Chapter VII

Keep, Cordova, thy rare renown.
The veils of twilight, falling down,
Could fold around no fairer town;
Yet many a sight, where came the night,
To this, my soul, had seem’d as bright.
I left thee sad; but bore away,
With light to linger night and day,
And charms divine as thine to me,
The dream that came to rival thee.

FOOTNOTES

[1] “A thoroughly national hotel ... I look down from my window through marble colonnades ... perfumed with the scent of ... trees, which bend ... over a richly sculptured fountain.”—_Hare’s Wanderings in Spain_, pp. 93, 94.

[2] Instruments found everywhere in Spain.

[3] “The bridge over the Guadalquivir ... composed of sixteen arches ... very picturesque ... built by Octavius Cæsar.”—_O’Shea’s Guide to Spain._

[4] “What spot can be more delightful than the grand old court, surrounded by flame-shaped battlements ... beneath huge orange trees planted some three hundred years ago.”—_Hare’s Wanderings in Spain_, p. 88.

[5] “From the court you step with bewilderment into a roofed-in forest of pillars ... amid the thousand still remaining columns of varied color, thickness, and material, which divide the building into twenty-nine naves one way and nineteen the other. Into the midst of all a cathedral was engrafted in 1547.” (It was built originally for a mosk.)—_Idem_, p. 89.

[6] Gonsalvo de Cordova, called “the great captain,” born 1443.

[7] Ferdinand of Aragon, whose forces, setting out from Cordova, drove Abu-Abdillah, or Boabdil, the king of the Moors, from Granada in 1492.

[8] Titles applied to the city in different periods of its history,—when inhabited by the Moors, the Goths, and before the Romans conquered it.

[9] Referring to the “blue blood” of the Spanish aristocracy, supposed to be indicative of Roman ancestry.

THE FLOWER PLUCKED.

“You say you leave forever?
Our walks and talks have had their day?
You say this flower blooms not to stay,
Nor friendship;—we must sever?—
Alas, to think my favorite flower,
That so delay’d its blooming hour
Through all the stormy weather,
Through March and April, May and June
Has open’d now to shut so soon!
Nay, nay; it shall not fail me so.
It yet shall feel—though but my blow.”
She spoke, and smote with all her might
The fragile stem and blossom bright;
And both flew off together.

“Not so,” he cried; “nay, never.
Forgive it! Spare the flower! alas!”
And knelt and pick’d it from the grass.
“What, did she love thee ever?
If so the blow she gave to thee
Has made thee doubly dear to me.
Ah, Flower, in sunny weather,
And not in March, nay, nay, in June
Thy leaves in opening brought this boon;
Nor so shall close! There waits for thee
One mission more, thy best, I see!”
He spoke, and placed the fallen flower
Against his heart—and so that hour
The maid and flower together.

THE ARTIST’S AIM.

In candor, my friend, you seem too much at home
With nymphs of Olympus and gods of old Rome.
The world has advanced, and the artist, if sage,
Will seek to give form to the thoughts of his age.
The curve of a limb and the pose of a head
May be all the same in the living as dead;
But she that you woo, must have life and be young
And speak, ere you love her, and speak your own tongue.

Truth only is lasting, and only the face
Transfigured by it has a lasting grace.
And truth is in nature, nor dealt second-hand
Through art, though most artful to fill the demand.
So think of the present, its deeds and its dreams,
As Raphael thought, but not Raphael’s themes;
Nor be a Venetian to picture like Titian
A woman to worship or goddess to kiss.
You are a new-world’s man: model from this.

Ay, let the dead bury their dead, and pursue
The aims of a people that push for the new.
The proudest ambition, the readiest hand,
Might wisely embody ideals less grand;
No sweeter Murillo’s divine designs,
Whose purity rivals each thought it refines,
While the dreamy intent of a life-brooding haze
Throngs thick with the beauty of immature praise.
Conceptions immaculate still may be
In the pure white light that he could see,
Inspired to incarnate a soul in each plan,
The life of a picture as well as of man.

The wants of the present, one never can gauge
By the heathenish tastes of a heathenish age.
The mummy lived once, and spoke as it ought.
We moderns, forgetting its life and its thought,
For lost art sighing, too oft re-array
What is only a corpse, and ought to decay.
E’en if it were living, long centuries fraught
With progress in action and feeling and thought
Outgrow the old charms, and make the world crave
New phases of art that the past never gave.

So I fear, when I see men striving to mold
The forms of the new after those that are old,
While all true life grows better and better,
That classical models a modern may fetter.
Small virtue has one with no hope in his heart,
And little of merit, if none in his art.
While only the light of a coming ideal
Lures those to the good who imagine it real,
No work can ever inspire the earth
That embodies no promise of unfulfill’d worth,
And naught that the world accounts worthy of fame,
In art as in act, but is rank’d by its aim.

MUSICIAN AND MORALIZER.

What am I “doing,” night and day,
Loitering here with the flute?—
Doing?—why blowing my plaints away,
Off, till I blow them mute.

“Foolish” am I?—It may be so.
Who, forsooth, are the wise?
I to the wind my sorrows blow:
Others hoard up their sighs.

“Useless” am I?—The while I play,
Many another one’s heart
Throbs to my melody, till, they say,
All of his woes depart.

Nothing of sweetness can fill the air,
Nothing of beauty bloom,
Save as visions of life more fair
Over the spirit loom.

Listen to this now—mine and thine.
How could I show more worth,
Than as a reed for a breath divine,
Blowing from heaven to earth?

“Music-mad” am I?—Have your say,
Whether you blame or applaud,
I the behest of my soul obey,
Just as it came from God.

WHAT THE BOUQUET SAID.

For one who would himself be here,
And for ourselves who hold you dear,
We come, fair maid, to welcome you.
For sun-bright eyes like yours we grew,
For cheeks like yours, with ardor meet,
Would flush, aglow their glow to greet;
And up to you, our fragrance rare
Is breathed from lips that burst in prayer.
Our goddess dear, our sister sweet,
This meeting leaves our lives complete.
Now dew may fail, or frost may sear,
We fade, we die; but have been here.

WITH THE YOUNG.

Our struggles with the world, I know,
Are blessings in disguise.
No honors that elsewhere earth can show
Outshine its victor’s prize.
Yet, when, with naught their course to guide,
My feelings freely well,
My thoughts will turn to souls untried,
And with the young I dwell.

Why ask a feeling the reason why?—
One’s lot may have been too hard.
Those loved in youth, as years go by,
May rouse no more regard.
Who knows how many in age may fall
Whose feet all deem’d secure?
Who knows how many can trip at all
And ever again be pure?

Perchance through each fair childish face
I seem to see, as of yore,
A form whose young and tender grace
Beside me moves no more;
And yet a form that waits for me,
Where still, as hope maintains,
What has been, is, or is to be,
In a state unchanged remains

Perchance, I share in heaven’s delight
Whose hosts recall the past,
And guide, at times, in robes of white,
Earth’s young through gloom and blast.
But leave the cause yet undivined,
When feelings freely well,
The young have claims no others find,
And with the young I dwell.

A TRANSLATION.

In 1864, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin was celebrated with unusual splendor in the Church de la Companiè of Santiago, Chili. In the midst of the ceremonies the draped image of the Virgin caught fire. Almost instantly the flames were communicated to ropes suspending along the ceiling upward of twenty thousand colored lamps. These fell in a rain of fire upon the audience below, burning with the church itself as many as two thousand persons, chiefly young ladies from the higher grades of society.

O’er Santiago’s happy homes
The parting sun delay’d,
And brightly o’er its roofs and domes
In gleams of sunset play’d;
And toward the dome most bright came throngs
Of maidens hastening there;
And from them words more sweet than songs
Went pulsing through the air.
They sought that dome because the home
Of God where sins were shriven;
Now under it with splendor fit
Should prayer to Him be given.

Within, a thousand banners bright
Would wave o’er walls ablaze;
And priests, array’d in gold and white,
Like seraphs chant their praise.
Within, the organ’s ardent strains
Would rise with incense rare;
Ah, then, how sweet would be their gains
Who breathed that sweeter air!
Sent upward so their prayers would flow
Like fountains heavenward driven,
That far away would break in spray,
And fall in blessings given.

And soon those thousand banners bright
Did wave o’er walls ablaze;
And priests, array’d in gold and white,
Like seraphs chant their praise—
When up there flared a flame that glared
Athwart the lamp-strung dome;
And hot as hell its red lights fell
To fright their victims home;
And, o’er and o’er, was heard: “The door!”
And cries where fright had striven.
But oh, no more would swing that door,
On throngs against it driven.

Red lips of fire flew to and fro,
And kiss’d each maiden’s cheek;
They blush’d, but oh, too deep the glow!
They kneel’d, but oh, too meek!
Death wrapt them round in robes of flame,
Let loose their streaming hair,
And, when their souls were won, became,
Ash-white, their couch-mate fair.
Anon, the fire was raging higher.
But these to rest were given,
Long ere the bells had wail’d farewells
When out the belfry driven.

To Santiago’s mourning homes
At morn a stranger stray’d,
And found, where once of all those domes
The brightest sunn’d the shade,
Four hundred carts of corpses charr’d,
Two thousand nameless dead,
And scores of thousands weeping hard
For life so sadly fled.
And all around the smoking ground,
Whence all hope else was driven,
With lifted eye, their dome the sky,
Their prayers to God were given.

FARMER LAD.

Farmer lad, in the morning gray,
Blest may seem the town, and they,
Slumbering late, who, void of blame,
Seek at their leisure wealth and fame;
But how many there, thy race would run
To know thy rest when the day is done!

Farmer lad, when the herd’s faint bells
Clink far off o’er the sunburnt fells,
Better may seem the coin that calls
Ringing and bright from the town’s cool halls;
But how many there, would give all its gleams
For the golden light of thy guileless dreams!

Farmer lad, where the herd will drink
Waits a maid that bathes by the brink
Bare brown feet; and the rill, made sweet,
Thrills to touch her who thee would greet.
There is more for thee in the blue of her eye
Than in all the towns that are under the sky.

THE WIFE.

About her fair sweet face, all bright,
Is a constant halo of calm delight;
And her smile attracts
To genial acts
All those who live in the sunny sight.

She moves in a sphere not wholly obscure,
With ways that are not wholly mature,
But ready to go
Where friend or foe
May point the way to the wise or pure.

Her mien by every grace refined
With a welcome bends to all things kind;
But something true
To duty too
Remains unbent in her inner mind.

Her soul seeks not the name of wife,
To sit by a plume, or the prize of a strife.
She longs to share
Not the outward glare,
But the inward glow of her husband’s life.

Ah, like the sky encircling the sea,
Embracing his thoughts wherever they be,
She rests above
His life with a love
That binds him fast, yet leaves him free.

Toward her his thoughts in fancies rise,
Like mists aglow in the sunset skies,
And like nights here
When the stars appear,
His gloom gives way at the glance of her eyes.

Through her his hope like a morning dream
Attains a day of love supreme,
Suffused with a light
That makes earth bright,
And life what it otherwise could but seem.

Would God her heart could ever abide,
A heaven for his heart’s heaving tide,
Still calm above
His restless love,
And all the storms that over it glide!

NOTHING TO KEEP UNDER.

You envy those whom all men greet
With favors never ceasing,
The men whose ways are so discreet
Their friends go on increasing,
Whose moods get more than they deserve,
Because not oft they blunder;
But, even when unkind, have nerve
To keep unkindness under.

You envy those whose lips imply
A smile for every neighbor,
Though all his deeds may give the lie
To truth for which they labor,—
Good, easy souls, who never need
To fret in wrath or wonder,
To feel how hard is life, indeed,
With so much to keep under.

You envy those whose calm consent,
Amid all earth’s mutations,
Can sail the sea of life content
With others’ observations;
Who entertain no wish for strife
Near shores where breakers thunder;
But hold a cautious helm to life,
And keep ambition under.

Hold friend—the good for which men yearn
Makes ill to them provoking;
And zeal it is, on fire to burn,
That fills its air with smoking.
If this be so, some day, your soul
A worth world-wide may sunder
From those who have—their self-control,
But nothing to keep under.

OUR DAY AT PISA.

We took the train at Florence,[1] we,—
The day was warm and pleasant.
The town of Pisa would we see.
No time was like the present.
Anon we climb’d the Leaning Tower,[2]
Dropt something down, and sat an hour;
And then the grand Baptistry[2] door
They swung for us; and, o’er and o’er,
We made its domed rotunda roar,
To echo back our joking.

We set our pockets jingling, we,
To make our guide a crony,
Saw the cathedral, paid a fee,
And ate some macaroni,
Then feasted on an outside view
Of all three buildings,[2] yet so new;
Then bought, in alabaster[3] wrought,
Some models of them; then we sought
The Campo Santo,[4] where we thought
About the dead, while smoking.

We took the train at sunset, we,
And while we left the station,
Extoll’d the land, “How much to see!
How grand this Roman nation!
Our own, how mean!—no works of art!”
We strove to sigh, but check’d a start
And cried, “How home-like!” o’er and o’er.—
What thrill’d us thus?—alas, it bore
No hint from art; we heard once more
A frog, near by us, croaking.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The poem is supposed to be written by an American “doing” Italy.

[2] The Leaning Tower, the Baptistry (under the dome of which may be heard, by those who care for it, an echo, repeating itself many times), and the Cathedral are all found in one square.

[3] Alabaster worked into articles suitable for gifts is one of the chief commodities of Pisa. Great quantities of it are purchased for presents.

[4] Campo Santo or cemetery, the most famous in Italy.

THE HIGHEST CLAIMS.

I woke and found my dream withdrawn,
And, with it, each weird guest,
Whose urgency, from eve to dawn,
Had robb’d me of my rest.
One call’d me ruler of the land;
One chief of hosts enroll’d;
One brought me wealth; one bade my hand
A pen immortal hold;
But none spake aught of aims I thought
More blest than theirs could be;
And, leading on to all I sought,
Still claim’d the most from me.

“To hold a sceptre in the state,
Like Moses o’er the sea,
Controlling thus a rival’s fate,
Who overwhelm’d will be;
To wield a sword in dangerous times,
Till foes yield up each aim,
While hope with firmer footstep climbs
The crumbling ledge of fame,—
All this I know were well, but though
Each foe should bend the knee,
An homage grander still, I trow,
Would claim the most from me.

“To join the throngs whose efforts prove
How dear the wealth they earn;
Or those whose thought the world can move
To deeds for which they yearn;
All this were well; but gold is mined
In depths that lure below,
And thought more lasting forms can find
Than lip and line bestow.
When gem and scroll a living soul
With all its powers may be,
Naught else that might my deeds control
Can claim the most from me.

“Ah, why through all life’s little day
Should drum and trumpet call,
And cluster’d smoke from many a fray
Hang o’er earth like a pall?
How small a space above each fight
Its rising thunder jars!
The echo sleeps in paths of light
Where shine unmoved the stars.
To draw toward love like heaven’s above
One’s earthly work may be;
And nothing less than perfect love
Can claim the most from me.”

I spoke, and, ere the beams of day
Could bar him out, each guest
That I had thought had gone for aye,
Return’d and term’d me blest.
One call’d me ruler of the land;
One chief of hosts enroll’d;
One brought me wealth; one bade my hand
A pen immortal hold;
And every voice breath’d forth: “Rejoice;
O soul, thy wisdom see:—
While love rules all, thy ruling choice
Must claim the most from me.”

NOTES FROM THE VICTORY.

Ah me, who is ringing those bells?
Right merry for funeral knells!
If the winds of hell could ring them as well,
What woe would the demons lack?
My light blew out in the gust of the rout:
My boy will never come back.

And drums!—How lightly they roll!
Coarse drums, can they call the soul?
Folks, out of breath, do you shout at death?
Can you rend the tomb?—Alack,
Vain echoes around, pale under the ground,
My boy will never come back.

Guns too! O why do they roar?
Alas, I thought it was o’er.
Though why care I, though a million die,
And all of us wear but black?
I, too, with the proud have my blood-stain’d shroud:
My boy will never come back.

Our land!—Who wants it to last!
Its future is doom’d by the past.
And the tears that rise to its mourners’ eyes
Will ever dim all they track.
Chill, shivering breast, freeze, freeze into rest:
My boy will never come back.

THE POET’S LESSON.

“O poet vain, put by thy pen,
Put by this dreamy mood,
Move outward through the walks of men;
And do the world some good.”

These words I heard, and waived my will,
And left my rhymes behind,
And past the sill and down the hill
Went forth my work to find.

And first I spied a romping child.
“My child,” I stopt and said,
“The sun is bright; the air is mild;
Your cheeks with health are red.

“It does you good to leap and run,
And chase your mates about”—
But ah, my talk had scarce begun
Before the child cried out:

“O please, man, please keep back, I say!
O but you spoil my sport!
O but they all will flee away,—
My prisoners, from my fort!”

I saw no foe, nor fortress wall,
My coming had attack’d.
This child, I thought, knows not at all
A fancy from a fact.

Too young is he; nor yet has learn’d
The laws of health, like me;
Nor cares to know them; so I turn’d
And left his fancy free.

A man approach’d with bending frame,
His eyes by searching task’d;
A chance, I thought, to help one came;
So, “What is lost?” I ask’d.

“Lost?—every thing!” he said, and frown’d;
“Ay, every thing I sought.
All day and night, the whole week round,
My mind had track’d the thought;

“And just had found it, but for you!”
I blush’d at this; and he,
He craved my pardon, said, he too,
Had done a wrong to me.

“Nay, I,” said I, “should make amend.
Your search was on the ground;
And I dreamt not, who saw you bend,
That thought could there be found.”

He answer’d not; but, passing then,
With shadows paved the way;
The while I vow’d that not again
Would I such help essay.

With this I turn’d my footsteps where
A man long ill abode,
Assured it would do good to share
This weary sufferer’s load.

“My friend,” I said, “your smile is bright;
Your pains are lessening then;
Erelong they all will take their flight,
Your health be sound again.”

“Be sound?” he ask’d; “and can it be
That you misjudge me too?
Ah, not the thing you deem, set free
The smile that welcomed you.

“Nay, friend, but wisdom learn from one
Who long on earth has wrought;
Our ways would leave us wrecks undone,
If but of earth we thought.

“A double life we all must live,—
Of spirit and of flesh;
And but the former life can give
A joy forever fresh.

“Look up; there looms a region nigh,
And there the Master is;
And if like Him live you and I,
Then you and I live His.

“When all day long of Him I muse,
And all day with Him live,
The glory that the spirit views
Dims all that earth can give.”

I heard his words, and went my way,
My lesson learn’d betimes;
No more I felt could I obey
A voice that rail’d at rhymes.

Oh what were life without the worth
Of ideality,—
Its home, heaven’s halo round the earth;
Its language, poetry.

The world of deeds whose armor gleams
May light the path to right
Far less than rays that rise in dreams,
And days that dawn at night.

God’s brightest light illumes the soul.
That light this life denies
Till earth’s horizons lift and roll
Like lids from opening eyes.

THE MOURNER ANSWERED.

Amid the twilight’s gathering gloom,
She knelt beside her babe’s new tomb.
“My child,” she sigh’d, “did heaven not know
How deep and dread would be my woe?
For this did nature give thee birth,
For this,—to bury thee?—O God!”
She groan’d, then started. Earth to earth,
Her lips had kiss’d the common sod.

“Amid life’s flowers that fade and fall,
What need to pluck a bud so small?
With ripen’d harvests full supplied,
What need had heaven of thee?” she cried;
Then mark’d the flowers that, while she stoop’d,
E’en yet made sweet her last-brought wreath:
Those full-blown all had dropt or droop’d;
The buds alone bloom’d bright beneath.

“Why leave, O God,” was then her moan,
“My widow’d soul still more alone?
Why wrest from life the last thing dear?
What harm that love should linger here?”
And lo, the neighboring spire above
Rang forth its evening call to prayer;
And music fill’d from lips of love
The House of God whose door was there.

THE VACANT ROOM.

Ah, wraith-lit star, that shone afar,
And lured my eager footsteps on!
This door I pass, and find, alas,
The friend for whom I long’d is gone.
O think how drear mere sands appear
To travellers worn who pray for springs.
More drear this place without the face
I sought to cheer my wanderings.

Have diamonds rare no gleams to spare
The light that their own light would shun?
Do roses droop when many a group
Of clouds crowd off the autumn sun?
The gem and rose less dull repose
When all are gone that caused their worth,
Than lip and eye when none are nigh
With smiles that break in bursts of mirth.

Are lovers wild, when maidens mild
Their wisest ways of wooing shun?
Do mothers weep, when waked from sleep
Whose dream restored a long-lost son?
Ah, scarce the man’s or mother’s plans
Appear so rudely overthrown,
As his whose thought in vain here sought
A word to echo back his own.

But time speeds on, and duties wan,
Like ghosts untombed, forbid my stay;
But though I go, this note shall show
The loss, my friend, you cause to-day.
It craves a thought for him who sought
A sight of eyes that light it now;
For him who waits till kindlier fates
His hopes a kindlier fate allow.

THANKSGIVING DAY.

I Sought the house Thanksgiving Day,
And found its inmates all away,
Save her who sat before the fire,
And, by her side, her palsied sire.

At play, betwixt her fingers white,
A needle nimbly glanced the light;
But oft her eyes it could not stay,
To either side would glance away.

And on her right hand, open spread,
There lay the Book of God she read;
And on her left I just could trace
An infant namesake’s pictured face.

The Book of God, the housekeeper,
The babe that had been named for her,
The book and babe and she between,—
Through doors ajar I mark’d the scene.

And, while she sat before me so,
Content to share another’s woe;
A captive for her sisters gone,
Whom all their joy depended on;

Cheer’d now to read of heavenly worth
For souls denying self on earth;
Moved now to do the deed she should,
Lest wrong should lead that child from good;—

Another soul, my heart felt sure
Could keep, if so surrounded, pure,—
If there God lured his thought above,
And here one shared his name and love.

The scene was homely; yes, I know,
But homely scenes may haunt one so!—
That still her sweet face with me stays,
My days are all Thanksgiving Days.

A MISAPPREHENSION

NOT UNCOMMON.

In loneliness I wander’d;
When, lo, above me, ringing
Amid the breeze
That shook the trees,
I heard a bird’s glad singing.
I looked, and through the leaves could see
The warbler nod and chirp for me.
“One friend is left me yet,” thought I,
And ventur’d near
The song to hear;
But when he saw me drawing nigh,
Alas, in fright
He took to flight!
Not, not for me had been his care.
He sang to greet the sunny air,
And serve his own sweet nature.

In loneliness I ponder’d;
And lo, sweet laughter woke there
The gentlest rills,
That broke in trills
About the lips that spoke there.
Through smiles and blushes burst the glee,—
And eyes that fill’d and flash’d for me.
“Her soul,” I thought, “has heard my sigh”;
And, drawing near,
I bade her hear
My tale of love—but from her eye
The joy had flown.
Not I alone,
Alas, not I had been her care.
She fill’d the world with sweetness there,
To serve her own sweet nature.

AUNTY’S ANSWER.

My child, you come, and ask me why,
The reason why I stared at you?—
Ah, darling, one can use her eye!—
Nay, did I stare?—You saw me too?

I stared, then, at these great round eyes;
And thought of all that each would see,
Of all the cares, and all the cries,
Ere you were old, you sprite, like me.

And then I saw these tiny ears,
And thought of how they both would grow,
And thrill and tremble, ere the years
Had taught them all they had to know.

I saw these dainty limbs here, too,
That run and jump and snatch and throw;
And thought how little mine can do—
Ah me, not always was it so!

And what of these things?—Nothing, dear.
You ask’d me only, that is all;
And old is aunty, old and queer;
So kiss me, child, and catch the ball.

Alas, the darling!—How could I
Tell her the thought?—It touch’d me so
To think how—were she but to die
Before she learn’d it all, you know.

HIS LOVE’S FRUITION.

“Come, Love, be mine,” the boy implored;
And from his fresh young heart there pour’d
Full streams of life that flush’d his face
And thrill’d his breast for Love’s embrace.
“Nay, nay; not yet,” his Love replied;
“The worth of boyhood must be tried.”
So, like the spring’s uncertain sun,
Love lured his hope; but was not won.

“Come, Love, be mine,” the young man pray’d,
As if some angel were the maid;
And could with bliss have knelt beside
The only power that awed his pride.
“Nay, nay; not yet,” his Love replied;
“For vintage-time must life provide.”
So brightly, like a summer-sun,
Love cheer’d his way; but was not won.

“Come, Love, be mine,” the strong man urged;
“The mounts above in cloud are merged;
And, hand in hand with thee, my life
Will better brave the looming strife.”
“Nay, nay; not yet,” his Love replied,
“The harvests wait; the fields are wide.”
So, clouded like an autumn-sun,
Love veil’d her light, and was not won.

“Come, Love, be mine,” the old man said;
And meekly bow’d his whiten’d head;
Then, while it sank against his breast,
“O Love, has life not won its rest?”
“I come,” his Love at last replied;
And clasp’d him; but he only sigh’d.
And, faint and chill, life’s wintry sun
In gold had set; his Love was won.

WHAT WOULD I GIVE.

WRITTEN ON A SUNDAY IN GERMANY.

There, where the flowers more fragrant lie,
Crushed by the crowds that have pass’d them by,
Stands a chapel; and oft from its door
Hymns of the lowly worshippers pour,
Crush’d like the flowers, I trow.
O little Church, but what would I give,
What would I give, and how would I live,
To know as thy sweet souls know!

There, where the trees on the great knoll sway
Swept by the wind that they fail to stay,
Bend great crowds, while organ and bell
Hail God’s Host that is deigning to dwell
Shrined in their church below.
O great Church, but what would I give,
What would I give, and how would I live,
To know as thy hush’d throngs know!

There on the cliff that chancels the park,
Nigh to the cloud where is trilling the lark,
Men and maidens dance to the lay
Blown by the blasts of the trumpeters gay,
Fluttering to and fro.
O gay Cliff, but what would I give,
What would I give, and how would I live,
To know as thy light hearts know!

There, where the sun burns all the view,
What sounds there in the boundless blue?
Faith—is it more than a meek despair?
Truth—than one’s own note echoed in air?
Hope—than his dawn’s bright dew?
O hush’d Heaven, but what would I give,
How would I love, and how would I live,
To know the soul’s tale to be true!

DRAMATIC.

IDEALS MADE REAL.