To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,

Though most hearts never understand

To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;

To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent,

His conquered Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,— Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,

Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue

That from the distance sparkle through

Some woodland gap,- and of a sky above,

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's

Who, from the dark old tree

song,

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears,

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look

On all these living pages of God's book.

THE GHOST-SEER.

YE who, passing graves by night,

Glance not to the left nor right,

Lest a spirit should arise,

Cold and white, to freeze your eyes,

Some weak phantom, which your doubt

Shapes upon the dark without

From the dark within, a guess

At the spirit's deathlessness,

Which

ye entertain with fear

In your self-built dungeon here,

Where ye sell your God-given lives

Just for gold to buy you gyves,

Ye without a shudder meet,

In the city's noonday street,
Spirits sadder and more dread
Than from out the clay have fled,
Buried, beyond hope of light,

In the body's haunted night!

See ye not that woman pale ?

There are bloodhounds on her trail!

Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean, —

For the soul their scent is keen,

Want and Sin, and Sin is last,

They have followed far and fast;

Want gave tongue, and, at her howl,

Sin awakened with a growl.
Ah, poor girl! she had a right

To a blessing from the light,
Title-deeds to sky and earth
God gave to her at her birth,
But, before they were enjoyed,
Poverty had made them void,

And had drunk the sunshine up
From all nature's ample cup,
Leaving her a first-born's share
In the dregs of darkness there.
Often, on the sidewalk bleak,
Hungry, all alone, and weak,

She has seen, in night and storm,
Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm,
Which, outside the window-glass,

Doubled all the cold, alas!

Till each ray that on her fell
Stabbed her like an icicle,

And she almost loved the wail

Of the bloodhounds on her trail.

Till the floor becomes her bier,
She shall feel their pantings near,
Close upon her very heels,

Spite of all the din of wheels;
Shivering on her pallet poor,

She shall hear them at the door
Whine and scratch to be let in,
Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin!