
With the yeas that perished to make us  n.
With the years that perished to miake us menc.
83 
]before thte Gate.
BEFORE THE GATE.
HEY gave the whole long day to idle laughter,
To fitful song and jest,
To moods of soberness as idle, after,
And silences, as idle too as the rest.
But when at last upon their way returning,
Taciturn, late, and loath,
Through the broad meadow in the sunset burning,
They reached the gate, one fine spell hindered
them both.
Her heart was troubled with a subtile anguish
Such as but women know
That wait, and lest love speak or speak not languish,
And what they would, would rather they would
not so;
Till he said,- man-like nothing comprehending
Of all the wondrous guile
That women won win themselves with, and bend       ing
Eses of relentless asking on her the while, -
84 
Before the GCate.
"Ah, if bevond this gate the path united
Our steps as far as death,
And I might open it! -"  His voice, aftrighted
At its own daring, faltered under his breath.
Then she-whom both his faith and fear en      chanted
Far beyond words to tell,
Feeling her woman's finest wit had wanted
The art he had that knew to blunder so well -
Shyly drew near, a little step, and mocking,
"Shall we not be too late
For tea I " she said.  "I'm quite worn out with
walking:
Yes, thanks, your arm.  And will you- open
the gate. "
85 
Clemeit.
CLEMENT.
I.
HAT  time of year, you know, when the sum      mer, beginning to sadden,
Full-mooned and  silver-misted, glides from the
heart of September,
Mourned by disconsolate crickets, and iterant
grasshoppers, crying
All the still nights long, from the ripened abun      dance of gardens;
Then, ere the boughs of the maples are mantled
with earliest autumn,
But the wind of autumn  breathes from the or      chards at nightfall,
Full of winy perfume and mystical yearning and
languor;
And in the noonday woods you hear the foraging
squirrels,
And the long, crashing fall of the half-eaten nut
from the tree-top;
When the robins are mute, and the yellow-birds,
haunting the thistles,
Cheep, and twitter, and flit through the dusty
lanes and the loppings,
86 
Clement.
W hen the pheasant booms from your stealthy
foot in the cornfield,
And the wild-pigeons feed, few and shy, in the
scoke-berry bushes;
When the weary land lies hushed, like a seer in a
vision,
And your life seems but the dream of a dream
wlich you cannot remember, -
Broken, bewildering, vague, an echo that answers
to nothing!
That time of year, you know. They stood l)y the
gate in the meadow,
Fronting the sinking sun, and the level stream of
its splendor
Crimsoned the nmeadow-slope and woodland with
tenderest sunset,
Made her beautiful face like the luminous face of
an angel,
Smote through the pained gloom of his heart like
a hurt to the sense, there.
Languidly clung about by the half-fallen shawl,
and with folded
Hands, that held a few sad asters: "I sigh for
this idyl
Lived at last to an end; and, looking on to my
prose-life,"
With a smile, she said, and a subtle derision of
manner,
87 
Clement.
"Better and better I seem, when I recollect all
that has happened
Since I came here in June: the walks we have
taken together
Throug,h these darling meadows, and dear, old,
desolate woodlands;
All our afternoon readings,  and  all our strolls
through the moonlit
Villag,e, - so sweetly asleep, one scarcely could
credit the scandal,
Heartache, and trouble, and spite, that were hushed
for the night, inll its silence.
Yes, I am better. I think I could even be civil to
him for his kindness,
Letting me come here without him......But open
the gate, Cousin Clement;
Seems to me it grows chill, and I think it is
healthier in-doors.
-  No, then! you need not speak, for I know well
enough what is coming:
Bitter taunts for the past, and discouraging views
of the future.
Tragedy, Cousin Clement, or comedy, -just as
you like it;- 
Only not here alone, but somewhere that people
can see you.
Then I' 11 take part in the play, and appear the
remorseful young person
88 
Clement.
Full of divine regrets at not having smothered a
genius
Under the feathers and silks of a foolish, extrava       gant woman.
O you selfish boy! what was it, just now, about
anguish.
Bills would be your talk, Cousin Clement, if you
were my husband."
Then, with her summer-night glory of eyes
low-bending upon him,
Dark'ning his thoughts as the pondered stars be       wilder and darken,
Tenderly, wistfully drooping toward him, she fal      tered in whisper,All her mocking face transfigured,    with mourn      ful effusion:
"Clement, do not think it is you alone that re      member,
Do not think it is you alone that have suffered.
Ambition,
Fame, and your art, -you have all these things
to console you.
I - what have I. Since my child is dead - a
bereavement."
Sad hung her eyes on his, and he felt all the
anger within him
Broken, and melting in tears. But he shrank
from her touch while he answered
89 
Clement.
(Awkwardly, being a man, and awkwardly, being
a lover),
"Yes, you know  how  it is done.   You have
cleverly fooled me beforetime,
With a dainty scorn, and then an imploring for       giveness!
Yes, you might play it, I think,- that r6le of re       morseful young person,
That, or the old man's darling, or anything else
you attempted.
Even your earnest is so much like acting I fear a
betrayal,
Trusting your speech.  You say that you have
not forgotten. I grant youNot, indeed, for your word - that is light   but
I wish to believe you.
Well, I say, since you have not forgotten, forget
now, forever
I-I have lived and loved, and you have lived
and have married.
Only receive this bud to remember me when we
have parted,
Thorns and splendor, no sweetness, rose of the
love that I cherished!"
There he tore from its stalk the imperial flower of
the thistle,
Tore, and gave to her, who took it with mocking
obeisance,
90 
Clement.
Twined it in her hair, and said, with her subtle
derision:
"You are a wiser man than I thought you could
ever be, Clement, -
Sensible, almost. So! I'11l try to forget and
remember."
Lightly she took his arm, but on through the lane
to the farm-house,
Mutely together they moved through the lonesome,
odorous twilight.
II.
High on the farm-house hearth, the first autumn
fire was kindled;
Scintillant hickory bark and dryest limbs of the
beech-tree
Burned, where all summer long the boughs of
asparagus flourished.
Wild were the children with mirth, and grouping
and clinging together,
Danced with the dancing flame, and lithely swayed
with its humor;
Ran to the window-panes, and peering forth into
the darkness,
Saw there another room, flame-lit, and with frol       icking children.
(Ah! by such phantom hearths, I think that we
sit with our first-loves!)
91 
Clement.
Sometimes they tossed on the floor, and sometimes
they hid in the corners,
Shouting and laughing aloud, and never resting a
moment,
In the rude delight, the boisterous gladness of
childhood,
Cruel as suimmer sun and singing-birds to the
heartsick.
Clement sat in his chair unmoved in the midst
of the hubbub,
Rapt, with unseeing eyes; and unafraid in their
gambols,
By his tawny beard the children caught him, and
clambered
Over his knees, anid waged a mimic warfare across
them,
Made him their battle-ground, and won and lost
kingdoms upon him.
Airily to and fro, and out of one room to another
Passed his cousin, and busied herself with things
of the household,
Nonchalant, debonair, blithe, with bewitching
houisewifely importance,
Laying the cloth for the supper, and bringing the
meal fromn the kitchen;
Fairer than ever she seemed, and more than ever
she mocked him,
92 
Clement.
Coming behind his chair, and clasping her fingers
together
Over his eyes in a girlish caprice, and crying,
"Who is it?"
Vexed his despair with a vision of wife and of
home and of children,
Calling his sister's children around her, and still       ing their clamor,
Making believe they were hers. And Clement sat
moody and silent,
Blank to the wistful gaze of his mother bent on
his visage
With the tender pain, the pitiful, helpless devo      tion
Of the mother that looks on the face of her son in
his trouble,
Grown beyond her consoling and knows that she
cannot befriend him.
Then his cousin laughed, and in idleness talked
with the children;
Sometimes she turned to him, and then when the
thistle was falling,
Caught it and twined it again in her hair, and
called it her keepsake,
Smiled, and made him ashamed of his petulant
gift there, before them.
But, when the night was grown old and the two
by the hearthstone together
93 
Clement.
Sat alone in the flickering red of the flame, and
the cricket
Carked to the stillness, and ever, with sullen
throbs of the pendule
Sighed the time-worn clock for the death of the
days that were perished, -
It was her whim to be sad, and she brought him
the book they were reading.
"Read it to-night," she said, "that I may not
seem to be going."
Said, and mutely reproached him with all the pain
she had wrought him.
From her hand he took the volumle and read, and
she listened,
All his voice miolten in secret tears, and ebbing
and flowing,
Now with a faltering breath, and now with im       impassioned abandon,
Read from the book of a poet the rhyme of the
fatally sundered,
Fatally met too late, and their love was their
guilt and their anguish,
But in the night they rose, and fled away into
the darkness,
Glad of all dangers and shames, and even of death,
for their love's sake.
Then, when his voice brake hollowly, falling
and fading to silence,
94 
Clement.                   95
Thrilled in the silence they sat, and durst not
behold one another,
Feeling that wild temptation, that tender, ineffable
yearning,
Drawing them  heart to heart.  One blind, mnad
moment of passion
With their fate they strove; but out of the pang
of the conflict,
Through such costly triumph as wins a waste and
a famine,
Victors they came, and Love retrieved the error
of loving.
So, foreknowing the years, and sharply discern       ing the future,
Guessing the riddle of life, and accepting the cruel
solution,
Side by side they sat, as far as the stars are
asunder.
Carked the cricket no more, but while the audible
silence
Shrilled in their ears, she, suddenly rising and
dragging the thistle
Out of her clinging hair, laughed mockingly, cast       ing it from her:
"Perish the thorns and splendor,- the bloom and
the sweetness are perished.
Dreary, respectable calm, polite despair, and onie's
Duty, 
Clement.
These and the world, for dead Love! -The end
of these modern romances!
Better than yonder rhyme?.... Pleasant dreams
and good night, Coutsin Clement."
96 
By  the Sea.
BY THE SEA.
WALKED with her I love by the sea,
The deep came up with its chanting waves,
Matking a music so great and free
That the will andthe fiaith, whichwere dead in me,
Awoke and rose from their graves.
Chanting, and with a regal sweep
Of their'broidered garments up and down
The strand, came the mighty waves of the deep,
Dragging the wave-worn drift from its sleep
Along the sea-sands bare and brown.
" O my soul, make the song of the sea!" I cried.
"How it comes, with its stately tread,
And its dreadful voice, and the splendid pride
Of its regal garments flowing wide
Over the land!" to my soul I said.
My soul was still; the deep went down.
"What hast thou, my soul," I cried,
"In thy song' "  "The sea-sands bare and brown,
With broken shells and sea-weed strown,
And stranded drift," my soul replied.
97
5
G 
9 t Sain?t  Cahristopher.
SAINT CHRISTOPHER.
N the narrow Venetian street,
On the wall above the garden gate
(Within, the breath of the rose is sweet,
And the nightingale si,ngs there, soon and'late),
Stands Saint Christopher, carven in stonie,
With the little child in his huge caress,
And the arms of the baby Jesus thrown
About his gigantic tenderness;
And over the wall a wandering growth
Of darkest and greenest ivy clings,
And climbs around themn, and holds them both
In its netted clasp of knots and rings,
Clothing the saint from foot to beard
In glittering leaves that whisper and dance
To the child, on his mighty arm upreared,
W\ith a lusty summer exuberance.
To the child on his arm the faithful saint
Looks up with a broad and tranquil joy;
98 
Saint  C]'ristololer.
His brows and his heavy beard aslant
Under the dimpled chin of the boy,
Who plays with the world upon his palm,
And bends his smiling looks divine
On the face of the giant mild and calm,
And the glittering frolic of the vine.
He smiles on either with equal grace, 
On the simple ivy's unconscious life,
And the soul in the giant's lifted face,
Strong from the peril of the strife:
For both %re his own,- the innocence
That climnbs from the heart of earth to heaven,
And the virtue that gently rises thence
Through trial sent and victory given.
Grow, ivy, up to his countenance,
But it cannot smile on my life as on thine;
Look, Saint, with thy trustful, fearless glance,
Where I dare not lift these eyes of mine.
Venice, 1863.
99
.... 1.
:   1....:::..::
.   -.,. I...
I...... I 
Elegy.
ELEGY ON JOHN BUTLER HOWELLS,
Who died, "with the first song of the birds," Wednesday
morning, April 27, 1864.
I.
N the early morning when I wake
At the hour that is sacred for his sake,
And hear the happy birds of spring
In the garden under my window sing,
And through my window the daybreak blows
The sweetness of the lily and rose,
A dormant anguish wakes with day,
And my heart is smitten with strange dismay:
Distance wider than thine, O sea,
Darkens between my brother and me!
II.
I's'rap — pii;t, a few brief lines,
The fatal word that swims and shines
100 
Elegy.
Oi my tears, with a meaning new and dread,
Make faltering reason know him dead,
And I would that my heart might feel it too,
And unto its own regret be true;
For this is the hardest of all to b)ear,
That his life was so generous and fair,
So full of love, so full of hope,
Broadening out with ample scope,
And so far from death, that his dying seems
The idle agony of dreams
To mny heart, that feels him living yet,Anld I forget, and I forget.
III.
He was almost grown a man when he passed
AwNay, but when I kissed himn last
He was still a child, and I had crept
Up to the little room where he slept,
Anld thought to kiss him good-by in his sleep;
But he was awake to make me weep
101 
Elegy.
With terrible homesickness, before
My wayward feet had passed the door.
Round about me clung his embrace,
And he pressed against my face his face,
As if some prescience whispered him then
That it never, never should be again.
IV.
Out of far-off days of boyhood dim,
When he was a babe and I played with him,
I remember his looks and all his ways;
And how he grew through childhood's grace,
To the hopes, and strifes, and sports, and joys,
And innocent vanity of boys;
I hear his whistle at the door,
His careless step upon the floor,
His song, his jest, his laughter yet,
And I forget, and I forget.
V.
Somewhere in the graveyard that I know,
Where the strawberries under the chestnuts grow,
102 
Elegy.
They have laid him; and his sisters set
On his grave the flowers their tears have wet;
And above his grave, while I write, the song
Of the matin robin leaps sweet and strong
From the leafy dark of the chestnut-tree;
And many a murmnuring honey-bee
On the strawberry blossoms in the grass
Stoops by his grave and will not pass;
And in the little hollow beneath
The slope of the silent field of-death,
The cow-bells tinkle soft and sweet,
And the cattle go by with homeward feet,
And the squirrel barks from the sheltering limb,
At the harmless noises not meant for him;
And N,ature, unto her loving heart
Has taken our darling's mortal part,
Tenderly, that he may be,
Like the song of the robin in the tree,
The blossoms, the grass, the reeds by the shore,
A part of Summier evermore.
103 
Elegy.
VI.
I write, and the words with my tears are wet,But I forget, 0, I forget!
Teach me, Thou that sendest this pain,
To know and feel my loss and gain!
I,et me not falter iii belief
On his death, for that is sorest grief:
0, lift me above this wearing strife,
Till I discern his deathless life,
Shining beyond this misty shore,
A part of Heaven evermore.
Venice, Wednesday MAorning, at Dawn,
May 16, 1864.
104 
Thanksyiviny.
THANKSGIVING.
I.
LORD, for the erring thought
Not into evil wrought:
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.
II.
For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer:
For pain, death, sorrow, sent
Unto our chastisement:
For all loss of seeming good,
Quicken our gratitude.
5*
105 
A   Springtime.
A SPRINGTIME.
NE  knows the spring is coming:
There are birds; the fields are green;
There is balm in the sunlight and moonlight,
And dew in the twilights between.
But ever there is a silence,
A rapture great and dumb,
That day when the doubt is ended,
And at last the spring is come.
Behold the wonder, 0 silence!
Strange as if wrought in a night, -
The waited and lingering glory,
The world-old, fresh delight!
0 blossoms that hang like winter,
Drifted upon the trees,
0 birds that sing in the blossoms,
0 blossom-haunting bees,
0 green, green leaves on the branches,
0 shadowy dark below,
106 
A  Springtimne.
O cool of the aisles of orchards,
Woods that the wild flowers know,
O air of gold and perfume,
Wind, breathing sweet and sun,
O sky of perfect azure
Day, Heaven and Earth in one!
Let me draw near thy secret,
And in thy deep heart see
How fared, in doubt and dreaming,
The spring that is come in me.
For my soul is held in silence,
A rapture, great and dumb,
For the mystery that lingered,
The glory that is come!
1861.
107 
.
In Earliest Spring.
IN EARLIEST SPRING.
OSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies
and tangles,
Lion-like, March comneth in, hoarse, with tem      pestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and thwart
all the hollows and angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of win      ter and death.
But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the
meadow
Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres
that lift
Bud and blade to the sunward, within the in      scrutable shadow,
Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering
drift.
Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or
dream, or desire
(How shall I name it aright.) comes for a mo      ment and goes,
108 
In Earliest Spring.                109
Rapture of life ineffable, perfect,- as if in the
brier,
Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of
the rose. 
The Bobolinks are Singing.
THE BOBOLINKS ARE SINGING.
UT of its fratgranlt heart of bloom, 
The bobolinks are singing!
Out of its fragrant heart of bloom
The apple-tree whispers to the room,
"Wvhy art thou but a nest of gloom,
While the bobolilnks are sinlging."
The two wan ghosts of the chamber there,
The bobolinks are singing!
The two wan ghosts of the chamber there
Cease in the breath of the honeyed air,
Sweep from the room and leave it bare,
While the bobolinks are singing.
Then with a breath so chill and slow,
The bobolinks are singing!
Then with a breath so chill and slow,
It freezes the blossoms into snow,
The haunted room makes answer low,
While the bobolinks are singing.
110 
Tl e Boboginks are Singing.
"I know that in the meadow-lanld,
The bobolinks are singing!
I know that in the meadow-land
The sorrowful, slender elm-trees stand,
And the brook goes by on the other hand,
Vhile the bobolinks are singing.
"But ever I see, in the brawling stream,
The bobolinks are singing!
But ever I see in the brawling stream
A maiden drowned and floating dim,
Under the water, like a dream,
While the bobolinlks are singing.
"Buiried, she lies in the meadow-land! The bobolinks are singing!
Buried, she lies in the meadow-land,
Under the sorrowful elms where they stand.
Wind, blow over her soft and bland,
While the bobolinks are singilg.
"0 blow, but stir not the ghastly thing, The bobolinks are singing!
O blow, but stir not the ghastly thing
The farmer saw so heavily swing
From the elm, one merry morn of spring,
While the bobolinks were singing.
III 
Tlte Boboli2ks are Singiny.
"0 blow, and blow away the bloom, -
The bobolinks are singing!
0 blow, and blow away the bloom
That sickens me ill my heart of gloom,
That sweetly sickens the haunted room,
While the bobolinks are singinglr! "
112 
Prelude.
PRELUDE.
(TO AN EARLY BOOK OF VERSE.)
N March the earliest bluebird came
Anddcaroled from the orchard-tree
His little tremulous songs to me,
And called upon the summer's name.
And made old summers in my heart
All sweet with flower and sunl again;
So that I said, " 0, not in vain
Shall be thy lay of little art,
"Though never summer sun may glow,
Nor summner flower for thee may bloom;
Though winter turn in sudden gloom,
And drowse the stirring spring with snow ";
Anld learned to trust, if I should call
Upon the sacred name of Song,
Though chill through March I languish long,
And never feel the May at all,
]I
113 
Prelude.
Yet may I touch, in some who hear,
The hearts, wherein old songs asleep
Wait but the feeblest touch to -leap
In music sweet as summer air!
I sing in March brief bluebird lays,
And hope a May, and do not know:
May be, the heaven is full of snow,May be, there open summer days.
114 
Tze Movers.
THE MOVERS.
SKETCH.
ARTING was over at last, and all the good   bys hlad been spoken.
Up the long hillside road the white-tented wagon
moved slowly,
Bearing the mother and children, while onward
before them the father
Trudged with his gun on his arm, and the faithful
house-dog beside him,
Grave and sedate, as if knowing the sorrowful
thoughts of his master.
April was in her prime, and the day in its dewy
awaking:
Like a great flower, afar on the crest of the east      ern woodland,
Goldenly bloomed the sun, and over the beautiful
valley,
Dim with its dew and shadow, and bright with
its dream of a river,
1115 
The Movers.
Looked to the western hills, and shone on the
humble procession,
Paining with splendor the children's eyes, and the
heart of the mother.
Beauty, and fragrance, and song, filled the air
like a palpable presence.
Sweet was the smell of the dewy leaves and the
flowers in the wild-wood,
F'air the long reaches of sun and shade in the
aisles of the forest.
Glad of the spring, and of love, and of morning,
the wild birds were singing
Jays to each other called harshly, then mellowly
fluted together;
Sang the oriole songs as golden and gay as his
plumage;
Pensively piped the querulous quails their greet       ings unfrequent,
While, on the meadow elm, the meadow lark
gushed forth in music,
Rapt, exultant, and shaken with the great joy of
his singing;
Over the river, loud-chattering, aloft in the air,
the kingfisher
Hung, ere he dropped like a bolt, in the water
beneath him;
116 
Thle lAfovers.
Gossiping, out of the bank flew myriad twitter      ing, swallows;
And in the boughs of the sycamores quarrelled
and clamored the blackbirds.
Never for these things a, moment  halted the
Movers, but onward,
Up the long hillside road the white-tented wagon
moved slowly.
Till, on the summit,  that  overlooked  all the
beautiful valley,
Trembling and spent, the horses came to a stand      still unbidden
Then from the wagon the mother in silence got
down with her children,
Came, and stood by the father, and rested her
hand on his shoulder.
Long together they gazed on the beautiful valley
before them;
Looked on the well-known fields that stretched
away to the woodlands,
Where, in the dark lines of green, showed the
rilk-white crest of the dogwood,
Snlow of wvild-plumns in bloom, and crimson tints
of the red-bud;
117 
1The Movers.
Looked on the pasture-fields where the cattle
were lazily grazing,Soft, and sweet, and thin came the faint, far notes
of the cow-bells,Looked on the oft-trodden lanes, with their elder
and blackberry borders,
Looked on the orchard, a bloomy sea, with its
billows of blossoms.
Fair was the scene, yet suddenly strange and all
unfamiliar,
As are the faces of friends, when the word of
farewell has been spoken.
Long together they gazed; then at last on  the
little log-cabinHome for so many years, now home no longer for
ever -
Rested their tearless eyes in the silent rapture of
anguish.
Up onl the morniing air no column of smoke from
the chimney
Wavering, silver  and  azure, rose, fading  and
brightening ever;
Shut was the door where yesterday morning the
children were playing;
Lit with a gleam of the sun the window stared up
at them blindly.
Cold was the hearthstone now, and the place was
forsaken and empty.
118 
Tle J[overs.
Empty? Ah no! but haunted by thronging and
tenderest fancies,
Sad recollections of all that had been, of sorrow
or gladness.
Still they sat there in the glow of the wide red
fire in the winter,
Still they sat there by the door in the cool of
the still summer evening,
Still the mother seemed to be singing her babe
there to slumber,
Still the father b)eheld her weep o'er the child that
was dying,
Still the place was haunted by all the Past's sor       row anld gladness!
Neither of them might speak for the thoughts
that came crowding, their hearts so,
Till, in their ignorant trouble aloud the children
lamented;
Then was the spell of silence dissolved, and the
father and mother
Burst into tears and embraced, and turned their
dim eyes to the Westward.
Ohlio, 1859.
119 
1lT?ouffth the Jlfeadow.
THROUGH THE MEADOW.
HE summer sun was soft and bland,
As they went through the meadow land.
The little wind that hardly shook
The silver of the sleeping brook
Blew the gold hair about her eyes,
A mystery of mysteries I
So he must often pause, and stoop,
And all the wa-nton ringlets loop
Behind her dainty ear- emprise
Of slow event and many sighs.
Across the stream was scarce a step,And yet she feared to try the leap;
And he, to still her sweet alarm,
Must lift her over on his arm.
Shle could not keep the narrow way,
For still the little feet would stray,
And ever must he bend t' undo
The tangled grasses from her shoe, -
120 
Throuyh the Meadow.
From dainty rosebul lips in pout,
Must kiss the perfect flow6r out!
Ah! little coquette! Fair deceit!
Somie things are bitter that were sweet.
6
121 
122
GONE.
S it the shrewd October wind
Brings the tears into her eyes?
Does it blow so strong that she must fetch
Her breath in suddenll sighs?
The sound of his horse's feet grows faint,
The Rider has passed from sight;
The day dies out of the crimson west,
And coldly falls the night.
She presses her tremulous fingers tight
Against her closed eyes,
And on the lonesome threshold there,
She cowers down and cries.
C02te. 
T/pe Sarcastic Fair.
THE SARCASTIC FAIR.
ER  mouth is a honey-blossom,
No doubt, as the poet sings;
Buit within her lips, the petals,
Lurks a cruel bee, that stings.
123 
Rtapeture.
RAPTURE.
N  my rhyme I fable anguish,
Feigning that my love is dead,
Playing at a game of sadness,
Singing hope forever fled,
Trailing the slow robes of mourning,
Grieving with the player's art,
With the languid palms of sorrow
Folded on a dancing heart.
I must mix my love with death-dust,
Lest the draught should make me mad;
I must make believe at sorrow,
Lest I perish, over-glad.
124: 
Dead.
DEAD.
I.
OMETHING lies in the room
Over against my own;
The windows are lit with a ghastly bloom
Of candles, burning alone,
Untrimmed, and all aflare
In the ghastly silence there!
II.
People go by the door,
Tiptoe, holding their breath,
And hush the talk that they held before,
Lest they should waken Death,
That is awake all night
There in the candlelight!
III.
The cat upon the stairs
Watches with flamy eye
For the sleepy one who shall unawares
Let her go stealing by.
125 
Dead.
She softly, softlypiirrs,
And claws at the banisters.
IV.
The bird from out its dreamn
Breaks with a sudden song,
That stabs the sense like a sudden scream;
The hound the whole night long
Howls to the moonless sky,
So far, and starry, and high.
126 
Thte Doebt.
THE DOUBT.
HE sits beside the low window,
In the pleasant evening-time,
With her face turned to the sunset,
Reading a book of rhyme.
And the wine-light of the sunset,
Stolen into the dainty nook,
Where she sits in her sacred beauty,
Lies crimson on the book.
O beautiful eyes so tender,
Brown eyes so tender and dear,
Did you leave your reading a moment
Just now, as I passed near I
Maybe,'t is the sunset flushes
Her features, so lily-pale;
Maybe,'t is the lover's passion,
She reads of in the tale.
O darling, and darling, and darling,
If I dared to trust my thought;
127 
The DSoubt.
If I dared to believe what I must not,
Believe what no one ought,
We would read together the poem
Of the Love that never died,
The passionate, world-old story
Comie true, and glorified.
128 
T'he Thorn.
THE THORN.
"-   VERY Rose, you sang, has its Thorn,
A _But  this has none, I know."
She clasped my rival's Rose
Over her breast of snow.
I bowed to hide my pain,
With a man's unskilful art;
I moved my lips, and could not say
The Thorn was in my heart!
6*
129
I 
Thze Mysteries.
THE MYSTERIES.
NCE on my mother's breast, a child, I crept,
Holding my breath;
There, safe and sad, lay shudderinlg, and wept
At the dark mystery of Death.
Weary and weak, and worn with all unrest,
Spent with the strife, -
O mother, let me weep upon thy breast
At the sad mystery of Life!
130 
lThe Battle ia  the Clouds.
THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.
" lThe day had been one of dense mists and rains, and much
of General Hooker's battle was fought above the clouds, on the
top) of Lookout IMountain." - GE.NEI.AL  MIEIG's Report of the
Bottle bebfore Chattanooqa.
HERE  the dews and the rains of heaven
have their fountain,
Like its thunder and its lightning our brave
burst on the foe,
Up above the clouds on Freedom's Lookout Moun           tain
Raining life-blood like water on the valleys down
below.
0, green be the laurels that grow,
O sweet bIe the wild-buds that blow,
In the. dells of the mountain where the brave
are lying low.
Light of our hope and crown of our story,
Bright as sunlight, pure as starlight shall their
deeds of daring glow,
While the day and the night out of heaven shed
their glory,
131 
The Battle in the Clo(uds.
On Freedom's Lookout Mountain whence they
routed Freedom's foe.
0, soft be the gales when they go
Through the pines on the summit where
they blow,
Chanting solemn music for the souls that passed
below.
132 
For  Ooze  of  thle  Killed.
FOR ONE OF THE KILLED.
HERE on the field of battle
Lies the young warrior dead:
Who shall speak in the soldier's honor?
How shall his praise be said?
Cannon, there in the battle,
Thundered the soldier's praise,
Hark! how the volumed volleys echo
Down through the far-off days!
Tears for the grief of a father,
For a mother's anguish, tears;
But for him that died in his country's battle,
Glory and endless years.
133 
T'lIe Two  Wives.
THE TWO WIVES.
(TO COLONEL J. G. M., IN MEMORY OF THE EVENT BEFO)IRE
ATLANTA
I.
HE  colonel rode by his picket-line
In the pleasant morning sun,
That glanced from him far off to shine
On the crouching rebel picket's gun.
II.
From his command the captain strode
Out with a grave salute,
And talked with the colonel as he rode;  The picket levelled his piece to shoot.
III.
The colonel rode and the captain walked,
The arm of the picket tired;
Their faces almost touched as they talked,
And, swerved from his aim, the picket fired.
IV.
The captain fell at the horse's feet,
Wounded and hurt to death,
134 
The Two  Wives.
Calling upon a namne that was sweet
As God is good, with his dying breath.
V.
And the colonel that leaped from his horse and
knelt
To close the eyes so dim,
A high remorse for God's mercy felt,
Knowing the shot was meant for him.
VI.
And he whispered, prayer-like, under his breath,
The name of his own young wife:
For Love, that had made his friend's peace with
Death,
Alone could make his with life.
135 
Bereaved.
B3EREAVED.
HE passionate humming-birds cling
To the honeysuckles' hearts;
In and out at the open window
The twittering house-wren darts,
And the sun is bright.
June is young, and warm, and sweet;
The morning is gay and new;
Glimmers yet the grass of the door-yard,
Pearl-gray with fragrant dew,
And the sun is bright.
From the mill, upon the stream,
A busy murmur swells;
On to the pasture go the cattle,
Lowing, with tinkling bells,
And the sun is bright.
She gathers his playthings up,
And dreamily puts them by;
Children are playing in the meadow,
She hears their joyous cry,
And the sun is bright.
136 
Bereaved.
She sits and clasps her brow,
And looks with swollen eyes
On the landscape that reels and dances,  To herself she softly cries,
And the sun is bright.
137 
Thte S2zow-Birds.
THE SNOW-BIRDS.
HE  lonesome graveyard lieth,
A deep with silent waves
Of night-long snow, all white, and billowed
Over the hidden graves.
The snow-birds come in the morning,
Flocking and fluttering low,
And light on the graveyard brambles,
And twitter there in the snow.
The Singer, old and weary,
Looks out from his narrow room:
"Ah, me! but my thoughts are snow-birds,
Haunting a graveyard gloom,
"Where all the Past is buried
And dead, these many years,
Under the drifted whiteness
Of frozen falls of tears.
"Poor birds! that know not summer,
Nor sun, nor flowers fair,
Only the graveyard brambles,
And graves, and winter air!"
138 
Va9'ary.
VAGARY.
TP and down the dusty street,
I hurry with my burning feet;
Against my face the winld-waves beat,
Fierce from the city-sea of heat.
Deep in my heart the vision is,
Of meadow grass and meadow trees
Blown silver in the summer breeze,
And ripe, red, hillside strawberries.
My sense the city tumult fills, -
The tumult that about me reels
Of strokes and cries, and feet and wheels.
Deep in my dream I list, and, hark!
From out the maple's leafy dark,
The fluting of the meadow lark!
About the thronged street I go:
There is no face here that I know;
Of all that pass me to and fro
There is no face here that I know.
Deep in my soul's most sacred place,
With a sweet pain I look and trace
The features of a tender face,
All lit with love and girlish grace.
139 
Vagary.
Some spell is on me, for I seem
A memory of the past, a dream
Of happiness remembered dim,
Unto myself that walk the street
Scathed with the city's noontide heat,
With puzzled brain and burning feet.
140 
Fetterbilder.
FEUERBILDER.
T HE children sit by the fireside
With their little faces in bloom;
And behind, the lily-pale mother,
Looking out of the gloom,
Flushes as if a rosebud
Were butrsting in her heart;
But the father sits there silent,
From the firelight apart.
"Now, what dost thou see in the embers.
Tell it to me, my child,"
Whispers the lily-pale mother
To her daughter sweet and mild.
"0, I see a sky and a moon
In the coals and ashes there,
And under, two are walking
In a garden of flowers so fair.
"A lady gay, and her lover,
Talking with low-voiced words,
141 
Feuterbilder.
Not to waken the dreaming flowers
And the sleepy little birds."
Back in the gloom the mother
Shrinks with a sudden sigh.
"Now, what dost thou see in the embers. "
Cries the father to the boy.
"0, I see a wedding-procession
Go in at the church's door, -
Ladies in silks and knights in steel, 
A hundred of them, and more.
"The bride's face is as white as a lily,
And the groom's head is white as snow;
And without, with plumes and tapers,
A funeral paces slow."
Loudly then laughed the father,
And shouted again for cheer,
And called to the drowsy housemaid
To fetch him a pipe and beer.
142 
Ave)y.
AVERY.
[NIAGARA,  1853.]
I.
A LL night long they heard in the houses he        side the shore,
Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudi       nous roar,
Out of the hell of the rapids as't were a lost soul's
cries, --
Heard and could not believe; and the morning
mocked their eyes,
Showing, where wildest and fiercest the waters
leaped up and ran
Raving round him and past, the visage of a man
Clinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a
tree that, caught
Fast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges
ranght.
Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that
clung!
Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror
rung.
143 
.4 very.
II.
Under the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge
is drowned,
Over the rocks the lines of another are tangled
and wound;
And the long, fateful hours of the morning have
wasted soon,
As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it
is noon. 
Hurry, now with the raft! But 0, build it strong
and stanch,
And to the lines and treacherous rocks look well as
you launch!
Over the foamy tops of the waves, and their foam       sprent sides,
Over the hidden reefs, and through the embattled
tides,
Onward rushes the raft, with many a lurch and
leap,
Lord! if it strike him loose from the hold he
scarce can keep!
No! through all peril unharmed, it reaches him
harmless at last,
And to its proven strength he lashes his weakness
fast.
144 
Avery.                   145
Now, for the shore! But steady, steady, my men,
and slow;
Taut, now, the quivering lines; now slack; and
so, let her go!
Thronging the shores around stand the  pitying
multitude
Wan as his own are their looks, and a nightmare
seems to brood
Heavy upon them, and heavy the silence hangs
on all,
Save for the rapids' plunge, and the thunder of
the fall.
But on a sudden thrills from the people still and
pale,
Chorussing his unheard despair, a desperate wail:
Caught on a lurking point of rock it sways and
swings,
Sport of the pitiless waters, the raft to which he
clings.
II.
All the long afternoon it idly swings and sways;
And on the shore the crowd lifts up its hands and
prays:
Lifts to heaven and wrings the hands so helpless
to save,
7                       J 
146                   Avery.
Prays for the mercy of God on him whom the rock
and the wave
B)attle for, fettered betwixt them, and who, amidst
their strife,
Struggles to help his helpers, and fights so hard
for his life,
TuggiLng at rope and at reef, while men weep and
women swoon.
Priceless second by second, so wastes the after       noon,
And it is sunset now; and another boat and the
last
Down to him from the bridge through the rapids
has safely passed.
IV.
Wild throiugh the crowd comes flying a manl that
nothing can stay,
Maddening against the gate that is locked athwart
his way.
"No! we keep the bridge for them that can help
him. You,
Tell us, who are you  "  "His brother    "   God
help you both! Pass through."
\Wild, with wide arms of imploring he calls aloud
to him, 
Avery.                    147
Unto the face of his brother, scarce seen in the
distance dim;
But in the roar of the rapids his fluttering words
are lost
As in a wind of autumn the leaves of autumn are
tossed.
And from the bridge he sees his brother sever the
rope
Holding him to the raft, and rise secure in his
hope;
Sees all as in a dream the terrible pageantry,Populous shores, the woods, the sky, the birds
flying free;
Sees, then, the form,- that, spent with effort and
fasting and fear,
Flings itself feebly and fails of the boat that is
lying so near,Caught in the long-baffled clutch of the rapids,
and rolled and hurled
Headlong on to the cataract's brink, and out of
the world. 
Bopeep: A Pcastoral.
BOPEEP: A PASTORAL.
" 0, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed flower tilat simply bl
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose  "
TENNYSON.
I.
HE lies upon the soft, enamonred grass,
I' the wooing shelter of an apple-tree,
And at her feet the tranced brook is glass,
And in the blossoms over her the bee
Hangs charmed of his sordid industry;
For love of her the light wind will not pass.
II.
Her golden hair, blown over her red lips,
That seein two rose-leaves softly breathed apart,
Athwart her rounded throat like sunshine slips;
Her small hand, resting on her beating heart,
The crook that tells her peaceful shepherd-art
Scarce keeps with light and tremulous fillnger-tips.
III.
She is as fair as any shepherdess
That ever was in mask or Christmas scene:
148 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
Bright silver spangles hath she on her dress,
Anld of her red-heeled shoes appears the sheen;
And she hath ribbons of such blue or green
As best suits pastoral people's comeliness.
IV.
Shle sleeps, and it is in the month of May,
And the whole land is full of the delight
Of music and sweet scents; and all the day
The sun is gold; the moon is pearl all nught,
And like a paradise the world is bright,
And like a young girl's hopes the world is gay.
V.
So waned the hours; and while her beauteous slee,p
Was blest with many a happy dream of Love,
Untended still, her silly, vagrant sheep
Afar from that young shepherdess did rove,
Along the vales and through the gossip gr-ove,
O'er daisied mneads and up the thymy steep.
VI.
Then (for it happens oft when h,armi is nigh,
Our dreams grow haggard till at last we wake)
She thought that from the little runnel )by
There crept uponi  a sudden forthl a snake,
And stung her hand, and fled into tihe brake;
Whereat she sprang up with a bitter cry,
149
1. 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
VII.
And wildly over all that place did look,
And could not spy her ingrate, wanton flock, -
Not there among tall grasses by the brook,
Not there behind the mnossy-bearded rock;
And pitiless Echo answered with a mock
Whenll she did sorrow that she was forsook.
VIII.
Alas! the scattered sheep might not be found,
And long and loud that gentle maid did weep,
Till in her blurred sight the hills went round,
And, circling far, field, wood, and stream did
sweep;
Antd on the ground the miserable Bopeep
Fell and forgot her troubles in a swound.
IX.
When she awoke, the sun long time had set,
And all the land was sleeping in the moon,
And all the flowers with dim, sad dews were wet,
As they had wept to see her in that swoon.
It was about the night's low-breathing noon;
Only the larger stars were waking yet.
x.
Bopeep, the fair and hapless shepherdess,
Rose from her swooning in a sore dismay,
150 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
And tried to snmooth her damp and rumpled dress,
That showed in truth a grievous disarray;
Then where the brook the wanl moon's mirror lay,
She laved her eyes, and curled each golden tress.
XI.
And looking to her ribbons, if they were
As ribbons of a shepherdess should be,
She took the hat that she was wont to wear
(Bedecked it was with ribbons flying' free
As ever man in opera might see),
And set it on her curls of yellow hair.
XII.
"And I will go and seek my sheep," she said,
"Through every distant land until I die;
But when they bring mne hither, cold and dead,
Let me beneath these apple-blossoms lie,
With this dear, faithfdul, lovely runnel nigh,
Here, where my cru -  cru-  cruel sheep have fed."
XIII.
Thus sorrow and despair make bold Bopeep,
And forth she springs, and hurries on her way:
Across the lurking rivulet she can leap,
No sonmbre forest shall her quest delay,
No crooked vale her eager steps bewray:
What dreadeth she that seeketh her lost sheep l
151 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
XIV.
By many a pond, where timorous water-birds,
With clatterinngcries and throbbing wings, arose,
By many a pasture, where the soft-eyed herds
Looked shadow-hLug,e in their unmoved repose,
Long through the lonesome night that sad one
goes
And fills the solitude with wailing words;
Xv.
So that the little field-mouse dreams of harm,
Snuggl,ed away from harm beneath the weeds
The violet, sleeping on the clover's arm,
Wakes, and is cold with thoughts of dreadful
deeds
The pensive people of the water-reeds
Hark with a mute and dolorous alarm.
XVI.
And the fond hearts of all the turtle-doves
Are broken in compassion of her woe,
And every tender little bird that loves
Feels in his breast a sympathetic throe;
And flowers are sad wherever she may go,
And hoarse with sighs the waterfalls and groves.
152 
Bopeep'1 P astoria[l.
XVII.
The pale moon droppeth low; star after star
Grows faiint and slumbers in the gray of dawn;
And still she lingers not, but hurries tfar,
Till in a dreary wilderness withdrawii
Through tangled woods she lorn and lost moves
on,
Where griffins dire and dreadful dragons are.
XVIII.
Her ribbons all are dripping with the dew,
Her red-heeled shoes are torn, and stained with
mire,
Her tender arms the angry sharpness rue
Of many a scraggy thorn and envious brier;
And poor Bopeep, with no sweet pity nigh her,
Wrings her smnall hands, and knows not what to do.
XIX.
And on that crude and rugged ground she sinks,
And soon her seeking had been ended there,
But through the trees a fearful glimmer shrinks,
And of a hermiit's dwelling she is'ware
At the dull pane a dull-eyed taper blinks,
Drowsed with long vigils and the morning air.
7*
153 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
xx.
Thither she trembling moves, and at the door
Falls down, and cannot either speak or stir:
The hermit comnes,- with no white beard before,
Ncr coat of skins, nor cap of shaggy fur:
It was a comely youth that lifted her,
And to his hearth, and to his breakfast, bore.
XXI.
Arrayed he was in princeliest attire,
And of as goodly presence sooth was he
As any little maiden might admire,
Or any king-beholding cat might see
My poor Bopeep," hlie sigheth piteously,
"Rest here, and warm you at a hermit's fire."
XXII.
She looked so beautifiu, there, mute and white,
He kissed her on the lips and on the eyes
(The most a prince could do in such a plight);
But chiefly gazed on her in still surprise,
And when he saw her lily eyelids rise,
For him the whole world had no fairer sight.
XXIII.
"Rude is my fare: a bit of venison steak,
A dish of honey and at glass of wine,
154 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
With clean white bread, is the poor feast I make.
Be served, I pray: I think this flask is fine,"
He said. " Hard is this hermit life of minle:
This day I will its weariness forsake."
xxIv.
And then he told her how it chanced that he,
King Cole's son, in that forest held his court,
And the sole reason that there seemed to be
Was, he was being hermit there for sport;
But he confessed the life waIs not his forte,
And therewith both laughed out right jollily.
xxv.
And sly Bopeep forgot her sheep again
In gay discourse with that engaging youth
Love hath such sovran remedies for pain!
But then he was a handsome prince, in truth,
And both were young, and both were silly, sooth,
And everything to Love but love seems vain.
XXVI.
They took them down the silver-clasped book
That this young anchorite's predecessor kept, -
A holy seer,- and through it they did look;
155 
Bopeep: A Pastortl.
Sometimes their idle eyes together crept,
Somnetimes their lips; but still the leaves they
swept,
Until they found a shepherd's pictured crook.
XXVII.
And underneath was writ it should befall
On such a day, in such a month and year,
A maiden fair, a young prince brave and tall,
By such a chance should come together here.
They were the people, that was very clear:
"0 love," the prince said, "let us read it all! "
XXVIII.
And thus the hermit's prophecy ran on:
Though she her lost sheep wist not where to find,
Yet should she bid her weary care begone,
And banish every doubt from her sweet mind:
They, with their little snow-white tails behind,
Homeward would go, if they were left alone.
XXIX.
They closed the book, and in her happy eyes
The prince read truth and love forevermore,
Better than any herinit's prophecies!
They passed together fromin the cavern's door;
Embraced, they turned to look at it once mnore,
And over it beheld the glad sun rise,
156 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
xxx.
That streamed before them aisles of dusk and gold
Under the song-swept arches of the wood,
And forth they went, tranced in each other's hold,
Down through that rare and IluminQus solitude,
Their happy hearts enchanted in the mood
Of morning, and of May, and romance old.
XXXI.
Sometimes the saucy leaves would kiss her cheeks,
And he must kiss their wanton kiss away;
To die beneath her feet the wood-flower seeks,
The quivering aspen feels a fine dismay,
And many a scented blossom onl the spray
In odorous sighs its passionate longoing speaks.
XXXII.
And forth they went down to that stately stream,
Bowed over by the ghostly sycamores
(Awearily, as if some heavy dream
Held them in languor), but whose opulent shores
With pearled shells and dusts of precious ores
Were tremulous brilliance in the morning beam;
XXXIII.
Where waited them, beside the' lustrous sand,
A silk-winged shallop, sleeping on the flood;
157 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
And smoothly wafted from the hither strand,
Across the calm, broad stream they lightly rode,
Under them stillhtle silver fishes stood;
The eager lilies, on the other land,
XXXIV.
Beckoned them; but where the castle shone
\Vith diamonded turrets and a wall
Of gold-emnbedded pearl and costly stone,
Their vision to its peerless splendor thrall
The maiden fair, the yoiung prince brave and tall,
Thither with light, unlingering feet pressed on.
XXXV.
A gallant train to mneet this loving pair,
In silk and steel, moves from the castle door,
And up the broad and ringing castle stair
They go with,gleefuil minstrelsy before,
And " Hail our prince and princess evermore!
From all the happy throng is greeting there.
XXXVI.
And in the hall the prince's sire, King, Cole,
Sitting with crown and royal ermine on,
His fiddlers three behind with pipe and bowl,
Rises and moves to lift his kneeling son,
Greeting his bride with kisses mnany a one,
And tears and laughter from his jolly soul
158, 
Bopeep: A  Pastoral.
XXxvII.
Then both his children to a window leads'
That over daisied pasture-land looks out,
And shows Bopeep where her lost flock wide feeds,
And every friolic lambkin leaps about.
She hlears Boy-Blue, that lazy shepherd, shout,
Slow pausing from his pipe of mellow reeds;
xxXVIII.
And, turning, peers into her prince's eyes;
Then, caught and clasped against her prince's
heart,
Upon her breath her answer wordless dies,
And leaves her gratitude to sweeter art,
To lips from which the bloom shall never part,
To looks wherein the summer never dies!
159 
While she sang.
WHILE SHE SANG.
I.
HE sang, and I heard the singing,
Far out of the wretched past,
Of meadow-larks in the meadow,
In a breathing of the blast.
Cold through the clouds of sunset
The thin red sunlight shone,
Staining, the gloomr of the woodland
Where I walked and dreamed alone;
And glinting with chilly splendor
The mneadow under the hill,
Where the lingering larks were lurking
In the sere grass hid and still.
Out they burst with their singing,
Their singitng so loud and gay;
They made in the heart of October
A sudden ghastly May,
That faded and ceased with their singing.
The thin red sunlight paled,
160 
JV]ile she sanfg.
Anid through the boughs above me
The wind of evening wailed; -
Wailed, and the light of evening
Out of the heaven died;
And from the marsh by the river
The lonesome killdee cried.
II.
The song is done, but a phantom
Of music haunts the chords,
That thrill with its subtile presence,
And grieve for the dying words.
And in the years that are perished,
Far back in the wretched past,
I see on the May-green meadows
The white snow falling fast;
Falling, and fialling, and falling,
As still and cold as death,
On the bloom of the odorous orchard,
On the small, meek flowers beneath;
On the roofs of the village-houses,
On the long, silent street,
Where its plumes are soiled and broken
Under the passing feet; 
K
161 
12hile she sa)y.
On the green crest of the woodland,
On the cornfields far apart;
On the covering birds in the gable,
And on my desolate heart.
162 
Naming the Bird.
NAMING THE BIRD.
(FRAGMENT.)
I.
HEY bring the new canary forth,
T 
They hang his cage against the pane
Sunlit, and looking where the vane
Veers southward from the yielding north.
Against the pane the creepers press
Their dank, dead leaves; the light wind goes
Through all the dwarfish pines, and blows
The tendrils from their weak caress.
The light wind whispers at the pane,
Of summer, and the bird within,
That hears the careless breeze begin,
Bursts loid above the vaguer strain
With such a song of happy June,
That sunward sward and lingering snow
Green billowy grasses overflow,
And from the heaven falls a noon
Of languor and of still delight;
The locust-trees are white with blooms'
163 
Naming  thle Bird.
And through their drifted blossom booms
The summer bee in golden flight.
" O now lie silngs us something good,
The bird that yet has won no name,"
They say, "as if the singer's fame
Were last and least of all he would!
"But let us name him now," and bowed,
In thought, their dark and golden hair,
Their faces differently fair
Together, while the bird sang loud.
He sang of nothing, but they made
His song a meaning as before,
And life and death the meaning bore,
And through the soulless carol played
All sadness of the soul of youth,
All sweetness of their girlhood's prime,
Al] joy and grief of other tinme,
All dreamy pain and tender ruth.
It made them think of long ago,
In youth the dead months measure years,
It filled their soft girl-hearts with tears,
Their eyes with pensive overflow.
164 
Vaming  the Bird.
They rose, and with such gracious ways
As women use, whose souls are wed,
They kissed each other, and they said,
"0, let us call him Other Days!
"And Daysie, for the flower's sake,
Or Daysie, for some stupid friend
Would find it hard to comprehend
The larger meaning that we take
From Other Days."  " But now," she cried,
The dark-eyed to the eyes of blue,
"Sing that old song was made for you
In other days,- ill merrier tide."
And swept to the piano-seat,
And swiftly struck the startled keys;
The other mused old melodies,
Then sang with mockery strange and sweet:
II.
Other days shall come and go,
Other (lays are gone,
Let the restless river flow,
For it bears us on
Together, -
165 
Yamii?y  the  Bir(d.
Slow to find the unknown sea,
Wandering thorough wold and steep and lea,
But it bears us thither.
Ah, whither?
Other days shall come and go,
Other days are gone.
Love, I find it hard to know
What is lost and won
Forever.
Out of rapture stealeth sorrow,
Yesterday will sadly haunlllt to-morrow,
Pain from love shall sever,
Ah, never!
Other days, and they were young,
They whose blood is cold;
They forgot the songs they sung
In the days of old.
Aweary,
Love nor anguish they regret.
^ Let us die, 0 love, ere we forget
Sunny days with dreary,
We weary!
166 
NVamiing the Bird.
III.
The song was made in other time
In other time, when he who mocked
His daring hope with sadness walked
All day in dreams of love and rhyme;
And he who let the days depart
In idle reveries that flowed
From dreams to bitter waking, snowed
His own tears back upon his heart:
IV.
Good by! We part. I do not know
Whether we part for good or ill;
Life's great resullts are something slow,
. But friendly doubt attends us still.
I notice fickleness of weather
In that strange climate of the heart:
People forget love when together,
I think we won't do worse apart.
v.
With absent hands she touched the keys
That trembled yet from other hands,
167 
Nami2y the Bird.
With absent thoughts of far-off lands
Beyond the unrest of death-wide seas.
She played old tunes, she vaguely mused,
She poured her soul into the strain
That passed from rapture into pain,
With love and mocking interfused,
And rose in swelling harmony,
And from its full and joyous tide
Ebbed into languid doubt, and died
Away from voice and chord and key.
Full loud the bird's blithe carol rang
In bursts of wild and fluttering song,
And with her music borne along,
Above his art he strove and sang.
But with the silence through the room
A shadow stole, and from the east
The thin, faint smile of sunshine ceased,
And all the day was dipped in gloom.
A gust of cold and sudden rain
Swept down on sward and lingering snow, -
And in the weird wind to and fro
Struck blinding tears agaLinst the pane.
168 
Yrnin2g  the Bird.
VI.
With plaintive chirp a, d quaint bird-ways
Of prim-set wings and sidelong head,
The bird looked wonder; but they said,
" 0, well we named him Other Days!
"For Other Days that were so glad,
For thoughts and dreams and songs of yore;
For Other Days that come no more,
Or only come to make us sad."
8
169 
A   Poet.
A POET.
ROM  wells where Truth in secret lay
1He saw the midnight stars by day.
"0 marvellous gift!" the many cried,
"0 cruel gift!" his voice replied.
The stars were far, and cold, and high,
That glimmered in the noonday sky;
IHe yearned toward the sun in vain,
That warmed the lives of other men.
.170 
171
CONVENTION.
T E falters on the threshold,
She lingers on the stair:
Can it be that was his footstep?
Can it be that she is there.
Without is tender yearning,
And tender love is within;
They can hear each other's heart-beats,
But a wooden door is between.
Contvention. 
Tlhe Poet's.  Friends.
THE POET'S FRIENDS.
HE  robin sings in the elm;
The cattle stand beneath,
Sedate and grave, with great brown eyes
And fragrant meadow-breath.
They listen to the flattered bird,
The wise-looking, stupid things;
And they never understand a word
Of all the robin sings.
THE EN D.
Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
172