The loath gate swings with rusty creak;
Once, parting there, we played at pain;
There came a parting, when the weak
And fading lips essayed to speak
Vainly, "Auf wiedersehen!"

Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,
Though thou in outer dark remain;
One sweet sad voice ennobles death,
And still, for eighteen centuries saith
Softly,-"Auf wiedersehen!"

If earth another grave must bear,
Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain,
And something whispers my despair,
That, from an orient chamber there,
Floats down, "Auf Wiedersehen!"

20

Putnam's Monthly, Dec., 1854.

I smell the lilacs, and-ah, yes, I hear "Auf wiedersehen!"

20

1 Lowell became engaged to Miss Maria White in 1840. They were married in 1844, and Mrs. Lowell died in October, 1853.

INVITA MINERVA

The Bardling came where by a river grew The pennoned reeds, that, as the westwind blew,

Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew

What music slept enchanted in each stem, Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,

And with wise lips enlife it through and through.

I hear the rustle of her dress,

Then Bacchus,-"I must say good-by,

Although my peace it jeopards;

50

I meet a man at four, to try
A well-broke pair of leopards."
His words woke Hermes. "Ah!" he said,
"I so love moral theses!"

Then winked at Hebe, who turned red,
And smoothed her apron's creases.

Just then Zeus snored,-the Eagle drew
His head the wing from under;
Zeus snored,-o'er startled Greece there
flew

The many-volumed thunder.
Some augurs counted nine, some, ten;
Some said 't was war, some, famine,
And all, that other-minded men
Would get a precious

60

Proud Pallas sighed, "It will not do; Against the Muse I 've sinned, oh!" And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus's back window.

Then, packing up a peplus clean,

She took the shortest path thence,
And opened, with a mind serene,
A Sunday-school in Athens.

The verses? Some in ocean swilled,
Killed every fish that bit to 'em;
Some Galen caught, and, when distilled,
Found morphine the residuum;
But some that rotted on the earth
Sprang up again in copies,

And gave two strong narcotics birth,
Didactic verse and poppies.

Years after, when a poet asked
The Goddess's opinion,

As one whose soul its wings had tasked
In Art's clear-aired dominion,
"Discriminate," she said, "betimes;
The Muse is unforgiving;
Put all your beauty in your rhymes,
Your morals in your living."

70

80

The Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1857.

THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD
OCTOBER, 1861

Along a river-side, I know not where,
I walked one night in mystery of dream;
A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my
hair,

To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam

Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.