Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love,

By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall

cease:

And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard

From out the pitiless glooms of Chaos, I Shall be a power and a memory,

A name to fright all tyrants with, a light Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice Heard in the breathless pauses ofthe fight By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong,

Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake Huge echoes that from age to age live on In kindred spirits, giving them a sense Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung:

And many a glazing eye shall smile to see The memory of my triumph (for to meet Wrong with endurance, and to overcome The present with a heart that looks beyond,

1

Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch Upon the sacred banner of the Right. Evil springs up. and flowers, and bears no seed,

And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,

Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; But Good, once put in action or in thought,

Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down

The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god,

Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul, Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, Inevery heaving shall partake, that grows From heart to heart among the sons of

men, As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs

Far through the Ægean from roused
isle to isle,
Foreboding wreck topalaces and shrines,
And mighty rents in many a cavernous

error

That darkens the free light to man:~ This heart, Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth Grows but more lovely 'neath the heal:s and claws

Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall

In all the throbbing exultations share That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all

The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds

That veil the future, showing them the end, Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth,

Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel,

Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts

Fall o me like the silent flakes of snow On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend

This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!

yet

Must I lie here upon my altar huge,
A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be,
As it hath been, his portion; endless
doom,

While the immortal with the mortal linked

Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams,

With upward yearn unceasing. Better

So:

For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child, And empire over self, and all the deep Strong charities that make men seem like gods;

And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts

Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood.

Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems,

Having two faces, as some images Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill;

But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, As are all hearts, when we explore their depths.

Therefore, great heart, bear up! thou art but type

Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain Would win men back to strength and peace through love:

Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart

Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left;

And faith, which is but hope grown wise; and love

And patience, which at last shall over

come.

1843.

SONG.

VIOLET! Sweet violet

Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet

With the thought of other years?
Or with gladness are they full,
For the night so beautiful,
And longing for those far-off spheres ?

Loved one of my youth thou wast,
Of my merry youth,
And I see,
Tearfully,

All the fair and sunny past, All its openness and truth, Ever fresh and green in thee As the moss is in the sea.

Thy little heart, that hath with love Grown colored like the sky above, On which thou lookest ever, —

Can it know

All the woe

Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
To these hearts of ours belonging?

Out on it! no foolish pining
For the sky

Dims thine eye,

Or for the stars so calmly shining;
Like thee let this soul of mine
Take hue from that wherefor I long,

Why wilt thou haunt me with thineeyes,
Wherein such blessed memories,
Such pitying forgiveness lies,
Than hate more bitter, Rosaline?
Woe's me! I know that love so high
As thine, true soul, could never die,
And with mean clay in churchyardlie, —
Would it might be so, Rosaline !

1841.

THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS.

THERE came a youth upon the earth,
Some thousand years ago,
Whose slender hands were nothing
worth,

Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.
Upon an empty tortoise-shell

He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell. Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.

Then King Admetus, one who had
Pure taste by right divine,
Decreed his singing not too bad
To hear between the cups of wine:

And so, well pleased with being soothed
Into a sweet half-sleep,
Three times his kingly beard he
smoothed,

And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.

His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,
That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.

Men called him but a shiftless youth,

In whom no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law.

They knew not how he learned at all,
For idly, hour by hour,
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,
Or mused upon a common flower.

It seemed the loveliness of things Did teach him all their use,

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,

He found a healing power profuse.

Men granted that his speech was wise,
But, when a glance they caught
Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,
They laughed, and called him good-for-
naught.

Vet after he was dead and gone,
And e'en his memory dim,
Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,
More full of love, because of him.

And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god.

1842.

THE TOKEN.

It is a mere wild rosebud,
Quite sallow now, and dry,
Yet there's something wondrousin it,-
Some gleams of days gone by,
Dear sights and sounds that are to me
The very moons of memory,
And stir my heart's blood far below
Its short-lived waves of joy and woe.

Lips must fade and roses wither,
All sweet times be o'er,
They only smile, and, murmuring
"Thither!"

Stay with us no more:
And yet ofttimes a look or smile,
Forgotten in a kiss's while,
Years after from the dark will start,
And flash across the trembling heart.
Thou hast given me many roses,
But never one, like this,
O'erfloods both sense and spirit

With such a deep, wild bliss ; We must have instincts that glean up Sparse drops of this life in the cup, Whose taste shall give us all that we Can prove of immortality.

Earth's stablest things are shadows, And, in the life to come