O'er desert sands, o'er gulf and bay,
O'er Ganges and o'er Himalay,
Bird-like I fly, and flying sing,
To flowery kingdoms of Cathay,
And bird like poise on balanced wing
Above the town of King-te-tching,
A burning town, or seeming so,
Three thousand furnaces that glow
Incessantly, and fill the air

With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre,
And painted by the lurid glare,
Of jets and flashes of red tire.

As leaves that in the autumn fall,
Spotted and veined with various hues,
Are swept along the avenues,
And lie in heaps by hedge and wall,
So from this grove of chimneys whirled
To all the markets of the world,
These porcelain leaves are wafted on,
Light yellow leaves with spots and stains
Of violet and of crimson dye,
Or tender azure of a sky

Just washed by gentle April rains,
And beautiful with celadon.

Nor less the coarser household wares,
The willow pattern, that we knew
In childhood, with its bridge of blue
Leading to unknown thoroughfares;
The solitary man who stares
At the white river flowing through
Its arches, the fantastic trees
And wild perspective of the view;
And intermingled among these
The tiles that in our nurseries
Filled us with wonder and delight,
Or haunted us in dreams at night.

And yonder by Nankin, behold!
The Tower of Porcelain, strange and old,
Uplifting to the astonished skies
Its ninefold painted balconies,
With balustrades of twining leaves,
And roofs of tile, beneath whose eaves
Hang porcelain bells that all the time
Ring with a soft, melodious chime;
While the whole fabric is ablaze
With varied tints, all fused in one
Great mass of color, like a maze
Of flowers illumined by the sun.

Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun
At daybreak must at dark be done.

To-morrow will be another day; To-morrow the hot furnace flame

Will search the heart and try the frame,
And stamp with honor or with shame
These vessels made of clay.

Cradled and rocked in Eastern seas,
The islands of the Japanese
Beneath me lie; o'er lake and plain
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Through the clear realms of azure drift,
And on the hillside I can see

The villages of Imari,

Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift Their twisted columns of smoke on high, Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie,

With sunshine streaming through each rift, And broken arches of blue sky.

All the bright flowers that fill the land,
Ripple of waves on rock or sand,
The snow on Fusiyama's cone,
The midnight heaven so thickly sown
With constellations of bright stars,
The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make
A whisper by each stream and lake,
The saffron dawn, the sunset red,
Are painted on these lovely jars;
Again the skylark sings, again
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Float through the azure overhead,
The counterfeit and counterpart
Of Nature reproduced in Art.

Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude,
All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued
Into a more attractive grace,
And with a human sense imbued.
He is the greatest artist, then,
Whether of pencil or of pen,
Who follows Nature. Never man,
As artist or as artisan,
Pursuing his own fantasies,

Can touch the human heart, or please
Or satisfy our nobler needs,
As he who sets his willing feet

In Nature's footprints, light and fleet.
And follows fearless where she leads.

Thus mused I on that morn in May,
Wrapped in my visions like the Seer,
Whose eyes behold not what is near,
But only what is far away,

When, suddenly sounding peal on peal,
The church-bell from the neighboring town
Proclaimed the welcome hour of noon,
The Potter heard, and stopped his wheel,
His apron on the grass threw down,
Whistled his quiet little tune,

Not overloud nor overlong,

And ended thus his simple song:

Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, toe soon
The noon will be the afternoon,

Too soon to-day be yesterday;
Behind us in our path we cast
The broken potsherds of the past,
And all are ground to dust at last,
And trodden into clay!

270

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD.

WARM and still is the summer night,

As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.
Silent are all the sounds of day;

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass

To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,

Sing him the song of the green morɛss,

And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,

And the secret that baffles our v.most seeking; For only a sound of lament we discern,

And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air and the wild delight

Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight Through the drift of the floating mists that infold

you;

Of the landscape lying so far below,

With its towns and rivers and desert places; And the splendor of light above, and the glow Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,

Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,
Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting
Some one hath lingered to meditate,

And send him unseen this friendly greeting;

That many another hath done the same,
Though not by a sound was the silence broken;
The surest pledge of a deathless name

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

A DUTCH PICTURE.

SIMON DANE has come home again,

From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen
And sold him in Algiers.

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles,
And weathercocks flying aloft in air,
There are silver tankards of antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles
Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip-garden there by the town,
Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,
Walks in a waking dream.

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks
Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain;
And the listed tulips look like Turks,
And the silent gardener as he works

Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.

Verge of the landscape in the haze,

To him are towers on the Spanish coast,
With whiskered sentinels at their post,
Though this is the river Maese.

But when the winter rains begin,

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands,
And old seafaring men come in,
Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin,
And rings upon their hands.

They sit there in the shadow and shine
Of the flickering fire of the winter night;
Figures in color and design

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.

And they talk of ventures lost or won,
And their talk is ever and ever the same,
While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,
From the cellars of some Spanish Don,
Or convent set on flame.

Restless at times with heavy strides
He paces his parlor to and fro;
He is like a ship that at anchor rides,
And swings with the rising and falling tides,
And tugs at her anchor-tow.

Voices mysterious far and near,

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea, Are calling and whispering in his ear, "Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here? Come forth and follow me!"

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again
For one more cruise with his buccaneers,
To singe the beard of the King of Spain,
And capture another Dean of Jaen
And sell him in Algiers.

CASTLES IN SPAIN.

How much of my young heart, O Spain,
Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne,
The Cid Campeador!

And shapes more shadowy than these,
In the dim twilight half revealed;
Phoenician galleys on the seas,
The Roman camps like hives of bees,
The Goth uplifting from his knees
Pelayo on his shield.

It was these memories perchance,
From annals of remotest eld,
That lent the colors of romance
To every trivial circumstance,

And changed the form and countenance
Of all that I beheld.

Old towns, whose history lies hid

In monkish chronicle or rhyme, Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid, Zamora and Valladolid, Toledo, built and walled amid

The wars of Wamba's time;

The long, straight line of the highway,
The distant town that seems so near,
The peasants in the fields, that stay
Their toil to cross themselves and pray,
When from the belfry at midday
The Angelus they hear;

White crosses in the mountain pass,
Mules gay with tassels, the loud din

Of muleteers, the tethered ass
That crops the dusty wayside grass,
And cavaliers with spurs of brass
Alighting at the inn;

White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,
White cities slumbering by the sea,
White sunshine flooding square and street,
Dark mountain ranges, at whose feet
The river-beds are dry with heat,

All was a dream to me.

Yet something sombre and severe

O'er the enchanted landscape reigned; A terror in the atmosphere

As if King Philip listened near,
Or Torquemada, the austere,
His ghostly sway maintained.

The softer Andalusian skies

Dispelled the sadness and the gloom; There Cadiz by the seaside lies, And Seville's orange-orchards rise, Making the land a paradise

Of beauty and of bloom.

There Cordova is hidden among

The palm, the olive, and the vine; Gem of the South, by poets sung, And in whose Mosque Almanzor hung As lamps the bells that once had rung At Compostella's shrine.

But over all the rest supreme,

The star of stars, the cynosure, The artist's and the poet's theme,

271

The young man's vision, the old man's dream, -
Granada by its winding stream,
The city of the Moor!

And there the Alhambra still recalls
Aladdin's palace of delight:
Allah il Allah! through its halls
Whispers the fountam as it falls,
The Darro darts beneath its walls,
The hills with snow are white.

Ah yes, the hills are white with snow,
And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;
But in the happy vale below
The orange and pomegranate grow,
And wafts of air toss to and fro

The blossoming almond-trees.

The Vega cleft by the Xenil,

The fascination and allure

Of the sweet landscape chains the will;
The traveller lingers on the hill,
His parted lips are breathing still
The last sigh of the Moor.

How like a ruin overgrown

With flowers that hide the rents of time, Stands now the Past that I have known, Castles in Spain, not built of stone But of white summer clouds, and blown Into this little mist of rhyme!

VITTORIA COLONNA.

VITTORIA COLONNA, on the death of her husband, the Marchese di Pescara, retired to her castle at Ischia (Inarimé), and there wrote the Ode upon his death, which gained her the title of Divine.

ONCE more, once more, Inarimé,

I see thy purple hills!-once more

I hear the billows of the bay

Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.

272

High o'er the sea surge and the sands,

Like a great galleon wrecked and cast Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,

A mouldering landmark of the Past.

Upon its terrace-walk I see

A phantom gliding to and fro; It is Colonna, - it is she

Who lived and loved so long ago.

Pescara's beautiful young wife,

The type of perfect womanhood, Whose life was love, the life of life,

That time and change and death withstood.

For death, that breaks the marriage band
In others, only closer pressed
The wedding-ring upon her hand

And closer locked and barred her breast.

She knew the life-long martyrdom,
The weariness, the endless pain
Of waiting for some one to come
Who nevermore would come again.

The shadows of the chestnut-trees,
The odor of the orange blooms,

The song of birds, and, more than these,
The silence of deserted rooms;

The respiration of the sea,

The soft caresses of the air,
All things in nature seemed to be
But ministers of her despair;

Till the o'erburdened heart, so long
Imprisoned in itself, found vent
And voice in one impassioned song
Of inconsolable lament.

Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, Transmutes to gold the leaden mist,

Her life was interfused with light,

From realms that, though unseen, exist.

Inarimé! Inarimé!

Thy castle on the crags above

In dust shall crumble and decay, But not the memory of her love.

THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE.

IN that desolate land and lone,

Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,

By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs

And the menace of their wrath.

Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,

"Revenge upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry

Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,

In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!

Into the fatal snare

The White Chief with yellow hair And his three hundred men Dashed headlong, sword in hand; But of that gallant band

Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank and between
The rocks of the ravine,

They lay in their bloody attire.

But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the Face, in his flight,
Uplifted high in air

As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,

Of the White Chief with yellow hair. Whose was the right and the wrong? Sing it, O funeral song,

With a voice that is full of tears, And say that our broken faith Wrought all this ruin and scathe, In the Year of a Hundred Years.

TO THE RIVER YVETTE.

O LOVELY river of Yvette!
O darling river! like a bride,
Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette,
Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide.
Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre,

See and salute thee on thy way,
And, with a blessing and a prayer,
Ring the sweet bells of St. Forget.

The valley of Chevreuse in vain
Would hold thee in its fond embrace;
Thou glidest from its arms again

And hurriest on with swifter pace.

Thou wilt not stay; with restless feet Pursuing still thine onward flight, Thou goest as one in haste to meet Her sole desire, her heart's delight.

O lovely river of Yvette!

O darling stream! on balanced wings The wood-birds sang the chansonnette That here a wandering poet sings.

THE EMPEROR'S GLOVE.

COMBIEN faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne pour faire un gant de cette grandeur? A play upon the words gant, a glove, and Gand, the French for Ghent.

ON St. Bavon's tower, commanding
Half of Flanders, his domain,
Charles the Emperor once was standing,
While beneath him on the landing

Stood Duke Alva and his train.

Like a print in books of fables,
Or a model made for show,

With its pointed roofs and gables,
Dormer windows, scrolls and labels,
Lay the city far below.

Through its squares and streets and alleys
Poured the populace of Ghent;

As a routed army rallies,

Or as rivers run through valleys,
Hurrying to their homes they went.

"Nest of Lutheran misbelievers!"

Cried Duke Alva as he gazed; "Haunt of traitors and deceivers, Stronghold of insurgent weavers, Let it to the ground be razed!

On the Emperor's cap the feather Nods, as laughing he replies: "How many skins of Spanish leather, Think you, would, if stitched together, Make a glove of such a size?"

À BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET. OCTOBER, 1746.

MR. THOMAS PRINCE loquitur.

A FLEET with flags arrayed

Sailed from the port of Brest,
And the Admiral's ship displayed
The signal: Steer southwest."
For this Admiral D'Anville

Had sworn by cross and crown
To ravage with fire and steel
Our helpless Boston Town.

There were rumors in the street,
In the houses there was fear
Of the coming of the fleet,

And the danger hovering near.
And while from mouth to mouth
Spread the tidings of dismay,
I stood in the Old South,
Saying humbly: "Let us pray!

"O Lord! we would not advise;
But if in thy Providence

A tempest should arise

To drive the French Fleet hence,
And scatter it far and wide,

Or sink it in the sea,

We should be satisfied,
And thine the glory be."

This was the prayer I made,

For my soul was all on flame,
And even as I prayed

The answering tempest came;
It came with a mighty power,
Shaking the windows and walls,
And tolling the bell in the tower,
As it tolls at funerals.

When thou didst walk in wrath With thine horses through the sea!

THE LEAP OF ROUSHAN BEG.

MOUNTED on Kyrat strong and fleet,
His chestnut steed with four white feet
Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,
Son of the road and bandit chief,
Seeking refuge and relief,

Up the mountain pathway flew.

Such was Kyrat's wondrous speed,
Never yet could any steed

Reach the dust-cloud in his course.
More than maiden, more than wife,
More than gold and next to life

Roushan the Robber loved his horse.

In the land that lies beyond
Erzeroum and Trebizond,

* Garden-girt his fortress stood; Plundered khan, or caravan Journeying north from Koordistan, Gave him wealth and wine and food

Seven hundred and fourscore
Men at arms his livery wore,

Did his bidding night and day. Now, through regions all unknown, He was wandering, lost, alone,

Seeking without guide his way. Suddenly the pathway ends, Sheer the precipice descends,

Loud the torrent roars unseen; Thirty feet from side to side Yawns the chasm; on air must ride He who crosses this ravine.

Following close in his pursuit,
At the precipice's foot

Reyhan the Arab of Orfah Halted with his hundred men, Shouting upward from the glen, "La Illáh illa Allah!"

Gently Rovshan Beg caressed
Kyrat's forehead, neck, and breast;
Kissed him upon both his eyes;
Sang to him in his wild way,
As upon the topmost spray
Sings a bird before it flies.

O my Kyrat, O my steed,
Round and slender as a reed,

Carry me this peril through!
Satin housings shall be thine,
Shoes of gold, O Kyrat mine,
6 thou soul of Kurroglou!

Soft thy skin as silken skein,
Soft as woman's hair thy mane,

Tender are thine eyes and true;
All thy hoofs like ivory shine,
Polished bright; O life of mine,
Leap, and rescue Kurroglou !"
Kyrat, then, the strong and fleet,
Drew together his four white feet,
Paused a moment on the verge,
Measured with his eye the space,
And into the air's embrace

Leaped as leaps the ocean surge.

As the ocean surge o'er sand
Bears a swimmer safe to land,
Kyrat safe his rider bore;
Rattling down the deep abyss