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The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,

And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out.

I cannot reach the signal-tree tonight,

Yet, happy omen, hail !

Hear it from thy broad lucent Arnovale

(For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep

The morningless and unawakening sleep

Under the flowery oleanders pale),

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!

Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,

These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,

That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;

To a boon southern country he is fled,

And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's train divine

(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,

I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)

Within a folding of the Apennine,

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Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;

Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!

Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,

If men esteemed thee feeble, gave thee power,

If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.

And this rude Cumner ground,

Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms. its quiet fields,

Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time,

Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!

And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

What though the music of thy rustic flute

Kept not for long its happy, country tone:

Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy

note

Of men contention-tost, of men who

groan,

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To chase fatigue and fear: Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died. Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.

Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,

Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side. 1866.

YOUTH AND CALM

'TIS death! and peace, indeed, is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There's nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow.
But is a calm like this. in truth,
The crowning end of life and youth,
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light,
Its step so firm, its eyes so bright,
Because on its hot brow there blows
A wind of promise and repose
From the far grave, to which it goes;
Because it hath the hope to come,
One day, to harbor in the tomb?

Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath-
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death.
It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep;
It hears a voice within it tell :
Calm's not life's crown, though calm is
well.

T is all perhaps which man acquires,
But is not what our youth desires.
(1852). 1867.

AUSTERITY OF POETRY

THAT Son of Italy who tried to blow, Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song,

In his light youth amid a festal throng Sate with his bride to see a public show. Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow

Youth like a star; and what to youth belong

Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.

A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,

'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay!

Shuddering, they drew her garments off-and found

A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.

Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,

Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground

Of thought and of austerity within.

WORLDLY PLACE

1867.

EVEN in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell.

Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master's

ken

Who rates us if we peer outside our

pen

Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell? Even in a palace! On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever

came;

And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I'll stop, and say:
66 There were no suc-

cor here! The aids to noble life are all within." 1867.

EAST LONDON

'TWAS August, and the fierce sun overhead

Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,

And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited.

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A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.

Some laboring men, whose work lay somewhere there,

Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied

Across, and begg'd, and came back satisfied.

The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.

Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers;

She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate. She turns from that cold succor, which attends

The unknown little from the unknowing great,

And points us to a better time than ours." 1867.

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IMMORTALITY

FOIL'D by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,

We leave the brutal world to take its way,

And, Patience! in another life, we say, The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.

And will not, then, the immortal armies

scorn

The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they, Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,

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