Passion-Flowers

Front matter

.

M DCCC LIV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

Salutatory

tpp| | {asc}<>I.

{asc}<>TO THE POETS.

Brother and sister poets dear! Ye of the high, impassioned few, A pilgrim waits your tender grace, A wand'ring minstrel would sing with you.

I have not sat at the heaven-spread board, Nor worn the fillet of glossy bays, I have but hearkened your song without, And gone, refreshed, on weary ways. |end=stanza

I was born 'neath a clouded star, More in shadow than light have grown; Loving souls are not like trees That strongest and stateliest shoot alone.

Comfort me as a child of Art That Sorrow from her mother stole, And sent, to cross the threshold of life, Orphaned in heart, and beggared in soul.

I have sung to lowly hearts Of their own music, only deeper; I have flung through the dusty road Shining seeds for the unknown reaper.

I have piped at cottage doors My sweetest measures, merry and sad, Cheating Toil from his grinding task, Setting the dancing rustics mad.

Kindly though their greetings were, They were far from my race or kin; But I passed the loftier porch, Fearing not to be let in.

Better to sit at humble hearths, Where simple souls confide their all, Than stand and knock at the groinèd gate, To crave—a hearing in the hall.

Oh! ye wingèd ones—shall I stand A moment in your shining ranks? Will ye pass me the golden cup? Only tears can give you thanks.

Without gracious ears to hear, Languidly flows the tide of song— Waters, unhelped of bank or brake, Slowly, sluggishly creep along.

We must measure from mankind, Know in them our fancies true; Echo gives us each high-strained sharp, Teaches us tune the harp anew.

Ere this mystery of Life Solving, scatter its form to air, Let me feel that I have lived In the music of a prayer,

In the joy of generous thought, Quickening, enkindling soul from soul; In the rapture of deeper Faith Spreading its solemn, sweet control.

Brothers and sisters! kind indeed— Ye have heard the untutored strain; Through your helpful cherishing, I may take heart to sing again—

Sing and strike, at high command, And keep sacred silence too; Not too greedy of men's praise, When I know I am one of you.

If the headsman of our tribe, (The stern Reviewer, friends, I mean,) Bring me bound in the market-place, Then, like mournful Anne Bolèyn,

I will stretch my slender neck, Passive, in the public view; Tell him with a plaintive smile, That his task is easy to do.

ppoem| start=stanza| {asc}<>II.

{asc}<>TO MY MASTER.

Thou who so dear a mediation wert Between the heavens and my mortality, Give ear to these faint murmurs of the heart, Which, upward tending, take their tone from thee. Follow where'er the wayward numbers run, And if on my deserving, not my need, Some boon should wait, vouchsafe this only meed, Modest, but glorious—say, 'Thou hast well done.'

I've wrought alone—my pleasure was my task:

As I walk onward to Eternity,

It were a trivial thing to stand and ask

That my faint footsteps should remembered be;

Of all Earth's crownings, I would never one

But thine approving hand upon my head,

Dear as the sacred laurels of the dead,

And that high, measured praise, 'Thou hast well done.' |end=stanza

ppoem| start=stanza| {asc}<>III.

{asc}<>TO FRIENDS AND FOES.

Ye fleeting blossoms of my life, The promise of diviner fruit, Forgive, if I enrich with you The cypress garland of my lute.

Too closely are ye linked with me, Too much in mine your being blends, That I in song should cast you off, And sing myself, and not my friends.

Some of you tread this vernal earth, And some in mystic soul-land move; In these, I hold all holy truth, In those, attain to heav'nly love.

And ye who, rankling in my path, Have torn my feet, and pierced my side, Holding the eager pilgrim back To suffer wounded love and pride; |end=stanza

Forgive if I, whom Nature made Vengeful in none of my desires, Have in my harmless chaplet bound Your sharp and bitter forms, ye briars!

Forgive as I forgive, and own As feels the heart, so falls the lot; My flowers of life were loving friends; My thorns were those who loved me not.

Rome

Of summer shaded, as when I may move To the free cadence of mine own wild singing. Nature on that fair day bestowed a grace More than maternal. If, at its high noon Young angels, from their heavenly school dismissed, Had made their play-ground on that Roman earth, Methinks, they would have sorrowed to return, Mingling unwonted tears with dews of eve. But the Day waned, and soft as love in death Bequeathed her admonition, warning me Back to the shelter of my Roman home, Where with my children, at the open window, In the soft purple scarf of twilight folded, I sate, and through the gathering dimness saw Mystical shapes, that deepened into joy.

And thus I mused: there is a feast to-njght At such a palace, spread for high-born dames, Princes, and dignitaries of the church. There will be light and music, fit for those Who make the music and the light of life— The glancing wine-cup, and the stately dance— All glory of rich tissues, wondrous webs, And those white shoulders English women show. There, ere so far we pass, the courtly whist At which the humblest Cardinal may sit, And illustrate his Christian poverty.

Seemed endless to anticipate, and lay Stretched in a boundless glittering before me, Unfathomable in its free delight. Or if horizon-bounded like the sea, I saw new seas beyond—the sweeping line Limits the known, but not the possible.

But what sad sight is this? I looked across The street, up towards the cresting of the hill, And there, before a humble door, beheld Two men arrive, that bore a scanty coffin Of frailest wood and meanest fashioning. They entered in the shadow Death had left, And soon emerged with heavier steps, as bearing One who should bear the weight of life no more, Abandoned to his ghastly solitude, As is the Roman custom. Only here Wealth stood not in the room of tenderness, Granting its escort of funereal pomp On the brief journey to oblivion. Here was no gorgeous pall, no garland pale; Here thronged no Capuchins, with livid flare Of torches, (which, however held, will drop Wax on the paper held by thievish boys,) Nor mumming penitents, that frighten babes, Nor priest to fellow-priest responding deep. Only a dingy Acolite, with dull

With steadfast hope and courage; but this once My heart so failed me, I was fain to turn For comfort to the Nurse, and question thus: 'Must I leave all my treasures, all my loves, And, like yon wretched corpse, be coldly laid Beyond sweet Nature's daily miracle?' She, with true Quickly cheeriness replied: 'There is no need to think about it now, 'So do not fret you, Madam'—but I sat Till twilight darkened into night, and till The gracious children dropped in sleep, and heard Ever those threat'ning words, 'Thou too shalt die.'

A day of fuller joy arose for me When the young Spring-tide came, and dark-eyed boys Bound violets and anemones to sell. The later light gave scope to long delight, And I might stray, unhaunted by the fear Of fever, or the chill of evening air, While happiest companionship enriched The ways whose very dust was gold before. Then the enchantment of an orange grove First overcame me, entering thy lone walks Cloistered in twilight, Villa Massimo! Where the stern cypresses stand up to guard A thousand memories of blessedness. There seemed a worship in the concentrate

Deep-breathing sweetness of those virgin flowers, Fervid as worship is in passionate souls That have not found their vent in earthly life, And soar too wild untaught, and sink unaided. They filled the air with incense gathered up For the pale vesper of the evening star. Nor failed the rite of meet antiphony— I felt the silence holy, till a note Fell, as a sound of ravishment from heaven— Fell, as a star falls, trailing sound for light; And, ere its thread of melody was broken, From the serene sprang other sounds, its fellows, That fluttered back celestial welcoming. Astonished, penetrate, too past myself To know I sinned in speaking, where a breath Less exquisite was sacrilege, my lips Gave passage to one cry: God! what is that? (Oh! not to know what has no peer on earth!) And one, not distant, stooped to me and said: 'If ever thou recall thy friend afar, Let him but be commemorate with this hour, The first in which thou heard'st our Nightingale.'

Nor only to these holy solitudes My willing feet made duteous pilgrimage: The growing warmth unlocked for me the gates Whence Rome once issued to subdue the world,

And, following in her footsteps, I might see Where erst she strode forth towards the unknown waste, Her splendor felt itself empowered to fill. How widely overflowed her noble soul, Too great and generous to contain itself, Gathering glory from the East, and then (With kindred instinct of all luminous things) Craving an outlet in the Northern night, As if its depth alone could give her scope. But the dim North had other laws than hers, And took not from her will its destiny; Its darkness swallowed up the light she gave And seemed to quench it. But, as none can tell Among the sunbeams which unconscious one Comes weaponed with celestial will, to strike The stroke of Freedom on the fettered floods, Giving the spring his watchword—even so Rome knew not she had spoke the word of Fate That should, from out its sluggishness, compel The frost-bound vastness of barbaric life, Till, with an ominous sound, the torrent rose And rushed upon her with terrific brow, Sweeping her back, through all her haughty ways To her own gates, a piteous fugitive— A moment chafing at its limits there To enter in, resistless, and o'erwhelm With heavy tide:s of death, her struggling breast.

Beguile me not to flights like this, thou Past That, forced to abdicate the rod of rule, Stretchest the wand of favor to our love, And temptest souls from thy magnificence. Here, on the ruins of the Ancient world, Thou sittest, like a harlot, to entrap The manifold human heart with various gifts. The poet, tender fool, must pause to wave Aside thy shadowy veil, and gaze into Thy melancholy eyes, that rivet him, And yield his reason to thy wildering rhyme: He sinks beside thee, looking, listening, longing, And thou hast stolen the darling of the Age That to his mother's breast returns no more.

The despot, that engirds with bristling thorns Broad meadow lands of gracious human growth, That they may yield their golden wealth at will To wither in his prison granary— Harvesting ruthlessly with headsman's axe, And sword unknightly, whose death angels pause And with slow fingers bind the immortal sheaves,— He, hurrying in his greed of power and wealth, Sees in thine hand unrighteous title-deeds, And stops to bargain. Soon the compact's signed, Empty of justice, not to sense aspiring, But with a formula defying Heaven

That smiles down hope and promise, and the law That metes the liberal sunshine equally. Thou giv'st him right to wrong his fellows much, Himself more, and God's image most of all. Thou hast him, purchased at his own vile price, And those who weep, waste not their tears on him.

Or yonder monkling, in unmanly garb, With sturdy limbs fed fat in idleness, Whose hands scorn labor, as his brain hates thought These stretched for alms, that busy with deceit, Who trails from door to door his beggary, Devoutest praying, where the housewife 's fair. He is an image of thy modelling, Spawn of a ruder age, as one might say, Some generations nearer brutes than we. Shall he thrive on, upheld of thee, and live A life that were a sanctimonious lie, Had it but truth enough to be a lie? Shall he still cheat the poor with demon fables, And glittering trash, that holds the place of God? Shall God himself, known through such medium, Be held in horror of the human heart, Whose inborn yearning for the love divine Congeals, before the vengeful portraiture, To terror, and estrangement wide as life?

Oh then, roll further back thy chariot wheels Even to the Ghetto of the hated Jew; In his poor synagogue's simplicity Faith enters not in Fancy's masquerade Accoutred for religion's revelry. His Rabbi nothing adds or takes away, Nothing assumes of mystic right or power, But gives the ancient venerable word With cautious lips and emphasis devout, (Intent on reading as his fathers read,) As if believing it, not he, should teach. He has the oracles that Jesus loved, Though suffering still Tradition's jealous hand To bind too closely o'er the face of Truth Her veil of Oriental tracery, Which that serene One smilingly looks through, Sure of her own and God's eternity. From Sinai's height great Moses gives him laws; He hears, as we, vibrating endlessly The golden harp-strings of the poet-king, While wondrous, widely gifted Solomon Teaches his quaint philosophy of life, And pictures passion holier than prayer. Still in his prophets reading history, He waits the Christ whom Christians show him not, Waiting with infinite loss, yet in one thing, One only, happier than they—his faith

Enfolds intact in its integrity, One treasure, which lies brokenly in theirs, The deepest lesson of his Eastern skies, Th' inviolable unity of God.

Still to the spirit of the Past I speak As I discerned it there, in fateful league With wanton weakness, selfishness and sin. 'No good survives the fitness of its time, The semblance of the most transcendent form That Friendship ever mourned in burial Should it revisit us with church-yard damps And deathly odors scattering from its hair, Were but a thing of ghastliness and dread Fit for exorcisement. Thou hadst thy day, And in it thy degree of grace and glory; But now, rebellious to thy doom of change, Thou throwest grimly on thy catafalque, While Rome, that were as fragrant as God's Eden, Could Nature only have her freshening way, Must still exhale thee, shuddering, to the world, Condemned to propagate the germ of death Which thy decay holds festering in her heart.

'Thou vampire Beauty, own that thou art dead, Nor bind thy hollow brows with flowers of youth

That wither as they touch thee. Yield to us The wealth thy spectral fingers cannot hold; Bless us, and so depart, to lie in state, Embalmed thy lifeless body, and thy shade So clamorous now for bloody holocausts Hallowed to peace, by pious festivals.'

But from these reasonings, that far outstrip The knowledge and the wisdom of a child, Let me descend to chronicle my steps In that enchanted region—steps that take A moment's grandeur from the ground they trod, Though else pursuing with uncertain stride Ways of obscure and mean significance. I saw the outposts, where Rome's wider growth Invited wider ruin, crumbled now, Till Ruin's self needs History's blazonment To be remarked, so closely does she hug The charitable weeds that Time's remorse Flings back, to hide what he makes devastate.

I saw Albano, Ostia, Tivoli, The Sybil of the temple, spreading still Her silent, awful oracle before The crownèd Iris of the waterfall, Who, from her crystal columns opposite, Smiles promise back for mournful 'monishing,

And when she flits, flies heavenward, nor leaves More earthy record than the glittering tears, In which the gladness of her soul dissolves, And, thrilling through th' unconscious element, The deep pulsation of a deathless heart.

Other, at times, that downward torrent seemed A daring Sappho leaps she from the rock, Maddened of faithless sunshine, fleeing it. In the abyss is peace, and she shall sleep Treasured in darkness, garnered up in gloom. But, sharing the impulsive ecstasy, Love leaps with her—his slender arms of steel Enlacing what his rainbow wings uphold. Now, vain her furious flight, her struggle vain, The sunshine overtakes her desperate course; Her madness is unhealed, she cannot rest, For Love, in sunshine, follows every where.

Forgive imperfect types, that strive to show How the fixed Sybil sits there and decays, While leaping, loving human life flows on, And, plunging down to Chaos, is not lost.

I saw l'Ariccia, where the artist's soul Revels in light and color magical,

Nor feels the dearth of thought, where nought transpires, Save steady growth of men and plants alike. Studies of leaves and grasses, fervid tints, And purple mountain shadows, wile for him Too soon the silent, sultry summer day, Gorgeous in all its changes; if he wish A tenant for his painted Paradise He summons up, to fill the golden void, Such stately forms and shadowings of life As with the look and gesture startle us, Seen in the coldness of our sombre walls, And make us tremble strangely, as a veil Were for a moment merely lifted there, And all the burning beauty of the South Were near us, like Eternity, unguessed.

And often, when I've seen the twilight drape Her folds of sadness o'er the wide domain Of the Campagna, desolate with tombs, (Itself a monumental wilderness,) I've pondered thus: 'Perhaps at midnight here Wakes the quiescent city of our day, A Juliet, drunken with her draught of woe, And wildly calls on Love's deliverance Writhing in her untimely cerements, And stiffens back to silence when she hears: 'Love has no help, save that which waits on Death.'

Oh no! more piteous still, a mazèd child, Bereft in parentage and destiny, She wanders, stopping at these stones, to trace Through wreck and rust of ages, signs that prove Her filiation to the mighty sires Whose grim ghosts scare her slumbers, pointing hither. She feels the kingly impulse of her race, (For next to soul is sense of generous blood,) But, too unskilled to construe of herself, Can only crouch when strangers call her, Changeling, And on the weak, unwilling hand enforce Their gift of shame, a Bondmaid's heritage.

These days wore on more rapidly than such As Winter loads with leaden sluggishness, Abridged of light, but lengthened out with care; And, while I dreamed that they should never end, They were already ended in my view. Then, as perforce, I gathered up all strength For the uprooting of my vine of life, So clinging, creeping, craving from men's hands A gracious culture, loving so to grow And bear the fruit God gave it right to bear As genial tribute to Love's genial care; I felt the sudden, earnest wish for death Shoot like a subtle poison through my veins.

The bridge is crossed that led, oh path of peace! To holy vespers in the twilight aisle. The gate is closed—the air without is drear. Look back! the dome! gorgeous in sunset still— I see it—soul is concentrate in sight— The dome is gone—gone seems the heaven with it. Night hides my sorrow from me. Oh, my Rome, As I have loved thee, rest God's love with thee!

Pio Nono

Shoreward thy recreant footsteps turn, and sink; In vain the heavenly voice, the outstretched arm, Thou heed'st not, though a God doth beckon thee, Binding the billows with a golden charm.

Where Glory should have crowned thee, failure whelms, Truth judges thee, that should have made thee great; Thine is the doom of souls that cannot bring Their highest courage to their highest fate.

Santa Susanna

In lustral water I imbued my hands, By some unholy contact chance-defiled; Washed from my brow the trace of evil thought, From lips, what they amiss had said or smiled.

I knelt to pray, then, flinging far away Life's garden weeds, that throng our footsteps free, Choking the seed by angels strewn, to bear The flower of Hope for Joy that is to be.

This was my shrift, a breathing after God, A shuddering, rapid glance adown the past, Turned heavenward ere its spectral forms could rise, And with pale chiding, set my soul aghast;

A sacrifice of expiation sought For every wilful error of my life, A plea like this: 'Bethink thee, by thy will Th' immortal breath took this poor flesh to wife.

'Were they for suffering and for evil wed, High priest of Nature, bear with me the blame! But if for purposes of love and good, Help! raise me from this bed of sloth and shame!'

Then, silence—then the touch of angels' wings Winnowed away that bitter grief and doubt; And then, I left my twilight thoughts within, And with me bore Faith's earnest twilight out.

A Pic-Nic among the Ruins of Ostia

Hearts like these hearts of ours; that drink Existence, as an endless cup, And smile to hear of an abyss Where life and strength are swallowed up.

These men our brothers were, but built Of sturdier frame and mind than we; Tamed by their will, th' unruly flood Led their proud galleys to the sea.

Walk further, let my guidance show One crumbling tower of Trajan's port. Strange that Christ's vicar, God inspired, Has never had as wise a thought.

But we, at Vecchia's hostel left, Drag on to Rome our bags and baggage, While the Dogana, cringing low, Wonders that Englishmen are savage!

Within the ruin'd temple's shade Spread the white cloth, for we incline To revel in the glorious past, But in the present tense to dine.

Flirt on, young lady, doze, old lord, While I my slender museling nurse With fragments of Horatian odes, Or with the grand old Goethe's verse.

Fall to, my friends, in Bacchus' name, And make me, if you will, his priest— That was a proper sort of God Who thought not scorn to bless a feast:

For his divinity, of old Hearing us call, had hasten'd hither, And sat, till votary and god Reel'd homeward, drunkenly, together.

Pour the libation! see, how lights The Capri, in this cup of mine! Drink to those ancient heathen fools Who mixed sea-water with their wine—

And in that pledge, forget with me The sorrow of the wanderer's star, The sigh, for that we might have been, The lonely grief at that we are.

What boots it, brothers? had we lived In utmost valor, utmost bliss, Tamed mighty nations, built great towns, Time would have brought our works to this.

Or had some graceful fragment cast Its shadow to a distant age, Barbarians whom we never knew, Had squabbled for our heritage.

See, the fierce charioteer of Day Drives to the wave his smoking steeds; The world may breathe, the tyrant drops The lash, the slave no longer bleeds.

And soft the pious Evening steals, To watch her fiery father's rest, A whispered Ave seems her voice, And one pure gem hangs on her breast.

As yonder sun, an exiled king, Each day his slumbering world retakes; And from the dark domain of Night, As sure as God, his conquest makes;

So the immortal principle, That fills Creation with its breath, Daily, from rudest chaos wrings Souls which, like ours, can laugh at death.

The City of my Love

She rules the age by Beauty's power, As once she ruled by armèd might; The Southern sun doth treasure her Deep in his golden heart of light.

Awe strikes the traveller when he sees The vision of her distant dome, And a strange spasm wrings his heart As the guide whispers: 'There is Rome!'

Rome of the Romans! where the Gods Of Greek Olympus long held sway; Rome of the Christians, Peter's tomb, The Zion of our later day.

Rome, the mailed Virgin of the world, Defiance on her brows and breast; Rome, to voluptuous pleasure won, Debauched, and locked in drunken rest.

Rome, in her intellectual day, Europe's intriguing step-dame grown; Rome, bowed to weakness and decay, A canting, mass-frequenting crone.

Then th' unlettered man plods on, Half chiding at the spell he feels, The artist pauses at the gate, And on the wondrous threshold kneels.

The sick man lifts his languid head For those soft skies and balmy airs; The pilgrim tries a quicker pace, And hugs remorse, and patters prayers.

For ev'n the grass that feeds the herds Methinks, some unknown virtue yields; The very hinds in reverence tread The precincts of the ancient fields.

But wrapt in gloom of night and death, I crept to thee, dear mother Rome; And in thy hospitable heart, Found rest and comfort, health and home,

And friendships, warm and living still, Although their dearest joys are fled; True sympathies that bring to life That better self, so often dead.

For all the wonder that thou wert, For all the dear delight thou art, Accept an homage from my lips, That warms again a wasted heart.

And, though it seem a childish prayer, I've breathed it oft, that when I die, As thy remembrance dear in it, That heart in thee might buried lie.

A Protest from Italy

tpp|A PROTEST FROM ITALY.| {asc}<>I.

{asc}<>THERE.

Amid Italian orange groves, A distant murmur reached mine ear, The wrangling tongues of Western men, Each, crossed at arms with his compeer.

In that fair land, where passions rage Briefly, through Nature's gentleness; Where the black eyebrows' direst frown, Must yield to the soft air's caress;

Where even curses fall in words Whose beauty heals the wound they make; (Though strong to feel, those Southern hearts, They 're timid to o'erturn and break;) |end=stanza

I felt my life so calm and deep, Such rapture, settling to such peace, I sighed: 'Hush! hush! my countrymen— Let this untempered babbling cease!

'Ye who assert your rights in men, What right is worth such evil blood? You—frantic champions of the slave, Bethink—God orders all for good.

'Shake not thus ruthlessly your cup Of new fermented liberty, Till the scum mantle to the top, And leave the sun-touched liquor free.

'Northern and Southron, part in peace, Each to his own contentment thrive, Since each divergent destiny May keep a sacred good alive.'

Thus sang I, in that land of rest, Till, drunk with Music's golden wine, I crossed my hands upon my breast, And dreamed of heaven, at Raphael's shrine.

ppoem| start=stanza| {asc}<>II.

{asc}<>HERE.

Bathed in your icy Northern springs, My slumbering eye is roused to sight; The sharp steel wind doth sunder all My silken armor of delight.

Mine ear, by mass and anthem lulled, The trumpet's brazen voice awakes; From its slow pulses, keenly stirred, My blood its natural current makes.

Things which in distance dimly showed Press on me, in the nearer view; I see the race that's passing out, Weave hateful fetters for the new.

I see a plague, long held aloof, That to the social heart hath crept, See, blood-hounds track the inner shrine Where, sacred once, the outcast slept. |end=stanza

I see, upon the altar steps, Base Interest trample Godlike Right. Strike, lyre, thy chorus of brave sounds! Find, palsied hand, thine ancient might!

Back! back, volcanic flood, that creep'st So snakelike, through our peaceful plains; Back, tortuous Intrigue! thou art bold To drop thy mask where Justice reigns.

Back, baleful force! back, perjured law! Sacred while ye the right sustain, But fall'n like Judas, to betray The sinless blood, for love of gain.

Judas! that gain will serve thee nought! It will but buy a field of blood, Whereon impartial Time shall write, 'Here they that fought for Freedom stood.

'These men the tie of Nature held A claim beyond the pride of race; Their banner bore Man's bleeding heart Without the color of his face.

ppoem| start=stanza| 'Reluctantly they bared the sword, And let the prudent scabbard go; They perished in the name of Christ; His enemies would have it so.'

{asc}<>III.

{asc}<>THERE AND HERE.

The natural loves that move my heart, My country, matter not to thee; Yet let me to my words impart That which may make them one with me.

And tell thee that, however dear I hold the light of Roman skies; However from the canvas clear The soul of Raphael blessed mine eyes;

Howe'er intense the joy of flowers, And the spring-wedded nightingale, Or deep the charm of twilight hours Hushed to the Miserère's wail; |end=stanza

A holier joy to me were given, Could I persuade thy heart from wrong; As rapturous birds drop down from heaven, With heaven's convincement in their song.

Wherefore

Well held the ancients to their ministration of fire That rids man's heart and home of their festering burthen. Even the sacrifice brought to bleed at God's altar Should not survive the mood of devotion that urged it. They at once ceasing, shall thus be together remembered. Why could the man not die with his day of dominion? His work at end, wherefore live to be scantily pensioned By hearts that grudge the reward when it follows the labor?

Are then man's days his own? thou, the languid survivor Of pangs and delights that leave nothing to wish for but dying, Is it thy fault that a smiling, necessitous patience Greenly o'ergroweth thy destiny's grandiose ruins? Had the death-angel stood at the shrine of thy nuptials, Thou wouldst have laid thy passion-shorn head on his shoulder, Glad to weep out thy life and thy sorrow together. That could not be—from thy scathèd trunk of existence, Joy sprang up, the immortal, the ever-perennial,

Bursting through ancient films of reserve and submission, Bearing aloft in unwonted fragrance and blossom The force of thy nature, too long in itself darkly circling. Still the pale stranger will come, not in haste indecorous, With pinions all ruffled, evoked by thy wild adjuration; But in state serene; with hands whose soft coolness persuadeth, And lips that hold their own pause in the music of heaven.

As I walk in the dreary streets of the city, Voiceless of music, and empty of joy and of beauty, Meanly adorned for the meaner pleasure of buying, With such sickly growths as bloom out in the newest Spring fashion, Something arrests me—a painful thrill of compassion Strikes through my heart, ere my wandering reason can question, 'Wherefore this pang?' 'Tis a print of a face most familiar Between the imperial crown and imperial purple; But oftener seen with the old chapeau and the gray coat,