The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but
mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then
expire.

And, as their splendour flashed and failed,

We thought of wrecks upon the
main,

Of ships dismasted that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,-
The ocean, roaring up the beach,-
The gusty blast,—the bickering
flames,-

All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the

brain,

The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answer back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned !

They were indeed too much akin, The driftwood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

There is no Death! What seems so is

transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death.

She is not dead, -the child of our affection,

But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,

She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;

For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,

Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expan

sion

Shall we behold her face.

And though at times, impetuous with emotion

And anguish long suppressed, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,

That cannot be at rest,

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way.

THE BUILDERS.

ALL are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time:
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best ;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these ;

Leave no yawning gaps between ; Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part ;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

SONNET

ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM

SHAKSPEARE.

O PRECIOUS evenings! all too swiftly sped!

Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,

And giving tongues unto the silent dead! How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,

Interpreting by tones the wondrous

pages

Of the great poet who foreruns the ages, Anticipating all that shall be said!

O happy Reader! having for thy text The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught

The rarest essence of all human thought! O happy Poet! by no critic vext!

How must thy listening spirit now re- | joice

To be interpreted by such a voice!

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth Held close in her caress,

Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith

Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms
Pacing the Dead Sea beach,
And singing slow their old Armenian
psalms

In half-articulate speech;

Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate
With westward steps depart;
Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute in heart;

These have passed over it, or may have passed!

Now in this crystal tower Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,

It counts the passing hour.

And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand ;— Before my dreamy eye

HOUR-GLASS.

A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime

Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of
Time,

The minister of Thought.
How many weary centuries has it been
About these deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen
How many histories known!
Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite
Trampled and passed it o'er,

When into Egypt from the patriarch's | sight

His favourite son they bore.

Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and

bare,

sand,

Its unimpeded sky.

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, This little golden thread

Dilates into a column high and vast,

A form of fear and dread.

And onward, and across the setting sun, Across the boundless plain,

The column and its broader shadow run, Till thought pursues in vain.

The vision vanishes! These walls again Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain; The half-hour's sand is run!

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

BLACK shadows fall

From the lindens tall,

That lift aloft their massive wall

Against the southern sky;

I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.
The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;
But shadow, and silence, and sadness,
Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches,

With sweet, familiar tone; But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone! And the boy that walked beside me, He could not understand Why closer in mine, ah! closer, I pressed his warm, soft hand!

PEGASUS IN POUND. ONCE into a quiet village,

Without haste and without heed, In the golden prime of morning, Strayed the poet's winged steed. It was Autumn, and incessant Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves;

And, like living coals, the apples

Burned among the withering leaves. Loud the clamorous bell was ringing From its belfry gaunt and grim; 'Twas the daily call to labour,

Not a triumph meant for him.

Not the less he saw the landscape, In its gleaming vapour veiled; Not the less he breathed the odours That the dying leaves exhaled.

Thus, upon the village common,

By the school-boys he was found, And the wise men, in their wisdom, Put him straightway into pound.