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, 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, 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, Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one T is all perhaps which man acquires, 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 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. 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. 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, |