As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, "Who has known me of old," replied Staining that Heaven with obscene Earth,

imagery

Of their own likeness. What are

Trembling at that where I had stood before;

numbers knit

By force or custom? Man who man When will return the glory of your prime? would be, No more Oh, never more!

II

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter
hoar,

Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

No more-Oh, never more!

Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

THE AZIOLA

I

"Do you not hear the Aziola cry? Methinks she must be nigh," Said Mary, as we sate

In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;

And I, who thought

This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, "Who is Aziolą?" How

The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,
So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were with-
drawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.
You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life's dull

V

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot
With various flowers, and every

scene,

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask
Of author, great or mean,
In the world's carnival. I sought
Peace thus, and but in you I found it

not.

one still said,

"She loves me-loves me not." And if this meant a vision long since fled

If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought

If it meant,-but I dread

To speak what you may know too well:

Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;

No bird so wild but has its quiet

nest,

When it no more would roam; The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast

III

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend! know

that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes❘ I asked her, yesterday, if she believed
that cannot die :
That I had resolution. One who

had

Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest. Doubtless there is a place of peace Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII

Would ne'er have thus relieved His heart with words,-but what his judgment bade

Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know, Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

ΤΟ

I

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.

II

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not, The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

ΤΟ

I

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

II

It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest-and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

III

After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear,
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move,
And form all others, life and love.

A BRIDAL SONG

gether, Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather.

Girls
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?

I

THE golden gates of Sleep unbar

Come along!

Where Strength and Beauty met to- Fairies! sprites! and angels keep her! Holiest powers, permit no wrong! And return, to wake the sleeper,

Dawn, ere it be long.