Before me rose an avenue

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.
Of tall and sombrous pines ;
Abroad their fan-like branches grew,

'Ασπασίη, τρίλλιστος. And, where the sunshine darted through, I HEARD the trailing garments of the Spread a vapor soft and blue,

Night In long and sloping lines.

Sweep through her marble halls ! And, falling on my weary brain,

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with

light Like a fast-falling shower,

From the celestial walls !
The dreams of youth came back again,
Low lispings of the summer rain,

I felt her presence, by its spell of might Dropping on the ripened grain,

Stoop o'er me from above ; As once upon the flower.

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

As of the one I love.
Visions of childhood ! Stay, O stay!
Ye were so sweet and wild !

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, And distant voices seemed to say, “ It cannot be! They pass away!

The manifold, soit chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Other themes demand thy lay ; Thou art no more a child !

Night,

Like some old poet's rhymes. “ The land of Song within thee lies, From the cool cisterns of the midnight Watered by living springs ;

air The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes

My spirit drank repose ; Are gates unto that Paradise,

The fountain of perpetual peace flows Holy thoughts, like stars, arise,

there, Its clouds are angels' wings.

From those deep cisterns flows. “Learn, that henceforth thy song shall O holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear be,

What man has borne before !
Not mountains capped with snow, Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
Nor forests sounding like the sea,

And they complain no more.
Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly,
Where the woodlands bend to see

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe The bending heavens below.

this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight, “ There is a forest where the din The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the Of iron branches sounds !

most fair, A mighty river roars between,

The best-beloved Night !
And whosoever looks therein
Sees the heavens all black with sin,
Sees not its depths, nor bounds.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN

SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

“ Athwart the swinging branches cast,

Soft rays of sunshine pour ;
Then comes the fearful wintry blast ;
Our hopes, like withered leaves, fall fast;
Pallid lips say, 'It is past !

We can return no more !'

“Look, then, into thine heart, and

write!
Yes, into Life's deep stream !
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright,

Be these henceforth thy theme.”

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream !
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem
Life is real! Life is earnest !

And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

“They shall all bloom in fields of light,

Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,

These sacred blossoms wear.”

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and

brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,

The flowers she most did love ;
She knew she should find them all again

In the fields of light above.
0, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The Reaper came that day ;
'T was an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !

Let the dead Past bury its dead ! Act, act in the living Present !

Heart within, and God o'erhead ! Lives of great 'men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time ;
Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate ; Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

The night is come, but not too soon ;

And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon

Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven

But the cold light of stars ;
And the first watch of night is given

To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love ?

The star of love and dreams ?
O no ! from that blue tent above,

A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise, THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies,
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,

The shield of that red star.
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

O star of strength ! I see thee stand

And smile upon my pain ; “Shall I have naught that is fair ?" Thou beckonest with thy mailed hands saith he;

And I am strong again. “ Have naught but the bearded grain? Within my breast there is no light Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,

But the cold light of stars ; I will give them all back again.”

I give the first watch of the night

To the red planet Mars.
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves ;

The star of the unconquered will,
It was for the Lord of Paradise

He rises in my breast, He bound them in his sheaves.

Serene, and resolute, and still,

And calm, and self-possessed. “My Lord bas need of these flowerets gay,"

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, The Reaper said, and smiled ;

That readest this brief psalm, “Dear tokens of the earth are they, As one by one thy hopes depart, Where he was once a child.

Be resolute and calm.

born ;

Everywhere about us are they glowing, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

Some like stars, to tell us Spring is The river flowed between. Others, their blue eyes with tears o'er- No other voice nor sound was there, flowing,

No drum, nor sentry's pace ; Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn; The mist-like banners clasped the air,

As clouds with clouds embrace. Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,

But when the old cathedral bell And in Summer's green-emblazoned

Proclaimed the morning prayer, field,

The white pavilions rose and fell But in arms of brave old Autumn's wear

On the alarmed air. ing, In the centre of his brazen shield ;

Down the broad valley fast and far

The troubled army fled ;
Not alone in meadows and green alleys, Up rose the glorious morning star,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink

The ghastly host was dead.
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to I have read, in the marvellous heart of
drink;

man,

That strange and mystic scroll, Not alone in her vast dome of glory,

That an army of phantoms vast and wap Not on graves of bird and beast alone,

Beleaguer the human soul. But in old cathedrals, high and hoary, On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone; Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,

In Fancy's misty light, In the cottage of the rudest peasant,

Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam In ancestral homes, whose crumbling Portentous through the night.

towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Upon its midnight battle-ground Tell us of the ancient Games of Flow- The spectral camp is seen, ers ;

And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

Flows the River of Life between.
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul. No other voice nor sound is there,

In the army of the grave;
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, No other challenge breaks the air,

How akin they are to human things. But the rushing of Life's wave. And with childlike, credulous affection And when the solemn and deep churchWe behold their tender buds expand ;

bell Emblems of our own great resurrection,

Entreats the soul to pray, Emblems of the bright and better land. The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away. THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar

The spectral camp is fled ;
I HAVE read, in some old, marvellous tale, Faith shineth as a morning star,
Some legend strange and vague,

Our ghastly fears are dead.
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DY: Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,

ING YEAR.
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,

Yes, the Year is growing old,
The army of the dead.

And his

eye is pale and bleared !

Death, with frosty hand and cold, White as a sea-fog, landward bound, Plucks the old man by the beard, The spectral camp was seen,

Sorely, sorely!

like wings,

The leaves are falling, falling,

Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath, Solemnly and slow;

“ Pray do not mock me so ! Caw ! caw! the rooks are calling,

Do not laugh at me!"
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe !

And now the sweet day is dead;

Cold in his arms it lies; Through woods and mountain passes

No stain from its breath is spread The winds, like anthems, roll;

Over the glassy skies, They are chanting solemn masses,

No mist or stain !
Singing, “ Pray for this poor soul,

Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
Pray, pray!”

And the forests utter a moan,

Like the voice of one who crieth And the hooded clouds, like friars,

In the wilderness alone, Tell their beads in drops of rain,

“Vex not his ghost !”
And patter their doleful prayers ;
But their prayers are all in vain,

Then comes, with an awful roar,
All in vain !

Gathering and sounding on,

The storm-wind from Labrador,
There he stands in the foul weather, The wind Euroclydon,
The foolish, fond Old Year,

The storm-wind !
Crowned with wild flowers and with
heather,

Howl ! howl ! and from the forest
Like weak, despised Lear,

Sweep the red leaves away!
A king, a king!

Would, the sins that thou abhorrest,

O Soul ! could thus decay, Then comes the summer-like day,

And be swept away !
· Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy! his last! O, the old man gray For there shall come a mightier blast,
Loveth that ever-soft voice,

There shall be a darker day ;
Gentle and low.

And the stars, from heaven down-cast

Like red leaves be swept away! To the crimson woods he saith,

Kyrie, eleyson ! To the voice gentle and low

Christe, eleyson !

EARLIER POEMS.

(These poems were written for the most part during my college life, and all of them before the age of nineteen. Some have found their way into schools, and seem to be successful. Others lead a vagabond and precarious existence in the corners of newspapers; or have changed their names and run away to reck their fortunes beyond the sea. I say, with the Bishop of Avranches on a similar occasion: “I cannot be displeased to see these children of mine, which I have neglected, and almost exposed, brought from their wanderings in lanes and alleys, and safely lodged, in order to go forth into the world together in a more decorous garb.”']

AN APRIL DAY.

I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with

bright forms, WHEN the warm sun, that brings Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell Seed-time and harvest, has returned The coming-on of storms.

again, "T is sweet to visit the still wood, where From the earth's loosened mould springs

The sapling draws its sustenance, and The first flower of the plain.

thrives :