A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labour,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

121

Such

songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

THE day is ending,

The night is descending;

The marsh is frozen,

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes,

The red sun flashes

On village windows

That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;

The buried fences

Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,

Like fearful shadows,

Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling

Within me responds

To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing,

And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK.

WELCOME, my old friend,

Welcome to a foreign fireside,

While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. 123

The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,

Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.

There are marks of age,

There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely, At the ale-house.

Soiled and dull thou art;

Yellow are thy time-worn pages,

As the russet, rain-molested

Leaves of autumn.

Thou art stained with wine

Scattered from hilarious goblets,

As these leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall

Days departed, half-forgotten,

When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,-

When I paused to hear

The old ballad of King Christian

Shouted from suburban taverns

In the twilight.

Thou recallest bards,

Who, in solitary chambers,

And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.

Thou recallest homes

Where thy songs of love and friendship

Made the gloomy Northern winter

Bright as summer.

Once some ancient Scald,

In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,

Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.

Once in Elsinore,

At the court of old King Hamlet,
Yorick and his boon companions

Sang these ditties.

Once Prince Frederick's Guard

Sang them in their smoky barracks ;-

Suddenly the English cannon

Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,

Sailors on the roaring ocean,

Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,

All have sung them.