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There but the burning sense of wrong, Perpetual care and scorn abide;

Small friendship for the lordly throng; Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,

No dream his life was-but a fight; Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that Anchorite?

To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight, Who could have guessed that visions came Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cuma's cavern close,

The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose,

But for the patient hope within,

Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe;

Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look

When wandering once forlorn he strayed, With no companion save his book,

To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid

His palm upon the pilgrim guest,

The single boon for which he prayed

The convent's charity was Rest.

Peace dwells not here: this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose,

The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine,
When Hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all

The tyrant canker-worms of earth •

Baron and Duke, in hold and hall,

Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth. He used Rome's Harlot for his mirth; Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;

But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose judgments mock our own,
The only righteous Judge art thou:
That poor old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow;
His words are parcels of mankind,

Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.

ST. JAMES'S PARK.

I watched the swans in that proud Park
Which England's Queen looks out upon,
I sat there till the dewy dark—

And every other soul was gone;
And sitting, silent, all alone,

I seemed to hear a spirit say:

Be calm-the night is; never moan
For friendships that have passed away.

The swans that vanished from thy sight
Will come to-morrow, at their hour;
But when thy joys have taken flight,

To bring them back no prayer hath power.
'Tis the world's law: and why deplore
A doom that from thy birth was fate?
True 'tis a bitter word-"No more!"
But look beyond this mortal state.

Believ'st thou in eternal things?

Thou feelest in thy inmost heart

Thou art not clay-thy soul hath wings;
And what thou seest is but part.
Make this thy medicine for the smart
Of every day's distress; be dumb.
In each new loss, thou truly art
Tasting the power of things to come.

DIRGE.

For one who fell in battle.

Room for a Soldier! lay him in the clover;

He loved the fields, and they shall be his cover;

Make his mound with hers who called him once her

lover:

Where the rain may rain upon it,

Where the sun may shine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
And the bee will dine upon it.

Bear him to no dismal tomb under city churches;
Take him to the fragrant fields by the silver birches,
Where the whip-poor-will shall mourn, where the oriole
perches:

Make his mound with sunshine on it,
Where the bee will dine upon it,
Where the lamb hath lain upon it,
And the rain will rain upon it.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

AFTOR

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