I must not scorn myself; he loves me still.

Let no one dream but that he loves me still.

So let me, if you do not shudder at me, Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you;

Wear black and white, and be a nun

like you,

Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts;

Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys,

But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites;

Pray and be pray'd for; lie before your shrines;

Do each low office of your holy house; Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole

To poor sick people, richer in His eyes Who ransom'd us, and haler too than I ; And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own;

And so wear out in alms-deed and in prayer

The sombre close of that voluptuous day Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King."

She said. They took her to themselves;

and she

Still hoping, fearing "Is it yet too late?" Dwelt with them, till in time their abbess died.

Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life,

And for the power of ministration in her, And likewise for the high rank she had borne,

Was chosen abbess, there, an abbess, lived

For three brief years, and there, an abbess, passed

To where beyond these voices there is peace. 1859.

TITHONUS

THE Woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality

Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world,

A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream

The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of

morn.

Alas! for this gray shadow, once a

man

So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd

To his great heart none other than a God!

I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality." Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,

Like wealthy men who care not how they give.

But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,

And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,

And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd

To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was in ashes. Can thy love, Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even

O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies,

O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages: Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories,

Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean

Rings to the roar of an angel onset! Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring. And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palm

woods

Whisper in odorous heights of even

1863.

THE VOYAGE

WE left behind the painted buoy
That tosses at the harbor-mouth;
And madly danced our hearts with joy,
As fast we fleeted to the south.
How fresh was every sight and sound
On open main or winding shore!
We knew the merry world was round,
And we might sail for evermore.

Warm broke the breeze against the brow,

Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail; The lady's-head upon the prow

Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale.

The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel, And swept behind; so quick the run We felt the good ship shake and reel, We seem'd to sail into the sun!

How oft we saw the sun retire,

And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire,

And sleep beneath his pillar'd light! How oft the purple-skirted robe

Of twilight slowly downward drawn,
As thro' the slumber of the globe
Again we dash'd into the dawn!

New stars all night above the brim
Of waters lighten'd into view;
They climb'd as quickly, for the rim
Changed every moment as we flew.
Far ran the naked moon across

The houseless ocean's heaving field, Or flying shone, the silver boss

Of her own halo's dusky shield.

The peaky islet shifted shapes,

High towns on hills were dimly seen; We passed long lines of Northern capes And dewy Northern meadows green. We came to warmer waves, and deep

Across the boundless east we drove, Where those long swells of breaker sweep

The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove.

By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, Gloom'd the low coast and quivering brine

With ashy rains, that spreading made
Fantastic plume or sable pine;
By sands and steaming flats, and floods
Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast,
And hills and scarlet-mingled woods
Glow'd for a moment as we passed.