Let Grief be her own mistress still.

She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will

Be done to weep or not to weep.

I will not say "God's ordinance

Of Death is blown in every wind "; For that is not a common chance

That takes away a noble mind. His memory long will live alone

In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun,

And dwells in heaven half the night.

Vain solace! Memory standing nea. Cast down her eyes, and in her throat

Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear
Dropt on the letters as I wrote.

I wrote I know not what. In truth,
How should I soothe you anyway,
Who miss the brother of your youth?

Yet something I did wish to say:

For he too was a friend to me:

Both are my friends, and my true breast

Bleedeth for both: yet it may be

That only silence suiteth best. Words weaker than your grief_would make [cease; Grief more. 'Twere better I should Although myself could almost take The place of him that sleeps in peace.

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,

Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas?

It is the land that freemen till,

That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends
or foes

A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,

A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom broadens slowly
down

From precedent to precedent :

Where faction seldom gathers head,

But by degrees to fulness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought [spread. Hath time and space to work and

Should banded unions persecute

Opinion, and induce a time

When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute;

Tho' Power should make from land to land

The name of Britain trebly greatTho' every channel of the State Should almost choke with golden sand

Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth,

Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South.

OF old sat Freedom on the heights,

The thunders breaking at her feet : Above her shook the starry lights:

She heard the torrents meet There in her place she did rejoice,

Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice

Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field

To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fulness of her face

Grave mother of majestic works,

From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,

And, King-like, wears the crown: Her open eyes desire the truth.

The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth

Keep dry their light from tears; That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams,

Turning to scorn with lips divine

The falsehood of extremes !

LOVE thou thy land, with love farbrought

From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought. True love turn'd round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls. But pamper not a hasty time,

Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble
wings,

That every sophister can lime.
Deliver not the tasks of might

To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day,

Tho' sítting girt with doubtful light.

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

Watch what main-currents draw the years;

Cut Prejudice against the grain : But gentle words are always gain : Regard the weakness of thy pcers:

Nor toil for title, place, or touch,

Of pension, neither count on praise: It grows to guerdon after-days: Nor deal in watch-words overmuch;

Not clinging to some ancient saw ;

Not master'd by some modern term; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm:

And in its season bring the law;

That from Discussion's lip may fall With Life, that, working strongly, binds

Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all.

For Nature, also, cold and warm,

And moist and dry devising long, Thro' many agents making strong, Matures the individual form.

Meet is it changes should control

Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.

So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that, which flies,

And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy,

A saying, hard to shape in act;

For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.

Ev'n now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom— The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life.

A slow-develop'd strength awaits
Completion in a painful school;
Phantoms of other forms of rule,
New Majesties of mighty States-
The warders of the growing hour,
But vague in vapor, hard to mark;
And round them sea and air are
dark

With great contrivances of Power.

Of many changes, aptly join'd,

Is bodied forth the second whole.

Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind; A wind to puff your idol-fires,

And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires.

O yet, if Nature's evil star

Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of warIf New and Old, disastrous feud,

Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close,

That Principles are rain'd in blood; Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt,

But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;

Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word, [sword, Certain, if knowledge bring the That knowledge takes the sword awayWould love the gleams of good that broke

From either side, nor veil his eyes: And if some dreadful need should rise [stroke: Would strike, and firmly, and one To-morrow yet would reap to-day,

As we bear blossom of the dead, Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.

It is a stormy season."

She caught the white goose by the leg.
A goose-'twas no great matter.
The goose let fall a golden egg

With cackle and with clatter.

She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf,

And ran to tell her neighbors; And bless'd herself, and cursed herself, And rested from her labors.

And feeding high, and living soft,

Grew plump and able-bodied; Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, The parson smirk'd and nodded. So sitting, served by man and maid,

She felt her heart grow prouder : But ah! the more the white goose laid It clack'd and cackled louder.

It clutter'd here, it chuckled there; It stirr'd the old wife's mettle: She shifted in her elbow-chair, And hurl'd the pan and kettle. "A quinsy choke thy cursed note!" Then wax'd her anger stronger. "Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,

I will not bear it longer." Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the

cat;

Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer, The goose flew this way and flew that, And fill'd the house with clamor. As head and heels upon the floor

They floundered all together, There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather:

He took the goose upon his arm,

He utter'd words of scorning; "So keep you cold, or keep you warm, It is a stormy morning."

The glass blew in, the fire blew out,
The blast was hard and harder.
Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,
And a whirlwind clear'd the larder;

plain,

And round the attics rumbled, Till all the tables danced again, And half the chimneys tumbled.

IIer household fled the danger,

Quoth she, "The Devil take the

goose,

And God forget the stranger!"

THE EPIC.

AT Francis Allen's on the Christmaseve,

The game of forfeits done-the girls all kiss'd

away

Beneath the sacred bush and past [Hall, The parson Holmes, the poet Everard The host, and I sat round the wassailbowl,

Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,

How all the old honor had from Christmas gone,

Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games

In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out [pond, With cutting eights that day upon the Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, [stars, I bump'd the ice into three several Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,

Now harping on the church-commissioners,

Upon the general decay of faith Right thro' the world, "at home was little left, [none And none abroad: there was no anchor, To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his hand

On Everard's shoulder, with "I hold by him."

"And I," quoth Everard, "by the wassail-bowl."

"Why yes," I said, we knew your gift that way

At college: but another which you had I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that?" "You know," said Frank, "he burnt

His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books". ["O, sir, And then to me demanding why? He thought that nothing new was said, or else

Something so said 'twas nothing-that

a truth

Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:

Lask. God knows he has a mint of reasons: It pleased me well enough." "Nay, nay," said Hall, [times? Why take the style of those heroic For nature brings not back the Mas todon,

any man

Remodel models? these twelve books of mine [worth, Were faint Homeric echoes, nothingMere chaff and draff, much better burnt." "But I,"

Said Francis, "pick'd the eleventh from this hearth,

And have it keep a thing, its use will

come.

I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes." He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse

That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears;

For I remember'd Everard's college fame

When we were Freshmen: then at my request

He brought it; and the poet little urged, [ment, But with some prelude of disparageRead, mouthing out his hollow oes and

aes,

Deep-chested music, and to this result.

MORTE D'ARTHUR.

sea;

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter [man, Until King Arthur's table, man by Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the
field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir
Bedivere: