The birds break into canticles around
The winds lift Jubilate to the skies;
For, twin-born with the rose on Eden-ground,
Love blooms in human eyes.

Life's marvelous queen-flower blossoms only so,
In dust of low ideals rooted fast:
Ever the Beautiful is moulded slow
From truth in errors past.

What fiery fields of Chaos must be won,

What battling Titans rear themselves a tomb, What births and resurrections greet the sun Before the Rose can bloom!

And of some wonder-blossom yet we dream
Whereof the time that is enfolds the seed;
Some flower of light, to which the Rose shall seem
A fair and fragile weed.

THE WATER-LILY.

From the reek of the pond the lily

Has risen, in raiment white,

A spirit of air and water,

A form of incarnate light.

Yet, except for the rooted stem

That steadies her diadem,

Except for the earth she is nourished by,

Could the soul of the lily have climbed to the sky?

Phattop

THE SINGING WIRE.

Hark to that faint and fairy twang

That from the bosom of the breeze Has caught its rise and fall; there rang Eolian harmonies!

I looked; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came, shaped in words;
And thus, meseemed, they sung:

"I, messenger of many fates,

Strung to all strains of woe or weal, Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates With all men know or feel,—

"O, is it strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.

"There is a spirit in the post;

It, too, was once a murmuring tree; Its sapless, lone and withered ghost Echoes my melody.

Come close, and lay your listening ear Against the bare and branchless wood. Say, croons it not, so low and clear,

As if it understood?"

I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire ;

I heard its muffled music roll,

And stirred with sweet desire.

"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?

O, though so long so coyly mute,
Sure she may speak through thee!"

I listened; but it was in vain,

At first, the wind's old, wayward will
Drew forth again the sad refrain:
That ceased, and all was still.

But suddenly some kindling shock

Struck flashing through the wire: a bird, Poised on it, screamed, and flew; the flock Rose with him, wheeled, and whirred.

Then to my soul there came this sense:

"Her heart has answered unto thine; She comes, to-night. Up! hence, O hence! Meet her: no more repine!"

Mayhap the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, mayhap, it hinted true.

Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave me―you!

And so more dear to me has grown
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
The minor-movement of that moan

In yonder singing wire.

Nor care I for the will of states,

Or aught besides, that smites that string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took wing.

"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES."

The sunshine of thine eyes,

(O still, celestial beam!)

Whatever it touches it fills

With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,

O let it fall on me!

Though I be but a mote of the air,

I could turn to gold for thee.

THE PHOEBE-BIRD.

Yes, I was wrong about the Phoebe-bird.
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:

I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow

Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow Strength from the other, making one more brave

And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.

But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens: One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.

Our voices vary with the changing seasons

Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.

Therefore despair not! Think not you have altered,
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight, and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love, and hate, or good, and evil—all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 'tis the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not, when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.

KEENAN'S CHARGE.

(CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863.)

The sun had set!

I.

The leaves with dew were wet;

Down fell a bloody dusk

On the woods, that second of May,

Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,

Tore through, with angry tusk.

"They've trapped us, boys!"—
Rose from our flank a voice.
With a rush of steel and smoke
On came the Rebels straight,
Eager as love and wild as hate :
And our line reeled and broke;