BESIDE THE DANUBE.

Ah, in those days we never thought We ever would be parted;

We thought to wander side by side, Forever single-hearted.

How strange! Beneath her churchyard grass

She dreams no more, O, never,

Of one, six thousand miles away

Beside the Danube River.

Budapest.

AT THE PARIS MORGUE.

Behind a glass, all in a ghastly row,

We here behold the loathsome pauper dead; Sick at the sight, our horror bids us go;

We shudder, start, we turn away the head.

Shocked and disgusted at those staring eyes,

Those blue-white brows, lips withered, pinched and brown, We quail at hideous Death without disguise,

And like a leaden lump our hearts sink down.

And yet, poor creatures, you have loved and laughed,
And known Parisian glory in your prime;
The cup of passion and of mirth you quaffed,
Before the days you fell to want and crime.

Old woman, in your girlhood long ago,

Some lover's fingers fondled through your hair; He breathed sweet words no other ears might know, And clasped you close, and swore that you were fair.

Old man, your mother would not know you now,—
Her blue-eyed boy is now a shocking sight!-

God! who would think a man could fall so low,
That such a dawn could die in such a night?

AT THE PARIS MORGUE.

Young woman, trusting hearts are seldom wise!
You here forsaken in the Morgue alone?
Man's sweetest vows are oft but honeyed lies;
Youth's tender heart may sometimes turn to stone!

Young man, you loudly swore to win the race;
Hither you came in all your boyhood bloom;
See, glorious Paris turns away her face,

And leaves you in the horror of this tomb!

O Paris, Paris, you have slain them all,

Your foolish lovers, snared within your spell; You sit enthroned, robed in a funeral pall, Your face a heaven, and your heart a hell!

THE WOOD THRUSH.

Bird of the brown wing and the dotted breast,

He dwells in deep woods, cool and dark and green; In dewy, dim retreats he rears his nest,

By all save barefoot truants left unseen.

In Spring and Summer, at the dusk and dawn,
He floods the forest with his liquid trill;

At burning noon, in solitude withdrawn,

The hours doze on while all his songs are still.

Like rival troubadours, from every spray,

To all his notes his brethren make reply;
They speed the splendid sunrise on his way,
And chant a requiem when the light must die.

When morning, like a tulip flecked with fire,
In scarlet and in orange breaks in bloom,
Bird answers bird, and in one heavenly choir
They hail him from their forest-temple's gloom:

"O day of joy, haste, haste thy nimble feet! All earth is happy, like a sweet love-story.

Come on, come on, where Youth and Pleasure meet, To crown thee as thou risest in thy glory!"

THE WOOD THRUSH.

When sunset lingers over Western hills
In ashen purple, like an exiled king,
Bird answers bird in melancholy trills,-

Ah me, that song the wild wood-thrushes sing!

"O perfect day, how soon thy joys shall end!
Thou wilt return, O never, never, never;
Far, O how far, thy weary feet must wend;
O day of joy, farewell, farewell, forever!"