Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the

grass;

Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;

With many an oh and if and but alas Parried or swallowed searching questions rude, And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood. At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, He issues smiling from the fatal door,

And buys with lavish hand his yearly store
Till his small borrowings will yield no more.
Aye, as each year declined,

With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind
He mourned his fate unkind.

In dust, in rain, with might and main,
He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,
Fretted for news that made him fret again,
Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,

And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail-
In hope or fear alike for ever pale.

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And thus from year to year, through hope and 171 fear,

With many a curse and many a secret tear,

Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,

At last

He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,
And all his best-of-life the easy prey

Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his

way

With vile array,

From rascal statesman down to petty knave;
Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,

A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.

Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,

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He fled away into the oblivious West,
Unmourned, unblest.

Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy Lear
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year,

E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer-
King, that no subject man nor beast may own,
Discrowned, undaughtered and alone—

Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,
191 And bring thee back into thy monarch state
And majesty immaculate.

Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,
Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn
Visions of golden treasuries of corn-
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart
That manfully shall take thy part,

And tend thee,

And defend thee,

With antique sinew and with modern art.
SUNNYSIDE, GA., August, 1874.

I

MY SPRINGS

IN the heart of the Hills of Life, I know
Two springs that with unbroken flow
Forever pour their lucent streams
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.

Not larger than two eyes, they lie
Beneath the many-changing sky
And mirror all of life and time,
-Serene and dainty pantomime.

Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,
-Thus heaven and earth together vie
Their shining depths to sanctify.

Always when the large Form of Love
Is hid by storms that rage above,
gaze in my two springs and see
Love in his very verity.

I

Always when Faith with stifling stress
Of grief hath died in bitterness,

Always when Charity and Hope,
In darkness bounden, feebly grope,
gaze in my two springs and see
A Light that sets my captives free.

I

Always, when Art on perverse wing
Flies where I cannot hear him sing,

I

gaze in my two springs and see

A charm that brings him back to me.

When Labor faints, and Glory fails,
And coy Reward in sighs exhales,
I gaze in my two springs and see
Attainment full and heavenly.

O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,

-My springs from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams

That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.

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Oval and large and passion-pure
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as a dying violet-breath

Yet calmly unafraid of death;

Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves,
With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves,
And home-loves and high glory-loves

And science-loves and story-loves,

And loves for all that God and man
In art and nature make or plan,
And lady-loves for spidery lace

And broideries and supple grace

And diamonds and the whole sweet round
Of littles that large life compound,
And loves for God and God's bare truth,
And loves for Magdalen and Ruth,

Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete—
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,
-I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!
BALTIMORE, 1874.

I

THE SYMPHONY

"O TRADE! O Trade! would thou wert dead!

The Time needs heart-'tis tired of head:

We're all for love," the violins said.

Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope.
Level red gold with blue sky-slope,

And base it deep as devils grope :

When all's done, what hast thou won

Of the only sweet that 's under the sun?
Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh

Of true love's least, least ecstasy?"

Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,
All the mightier strings assembling
Ranged them on the violins' side

As when the bridegroom leads the bride,
And, heart in voice, together cried :
"Yea, what avail the endless tale

Of gain by cunning and plus by sale?
Look up the land, look down the land,

The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand
Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand
Against an inward-opening door
That pressure tightens evermore:
They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh
For the outside leagues of liberty,
Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky
Into a heavenly melody.

'Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),

In the same old year-long, drear-long way, We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?— The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; And so do we, and the world 's a sty; Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry? Swinehood hath no remedy

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