English

The stream meanders many a mile
By velvet meadow and rustic stile;
Past cottage gable and village spire
And maids in holiday attire;
O'er shallow reaches of shining sand,
Where patient cattle lingering stand;
Pallidly gleaming beneath the moon;
Glowing like gold in the setting sun.

But under the shade of a shaggy bank
Lieth a hollow dark and dank.
Alders, fringing the other side,
See themselves in the sluggish tide.
Above arises the wooded hill,
Haunt of the owl and whippoorwill.

Come out! It's Spring!
The elm-trees! See! They're blossoming!
All crimson-painted. Here's a flower
Come open! Now with ev'ry hour
There'll be fresh pollen for that bee —
Oho! No longer sleepy, he!

What song! What song
Those greening hedges breaks along!
God! There's performed in everything
A miracle of throat and wing.
Needs but a swallow to flit by
And print its pattern on the sky.

Oh! Smell this air!
The wind it wanders; everywhere
It plucks a scent. Ah! Exquisite

Oh , thou old heartless Sea, without a tide
To bless thee with its changing! Ah, poor Sea!
How idly beat thy waves, how languidly
On Baiae's piers, or Adria's level side!
Eternal sunset round old Greece doth play:
All faint and wan Rome's last imperial smile
Yet lingers in each Hellespontine bay.
Still at his mouths the melancholy Nile
Talks to himself of Egypt's kingly day.
A belt of goodly towns have ruins hoar,
Silent as tombs, on Libya's blighted shore;
And Venice woos her blue canals no more:

Hassan Ben Hadad the wise and grand
Was heir of a royal line.
For him bloomed the beauties of all the land,
For him did her rubies shine.
Yet was he sick of a mystic ill
That baffled human lore and skill.

One morn there met at his palace-gate
An eager, wondering crowd.
As forth he stepped with a mien sedate.
Yet humbled, the people bowed.
" Not so, my worthy friends, " said he;
" Never more shall you kneel to me.

" You note the change in my face and tone
And marvel to see me so.

Ye noble oaks, symmetrical and vast;
Ye chestnuts, flowering now in many a plume;
Ye beeches beautiful, whose branches cast
A welcome to me as the wood's green gloom
I enter; all ye forms which round me loom
Arboreal, friends I feel ye are to me,
Of whose true friendship there's for doubt no room,
For what more kindly being than The Tree!
Nay, more than friends, kinsmen of mine ye are,
Great shapes, who through the rolling year do stand
In one spot rooted, but whose spirits far
Do wander, gladsome, o'er the pleasant land.

WITH A BOOK.

I.

The languid heart, that hath been ever nurst
By strains of drowsy sweetness, ill can brook
The rude rough music that at times doth burst
From him whose thoughts are treasured in this book.
It was his lot to live in days uncouth
That shrink from aught so hard and stern as truth.

II.

I know my generous friend too well to fear
This holy gift will be unsafe with thee;
Thou never yet hast had the heart to sneer
At the eccentric feats of chivalry,

O thou beloved, who shouldst have been mine own,
Serenely beautiful and wise and strong,
Consoler whom my life has never known,
How have I missed thee, seeking thee alone
All my life long?

Somewhere upon the wide and misty track
I strayed behind, or did not wait for thee,
And so must always mourn my bitter lack,
Since on this weary road we go not back,
Ah, woe is me!

Often, with sorely burdened heart and mind,
When there were none to aid or understand,
How have I groped, with tears, alone and blind,

Where is the land of spirits
Whither the loved and blest,
Whither the scorned and hated,
Flee for a time of rest;
There through a thousand ages
Waiting the Judgment-day,
When the wheat shall be surely winnowed
And the chaff shall be blown away?

Oft when the noontide shimmer
Mellowed on hill and glade,
Down in the fragrant meadow
Under the orchard shade,
Upward dreamily gazing
Into the cloudless blue,
I have fancied a gleam supernal
Brightened that perfect hue.

Stars in their rising little shew,
And send forth trembling flames; but thou
At first appearance dost display
A bright and unobscured day;
Such as shall fear no night, nor shall
Thy setting be Heliacall ,
But grow up to a sun, and take
A laurel for thy Zodiac;
That all which henceforth shall arise,
May only be thy Parely's.

O my flowers! On your bosom
Sweet and pale the silver-cradled
Night shall swoon away with love.

On your carpet gay, of blossom
Blue and gold, the softly-sandalled
Breeze shall dance from noon to noon.

O my flowers! At your coming
All the earth glows into gladness,
Dark and cloudy griefs remove.

In my heart the wind is roaming
Wild, the grass is parched with sadness.
Spring! my lovely Spring, come soon!