382

say,

"Passed is the sorest trial; No plot of man can stay The hand upon the dial;

Night is the dark stem of the lily Day."

If we, who watched in valleys here below, Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned

When volcan glares set all the east aglow,

We are not poorer that we wept and yearned;

Though earth swing wide from God's intent,

And though no man nor nation
Will move with full consent
In heavenly gravitation,

Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent.

Greatly begin! though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime, -
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Ah, with what lofty hope we came !
But we forget it, dream of fame,
And scrawl, as I do here, a name.

AL FRESCO.

The sun in his own wine to ple;
And our tall elm, this hundredth year
Doge of our leafy Venice here,
Who, with an annual ring, doth wed
The blue Adriatic overhead,
Shadows with his palatial mass
The deep canals of flowing grass.

O unestranged birds and bees!
O face of nature always true!
O never-unsympathizing trees!
O never-rejecting roof of blue,
Whose rash disherison never falls
On us unthinking prodigals,
Yet who convictest all our ill,
So grand and unappeasable!
Methinks my heart from each of these
Plucks part of childhood back again,
Long there imprisoned, as the breeze
Doth every hidden odor seize

Of wood and water, hill and plain.
Once more am I admitted peer
In the upper house of Nature here,
And feel through all my pulses run
The royal blood of breeze and sun.

Upon these elm-arched solitudes No hum of neighbor toil intrudes; The only hammer that I hear Is wielded by the woodpecker, The single noisy calling his In all our leaf-hid Sybaris; The good old time, close-hidden here, Persists, a loyal cavalier,

While Roundheads prim, with point of fox,

Probe wainscot-chink and empty box;
Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast
Insults thy statues, royal Past;
Myself too prone the axe to wield,
I touch the silver side of the shield
With lance reversed, and challenge
peace,

A willing convert of the trees.

How chanced it that so long I tost A cable's length from this rich coast, With foolish anchors hugging close The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, Nor had the wit to wreck before On this enchanted island's shore, Whither the current of the sea, With wiser drift, persuaded me?

O, might we but of such rare days Build up the spirit's dwelling-place! A temple of so Parian stone Would brook a marble god alone, The statue of a perfect life, Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife,

Alas! though such felicity

In our vext world here may not be,
Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut
Shows stones which old religion cut
With text inspired, or mystic sign
Of the Eternal and Divine,
Torn from the consecration deep
Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep,
So, from the ruins of this day
Crumbling in golden dust away,
The soul one gracious block may draw,
Carved with some fragment of the law,
Which, set in life's uneven wall,
Old benedictions may recall,

And lure some nunlike thoughts to take
Their dwelling here for memory's sake.

Flattening his nose against the pane, He envies me my brilliant lot, Breathes on his aching fists in vain, And dooms me to a place more hot.

He sees me in to supper go,

A silken wonder by my side, Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row Of flounces, for the door too wide. He thinks how happy is my arm 'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; And wishes me some dreadful harm,

Hearing the merry corks explode.
Meanwhile I inly curse the bore
Of hunting still the same old coon,
And envy him, outside the door,
In golden quiets of the moon.

WRITTEN IN AID OF A CHIME OF BELLS
FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE.
GODMINSTER? Is it Fancy's play?
I know not, but the word
Sings in my heart, nor can I say
Whether 't was dreamed or heard ;
Yet fragrant in my mind it clings
As blossoms after rain,

And builds of half-remembered things
This vision in my brain.

Through aisles of long-drawn centuries
My spirit walks in thought,
And to that symbol lifts its eyes
Which God's own pity wrought;
From Calvary shines the altar's gleam,
The Church's East is there,
The Ages one great minster seem,

That throbs with praise and prayer.

And all the way from Calvary down
The carven pavement shows
Their graves who won the martyr's

crown

And safe in God repose; The saints of many a warring creed Who now in heaven have learned That all paths to the Father lead

Where Self the feet have spurned.

And, as the mystic aisles I pace, By aureoled workmen built, Lives ending at the Cross I trace Alike through grace and guilt:

One Mary bathes the blessed feet

With ointment from her eyes, With spikenard one, and both are sweet, For both are sacrifice.

Moravian hymn and Roman chant
In one devotion blend,
To speak the soul's eternal want
Of Him, the inmost friend;
One prayer soars cleansed with martyr
fire,

One choked with sinner's tears,
In heaven both meet in one desire,
And God one music hears.

Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out
Upon the Sabbath air,

Each seems a hostile faith to shout,
A selfish form of prayer;
My dream is shattered, yet who knows
But in that heaven so near
These discords find harmonious close
In God's atoning ear?

O chime of sweet Saint Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be,
And in all hearts new-born!
That Pentecost when utterance clear
To all men shall be given,
When all shall say My Brother here,
And hear My Son in heaven !

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

WHO hath not been a poet? Who hath not,

With life's new quiver full of winged

years,

Shot at a venture, and then, following

on,

Stood doubtful at the Parting of the Ways?

There once I stood in dream, and as I paused,

Looking this way and that, came forth

to me

The figure of a woman veiled, that said, "My name is Duty, turn and follow me";

Something there was that chilled me in her voice;

I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold in mine,

As if to be withdrawn, and I replied: "O, leave the hot wild heart within my breast!

Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death;

This slippery globe of life whirls of itself,

Hasting our youth away into the dark; These senses, quivering with electric heats,

Too soon will show, like nests on wintry boughs

Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck,

Which whistling northwinds line with downy snow

Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain,

Thither the singing birds no more return."