Why rob these shadows of their sacred

trust?

Let the thick cobwebs hide the day once more;

Leave the dead years to silence and to dust,

And close again the long unopened door.

ROCK ME TO SLEEP

BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;

Rock me to sleep, mother, -rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,Take them, and give me my childhood

DOWN THE BAYOU

THE Cypress swamp around me wraps its spell,

With hushing sounds in moss-hung branches there,

Like congregations rustling down to prayer,
While Solitude, like some unsounded bell,
Hangs full of secrets that it cannot tell,
And leafy litanies on the humid air
Intone themselves, and on the tree-trunks
bare

The scarlet lichen writes her rubrics well. The cypress-knees take on them marvellous shapes

Of pygmy nuns, gnomes, goblins, witches, fays,

The vigorous vine the withered gum-tree drapes,

Across the oozy ground the rabbit plays,
The moccasin to jungle depths escapes,
And through the gloom the wild deer shyly
gaze.

RESERVE

THE sea tells something, but it tells not all That rests within its bosom broad and deep; The psalming winds that o'er the ocean sweep

From compass point to compass point may call,

Nor half their music unto earth let fall;
In far, ethereal spheres night knows to keep
Fair stars whose rays to mortals never creep,
And day uncounted secrets holds in thrall.
He that is strong is stronger if he wear
Something of self beyond all human clasp, —
An inner self, behind unlifted folds

Of life, which men can touch not nor lay bare:

Thus great in what he gives the world to grasp,

Is greater still in that which he withholds.

BREAK not his sweet repose

Thou whom chance brings to this sequestered ground,

The sacred yard his ashes close,

But go thy way in silence; here no sound Is ever heard but from the murmuring pines,

Answering the sea's near murmur;
Nor ever here comes rumor

Of anxious world or war's foregathering signs.

The bleaching flag, the faded wreath, Mark the dead soldier's dust beneath, And show the death he chose; Forgotten save by her who weeps alone, And wrote his fameless name on this low stone:

Break not his sweet repose.

LANDOR

COME, Walter Savage Landor, come this

way;

Step through the lintel low, with prose or

verse,

Tallest of latter men; the early star
And latest setting sun of great compeers;
Through youth, through manhood, and ex-
tremest age,

Strong at the root, and at the top, blossoms

Perennial. When culled the fields around Still calling up the great for wisest talk, Or singing clear some fresh, melodious stave,

Not sickly-sweet, but like ripe autumn fruit,

Of which not one but all the senses taste,
And leave uncloyed the dainty appetite.
Great English master of poetic art,
In these late times that dandle every

muse,

Here mayst thou air all day thine eloquence,

And I a never weary listener,

If thou at eve wilt sing one witty song, Or chant some line of cadenced, classic hymn.

BOS'N HILL

THE wind blows wild on Bos'n Hill,
Far off is heard the ocean's rote;
Low overhead the gulls scream shrill,
And homeward scuds each little boat.

Then the dead Bos'n wakes in glee

To hear the storm-king's song; And from the top of mast-pine tree

He blows his whistle loud and long.

The village sailors hear the call,
Lips pale and eyes grow dim;
Well know they, though he pipes them all,
He means but one shall answer him.

He pipes the dead up from their graves, Whose bones the tansy hides;

He pipes the dead beneath the waves,

They hear and cleave the rising tides.

But sailors know when next they sail
Beyond the Hilltop's view,
There's one amongst them shall not fail
To join the Bos'n's Crew.

DANDELIONS

Now dandelions in the short, new grass, Through all their rapid stages daily pass; No bee yet visits them; each has its place,

Still near enough to see the other's face. Unkenn'd the bud, so like the grass and ground

In our old country yards where thickest found;

Some morn it opes a little golden sun,
And sets in its own west when day is done.
In few days more 't is old and silvery gray,
And though so close to earth it made its
stay,

Lo! now it findeth wings and lightly flies,
A spirit form, till on the sight it dies.

SONG FROM A DRAMA

THOU art mine, thou hast given thy word;
Close, close in my arms thou art clinging;
Alone for my ear thou art singing
A song which no stranger hath heard:
But afar from me yet, like a bird,
Thy soul, in some region unstirred,
On its mystical circuit is winging.

Thou art mine, I have made thee mine own;

Henceforth we are mingled forever: But in vain, all in vain, I endeavor Though round thee my garlands are thrown, And thou yieldest thy lips and thy zone To master the spell that alone

My hold on thy being can sever.

Thou art mine, thou hast come unto me! But thy soul, when I strive to be near it

The innermost fold of thy spirit Is as far from my grasp, is as free, As the stars from the mountain-tops be, As the pearl, in the depths of the sea, From the portionless king that would wear it.

THE DISCOVERER

I HAVE a little kinsman

Whose earthly summers are but three,
And yet a voyager is he

Greater than Drake or Frobisher,
Than all their peers together!
He is a brave discoverer,

And, far beyond the tether

Of them who seek the frozen Pole,

Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.

Ay, he has travelled whither
A winged pilot steered his bark
Through the portals of the dark,
Past hoary Mimir's well and tree,
Across the unknown sea.

Suddenly, in his fair young hour, Came one who bore a flower, And laid it in his dimpled hand With this command: "Henceforth thou art a rover ! Thou must make a voyage far, Sail beneath the evening star, And a wondrous land discover." - With his sweet smile innocent Our little kinsman went.

Since that time no word
From the absent has been heard.

Who can tell

How he fares, or answer well
What the little one has found
Since he left us, outward bound?
Would that he might return!
Then should we learn

From the pricking of his chart
How the skyey roadways part.
Hush! does not the baby this way bring,
To lay beside this severed curl,
Some starry offering
Of chrysolite or pearl?

Ah, no! not so!

We may follow on his track,
But he comes not back.
And yet I dare aver

He is a brave discoverer

Of climes his elders do not know.
He has more learning than appears
On the scroll of twice three thousand

years,