1.

  Traitor Self, why do I try
  Thee, my bitterest enemy?
  What can I bear,
   Alas! more dear,
 Than is this centre of myself, my heart?
Yet all those trains that blow me up lie there,
Hid in so small a part.
2.

  How many backbones nourish'd have
  Crawling serpents in the grave!
    I am alive,
    Yet life do give
 To myriads of adders in my breast,
Which do not there consume, but grow and thrive,
And undisturbed rest.

3.

By summer lakes and copsewoods green
We two in happy times have been;
And blyther pilgrims never rode,
Since Leven down her valley flowed,
Or mass was sung and prayer was said
In Furness o'er the Christian dead.
That was a day of love and mirth
Which may not dawn again on earth.
Each plant that in the hedges grew,
Fox-glove, and fern, and bell of blue,
And bending rose-branch—all were bright
With more than summer's common light.
We thought that day by Leven's brink
Sad thoughts which youth delights to think,

1.

   Descend, O Lord,
 Into this gloomy heart of mine,
   And once afford
 A glimpse of that great light of thine!
  The sun doth never here
To shine on basest dunghills once forbear.

2.

   What though I be
 Nothing but high corruption?
   Let me have Thee,
 And at thy presence 'twill be gone.
  Darkness dare never stand
In competition, while the sun's at hand.

3.

   And though my sins
 Be an unnumber'd number, yet
   When thou begins
 To look on Christ, do then forget

What will the beautiful city do,
Girt with a cordon of steel and fire?
Pale is her glory of golden hue,
Slowly totters its crumbling spire.
Her crowds no longer in gay attire
The airy goddess of mirth pursue,
Her altar of love is a funeral pyre —
What will the beautiful city do?

How changed from the days when the monarchs drank
Deep from the wine of her blood-red cup!
She frowned, and the proudest nations shrank;
She tore them down, and she lifted up.
Glad were the vanquished her draught to sup,

In the wise books of ancient lore we find,
" Full many meet the gods, but few salute them. "
The sages knew that men are deaf and blind;
And who in modern days shall dare dispute them?

But I, O precious friend of many years,
In the first moment of our casual meeting,
I knew the visitant from loftier spheres;
I recognized the god, and gave him greeting.

Thank Heaven for that! I knew you at a glance;
I did not need to test or try or doubt you;
I read your birthright in your countenance;
I saw the mystic halo shine about you.

Her palace doors are open wide to-night,
Her palace doors beside the northern pole,
Where through the centuries, right gayly dight
With ice-gems glistening in the frosty light,
She sits and listens to the onward roll.

The gathering roll of millions on the march,
The ever-broadening tide of human feet.
She sees the distant east and west o'erarch, —
" And soon, " she cries, " the shaggy northern larch
And desert wastes their fearless steps shall greet.

" Ah, surely I have waited long, dear Lord;

My life is measur'd by this glass, this glass
By all those little sands that thorough pass,
See how they press, see how they strive, which shall
With greatest speed and greatest quickness fall.
See how they raise a little mount, and then
With their own weight do level it again.
But when th' have all got thorough, they give o'er
Their nimble sliding down, and move no more.
Just such is man, whose hours still forward run,
Being almost finish'd ere they are begun;
So perfect nothings, such light blasts are we,

I.

A THOUSAND are the minstrel tongues
In this unequal clime,
Whose sweetest notes have been of spring
And of her primrose time.

II.

More songs hath April of her gifts, —
Bright sun and rainy breeze,
Than May with her pale flower-beds,
And June with her broad trees.

III.

I dare not join the mighty souls
Upon the poet's hill,
Though, looking long on those green heights,
My dream may come true still.

IV.

Yet will I hymn this season good
Which doth such joy impart;

Nestling by Potomac river,
Slumb'rous Alexandria sees,
Where the waters flash and quiver,
Ruffled by the Southern breeze,
Vessels sailing on forever,
Freighted full from golden leas.

On the hill a spire is keeping
Watch above the sluggish mart.
Round about the dead are sleeping
Till the day when all shall start.
Past the bitter, bitter weeping;
Past the anguish of the heart.

Every mound some message beareth,
Chiselled deep in snowy stone,
Telling how the loved one shareth
Bliss that never here was known.

Curse it and crush it and blast it forever!
Down with the ensign of tyrannous Spain!
Up with the beacon of Freedom's endeavor!
Up with the flag of free Cuba again!
Banneret starry-gemmed,
What though thy course be stemmed?
Ne'er shall the foeman exult in thy fall,
Driven to mountain rock,
Rent by the battle shock,
Yara's bright flag, thou shalt conquer them all.

Banner all sacred, the hands that unfold thee
Blazon the emblem of God to the air.
Forth from the mountains he giveth to hold thee,
Forth in thy glory defiantly flare.