Miscellaneous Poems — To J. F. H.

TO J.

F.

H.

Nine years have slipped like hour-glass sand From life's fast-emptying globe away, Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand, And lingered on the impoverished land, Watching the steamer down the bay.

I held the keepsake which you gave, Until the dim smoke-pennon curled O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave, And closed the distance like a grave, Leaving me to the outer world;

The old worn world of hurry and heat, The young, fresh world of thought and scope;

While you, where silent surges fleet Toward far sky beaches still and sweet, Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope.

Come back our ancient walks to tread, Old haunts of lost or scattered friends, Amid the Muses' factories red, Where song, and smoke, and laughter sped The nights to proctor-hunted ends.

Our old familiars are not laid, Though snapped our wands and sunk our books, They beckon, not to be gainsaid, Where, round broad meads which mowers wade, Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;

Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow, From glow to gloom the hillside shifts Its lakes of rye that surge and flow, Its plumps of orchard-trees arow, Its snowy white-weed's summer drifts.

Or let us to Nantasket, there To wander idly as we list, Whether, on rocky hillocks bare, Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tear The trailing fringes of gray mist.

Or whether, under skies clear-blown, The heightening surfs with foamy din, Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown Against old Neptune's yellow zone, Curl slow, and plunge forever in.

For years thrice three, wise Horace said, A poem rare let silence bind;

And love may ripen in the shade, Like ours, for nine long seasons laid In crypts and arches of the mind.

That right Falernian friendship old Will we, to grace our feast, call up, And freely pour the juice of gold, That keeps life's pulses warm and bold, Till Death shall break the empty cup.

MEMORIAL VERSES.

KOSSUTH.

A race of nobles may die out, A royal line may leave no heir;

Wise Nature sets no guards about Her pewter plate and wooden ware.

But they fail not, the kinglier breed, Who starry diadems attain;

To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed Heirs of the old heroic strain.

The zeal of Nature never cools, Nor is she thwarted of her ends;

When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint and prophet spends.

Land of the Magyars!

though it be The tyrant may relink his chain, Already thine the victory, As the just Future measures gain.

Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won The deathly travail's amplest worth;

A nation's duty thou hast done, Giving a hero to our earth.

And he, let come what will of woe, Has saved the land he strove to save;

No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave.

"I Kossuth am: O Future, thou That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile, O'er this small dust in reverence bow, Remembering, what I was erewhile.

"I was the chosen trump wherethrough Our God sent forth awakening breath;

Came chains?

Came death?

The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death."

TO LAMARTINE.

1848. I did not praise thee when the crowd, 'Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration;

I but looked upward with the rest, And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best.

They raised thee not, but rose to thee, Their fickle wreaths about thee flinging;

So on some marble Phœbus the high sea Might leave his worthless sea-weed clinging, But pious hands, with reverent care, Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare.

Now thou 'rt thy plain, grand self again, Thou art secure from panegyric,-- Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain, And actedst Freedom's noblest lyric: This side the Blessed Isles, no tree Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee.

Nor can blame cling to thee; the snow From swinish foot-prints takes no staining, But, leaving the gross soils of earth below, Its spirit mounts, the skies regaining, And unresenting falls again, To beautify the world with dews and rain.

The highest duty to mere man vouchsafed Was laid on thee,--out of wild chaos, When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed, And vulture War from his Imaus Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, And show that only order is release.

To carve thy fullest thought, what though Time was not granted?

Aye in history, Like that Dawn's face which baffled Angelo, Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, Thy great Design shall stand, and day Flood its blind front from Orients far away.

Who says thy day is o'er?

Control, My heart, that bitter first emotion;

While men shall reverence the steadfast soul, The heart in silent self-devotion Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, Thou'lt need no prop of marble, Lamartine.

If France reject thee, 'tis not thine, But her own, exile that she utters;

Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, Will be where thy white pennon flutters, As once the nobler Athens went With Aristides into banishment.

No fitting metewand hath To-day For measuring spirits of thy stature,-- Only the Future can reach up to lay The laurel on that lofty nature,-- Bard, who with some diviner art Has touched the bard's true lyre, a nation's heart.

Swept by thy hand, the gladdened chords, Crashed now in discords fierce by others, Gave forth one note beyond all skill of words, And chimed together, We are brothers.

O poem unsurpassed!

it ran All round the world, unlocking man to man.

France is too poor to pay alone The service of that ample spirit;

Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, If balanced with thy simple merit.

They had to thee been rust and loss;

Thy aim was higher,--thou hast climbed a Cross.

TO JOHN G.

PALFREY.

There are who triumph in a losing cause, Who can put on defeat, as 't were a wreath Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, Safe from the blasting demagogue's applause;

'Tis they who stand for Freedom and God's laws.

And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened 'neath a nobler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, Europe's crowned bloodsuckers,--how more ashamed Ought we to be, who see Corruption's flood Still rise o'er last year's mark, to mine away Our brazen idols' feet of treacherous clay!

O utter degradation!

Freedom turned Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and betray To the old lecher's clutch a maiden prey, If so a loathsome pander's fee be earned!

And we are silent,--we who daily tread A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' graves!

-- Beckon no more, shades of the noble dead!

Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves!

Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, hid Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, With cerements close, to wither in the cold Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid!

Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet;

We climb to them through years of sweat and pain;

Without long struggle, none did e'er attain The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat: Though present loss may be the hero's part, Yet none can rob him of the victor heart Whereby the broad-realmed future is subdued, And Wrong, which now insults from triumph's car, Sending her vulture hope to raven far, Is made unwilling tributary of Good.

O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires!

Is there none left of thy staunch Mayflower breed?

No spark among the ashes of thy sires, Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed?

Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, And writhe through slimy ways to place and power?

-- How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower?

O for one hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sydney to the block!

O for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord's threshing-floor!

Yet more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, Beside thy sepulchre can abide the morn, Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew.

TO W.

L. GARRISON.

"Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."

--_Letter of H. G.

Otis.

_ In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man;

The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean;-- Yet there the freedom of a race began.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less: What need of help?

He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus round which systems grow!

Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth!

O Freedom!

how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nursed!

What humble hands unbar those gates of morn Through which the splendors of the New Day burst!

What!

shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown?

Brave Luther answered Yes; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown.

Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled;

No!

said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the dark created this New World.

Who is it will not dare himself to trust?

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone?

Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward |MUST|?

He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here!

See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?

We stride the river daily at its spring, Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!

Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

ON THE DEATH OF C.

T.

TORREY.

Woe worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws!

He strove among God's suffering poor One gleam of brotherhood to send;

The dungeon oped its hungry door To give the truth one martyr more, Then shut,--and here behold the end!

O Mother State!

when this was done, No pitying throe thy bosom gave;

Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun, And now thou givest to thy son The stranger's charity--a grave.

Must it be thus forever?

No!

The hand of God sows not in vain;

Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain.

Although our brother lie asleep, Man's heart still struggles, still aspires;

His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires.

When hours like this the senses' gush Have stilled, and left the spirit room, It hears amid the eternal hush The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, That brings the vengeance and the doom;-- Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends What rivets man to man apart,-- God doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor's heart.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR.

CHANNING.

I do not come to weep above thy pall, And mourn the dying-out of noble powers;

The poet's clearer eye should see, in all Earth's seeming woe, the seed of Heaven's flowers.

Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Of everlasting Soul her strength abides, From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap, Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides.

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave;

And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave.

The sculptured marble brags of death-strewn fields, And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood;

But Alexander now to Plato yields, Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood.

I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears,-- One onward step of Truth from age to age.

The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain;

The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates;

Man's hope lies quenched;--and, lo!

with steadfast gain Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross Make up the groaning record of the past;

But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth;

Thereby a law of Nature it became, And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth, When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;

The better part of thee is with us still;

Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the Ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things;

What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die;

Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly.

And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with lustre more divine.

Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, And strength, to perfect what it dreamed of here Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room For love and pity, and for helpful deeds;

Else were our summons thither but a doom To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

From off the starry mountain peak of song, Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed.

Farewell!

good man, good angel now!

this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning, too;

Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: When that day comes, O, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right;

O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier;

Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine;

Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,-- For us weep rather thou in calm divine.

1842. TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD.

Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas;

Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,-- What mournful words are these!

O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art!

His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door And call him home again?

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Freedom still.

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms With their exulting spread.

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone To mark his resting-place:-- "Here lies a Poet.

Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor."

SONNETS.

I. TO A.

C. L.

Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed To show us what a woman true may be: They have not taken sympathy from thee, Nor made thee any other than thou wast, Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast, Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown, Upon the air, but keepeth every one Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety, But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;

Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, But rather cleared thy inner eyes to see How many simple ways there are to bless.

1840. II.

What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live, Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost give Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mystery, Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who see Beyond the earthly and the fugitive, Who in the grandeur of the soul believe, And only in the Infinite are free?

Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bare As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow;

And Nature's teachings, which come to me now, Common and beautiful as light and air, Would be as fruitless as a stream which still Slips through the wheel of some old ruined mill.

1841. III.

I would not have this perfect love of ours Grow from a single root, a single stem, Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers That idly hide life's iron diadem: It should grow alway like that eastern tree Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;

That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, it is but a worthless thing.

Not in another world, as poets prate, Dwell we apart above the tide of things, High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;

But our pure love doth ever elevate Into a holy bond of brotherhood All earthly things, making them pure and good.

1840. IV.

"For this true nobleness I seek in vain, In woman and in man I find it not;

I almost weary of my earthly lot, My life-springs are dried up with burning pain."

Thou find'st it not?

I pray thee look again, Look _inward_ through the depths of thine own soul.

How is it with thee?

Art thou sound and whole?

Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain?

Be noble!

and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own: Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, Then will pure light around thy path be shed, And thou wilt never more be sad and lone.

1840. V. TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS.

Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom: Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom: Yes!

the few words which, like great thunderdrops, Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully, Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops.

1841. VI.

Great Truths are portions of the soul of man;

Great souls are portions of Eternity;

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran With lofty message, ran for thee and me;

For God's law, since the starry song began, Hath been, and still for evermore must be, That every deed which shall outlast Time's span Must goad the soul to be erect and free;

Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung,-- Too many noble souls have thought and died, Too many mighty poets have lived and sung, And our good Saxon, from lips purified With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung Too long to have God's holy cause denied.

1841. VII.

I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken, With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;

Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, Which, by the toil of gathering energies, Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green Into a pleasant island in the seas, Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

1841. VIII. TO M.

W.

ON HER BIRTHDAY.

Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, The morning stars their ancient music make, And, joyful, once again their song awake, Long silent now with melancholy scorn;

And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn, By no least deed its harmony shalt break, But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take, Through life's most darksome passes unforlorn;

Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall, Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free, And in thine every motion musical As summer air, majestic as the sea, A mystery to those who creep and crawl Through Time, and part it from Eternity.

1841. IX.

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die;

Albeit I ask no fairer life than this, Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss, While Time and Peace with hands enlockèd fly,-- Yet care I not where in Eternity We live and love, well knowing that there is No backward step for those who feel the bliss Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high: Love hath so purified my being's core, Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even, To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;

Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given, Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more, That they who love are but one step from Heaven.

1841. X.

I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, Whose life to mine is an eternal law, A piece of nature that can have no flaw, A new and certain sunrise every day;

But, if thou art to be another ray About the Sun of Life, and art to live Free from all of thee that was fugitive, The debt of Love I will more fully pay, Not downcast with the thought of thee so high, But rather raised to be a nobler man, And more divine in my humanity, As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan My life are lighted by a purer being, And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with it agreeing.

1841. XI.

There never yet was flower fair in vain, Let classic poets rhyme it as they will;

The seasons toil that it may blow again, And summer's heart doth feel its every ill;

Nor is a true soul ever born for naught;

Wherever any such hath lived and died, There hath been something for true freedom wrought, Some bulwark levelled on the evil side: Toil on, then, Greatness!

thou art in the right, However narrow souls may call thee wrong;

Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, And so thou wilt in all the world's ere long;

For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may, From man's great soul one great thought hide away.

1841. XII. SUB PONDERE CRESCIT.

The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day;

I hear the soul of Man around me waking, Like a great sea, its frozen fetters breaking, And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, Tossing huge continents in scornful play, And crushing them, with din of grinding thunder, That makes old emptinesses stare in wonder;

The memory of a glory passed away Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, Resounds the bygone freedom of the sea, And, every hour new signs of promise tell That the great soul shall once again be free, For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swell Of inward strife for truth and liberty.

1841. XIII.

Belovèd, in the noisy city here, The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease;

Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clear Its still, soft arms, and circles it with peace;

There is no room for any doubt or fear In souls so overfilled with love's increase, There is no memory of the bygone year But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect ease;

How hath our love, half nebulous at first, Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun!

How have our lives and wills (as haply erst They were, ere this forgetfulness begun,) Through all their earthly distantness outburst, And melted, like two rays of light, in one!

1842. XIV. ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, With the majestic beating of his heart, The mighty tides, whereof its rightful part Each sea-wide bay and little weed receiveth,-- So, through his soul who earnestly believeth, Life from the universal Heart doth flow, Whereby some conquest of the eternal Woe, By instinct of God's nature, he achieveth: A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide, And he more keenly feels the glorious duty Of serving Truth, despised and crucified,-- Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest And feel God flow forever through his breast.

1842. XV. THE SAME CONTINUED.

Once hardly in a cycle blossometh A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of song, A spirit fore-ordained to cope with wrong, Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath, Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth With starry words, that shoot prevailing light Into the deeps, and wither, with the blight Of serene Truth, the coward heart of Death: Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, And mock with lies the longing soul of man!

Yet one age longer must true Culture lie, Soothing her bitter fetters as she can, Until new messages of love outstart At the next beating of the infinite Heart.

XVI. THE SAME CONTINUED.

The love of all things springs from love of one;

Wider the soul's horizon hourly grows, And over it with fuller glory flows The sky-like spirit of God; a hope begun In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth;

And to the law of meekness, faith, and ruth, By inward sympathy, shall all be won: This thou shouldst know, who, from the painted feature Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren turn Unto the love of ever-youthful Nature, And of a beauty fadeless and eterne;

And always 'tis the saddest sight to see An old man faithless in Humanity.

XVII. THE SAME CONTINUED.

A poet cannot strive for despotism;

His harp falls shattered; for it still must be The instinct of great spirits to be free, And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: He, who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes;

The next hour always shames the hour before;

One beauty, at its highest, prophesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor;

No God-like thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness.

XVIII. THE SAME CONTINUED.

Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, And thou shalt love it only as the nest Whence glory-wingèd things to Heaven have flown: To the great Soul alone are all things known;

Present and future are to her as past, While she in glorious madness doth forecast That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown To each new Prophet, and yet always opes Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes, And longings high, and gushings of wide power, Yet never is or shall be fully blown Save in the forethought of the Eternal One.

XIX. THE SAME CONCLUDED.

Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should look Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook One prying doubt to shake his faith sublime;

To him the earth is ever in her prime And dewiness of morning; he can see Good lying hid, from all eternity, Within the teeming womb of sin and crime;

His soul should not be cramped by any bar, His nobleness should be so God-like high, That his least deed is perfect as a star, His common look majestic as the sky, And all o'erflooded with a light from far, Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality.

XX. TO M.

O.

S.

Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour, My love hath deepened, with my wiser sense Of what in Woman is to reverence;

Thy clear heart, fresh as e'er was forest-flower, Still opens more to me its beauteous dower;-- But let praise hush,--Love asks no evidence To prove itself well-placed; we know not whence It gleans the straws that thatch its humble bower: We can but say we found it in the heart, Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe of blame, Sower of flowers in the dusty mart, Pure vestal of the poet's holy flame,-- This is enough, and we have done our part If we but keep it spotless as it came.

1842. XXI.

Our love is not a fading, earthly flower: Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise, And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower, Doth momently to fresher beauty rise: To us the leafless autumn is not bare, Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green.

Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, where No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen: For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie, Love,--whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I Into the infinite freedom openeth, And makes the body's dark and narrow grate The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.

1842. XXII. IN ABSENCE.

These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, Did I not know, that, in the early spring, When wild March winds upon their errands sing, Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air, Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair, They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks, From icy cares, even as thy clear looks Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care;

When drops with welcome rain the April day, My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes, Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay, As loath to fall out of those happy skies;

Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May, That comes with steady sun when April dies.

1843. XXIII. WENDELL PHILLIPS.

He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose;

He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes;

Many there were who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords, He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, And, underneath their soft and flowery words, Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went And humbly joined him to the weaker part, Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content So he could be the nearer to God's heart, And feel its solemn pulses sending blood Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good.

XXIV. THE STREET.

They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro, Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago: They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, They cast their hope of human-kind away, With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove, And conquered,--and their spirits turned to clay: Lo!

how they wander round the world, their grave, Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, "We, only, truly live, but ye are dead."

Alas!

poor fools, the anointed eye may trace A dead soul's epitaph in every face!

XXV.

I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes away The charm that Nature to my childhood wore, For, with that insight, cometh, day by day, A greater bliss than wonder was before;

The real doth not clip the poet's wings,-- To win the secret of a weed's plain heart Reveals some clue to spiritual things, And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art: Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes, Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense;

He knows that outward seemings are but lies, Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence The soul that looks within for truth may guess The presence of some wondrous heavenliness.

XXVI. TO J.

R.

GIDDINGS.

Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown Smoother than honey on the lips of men;

And thou shalt aye be honorably known, As one who bravely used his tongue and pen, As best befits a freeman,--even for those, To whom our Law's unblushing front denies A right to plead against the life-long woes Which are the Negro's glimpse of Freedom's skies.

Fear nothing, and hope all things, as the Right Alone may do securely; every hour The thrones of Ignorance and ancient Night Lose somewhat of their long-usurpèd power, And Freedom's lightest word can make them shiver With a base dread that clings to them forever.

XXVII.

I thought our love at full, but I did err;

Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not see That sorrow in our happy world must be Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter;

But, as a mother feels her child first stir Under her heart, so felt I instantly Deep in my soul another bond to thee Thrill with that life we saw depart from her;