REMEMBRANCE.

I.

SWIFTER far than summer's flight –
Swifter far than youth's delight —
Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone
As the wood when leaves are shed,
As the night when sleep is filed,
As the heart when joy is dead,

I am left alone, alone.

II.

The swallow summer comes again
The owlet night resumes his reign-
But the wild-swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou. -
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

III.

Lilies for a bridal bed

a Roses for a matron's head Violets for a maiden dead

a

Pansies let my flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

A LAMENT.

I.

Oh, world! oh, life ! oh, time!
On whose last steps I climb

Trembling at that where I had stood before ;
When will return the glory of your prime ?

No more — 0, never more !

II.

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more

O, never more !

1

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS.

1.

THE serpent is shut out from paradise.

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more

In which its heart-cure lies :

The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower Like that from which its mate with feignèd sighs

Fled in the April hour.

I too must seldom seek again Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II.

Of hatred I am proud, — with scorn content;

Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown

Itself indifferent.

But, not to speak of love, pity alone Can break a spirit already more than bent.

The miserable one

Turns the mind's poison into food, Its medicine is tears, — its evil good.

III.

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,

Dear friends, dear friend I know that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die : The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV.

When I return to my cold home, you ask

Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene, Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

V.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,
« She loves me

loves me not."
And if this meant a vision long since filed –

If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought

If it meant, — but I dread

To speak what you may know too well: Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI.

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home ;

No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,

When it no more would roam ;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest.

Doubtless there is a place of peace Where

my

weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII.

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved

His heart with words, - but what his judgment bade Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know, Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.