O Land of Quiet! to thy shore the surf

Of the perturbed Present rolls and sleeps;

Our storms breathe soft as June upon thy turf

And lure out blossoms; to thy bosom leaps, As to a mother's, the o'erwearied heart,

Hearing far off and dim the toiling mart,

The hurrying feet, the curses without number,
And, circled with the glow Elysian

Of thine exulting vision,

Out of its very cares woos charms for peace and slumber.

To thee the Earth lifts up her fettered hands
And cries for vengeance; with a pitying smile
Thou blessest her, and she forgets her bands,
And her old woe-worn face a little while
Grows young and noble; unto thee the Oppressor
Looks, and is dumb with awe;

The eternal law,

Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser,

Shadows his heart with perilous foreboding,

And he can see the grim-eyed Doom

From out the trembling gloom

Its silent-footed steeds toward his palace goading.

What promises hast thou for Poets' eyes,
Aweary of the turmoil and the wrong!
To all their hopes what overjoyed replies!
What undreamed ecstasies for blissful song!
Thy happy plains no war-trump's brawling clangor
Disturbs, and fools the poor to hate the poor;
The humble glares not on the high with anger;

Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed for more; In vain strives Self the godlike sense to smother; From the soul's deeps

It throbs and leaps;

The noble 'neath foul rags beholds his long-lost brother.

To thee the Martyr looketh, and his fires

Unlock their fangs and leave his spirit free;

To thee the Poet 'mid his toil aspires,

And grief and hunger climb about his knee, Welcome as children; thou upholdest

The lone Inventor by his demon haunted;

The Prophet cries to thee when hearts are coldest, And, gazing o'er the midnight's bleak abyss,

Sees the drowsed soul awaken at thy kiss,

And stretch its happy arms and leap up disenchanted.

Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving-kindly
The guilty thinks it pity; taught by thee,

Fierce tyrants drop the scourges wherewith blindly

Their own souls they were scarring; conquerors

see

With horror in their hands the accursed spear

That tore the meek One's side on Calvary, And from their trophies shrink with ghastly fear; Thou, too, art the Forgiver,

The beauty of man's soul to man revealing;

The arrows from thy quiver

Pierce error's guilty heart, but only pierce for healing.

O, whither, whither, glory-winged dreams,

From out Life's sweat and turmoil would ye bear

me?

Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden gleams,-
This agony of hopeless contrast spare me!
Fade, cheating glow, and leave me to my night!
He is a coward, who would borrow

A charm against the present sorrow

From the vague Future's promise of delight:

As life's alarums nearer roll,

The ancestral buckler calls,

Self-clanging, from the walls

In the high temple of the soul;

Where are most sorrows, there the poet's sphere is, To feed the soul with patience,

To heal its desolations

With words of unshorn truth, with love that never

wearies.

HEBE.

I SAW the twinkle of white feet,

I saw the flash of robes descending;

Before her ran an influence fleet,

That bowed my heart like barley bending.

As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,

It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;

With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;

The long-sought Secret's golden gates

On musical hinges swung before me.