Lady, thy face is a translucent flower;
The spirit by its garb is hardly hid.
Nay, burning thro', it threatens to devour
The petals luminous of lip and lid.

No Burning Bush of God did Moses meet
Brighter, diviner than thy glowing face;
Behold, we walk like him with shoeless feet,
Feeling a Holy Presence in the place.

In torrid heats of late July,
In March, beneath the bitter bise ,
He book-hunts while the loungers fly, —
He book-hunts, though December freeze;
In breeches baggy at the knees,
And heedless of the public jeers,
For these, for these, he hoards his fees, —
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!

No dismal stall escapes his eye,
He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,
There soiled Romanticists may lie,
Or Restoration comedies;
Each tract that flutters in the breeze
For him is charged with hopes and fears,
In mouldy novels fancy sees

Almond, wild almond,
Give counsel to me,
And hush thy fierce lover
The wind in the tree!

Along the night pasture
I've come through the dew
To tell thee, wild almond.
The old songs are true!

Like the flower on thy branches
The heart in me springs
With airs and upliftings
And hundreds of wings!

I, too, have a lover ...
Keep, keep it from them —
The wise ones that eye me —
Thou whispering stem!

I deal with him coldly —
I dash him with pride:
Yet he comes of evenings,

O birds of the air —
Wild birds, buoyant, vagabond, light —
Streams may have taught you a stave;
But how are ye born so sure of your flight
Hence over worlds of the wave?
Whose mind remembers in yours as it weaves
Subtlest of houses to sway with the leaves?
We have forgotten the land out of sight —
We build no house but the grave!

I

Sad soul by fickle Fortune spurned,
Sad soul that burned,
And flickered in the dark,
Like a wind-troubled spark,
Had God but given thee a little rest,
And sheltered thee a time to burn thy best,
We seeing thee afar
Had known thee as a star
Upon His Breast,
But Pain,
Like wintry rain,
Smothered thy fire with smoke;
Care
Drove thee to Despair,
Until thy proud heart broke, —
Not trodden in the winepress into wine
By the white feet of Sorrow and Desire,
But trampled by the cloven hooves of swine

Ah, hoop of gold that binds the maid
Within thy faery circuit strayed!
No gem of murdered blood divine,
No dragon green of jasper's thine,
No piping shepherd-boy and flock
Drowsed on the Ethiopian rock
And sovran 'gainst the Bacchic mist
Sleeps in thee, shut in amethyst;
Nor Isis in chalcedony
Protecteth, floating fadelessly.

Why hast no serpent-wreathen wand
Bescored on thee by diamond?
No Winged Foot, departure's mark,
Treading out Life in garnet dark,
Or signed in gloomy emerald
Where stands Serapis pedestal'd

Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find,
Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind;
While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown,
How Learning's patents abrogate their own.
A goodly company and fair to see;
Royal plebeians; earls of low degree;
Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime;
Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime;
Crowd here together like the quaint array
Of jostling neighbours on a market day.
Homer and Milton, — can we call them blind? —
Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind;

Traveller.

Ruddy old Shepherd, blithe of cheer,

Chorus.

(Here's to the leg that's lusty!)

Traveller.

When comes to you the pick of the year?

Chorus.

(Mark what he says ... he's trusty!)

Shepherd.

" When I watch yon Fire in the chimney roar. . . . "

Chorus.

(What in the embers dreamt he?)

Shepherd.

" And sparks flee up from the embers' core. . . . "

Chorus.

(Fill up his can — it's empty!)

Shepherd.

1.

First Voice.

With a long heavy heave, my very famous men. . . .
(C HORUS . Bring home! heave and rally! )

Second Voice.

And why do you, lad, look so pale? Is it for love, or lack of ale?

First Voice.

All hands bear a hand that have a hand to len' —
And there never was a better haul than you gave then ...
(C HORUS . Bring home! )

2.

First Voice.

Heave hearty, my very famous men ...

Alone, 'midst living works of mighty dead,
Poets and Scholars versed in history's lore,
With thoughts that reached beyond them and before,
I dream, and leave their glorious works unread;
Their greatness numbs me both in heart and head.
I cannot weep with Petrarch, and still more
I fail when I would delve the depths of yore,
And learn old Truths of modern lies instead;
The shelves frown on me blackly, with a life
That ne'er can die, and helpless to begin,
I can but own my weakness, and deplore
This waste, this barren brain, ah! once so rife