To yonder shining ground;
As this pale taper's earthly spark,
To yonder argent round;

So shows my soul before the Lamb,
My spirit before Thee;

So in mine earthly house I am,
To that I hope to be.

Dreak up the heavens, O Lord! and far,

Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean. He lifts me to the golden doors;

The flashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strews her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,

To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,

One sabbath deep and wide
A light upon the shining sea-
The Bridegroom with his bride!

SIR GALAIAD.

My good blade carves the casques of men,

My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,

The horse and rider reel :

They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall! For them I battle till the end,

To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:

I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and
thrill;

So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims.
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair.

Fair gleams the snowy altar cloth,

The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark;

I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.

A gentle sound, and awful light!
Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,

The cock crows ere the Christmas
morn,

The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;

But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields
A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;

I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

I muse on you that will not cease,

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odors haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armor that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes,

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony

Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: "O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on the prize is near." So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm'd I ride, whate er betide, Until I find the holy Grail.

EDWARD GRAY.

SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town

Met me walking on yonder way, "And have you lost your heart?" she said,

"And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me :
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away :
"Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

sea;

Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. "Cruel, cruel the words I said !

Cruelly came they back to-day:
'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,

To trouble the heart of Edward
Gray.'

"There I put my face in the grass-
Whisper'd, Listen to my despair:
I repent me of all I did:

Speak a little, Ellen Adair!' "Then I took a pencil, and wrote

On the mossy stone, as I lay, 'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; And here the heart of Edward Gray! "Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But 1 will love no more, no more,

Till Ellen Adair come back to me. "Bitterly wept I over the stone:

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,

How goes the time? "Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.

No rain libation to the Muse,

But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,

To make me write my randoin rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,

Til all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favor'd lips of mine;
Until the charm have power to make
New lifeblood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces Lreak
In full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.
Thro' many an hour of summer suns,
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs
The current of my days:

I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd;
The gas-light wavers dimmer.
And softly, thro' a vinous mist,
My college friendships glimmer.
I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,

Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men,
Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them-
Who sweep the crossing, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.
Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,
Tho' fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather;
But for some true result of good

All parties work together.

Let there be thistles, there are grapes; If old things, there are new:

Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
Yet glimpses of the true.

Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,
We lack not rhymes and reasons,
As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

This earth is rich in man and maid;
With fair horizons bound:

This whole wide earth of light and shade

Comes out, a perfect round.
High over roaring Temple-bar,

And, set in Heaven's third story,
I look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling ripe,
The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But tho' the port surpasses praise,

My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season'd brain about,
Unsubject to confusion,

Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out,
Thro' every convolution.

For I am of a numerous house,
With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse
As who shall say me nay:

The sphere thy fate allots: Thy latter days increased with pence Go down among the pots : Thou battenest by the greasy gleam In haunts of hungry sinners, Old boxes, larded with the steam

Of thirty thousand dinners.

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,

Would quarrel with our lot;
Thy care is, under polish'd tins,
To serve the hot-and-hot;
To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,
And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes :
Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,
Till mellow Death, like some late guest
Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more;

No carved cross-bones, the types of
Death,

Shall show thee past to Heaven: But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,

A pint-pot neatly graven.

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.
"Cursed be he that moves my bones."
Shakespeare's Epitaph.
You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim ;
But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom

Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry :

Proclaim the faults he would not show:

Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know." Ah shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth;

No public life was his on earth,

No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.
He gave the people of his best :

His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave

Who will not let his ashes rest!
Who make it seem more sweet to be
The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that warbles long and loud

And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN
GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls.
Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,

With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there :
And trust me while I turn'd the page
And track'd you still on classic
ground,

I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd-here and there alone The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown

By fountain-urns :-and Naiads oar'd.
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom.
From him that on the mountain lea

By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

IT was the time when lilies blow.
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they :
They too will wed the morrow morn:
God's blessing on the day!
"He does not love me for my birth,

Nor for my lands so broad and fair, He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well," said Lady Clare. In there came old Alice the nurse, Said, "Who was this that went from thee?"

"It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse,

"That all comes round so just and fair;

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are not the Lady Clare."

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?"

Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?

"As God's above," said Alice the

nurse,

"I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;

I speak the truth, as I live by bread!

I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be
true,

To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,

"But keep the secret for your life, And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,

When you are man and wife."

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,

"I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off. pull off, the brooch of gold,

And fling the diamond necklace by." "Nay now, my child," said Alice the

nurse,

"But keep the secret all ye can." She said, "Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man "

66 Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,

"The man will cleave unto his right."

"And he shall have it," the lady replied,

"Tho' I should die to-night." "Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!

Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." "O mother, mother, mother," she said,

"So strange it seems to me. "Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head,

And bless me, mother, e'er I go." She clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare : She went by dale, and she went by down,

With a single rose in her hair. The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

Leapt up from where she lay, Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, And follow'd her all the way. Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower;

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!

Why come you drest like a village maid,

That are the flower of the earth?" "If I come drest like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born," she said, "And not the Lady Clare.'

"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,

"For I am yours in word and in deed.

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,

"Your riddle is hard to read." O and proudly stood she up!

Her heart within her did not fail: She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale. He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn; He turned and kiss'd her where she stood:

"If you you are not the heiress born, And I," said he," the next in blood"If you are not the heiress born,

And I," said he, " the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare."

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. IN her ear he whispers gayly,

"If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me well."
She replies, in accents fainter,
"There is none I love like thee."
He is but a landscape painter,

And a village maiden she.
He to lips, that fondly falter,
Presses his without reproof:
Leads her to the village altar,

And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present: Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell." So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state,