Reacheth to every corner under heaven,
Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth;

So that men's hopes and fears take refuge in
The fragrance of its complicated glooms,
And cool impeachéd twilights. Child of man,
Seest thou yon river, whose translucent wave,
Forth issuing from the darkness, windeth through
The argent streets o' the city, imaging

The soft inversion of her tremulous domes,
Her gardens frequent with the stately palm,
Her pagods hung with music of sweet bells,
Her obelisks of rangéd chrysolite,

Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by,
And gulfs himself in sands, as not enduring

To carry through the world those waves, which bore
The reflex of my city in their depth.

O city! O latest throne! where I was raised
To be a mystery of loveliness

Unto all eyes, the time is wellnigh come
When I must render up this glorious home
To keen Discovery; soon yon brilliant towers
Shall darken with the waving of her wand;
Darken and shrink and shiver into huts,
Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand,
Low-built, mud-walled, barbarian settlements.
How changed from this fair city!"

Thus far the Spirit :
Then parted heavenward on the wing: and I
Was left alone on Calpe, and the moon
Had fallen from the night, and all was dark!

POEMS

PUBLISHED IN THE EDITION OF 1830, AND
OMITTED IN LATER EDITIONS.

ELEGIACS.

LOW-FLOWING breezes are roaming the broad

valley dimmed in the gloaming:

Thro' the black-stemmed pines only the far river shines. Creeping through blossomy rushes and bowers of roseblowing bushes,

Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall. Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;

Deeply the turtle cooes; shrilly the owlet halloos ; Winds creep: dews fall chilly in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:

Over the pools in the burn watergnats murmur and

mourn.

Sadly the far kine loweth the glimmering water outfloweth :

Twin peaks shadowed with pine slope to the dark hyaline.

Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad

Throbbing in wild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.

The ancient poetess singeth that Hesperus all things bringeth,

Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.

Thou comest morning and even; she cometh not morning or even.

False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind?

THE HOW" AND THE "WHY."

I

?

AM any man's suitor,

If any will be my tutor :
Some say this life is pleasant,
Some think it speedeth fast,
In time there is no present,
In eternity no future,

In eternity no past.

We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die,
Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The bulrush nods unto its brother.

The wheatears whisper to each other:

What is it they say? what do they there?

Why two and two make four? why round is not square? Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly? Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows sigh?

Why deep is not high, and high is not deep?

Whether we wake, or whether we sleep?

Whether we sleep, or whether we die?
How you are you? why I am I?

Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The world is somewhat; it goes on somehow:
But what is the meaning of then and now?

I feel there is something; but how and what?
I know there is somewhat but what and why?
I cannot tell if that somewhat be I.

The little bird pipeth —"why? why?" In the summer woods when the sun falls low, And the great bird sits on the opposite bough, And stares in his face, and shouts "how? how?" And the black owl scuds down the mellow twilight, And chants" how? how?" the whole of the night.

Why the life goes when the blood is spilt?
What the life is? where the soul may lie?

Why a church is with a steeple built :
And a house with a chimney-pot?

Who will riddle me the how and the what?
Who will riddle me the what and the why?

SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS

OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND NOT IN UNITY

VOL. I.

O

WITH ITSELF.

GOD! my God! have mercy now.

I faint, I fall. Men say that thou

Didst die for me, for such as me,
Patient of ill, and death, and scorn,

And that my sin was as a thorn
Among the thorns that girt thy brow,
Wounding thy soul. — That even now,
In this extremest misery

Of ignorance, I should require
A sign! and if a bolt of fire

Would rive the slumberous summer noon

While I do pray to thee alone,

Think my belief would stronger grow!

Is not my human pride brought low?
The boastings of my spirit still?
The joy I had in my free will

All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?
And what is left to me, but thou,

And faith in thee? Men pass me by ;
Christians with happy countenances
And children all seem full of thee!

And women smile with saintlike glances
Like thine own mother's when she bowed
Above thee, on that happy morn

When angels spake to men aloud,
And thou and peace to earth were born.
Goodwill to me as well as all

- I one of them: my brothers they : Brothers in Christ a world of peace And confidence, day after day;

And trust and hope till things should cease, And then one Heaven receive us all.

How sweet to have a common faith!

To hold a common scorn of death!

And at a burial to hear

The creaking cords which wound and eat Into my human heart, whene'er