Thou dost not gild the quiet herdsman's pipe,
Nor royal state, that royal action shuns.
But in the noontide of thy ruddy stars

Thrive strength, and daring, and the blood whence springs

The Heraclidean seed of heroes; then
Were sundered Gaza's bars;

Then, 'mid the smitten Hydra's loosened rings, His slayer rested, in the Lernean fen.

VI.

Thine is the subtle element that turns
To fearless act the impulse of the hour,-
The secret fire, whose flash electric burns
To every source of passion and of power.
Therefore I hail thee, on thy glittering track:
Therefore I watch thee, when the night grows dark,
Slow-rising, front Orion's sword along

The starry zodiac,

And from thy mystic beam demand a spark To warm my soul with more heroic song.

THE ODALISQUE.

IN marble shells the fountain splashes;
Its falling spray is turned to stars,
When some light wind its pinion dashes
Against thy gilded lattice-bars.

Around the shafts, in breathing cluster,

The roses of Damascus run,

And through the summer's moons of lustre

The tulip's goblet drinks the sun.

The day, through shadowy arches fainting,
Reveals the garden's burst of bloom,
With lights of shifting iris painting

The jasper pavement of thy room:
Enroofed with palm and laurel bowers,
Thou seest, beyond, the cool kiosk,
And far away the pencilled towers

That shoot from many a stately mosque.

Thou hast no world beyond the chamber

Whose inlaid marbles mock the flowers,
Where burns thy lord's chibouk of amber,
To charm the languid evening hours;
Where sounds the lute's impassioned yearning
Through all enchanted tales of old,
And spicy cressets, dimly burning,
Swing on their chains of Persian gold.

No more, in half-remembered vision,
Thy distant childhood comes to view;
That star-like world of shapes Elysian
Has faded from thy morning's blue:
The eastern winds that cross the Taurus
Have now no voice of home beyond,
Where light waves foam in endless chorus
Against the walls of Trebizond.

For thee the Past may never reckon

Its hoard of saddening memories o'er,
Nor shapes from out the Future beckon
To joys that only live in store.
Thy life is in the gorgeous Present,
An Orient summer, warm and bright;

No gleam of beauty evanescent,

But one long time of deep delight.

SORROWFUL MUSIC.

IVE me music, or I die;
Music, wherein Sorrow's cry
Is a sweet, aerial sigh, -
Where Despair is harmony.

Give me music, such as winds
To the ambushed grief, and finds
Clews of soft-enticing sound,

Notes that soothe and cannot wound,

Leading with a tender care

Outward into brighter air:

Music which, with welcome pain, Melted from the master's brain, When his sorrow, freed from smart, Laid its head upon his heart,

And the measure, broken, slow, -
Shed with tears in mingled flow, -
All its mighty secret spake

And it slept: it will not wake.

Give me music, sad and strong,
Drawn from deeper founts than Song;
More impassioned, full, and free
Than the Poet's numbers be:
Music which can master thee,
Stern enchantress, Memory!
Piercing through the gloomy stress
Of thy gathered bitterness,
As the summer lightnings play
Through a cloud's edge far away.

Give me music, I am dumb;
Choked with tears that never come.
Give me music; sigh or word
Such a sorrow never stirred, -
Sorrow that with blinding pain
Lies like fire on heart and brain.
Earth and Heaven bring no relief;
I am dumb; this weight of grief
Locks my lips; I cannot cry:
Give me music, or I die.

AUTUMNAL VESPERS.

HE clarion Wind, that blew so loud at morn,

Whirling a thousand leaves from every bough

Of the purple woods, has not a whisper now; Hushed on the uplands is the huntsman's horn, And huskers whistling round the tented corn:

The snug warm cricket lets his clock run down, Scared by the chill, sad hour that makes forlorn The Autumn's gold and brown.

The light is dying out on field and wold;

The life is dying in the leaves and grass.
The World's last breath no longer dims the
glass

Of waning sunset, yellow, pale, and cold.

His genial pulse, which Summer made so bold, Has ceased. Haste, Night, and spread thy decent pall!

The silent, stiffening Frost makes havoc : fold
The darkness over all!

The light is dying out o'er all the land,

And in my heart the light is dying. She,
My life's best life, is fading silently

From Earth, from me, and from the dreams we planned,

Since first Love led us with his beaming hand
From hope to hope, yet kept his crown in store.
The light is dying out o'er all the land:
To me it comes no more.

The blossom of my heart, she shrinks away, Stricken with deadly blight: more wan and weak

Her love replies in blanching lip and cheek, And gentler in her dear eyes, day by day. God, in Thy mercy, bid the arm delay,

Which thro' her being smites to dust my own! Thou gav'st the seed thy sun and showers; why slay The blossoms yet unblown?

In vain,
in vain! God will not bid the Spring
Replace with sudden green the Autumn's gold;
And as the night-mists, gathering damp and
cold,

Strike up the vales where watercourses sing,
Death's mist shall strike along her veins, and cling
Thenceforth forever round her glorious frame :
For all her radiant presence, May shall bring
A memory and a name,