I see again, as one in vision sees,

The blossoms and the bees,

And hear the children's voices shout and call, And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,
I hear the bellows blow,

And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat
The iron white with heat!

And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee,

And to my more than three-score years and ten Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined

The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood,

And make these branches, leafless now so long, Biossom again in song.

JUGURTHA.

How cold are thy baths, Apollo !
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow

Dark dungeons of Rome he descended, Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, As the vision, that lured him to follow, With the mist and the darkness blended, And the dream of his life was ended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

THE IRON PEN,

Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the Prisoner of Chillon; the handle of wood from the Frigate Constitu tion, and bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine.

I THOUGHT this Pen would arise
From the casket where it lies-

Of itself would arise and write
My thanks and my surprise.

When you gave it me under the pines,
I dreamed these gems from the mines
Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain
Of Bonnivard might retain

Some verse of the Poet who sang
Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate's mast
Might write me a rhyme at last,
As it used to write on the sky
The song of the sea and the blast.

But motionless as I wait,
Like a Bishop lying in state

Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold,
And its jewels inviolate.

Then must I speak, and say
That the light of that summer day
In the garden under the pines
Shall not fade and pass away.

I shall see you standing there,
Caressed by the fragrant air,

With the shadow on your face,
And the sunshine on your hair.

I shall hear the sweet low tone
Of a voice before unknown,

Saying, "This is from me to you-
From me, and to you alone."

And in words not idle and vain
I shall answer and thank you again
For the gift, and the grace of the gift,
O beautiful Helen of Maine!

And forever this gift will be
As a blessing from you to me,

As a drop of the dew of your youth On the leaves of an aged tree.

Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood, Its discords but an interlude

Between the words.

And then to die so young and leave
Unfinished what he might achieve!
Yet better sure

Is this, than wandering up and down
An old man in a country town,
Infirm and poor.

For now he haunts his native land
As an immortal youth; his hand
Guides every plough;
He sits beside each ingle-nook,
His voice is in each rushing brook,
Each rustling bough.

His presence haunts this room to-night,
A form of mingled mist and light
From that far coast.

Welcome beneath this roof of mine!
Welcome! this vacant chair is thine,
Dear guest and ghost!

ROBERT BURNS.

I SEE amid the fields of Ayr

A ploughman, who, in foul and fair,
Sings at his task

So clear, we know not if it is
The laverock's song we hear, or his,
Nor care to ask.

For him the ploughing of those fields
A more ethereal harvest yields
Than sheaves of grain;
Songs flush with purple bloom the rye,
The plover's call, the curlew's cry,
Sing in his brain.

Touched by his hand, the wayside weed Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed Beside the stream

Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass
And heather, where his footsteps pass,
The brighter seem.

He sings of love, whose dame illumes
The darkness of lone cottage rooms;
He feels the force,

The treacherous undertow and stress
Of wayward passions, and no less
The keen remorse.

At moments, wrestling with his fate,
His voice is harsh, but not with hate;
The brush-wood, hung

Above the tavern door. lets fall
Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall
Upon his tongue.

But still the music of his song
Rises o'er all elate and strong;
Its master-chords

HELEN OF TYRE.

WHAT phantom is this that appears
Through the purple mists of the years,
Itself but a mist like these?

A woman of cloud and of fire;
It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,

The town in the midst of the seas.

O Tyre! in thy crowded streets
The phantom appears and retreats,
And the Israelites that sell
Thy lilies and lions of brass,
Look up as they see her pass,
And murmur "Jezebel!"

Then another phantom is seen
At her side, in a gray gabardine,

With beard that floats to his waist;
It is Simon Magus, the Seer;
He speaks, and she pauses to hear
The words he utters in haste.

He says: "From this evil fame,
From this life of sorrow and shame,

I will lift thee and make thee mine;
Thou hast been Queen Candace,
And Helen of Troy, and shalt be
The Intelligence Divine!"

Oh, sweet as the breath of morn,
To the fallen and forlorn

Are whispered words of praise;
For the famished heart believes
The falsehood that tempts and deceives,
And the promise that betrays.

So she follows from land to land
The wizard's beckoning hand,

As a leaf is blown by the gust,

Now they have vanished away, have disappeared in the ocean;

Sunk are the towers of the town into the depths of the sea!

All have vanished but those that, moored in the neighboring roadstead,

Sailless at anchor ride, looming so large in the mist.

Vanished, too, are the thoughts, the dim, unsatisfied longings;

Sunk are the turrets of cloud into the ocean of dreams;

While in a haven of rest my heart is riding at anchor,

Held by the chains of love, held by the anchors of trust!

OLD ST. DAVID'S AT RADNOR.

WHAT an image of peace and rest

Is this little church among its graves!
All is so quiet; the troubled breast,
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,
Here may find the repose it craves.

See, how the ivy climbs and expands
Over this humble hermitage,

And seems to caress with its little hands
The rough, gray stones, as a child that stands
Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!

You cross the threshold; and dim and small
Is the space that serves for the Shepherd's
Fold:

The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall,
The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,
Whisper and say: "Alas! we are old."

Herbert's chapel at Bemerton

Hardly more spacious is than this; But Poet and Pastor, blent in one, Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun, That lowly and holy edifice.

It is not the wall of stone without

That makes the building small or great, But the soul's light shining round about, And the faith that overcometh doubt,

And the love that stronger is than hate.

Were I a pilgrim in search of peace,
Were I a pastor of Holy Church,
More than a Bishop's diocese
Should I prize this place of rest, and release
From farther longing and farther search.

Here would I stay, and let the world

With its distant thunder roar and roll; Storms do not rend the sail that is furled; Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled

In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul.

But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat

The stronger,

And conscious still of the divine Within them, lie on earth supine No longer.

289

LIKE two cathedral towers these stately pines
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones,
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,

Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
And learn there may be worship without words.

THE BURIAL OF THE POET.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

IN the old churchyard of his native town, And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall, We laid him in the sleep that comes to all, And left him to his rest and his renown.

The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down
White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall; -
The dead around him seemed to wake, and call
His name, as worthy of so white a crown.
And now the moon is shining on the scene,
And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er
With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin
With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more
Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.

NIGHT.

INTO the darkness and the hush of night
Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,
And with it fade the phantoms of the day,
The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the
light.

The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,
The unprofitable splendor and display,
The agitations, and the cares that prey
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
Molests us; all its records we erase
From the dull commonplace book of our lives,
That like a palimpsest is written o'er

With trivial incidents of time and place,
And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.