XXII.

IN ABSENCE.

THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,

Did I not know, that, in the early spring, When wild March winds upon their errands sing,

Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,

Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair,

They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks,

From icy cares, even as thy clear looks Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care:

When drops with welcome rain the April day,

My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,

Save there the rain in dreamy clouds

doth stay,

As loath to fall out of those happy skies; Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,

That comes with steady sun when April dies.

They tell us that our land was made for song,

With its huge rivers and sky-piercing peaks,

Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide,

And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct.

But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods;

Her womb and cradle are the human heart,

And she can find a nobler theme for song

In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight

Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore

Between the frozen deserts of the poles. All nations have their message from on

high,

Each the messiah of some central

Subject alone to Order's higher law. What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave

Though we should speak as man spake never yet

Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnifi

cence,

Or green Niagara's never-ending roar? Our country hath a gospel of her own To preach and practise before all the world,

The freedom and divinity of man, The glorious claims of human brotherhood,

Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should,

Gains the sole wealth that will not fly away,

And the soul's fealty to none but God. These are realities, which make the shows

Of outward Nature, be they ne'er so grand,

Seem small, and worthless, and contemptible.

These are the mountain-summits for our bards,

Which stretch far upward into heaven itself,

And give such wide-spread and exulting view

Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny,

That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles.

Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star, Silvers the murk face of slow-yielding Night,

The herald of a fuller truth than yet Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of Man

Since the earth glittered in her stainless prime,

Of a more glorious sunrise than of old Drew wondrous melodies from Mem

Shall the dull stone pay grateful ori

sons,

And we till noonday bar the splendor

out,

Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard hearts,

Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice,

And be content, though clad with angel-wings,

Close-clipped, to hop about from perch to perch,

In paltry cages of dead men's dead thoughts?

O, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing,

And let our gushing songs befit the dawn

And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew Brimming the chalice of each full-blown hope,

Whose blithe front turns to greet the growing day!

Never had poets such high call before, Never can poets hope for higher one, And, if they be but faithful to their trust, Earth will remember them with love

Coping with mad waves and more mutinous spirits,

Battled he with the dreadful ache at heart

Which tempts, with devilish subtleties of doubt,

The hermit of that loneliest solitude, The silent desert of a great New. Thought;

Though loud Niagara were to-day struck dumb,

Yet would this cataract of boiling life Rush plunging on and on to endless deeps,

And utter thunder till the world shall cease,

A thunder worthy of the poet's song, And which alone can fill it with true life.

The high evangel to our country granted Could make apostles, yea, with tongues of fire,

Of hearts half-darkened back again to clay!

'Tis the soul only that is national, And he who pays true loyalty to that Alone can claim the wreath of patriotism.

Beloved! if I wander far and oft From that which I believe, and feel, and know,

Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing heart,

But with a strengthened hope of better things;

Knowing that I, though often blind and false

To those I love, and O, more false than all

Unto myself, have been most true to thee,

And that whoso in one thing hath been

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:

'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the asking,

No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays : Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and