Only because the spreading chestnut

tree

Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime,
When in the summer-time
The affluent foliage of its branches
made

A cavern of cool shade.

There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street,

Its blossoms white and sweet Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,

Tossed its great arms about, The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,

And

Dropped to the ground beneath.

now some fragments of its branches bare,

Shaped as a stately chair, Have by my hearthstone found a home at last,

And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride

Repel the ocean tide, But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme

Roll back the tide of Time.

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

could

Give life to this dead wood, And make these branches, leafless

now so long, Blossom again in song.

THE IRON PEN.

[Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the prisoner of Chillon; the handle of wood from the frigate Constitution, and bound with a circ et of gold, inset with three recious 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;

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.

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 flame 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 burden of his song
Is love of right, disdain of wrong;
Its master chords

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 tonight

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!

ELEGIAC.

DARK is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbour Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud;

Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon,

Like to the towers of a town, built

on the verge of the sea.

Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean;

With them sail my thoughts over the limitless deep,

Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings,

Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores.

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 neighbouring roadstead,

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

And now, though ages intervene,
Sin is the same, while time and scene
Are shifted.

Satan desires us, great and small,
As wheat to sift us, and we all
Are tempted;

age!

Far off, from the threshing-floors, In barns, with their open doors, And the wind, the wind in my sails, Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,

With my foot on the rock below,
And whichever way it may blow

I meet it face to face,

As a brave man ineets his foe. And while we wrestle and strive

My master, the miller stands And feeds me with his hands; For he knows who makes him thrive, Who makes him lord of lands. On Sundays I take my rest;

Church-going bells begin Their low, melodious din ; I cross my arms on my breast, And all is peace within.

THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE
FALLS.

THE tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea in the darkness calls and
calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls. The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; The day returns, but nevermore Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.