or

The Pope himself to see in dream
Before his lenten vision gleam,

He lies there, the sogdologer !
His precious flanks with stars besprent,

Worthy to swim in Castaly! The friend by whom such gifts are sent, For him shall bumpers full be spent,

His health! be Luck his fast ally!

I see him trace the wayward brook
Amid the forest mysteries,
Where at their shades shy aspens look,
Or where, with many a gurgling crook,
It croons its woodland histories.

I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend

Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,

O, stew him, Ann, as 't were your friend,

With amorous solicitude!)

I see him step with caution due,

Soft as if shod with moccasins,

Grave as in church, for who plies you, Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew

From all our common stock o' sins.

The unerring fly I see him cast,

That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash! a whirl! he has him fast! We tyros, how that struggle last

Confuses and appalls us oft.

The friend who gave our board such gust,

Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must,

He 'll do it handsomely, I trust,
And John H-write his epi-
taph!

O, born beneath the Fishes' sign,
Of constellations happiest,
May he somewhere with Walton dine,
May Horace send him Massic wine,
And Burns Scotch drink, the nap-
piest !

And when they come his deeds to weigh,

And how he used the talents his, One trout-scale in the scales he 'll lay (If trout had scales), and 't will outsway The wrong side of the balances.

no,

I do thee wrong to call thee so; 'Tis I am changed, not thou art fleet: The man thy presence feels again, Not in the blood, but in the brain, Spirit, that lov'st the upper air Serene and passionless and rare, Such as on mountain heights we find

And wide-viewed uplands of the
mind;

Or such as scorns to coil and sing
Round any but the eagle's wing

Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in relentless eyes

The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,

Man ever with his Now at strife,

Pained with first gasps of earthly air,

Then praying Death the last to

Not unto them dost thou consent
Who, passionless, can lead at ease
A life of unalloyed content

A life like that of land-locked seas,
That feel no elemental gush
Of tidal forces, no fierce rush
Of storm deep-grasping scarcely
spent

'Twixt continent and continent. Such quiet souls have never known Thy truer inspiration, thou

Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow Spray from the plunging vessel thrown Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath,

Where the frail hair-breadth of an if Is all that sunders life and death: These, too, are cared-for, and round these

Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace; These in unvexed dependence lie, Each 'neath his strip of household

marge;

Their hours into each other flit

Like the leaf-shadows of the vine And fig-tree under which they sit, And their still lives to heaven incline With an unconscious habitude,

Unhistoried as smokes that rise
From happy hearths and sight elude
In kindred blue of morning skies.

Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,
'T is worse than vain to woo thee back!
Yet there is one who seems to be
Thine elder sister, in whose eyes
A faint far northern light will rise
Sometimes, and bring a dream of

thee;

She is not that for which youth hoped, But she hath blessings all her own Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou

Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one that somewhere hath met

Death,

But No," she answers, "I am she
Whom the gods love, Tranquillity:

That other whom you seek forlorn
Half earthly was; but I am born
Of the immortals, and our race
Wear still some sadness on our face:

He wins me late, but keeps me long, Who, dowered with every gift of passion,

In that fierce flame can forge and fashion

Of sin and self the anchor strong; Can thence compel the driving force Of daily life's mechanic course, Nor less the nobler energies Of needful toil and culture wise; Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure Who can renounce, and yet endure, To him I come, not lightly wooed, But won by silent fortitude."

Down 'mid the tangled roots of things
That coil about the central fire,
I seek for that which giveth wings
To stoop, not soar, to my desire.

Sometimes I hear, as 't were a sigh,
The sea's deep yearning far above,
"Thou hast the secret not," I cry,
"In deeper deeps is hid my Love."

They think I burrow from the sun,

In darkness, all alone, and weak; Such loss were gain if He were won, For 't is the sun's own Sun I seek.

"The earth," they murmur, "is the

tomb

That vainly sought his life to prison; Why grovel longer in the gloom?

He is not here; he hath arisen."

More life for me where he hath lain Hidden while ye believed him dead,

Than in cathedrals cold and vain, Built on loose sands of It is said.

My search is for the living gold;

Him I desire who dwells recluse, And not his image worn and old, Day-servant of our sordid use.

If him I find not, yet I find

The ancient joy of cell and church, The glimpse, the surety undefined, The unquenched ardor of the search

Happier to chase a flying goal

Than to sit counting laurelled gains, To guess the Soul within the soul Than to be lord of what remains.

Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise, Beyond my nature's utmost scope; Be ever absent from mine eyes

To be twice present in my hope!

GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY.

HOW A STUDENT IN SEARCH OF THE BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP IN DRESDEN OVER HERR PROFESSOR DOCTOR VISCHER'S WISSENSCHAFT DES SCHÖNEN, AND WHAT CAME THEREOF.

I SWAM with undulation soft,
Adrift on Vischer's ocean,
And, from my cockboat up aloft,
Sent down my mental plummet oft
In hope to reach a notion.

But from the metaphysic sea

No bottom was forthcoming, And all the while (how drearily!) In one eternal note of B

My German stove kept humming.

"What's Beauty?" mused I; "is it told

By synthesis? analysis? Have you not made us lead of gold? To feed your crucible, not sold

Our temple's sacred chalices?"

Then o'er my senses came a change;
My book seemed all traditions,
Old legends of profoundest range,
Diablery, and stories strange

Of goblins, elves, magicians.

Old gods in modern saints I found,
Old creeds in strange disguises;
I thought them safely underground,
And here they were, all safe and sound,
Without a sign of phthisis.

Truth was, my outward eyes were closed,

Although I did not know it;
Deep into dream-land I had dozed,
And so was happily transposed
From proser into poet.

So what I read took flesh and blood,
And turned to living creatures:
The words were but the dingy bud
That bloomed, like Adam, from the
mud,

To human forms and features.

I saw how Zeus was lodged once more
By Baucis and Philemon;
The text said, "Not alone of yore,
But every day, at every door,

Knocks still the masking Demon."

DAIMON 't was printed in the book,
And, as I read it slowly,

The letters stirred and changed, and took

Jove's stature, the Olympian look
Of painless melancholy.

He paused upon the threshold worn:
"With coin I cannot pay you;
Yet would I fain make some return;
The gift for cheapness do not spurn,
Accept this hen, I pray you.
"Plain feathers wears my Hemera,
And has from ages olden;
She makes her nest in common hay,
And yet, of all the birds that lay,

Her eggs alone are golden."

He turned, and could no more be seen;
Old Baucis stared a moment,
Then tossed poor Partlet on the green,
And with a tone, half jest, half spleen,

Thus made her housewife's comment: