weak regret,

If the day were but one;

selves set free, To work or to pray,

Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,

Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

Wheel, wheel through the sunshine, There must be odors round the pine, Wheel, wheel through the shadow; There must be balm of breathing kine,

Somewhere down in the meadow. Must I choose? Then anchor me

there

Beyond the beckoning poplars, where The larch is snooding her flowery

hair

With wreaths of morning shadow.

Among the thickest hazels of the

brake

shake

Perchance some nightingale doth [song: His feathers, and the air is full of In those old days when I was young and strong,

Beside the nursery.
He used to sing on yonder garden tree,

my length I lay, I fill to-morrow and yesterday,

I am warm with the suns that have long since set,

fair as Spenser's dream.

HOME, WOUNDED.

STAY wherever you will,
By the mount or under the hill,
Or down by the little river:
Stay as long as you please,
Give me only a bud from the trees,
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,
Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it forever.

not yet.

And like one who dreams and dozes Softly afloat on a sunny sea,

Two worlds are whispering over me, And there blows a wind of roses

From the backward shore to the shore

before,

From the shore before to the back

ward shore,

And like two clouds that meet and pour
Each through each, till core in core
A single self reposes,
The nevermore with the evermore
Above me mingles and closes.

THE CHILD MUSICIAN.

He had played for his lordship's lévée,

He had played for her ladyship's whim,

Till the poor little head was heavy, And the poor little brain would swim.

And the face grew peaked and eerie, And the large eyes strange and bright,

And they said,― too late,—“He is weary!

He shall rest for at least to-night!"

But at dawn, when the birds were waking,

As they watched in the silent

room,

With the sound of a strained cord breaking,

A something snapped in the gloom.

“FAREWELL, RENOWN!" FAREWELL, Renown! Too fleeting flower,

That grows a year to last an hour:Prize of the race's dust and heat, Too often trodden under feet, — Why should I court your "barren dower" ?

Nay; had I Dryden's angry power, The thews of Ben, the wind of Gower,

Not less my voice should still repeat "Farewell, Renown!"

Farewell!-Because the Muses' bower Is filled with rival brows that lower:Because, howe'er his pipe be sweet, The Bard, that "pays," must please the street:

But most. because the grapes are

sour.

Farewell, Renown!

Careless he greets her day by day,
Nor thinks of words once said,
Oh, would that love could live again,
Or her heart give up its dead!

HEART-ORACLES.

"Is this the cruel sea?" I thought, "The merciless, the awful sea? Now hear the answer soft and true, That rippled over the beach to me:

"Shall not the sea, in the sun, be glad

When a child doth come to play?

sunbeam is slanting; Through the hindering stones, speaks the soul of the brook; Past the rustle of leaves we press into the stillness;

Through darkness and void to the
Pleiads we look;

One bird-note at dawn with the nightsilence o'er us,

Begins all the morning's munificent chorus.

Through sorrow come glimpses of infinite gladness;

Through grand discontent mounts the spirit of youth;

Loneliness foldeth a wonderful loving;

The breakers of Doubt lead the great tide of Truth:

And dread and grief-haunted the shadowy portal

That shuts from our vision the splendor immortal.

THE CHILD AND THE SEA.

ONE summer day, when birds flew high,

I saw a child step into the sea;
It glowed and sparkled at her touch
And softly plashed about her
knee.

It held her lightly with its strength,
It kissed and kissed her silken hair;
It swayed with tenderness to know
A little child was in its care.

She, gleeful, dipped her pretty arms, And caught the sparkles in her hands;

I heard her laughter, as she soon Came skipping up the sunny sands.

could I,