chair;

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall !
By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall !
They climb up into my turret

O’er the arms and back of my
If I try to escape, they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine !

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am

Is not a match for you all !
I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

And moulder in dust away!

SNOW-FLAKES.

Out of the belona-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

A DAY OF SUNSHINE.

83

Even as our cloudy. fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded ;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

A DAY OF SUNSHINE.

GIFT of God! O perfect day :

Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

O

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies ;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms !
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach !

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.

L

Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,

At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,

Like a mendicant it waits ;

Waits, and will not go away;

Waits, and will not be gainsaid ;
By the cares of yesterday

Each to-day is heavier made ;

Till at length the burden seems

Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams,

Pressing on us everywhere.

WEARINESS.

85

And we stand from day to day,

Like the dwarfs of times gone by, Who, as Northern legends say,

On their shoulders held the sky.

WEARINESS.

O

LITTLE feet! that such long years

Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load ;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,

Am weary, thinking of your road !

O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,

Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,

Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts ! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,

Such limitless and strong desires ;
Mine that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned

Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls ! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light

Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,

How lurid looks this soul of mine!

For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.