My heart, though widowed, may not rest
Quite in the love of what is gone,
But seeks to beat in time with one
That warms another living breast.

Ah! take the imperfect gift I bring,
Knowing the primrose yet is dear,
The primrose of the later year,
As not unlike to that of Spring.

LXXXV.

SWEET after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening over brake and bloom
And meadow, slowly breathing bare

The round of space, and rapt below

Through all the dewy-tasselled wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood

In ripples, fan my brows and blow

The fever from my cheek, and sigh

The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,

Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

From belt to belt of crimson seas,

On leagues of odor streaming far, To where, in yonder orient star, A hundred spirits whisper "Peace.”

LXXXVI.

I PASSED beside the reverend walls

In which of old I wore the gown;
I roved at random through the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;

And heard once more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophets blazoned on the panes ;

And caught once more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Among the willows; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about

The same gray flats again, and felt

The same, but not the same; and last, Up that long walk of limes I passed, To see the rooms in which he dwelt.

Another name was on the door:

I lingered; all within was noise

Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crashed the glass and beat the floor;

Where once we held debate, a band

Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labor, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land;

When one would aim an arrow fair,

But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there;

And last, the master-bowman, he

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear

The rapt oration flowing free

From point to point with power and grace, And music in the bounds of law,

To those conclusions when we saw The God within him light his face,

And seem to lift the form, and glow
In azure orbits heavenly-wise;
And over those ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo.

LXXXVII.

WILD bird, whose warble, liquid sweet,
Rings Eden through the budded quicks,
O, tell me where the senses mix,
O, tell me where the passions meet,

Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf.
And in the midmost heart of grief

Thy passion clasps a secret joy:

And I,-my harp would prelude woe,-
I cannot all command the strings;
The glory of the sum of things
Will flash along the chords and go.

LXXXVIII.

WITCH-ELMS, that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore;

How often, hither wandering down,

My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air

The dust and din and steam of town!

He brought an eye for all he saw;

He mixed in all our simple sports;

They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts

And dusky purlieus of the law.

O joy to him, in this retreat,
İmmantled in ambrosial dark,

To drink the cooler air, and mark
The landscape winking through the heat!

O sound to rout the brood of cares,

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, The gust that round the garden flew, And tumbled half the mellowing pears!

O bliss, when all in circle drawn

About him, heart and ear were fed To hear him, as he lay and read The Tuscan poets on the lawn:

Or in the all-golden afternoon

A guest, or happy sister, sung,

Or here she brought the harp, and flung

A ballad to the brightening moon :

Nor less it pleased, in livelier moods,
Beyond the bounding hill to stray.
And break the livelong summer day
With banquet in the distant woods;

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,
Discussed the books to love or hate,
Or touched the changes of the state,
Or threaded some Socratic dream;

But if I praised the busy town,

He loved to rail against it still,
For "ground in yonder social mill,

We rub each other's angles down,

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss, The picturesque of man and man." We talked: the stream beneath us ran,

The wine-flask lying couched in moss,

Or cooled within the glooming wave,
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave,

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,

We heard behind the woodbine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honeyed hours.

LXXXIX.

HE tasted love with half his mind,

Nor ever drank the inviolate spring
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling

This bitter seed among mankind;

That could the dead, whose dying eyes

Were closed with wail, resume their life,
They would but find in child and wife

An iron welcome when they rise:

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,
To pledge them with a kindly tear:
To talk them over, to wish them here,
To count their memories half divine;

But if they came who passed away,

Behold their brides in other hands:
The hard heir strides about their lands,

And will not yield them for a day.

Yea, though their sons were none of these,
Not less the yet-loved sire would make
Confusion worse than death, and shake
The pillars of domestic
peace.

Ah dear, but come thou back to me :

Whatever change the years have wrought,
I find not yet one lonely thought

That cries against my wish for thee.