1 Arthur Hugh Clough, who lived in Cambridge from 1852 to 1853. Lowell speaks of him in the 'Introduction' to the Biglow Papers, 1866, as among those whose opinion and encouragement he most valued: "With a feeling too tender and grateful to be mixed with any vanity, I mention as one of these the late A. H. Clough, who more than any one of those I have known (no longer living), except Hawthorne, impressed me with the constant presence of that indefinable thing we call genius.'

2 Clough's grave is in the little Protestant Cemetery at Florence, near that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and not far from Walter Savage Landor's.

3 Cornelius C. Felton. See Longfellow's 'Three Friends of Mine.'

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Yea truly, as the sallowing years Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves

Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days,

And that unwakened winter nears, "T is the void chair our surest guest receives,

'T is lips long cold that give the warmest kiss,

"T is the lost voice comes oftenest to our

ears;

We count our rosary by the beads we miss:

To me, at least, it seemeth so, An exile in the land once found divine, 310 While my starved fire burns low,

And homeless winds at the loose casement whine

Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apennine.

IV

1

Now forth into the darkness all are gone, But memory, still unsated, follows on, Retracing step by step our homeward walk, With many a laugh among our serious talk,

Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide,

The long red streamers from the windows glide,

320

Or the dim western moon Rocks her skiff's image on the broad lagoon, And Boston shows a soft Venetian side In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy; Or haply in the sky's cold chambers wide Shivered the winter stars, while all below, As if an end were come of human ill, The world was wrapt in innocence of snow And the cast-iron bay was blind and still; These were our poetry; in him perhaps 330 Science had barred the gate that lets in dream,

And he would rather count the perch and bream

Than with the current's idle fancy lapse;
And yet he had the poet's open eye
That takes a frank delight in all it sees,
Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic
sky,

Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere Counting the horns o'er of the Beast, Still scaring those whose faith in it is least,

As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere That sharpen all the needles of the East, Had been to him like death, Accustomed to draw Europe's freer breath

In a more stable element; Nay, even our landscape, half the year

morose,

380

Our practical horizon grimly pent,
Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze,
Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close,
Our social monotone of level days,
Might make our best seem banishment;
But it was nothing so;
Haply his instinct might divine,
Beneath our drift of puritanic snow,
The marvel sensitive and fine
Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow
And trust its shyness to an air malign; 390
Well might he prize truth's warranty and
pledge

In the grim outcrop of our granite edge,
Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need
In the gaunt sons of Calvin's iron breed,
As prompt to give as skilled to win and
keep;

But, though such intuitions might not cheer,

Yet life was good to him, and, there or

He had a habitude of mountain air;
He brought wide outlook where he went,
And could on sunny uplands dwell
Of prospect sweeter than the pastures
fair

High-hung of viny Neufchâtel;
Nor, surely, did he miss
Some pale, imaginary bliss

410

370

was Swiss.

Whether for good or ill;

But the deft spinners of the brain, Who love each added day and find it gain,

450

Them overtakes the doom To snap the half-grown flower upon the loom

(Trophy that was to be of life-long pain), The thread no other skill can ever knit again.

'T was so with him, for he was glad to live,

'T was doubly so, for he left work begun; Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive

Till all the allotted flax were spun ? It matters not; for, go at night or noon, A friend, whene'er he dies, has died too soon, 460

And, once we hear the hopeless He is

dead,

Coscienza fusca

The bells that called ye to prayer,
How wildly they clamor on her,
Crying, 'She cometh ! prepare
Her to praise and her to honor,
That a hundred years ago
Scattered here in blood and tears
Potent seeds wherefrom should grow
Gladness for a hundred years!'

III

Tell me, young men, have ye seen Creature of diviner mien

For true hearts to long and cry for, Manly hearts to live and die for? What hath she' that others want? Brows that all endearments haunt, Eyes that make it sweet to dare, Smiles that cheer untimely death, Looks that fortify despair,

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41

Tones more brave than trumpet's breath;
Tell me, maidens, have ye known
Household charm more sweetly rare,
Grace of woman ampler blown,
Modesty more debonair,

Younger heart with wit full grown?
Oh for an hour of my prine,
The pulse of my hotter years,
That I might praise her in rhyme
Would tingle your eyelids to tears,
Our sweetness, our strength, and our star,
Our hope, our joy, and our trust,
Who lifted us out of the dust,
And made us whatever we are!

IV

Whiter than moonshine upon snow Her raiment is, but round the hom

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