EARTH'S BURDENS

WHY groaning so, thou solid earth,
Though sprightly summer cheers?
Or is thine old heart dead to mirth?
Or art thou bow'd by years?

"Nor am I cold to summer's prime,
Nor knows my heart decay;
Nor am I bow'd by countless time,
Thou atom of a day!

"I lov'd to list when tree and tide Their gentle music made, And lightly on my sunny side

To feel the plough and spade.

"I lov'd to hold my liquid way

Through floods of living light;
To kiss the sun's bright hand by day,
And count the stars by night.

"I lov'd to hear the children's glee,
Around the cottage door,
And peasant's song right merrily
The glebe come ringing o'er.

THE WRECK

"But man upon my back has roll'd Such heavy loads of stone,

I scarce can grow the harvest gold: 'Tis therefore that I groan.

"And when the evening dew sinks mild Upon my quiet breast,

I feel the tear of the houseless child
Break burning on my rest.

"Oh! where are all the hallow'd sweets, The harmless joys I gave?

The pavement of your sordid streets
Are stones on Virtue's grave.

"And thick and fast as autumn leaves My children drop away,

A gathering of unripen'd sheaves
By premature decay.

"Gaunt misery holds the cottage door,
And olden honor's flown,

And slaves are slavish more and more: "Tis therefore that I groan."

ITs masts of might, its sails so free, Had borne the scatheless keel Through many a day of darken'd sea,

And many a storm of steel;

When all the winds were calm, it met
(With home-returning prore)
With the lull

Of the waves
On a low lee shore.

THE FACE

THESE dreary hours of hopeless gloom
Are all of life I fain would know ;
I would but feel my life consume,
While bring they back mine ancient woe;
For, midst the clouds of grief and shame
That crowd around, one face I see ;
It is the face I dare not name,
The face none ever name to me.

I saw it first when in the dance
Borne, like a falcon, down the hall,
He stay'd to cure some rude mischance
My girlish deeds had caused to fall;
He smil❜d, he danced with me, he made
A thousand ways to soothe my pain;
And sleeplessly all night I pray'd
That I might see that smile again.

I saw it next, a thousand times;
And every time its kind smile near'd ;
Oh! twice ten thousand glorious chimes
My heart rang out, when he appear'd ;

What was I then, that others' thought
Could alter so my thought of him;
That I could be by others taught
His image from my heart to dim!

I saw it last, when black and white
Shadows went struggling o'er it wild;
When he regain'd my long-lost sight,
And I with cold obeisance smil'd;·
I did not see it fade from life;
My letters o'er his heart they found;
They told me in death's last hard strife
His dying hands around them wound.

Although my scorn that face did maim,
Even when its love would not depart ;
Although my laughter smote its shame
And drave it swording through his heart;
Although its death-gloom grasps my brain
With crushing unrefus'd despair;
That I may dream that face again
God still must find alone my prayer.

An earthquake. I am bound and bless'd to youth.

None but the brave and beautiful can love. Oh give me to the young, the fair, the free,

The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world

Which came between him and his heart's delight.

Mad must I be, and what's the world? Like mad

For itself. And I to myself am all things, too.

If my heart thunder'd would the world rock? Well,

Then let the mad world fight its shadow down.

Soon there may be nor sun nor world nor shadow.

But thou, my blood, my bright red running soul,

Rejoice thou like a river in thy rapids. Rejoice, thou wilt never pale with age, nor

thin;

But in thy full dark beauty, vein by vein Serpent-wise, me encircling, shalt to the end Throb, bubble, sparkle, laugh, and leap along.

Make merry, heart, while the holidays shall last.

Better than daily dwine, break sharp with life;

Like a stag, sunstruck, top thy bounds and die.

Heart, I could tear thee out, thou fool, thou

fool,

And strip thee into shreds upon the wind. What have I done that thou shouldst maze me thus ?

Lucifer. Let us away; we have had enough of hearts.

Festus. Öh for the young heart like a fountain playing,

Flinging its bright fresh feelings up to the skies

It loves and strives to reach ; strives, loves in vain.

It is of earth, and never meant for heaven, Let us love both and die. The sphinx-like heart

Loathes life the moment that life's riddle is read.

The knot of our existence solv'd, all things Loose-ended lie, and useless. Life is had, And lo! we sigh, and say, can this be all? It is not what we thought; it is very well, But we want something more. There is but death.

And when we have said and seen, done, had, enjoy'd

And suffer'd, maybe, all we have wish'd or fear'd,

From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing,

There can come but one more changetry it death.

Oh! it is great to feel that nought of earth, Hope, love, nor dread, nor care for what's to come,

Can check the royal lavishment of life ; But, like a streamer strown upon the wind, We fling our souls to fate and to the future. For to die young is youth's divinest gift; To pass from one world fresh into another, Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret,

And feel the immortal impulse from within Which makes the coming life cry alway,

on !