THE roses are a regal troop,

And humble folks the daisies;
But, Bluebells of New England,
To you I give my praises,-
To you, fair phantoms in the sun,
Whom merry Spring discovers,
With bluebirds for your laureates,
And honey-bees for lovers.

The south-wind breathes, and lo! you throng
This rugged land of ours :

I think the pale blue clouds of May
Drop down, and turn to flowers!
By cottage-doors along the roads
You show your winsome faces,
And, like the spectre lady, haunt
The lonely woodland places.

All night your eyes are closed in sleep,
Kept fresh for day's adorning :

Such simple faith as yours can see
God's coming in the morning!
You lead me by your holiness
To pleasant ways of duty:
You set my thoughts to melody,
You fill me with your beauty.

GOOD-NIGHT! I have to say good-night
To such a host of peerless things!
Good-night unto that fragile hand
All queenly with its weight of rings;
Good-night to fond up-lifted eyes,
Good-night to chestnut braids of hair,
Good-night unto the perfect mouth,
And all the sweetness nestled there,-

The snowy hand detains me, then
I'll have to say Good-night again!
But there will come a time, my love,
When, if I read our stars aright,
I shall not linger by this porch
With my adieus. Till then, good-night!
You wish the time were now? And I.
You do not blush to wish it so?

You would have blush'd yourself to death
To own so much a year ago,-

What, both these snowy hands! ah, then, I'll have to say Good-night again!

THE FADED VIOLET.

WHAT thought is folded in thy leaves !
What tender thought, what speechless pain!
I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Thou darling of the April rain!

I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Though scent and azure tint are fled,-
O dry, mute lips! ye are the type
Of something in me cold and dead:

Of something wilted like thy leaves; Of fragrance flown, of beauty gone; Yet, for the love of those white hands That found thee, April's earliest-born,—

That found thee when thy dewy month Was purpled as with stains of wine,For love of her who love forgot,

I hold thy faded lips to mine.

That thou shouldst live when I am dead, When hate is dead, for me, and wrong, For this, I use my subtlest art,

For this, I fold thee in my song.

TIGER-LILIES.

I LIKE not lady-slippers,
Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms,
Nor yet the flaky roses,

Red, or white as snow;
I like the chaliced lilies,
The heavy Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,

That in our garden grow!

For they are tall and slender;
Their mouths are dashed with carmine,
And when the wind sweeps by them,
On their emerald stalks
They bend so proud and graceful,—
They are Circassian women,
The favorites of the Sultan,

Adown our garden walks!

And when the rain is falling,

I sit beside the window

And watch them glow and glisten,-
How they burn and glow!

O for the burning lilies,
The tender Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,

That in our garden grow!

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPA

HAN.

WHEN the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
At the last of the thirty palace-gates,
The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
Orders a feast in his favorite room,-
Glittering squares of colored ice,

Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
Of spiced meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors:
Scattered over mosaic floors
Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pearly nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again,—but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows!
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zamun
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand,
The dancing-girls of Samarcand
Float in like mists from Fairy-land!
And to the low voluptuous swoons
Of music rise and fall the moons

Of their full brown bosoms. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes:
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the fumes of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Gocs to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light, Flaming, flickering on the night From my neighbor's casement opposite, I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan.

THE MOORLAND.

THE moorland lies a dreary waste:
The night is dark with drizzling rain;
In yonder yawning cave of cloud

The snaky lightning writhes with pain.

O sobbing rain, outside my door,

O wailing phantoms, make your moan; Go through the night in blind despair,Your shadowy lips have touched my own.

No more the robin breaks its heart
Of music in the pathless woods!
The ravens croak for such as I,

The plovers screech above their broods.

All mournful things are friends of mine, (That weary sound of falling leaves!) Ah, there is not a kindred soul

For me on earth, but moans and grieves

I cannot sleep this lonesome night: The ghostly rain goes by in haste, And, further than the eye can reach, The moorland lies a dreary waste.

SONG.

Our from the depths of my heart
Had arisen this single cry,
Let me behold my beloved,
Let me behold her, and die.

At last, like a sinful soul,

At the portals of Heaven I lie, Never to walk with the blest, Ah, never!. . . only to die.

DEAD.

A SORROWFUL woman said to me, "Come in and look on our child.” I saw an Angel at shut of day, And it never spoke,—but smiled.

I think of it in the city's streets,

I dream of it when I rest,

The violet eyes, the waxen hands, And the one white rose on the breast!

HESPERIDES.

IF thy soul, Herrick, dwelt with me,
This is what my songs would be:
Hints of our sea-breezes, bleut
With odors from the Orient;
Indian vessels deep with spice;
Star-showers from the Norland ice;
Wine-red jewels that seem to hold
Fire, but only burn with cold;
Antique goblets, strangely wrought,
Filled with the wine of happy thought;
Bridal measures, vain regrets,
Laburnum buds and violets;
Hopeful as the break of day;
Clear as crystal; new as May;
Musical as brooks that run
O'er yellow shallows in the sun;
Soft as the satin fringe that shades
The eyelids of thy fragrant maids;
Brief as thy lyrics, Herrick, are,
And polished as the bosom of a star.

And he rose with a sigh,

And said, "Can this be?

We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,"And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand,

But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,

He had twenty-four packs,Which was coming it strong,

Yet I state but the facts;

And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers,-that's wax.

Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

Which the same I am free to maintain.

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent To say another is an ass,—at least, to all intent; Nor should the individual who happens to be

meant

Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great

extent.

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order-when

A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,

And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,

And the subsequent proceedings interested him

no more.

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage

In a warfare with the remnants of a palæozoic

age;

And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,

Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.

[Born 1837.]

ANDENKEN.

I.

O sleep! are thy dreams any sweeter I linger before thy gate:

We must enter at it together,

And my love is loath and late.

IV.

The bobolink sings in the meadow,
The wren in the cherry-tree:
Come hither, thou little maiden,
And sit upon my knee;

And I will tell thee a story

I read in a book of rhyme;

I will but feign that it happened
To me, one summer-time,

When we walked through the meadow,
And she and I were young ;-

The story is old and weary
With being said and sung.

The story is old and weary ;

Ah, child! is it known to thee? Who was it that last night kissed thee Under the cherry-tree?

V.

Like a bird of evil presage,

To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked at the bolted door,

And flapped its wings in the gables, And shouted the well-known names, And buffeted the windows

Afeard in their shuddering frames.

It was night, and it is daytime,

The morning sun is bland,

The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking, In to the smiling land.

The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
In the sun so soft and bright,

And toss and play with the dead man
Drowned in the storm, last night.

VI.

I remember the burning brushwood,
Glimmering all day long
Yellow and weak in the sunlight,
Now leaped up red and strong,

And fired the old dead chestnut,

That all our years had stood, Gaunt and gray and ghostly,

Apart from the sombre wood;

And, flushed with sudden summer, The leafless boughs on high