M. Aldrich.

IDENTITY.

Somewhere,-in desolate, wind-swept space,—
In Twilight-land, in No-man's-land,—
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.

And who are you?" cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.

"I do not know," said the second Shape,
"I only died last night!"

SLEER.

When to soft sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark

Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
To rosy daybreak,-little thought we pay

To that sweet bitter world we know by day.
We are clean quit of it, as is a lark

So high in heaven no human eye may mark The sharp swift pinion cleaving through the gray.

Till we awake, ill fate can do no ill,

The resting heart shall not take up again

The heavy load that yet must make it bleed: For this brief space, the loud world's voice is still, No faintest echo of it brings us pain.

How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?

ON LYNN TERRACE.

(1879.)

All day to watch the blue wave curl and break,
All night to hear it plunging on the shore,-
In this sea-dream such draughts of life I take,
I cannot ask for more.

Behind me lie the idle life and vain,

The task unfinished, and the weary hours; That long wave bears me softly back to Spain And the Alhambra's towers!

Once more I halt in Andalusian pass,

To list the mule-bells jingling on the height; Below, against the dull esparto grass,

The almonds glimmer white.

Huge gateways, wrinkled, with rich grays and browns,
Invite my fancy, and I wander through

The gable-shadowed, zigzag streets of towns
The world's first sailors knew.

Or, if I will, from out this thin sea-haze
Low-lying cliffs of lovely Calais rise;

Or yonder, with the pomp of olden days,
Venice salutes my eyes.

Or some gaunt castle lures me up its stair;

I see, far off, the red-tiled hamlets shine,
And catch, through slits of windows here and there,
Blue glimpses of the Rhine.

And now I linger in green English lanes,
By garden-plots of rose and heliotrope;
And now I face the sudden pelting rains
On some lone Alpine slope.

Now at Tangier, among the packed bazaars,
I saunter, and the merchants at the doors
Smile, and entice me; here are jewels like stars,
And curved knives of the Moors.

Cloths of Damascus, strings of amber dates;

What would Howadji . . . silver, gold, or stone?
Prone on the sun-scorched plain without the gates
The camels make their moan.

All this is mine, as I lie dreaming here,

High on the windy terrace, day by day;

And mine the children's laughter, sweet and clear,
Ringing across the bay.

For me the clouds; the ships sail by for me;

For me the petulant sea-gull takes its flight;
And mine the tender moonrise on the sea,
And hollow coves of night!

PRESCIENCE.

The new moon hung in the sky, the sun was low in the west,
And my betrothed and I in the church-yard paused to rest—
Happy maiden and lover, dreaming the old dream over;
The light winds wandered by, and robins chirped from the nest.

And lo! in the meadow-sweet was the grave of a little child,
With a crumbling stone at the feet and the ivy running wild—
Tangled ivy and clover folding it over and over:
Close to my sweetheart's feet was the little mound up-piled.

Stricken with nameless fears she shrank and clung to me, And her eyes were filled with tears for a sorrow I did not see: Lightly the winds were blowing, softly her tears were flowingTears for the unknown years and a sorrow that was to be!

UNSUNG.

As sweet as the breath that goes
From the lips of the white rose,
As weird as the elfin lights
That glimmer of frosty nights,
As wild as the winds that tear
The curled red leaf in the air,
Is the song I have never sung.

In slumber, a hundred times
I've said the enchanted rhymes,

But ere I open my eyes
This ghost of a poem flies;

Of the interfluent strains

Not even a note remains:

I know by my pulses' beat

It was something wild and sweet,
And my heart is strangely stirred
By an unremembered word.

I strive, but I strive in vain,
To recall the lost refrain.
On some miraculous day
Perhaps it will come and stay;
In some unimagined Spring
I may find my voice, and sing
The song I have never sung.