Thou liest low and silent,

Thy heart is cold and still, Thine eyes are shut forever,

And Death hath had his will; He loved and would have taken, I loved and would have kept, We strove, and he was stronger, And I have never wept.

Let him possess thy body,

Thy soul is still with me,
More sunny and more gladsome
Than it was wont to be:
Thy body was a fetter

That bound me to the flesh,
Thank God that it is broken,
And now I live afresh!

Now I can see thee clearly;
The dusky cloud of clay,
That hid thy starry spirit,

Is rent and blown away:
To earth I give thy body,

Thy spirit to the sky,

I saw its bright wings growing, And knew that thou must fly.

Now I can love thee truly,

For nothing comes between

Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes,
On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies
The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-
gloom:

Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom

Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom:

Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops,

Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully,

Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might,

Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops.

VI

GREAT Truths are portions of the soul of

man;

Great souls are portions of Eternity;
Each drop of blood that e'er through true

heart ran

With lofty message, ran for thee and me;

For God's law, since the starry song began, Hath been, and still forevermore must be, That every deed which shall outlast Time's span

Must spur the soul to be erect and free; Slave is no word of deathless lineage

sprung;

Too many noble souls have thought and died,

Too many mighty poets lived and sung, And our good Saxon, from lips purified With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung

Too long to have God's holy cause denied.

VII

I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap

From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,

With whose great rise the ocean all is

shaken

And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;

Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,

Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,
Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine
keep,

Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,
Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed
home is seen,

And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

VIII

TO M. W., ON HER BIRTHDAY MAIDEN, when such a soul as thine is born, The morning-stars their ancient music make,

And, joyful, once again their song awake, Long silent now with melancholy scorn; And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn, By no least deed its harmony shalt break, But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take,

Through life's most darksome passes unforlorn;

Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall,

Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun!
How have our lives and wills (as haply erst
They were, ere this forgetfulness begun)
Through all their earthly distances out-
burst,

And melted, like two rays of light in one!

XIV

ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

These sonnets, XIV-XIX, when printed in The Democratic Review for May, 1842, bore merely the title Sonnets.

As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth,
With the majestic beating of his heart,
The mighty tides, whereof its rightful part
Each sea-wide bay and little weed receiv-
eth,

So, through his soul who earnestly believeth,
Life from the universal Heart doth flow,
Whereby some conquest of the eternal
Woe,

By instinct of God's nature, he achieveth: A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide, And he more keenly feels the glorious duty Of serving Truth, despised and crucified, – Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest, And feel God flow forever through his breast.