PALINODE.

AUTUMN.

STILL thirteen years: 't is autumn now On field and hill, in heart and brain; The naked trees at evening sough; The leaf to the forsaken bough

Sighs not, "We meet again!"

Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome,

That now is void, and dank with rain, And one, O, hope more frail than foam !

The bird to his deserted home

Sings not," We meet again ! "

The loath gate swings with rusty creak; Once, parting there, we played at

'T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle,

'T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious,

And put on her looks and ways.

Were it mine I would close the shutters,
Like lids when the life is fled,
And the funeral fire should wind it,
This corpse of a home that is dead.

For it died that autumn morning
When she, its soul, was borne
To lie all dark on the hillside

That looks over woodland and corn.

A MOOD.

PINE in the distance,
Patient through sun or rain,
Meeting with graceful persistence,
With yielding but rooted resistance,
The northwind's wrench and strain,
No memory of past existence
Brings thee pain;

Right for the zenith heading,
Friendly with heat or cold,

Thine arms to the influence spreading
Of the heavens, just from of old,
Thou only aspirest the more,
Unregretful the old leaves shedding
That fringed thee with music before,
And deeper thy roots embedding
In the grace and the beauty of yore;
Thou sigh'st not, "Alas, I am older,
The green of last summer is sear!
But loftier, hopefuller, bolder,
Wins broader horizons each year.

To me 't is not cheer thou art singing:
There's a sound of the sea,

O mournful tree,

In thy boughs forever clinging, And the far-off roar

Of waves on the shore
A shattered vessel flinging.

As thou musest still of the ocean
On which thou must float at last,
And seem'st to foreknow
The shipwreck's woe

And the sailor wrenched from the broken mast,

Do I, in this vague emotion,
This sadness that will not pass,
Though the air throbs with wings,
And the field laughs and sings,
Do I forebode, alas!

The ship-building longer and wearier,
The voyage's struggle and strife,
And then the darker and drearier
Wreck of a broken life?

of heaven,

They whispered invitation in the winds, And breath came from them, mightier than the wind,

To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, Till that grew passion which before was wish,

And youth seemed all too costly to be staked

On the soiled cards wherewith men played their game,

Letting Time pocket up the larger life, Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof.

"What helpeth lightness of the feet?" they said,

"Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they;

Or strength of sinew? New men come

Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast:

And thither came he, called among the rest,

Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth:

But, ere deep draughts forbade such serious song

As the grave Skald might chant, nor after blush,

Then Eric looked at Thorwald, where he sat,

Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, And said: "O Skald, sing now an olden song,

Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;

And, as the bravest on a shield is borne Along the waving host that shouts hin king,

So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!"

Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood,

White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar

From their still region of perpetual

Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Fate?

What archer of his arrows is so choice, Or hits the white so surely? They are men,

The chosen of her quiver; nor for her Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick

At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:

Such answer household ends; but she will have

Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound

Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips

All needless stuff, all sapwood, seasons them,

From circumstance untoward feathers plucks

Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with

iron will:

The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: When she draws bow, 't is not across the wind,

Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings,

For sun and wind have plighted faith to

her:

That chatter loudest as they mean the least;

Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means

nevermore;

Impatient is her foot, nor turns again."

He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard

Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide

Of interrupted wassail roared along; But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as

seen.

III.

GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY.

Four weeks they sailed, a speck in skyshut seas,

Life, where was never life that knew itself,

But tumbled lubber-like in blowing whales ;

Thought, where the like had never been before

Since Thought primeval brooded the abyss;

Alone as men were never in the world. They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day, Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night In monstrous hush; or sometimes in the dark

The waves broke ominous with paly gleams Crushed by the prow in sparkles of

cold fire.