Have by my hearthstone found a home at last, And whisper of the past. Dark dungeons of Rome he de scended, Uncrowned, unthroned, unat tended; The Danish king could not in all How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! his pride Repel the ocean tide, But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme Roll back the tide of Time. I see again, as one in vision sees, And the brown chestnuts fall. I see the smithy with its fires aglow, I hear the bellows blow, And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat The iron white with heat! And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee, And to my more than threescore years and ten Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine Brought back my youth again. Would glimmer as thoughts in the The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, lines; That this iron link from the chain Some verse of the Poet who sang That this wood from the frigate's mast Might write me a rhyme at last, As it used to write on the sky The song of the sea and the blast. But motionless as I wait, Like a Bishop lying in state Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold, And its jewels inviolate. Then must I speak, and say As down to his death in the hollow That the light of that summer day Sings at his task So clear, we know not if it is Beside the stream Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass And heather, where his footsteps pass, The brighter seem. He sings of love, whose flame illumes The darkness of lone cottage rooms; He feels the force, The treacherous undertow and stress Of wayward passions, and no less The keen remorse. At moments, wrestling with his fate, His voice is harsh, but not with hate; The brush-wood, hung Above the tavern door, lets fall Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall Upon his tongue. But still the music of his song Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood, Its discords but an interlude Between the words. The laverock's song we hear, or his, And then to die so young and Nor care to ask. For him the ploughing of those fields A more ethereal harvest yields Than sheaves of grain; Songs flush with purple bloom the rye, leave Unfinished what he might achieve! Yet better sure Is this, than wandering up and down, An old man in a country town, Infirm and poor. The plover's call, the curlew's cry, For now he haunts his native Sing in his brain. Touched by his hand, the wayside weed land As an immortal youth; his hand Guides every plough; He sits beside each ingle-nook, Becomes a flower; the lowliest His voice is in each rushing brook, reed Each rustling bough. His presence haunts this room to- The falsehood that tempts and night, A form of mingled mist and light From that far coast. deceives, And the promise that betrays. Welcome beneath this roof of So she follows from land to land mine! Welcome! this vacant chair is thine, Dear guest and ghost! HELEN OF TYRE WHAT phantom is this that appears The wizard's beckoning hand, As a leaf is blown by the gust, Till she vanishes into night. O reader, stoop down and write With thy finger in the dust. O town in the midst of the seas, Thy merchandise and thy Through the purple mists of the Thou, too, art become as naught, A phantom, a shadow, a thought, A name upon men's lips. years, Itself but a mist like these? A woman of cloud and of fire; O Tyre! in thy crowded streets The phantom appears and retreats, And the Israelites that sell Thy lilies and lions of brass, Look up as they see her pass, And murmur 'Jezebel!' Then another phantom is seen It is Simon Magus, the Seer; He says: From this evil fame, From this life of sorrow and shame, ELEGIAC DARK is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbor Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud; Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon, Like to the towers of a town, built on the verge of the sea. Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean; With them sail my thoughts over the limitless deep, Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings, Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores. I will lift thee and make thee Now they have vanished away, Can enter; No heart hath armor so complete For all at last the cock will crow, Who hear the warning voice, but go Unheeding, Till thrice and more they have The Man of Sorrows, crucified One look of that pale, suffering face Tell me, what can you see from your perch Above there over the tower of the church? WEATHERCOCK. I can see the roofs and the streets below, And the people moving to and fro, And beyond, without either roof or street, The great salt sea, and the fishermen's fleet. I can see a ship come sailing in Will make us feel the deep dis- Beyond the headlands and harbor grace Of weakness; We shall be sifted till the strength Of self-conceit be changed at length To meekness. Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache; The reddening scars remain, and make Confession; Lost innocence returns no more; Transgression. But noble souls, through dust and Ah, that is the ship from over the O WEATHERCOCK on the village And people would think it won spire, drous strange, change. With your golden feathers all on If I, a Weathercock, should not fire, |