THE CRYSTAL.

AT midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls

The great soft rumble of the course of things-
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound,—
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, ,(and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,

Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree

And muse in that gaunt place,--'twas then my heart, Deep in the meditative dark, cried out :

"Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all
That brood about the skies of poesy,
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars ;
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none
With total lustre blazeth, no, not one
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist
Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,
We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet
Your largesse so with love, and interplight

Your geniuses with our mortalities.

Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakspere sole,
A hundred hurts a day I do forgive

('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee):
Small curious quibble; Juliet's prurient pun
In the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death;
Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roar
Which frights away that sleep he invocates;
Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield;
Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men
In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise-
Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;

Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax
Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain;
Last I forgive (with more delight, because
'Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourse
That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir
Besmirched the world with.

Father Homer, thee,

Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes

Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues
That tease the patience of the centuries,
Thy sleazy scrap of story,-but a rogue's
Rape of a light-o'-love,-too soiled a patch
To broider with the gods.

Thee, Socrates,

Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive

Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies
That were but dandy upside-down, thy words
Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought.

So, Buddha, beautiful! I pardon thee

That all the All thou hadst for needy man
Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was
But not to be.

Worn Dante, I forgive

The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells
Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed
By death, nor time, nor love.

And I forgive

Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, Immortals smite immortals mortalwise

And fill all heaven with folly.

Also thee,

Brave Æschylus, thee I forgive, for that

Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked, Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love Stands shining.

So, unto thee, Lucretius mine

(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this
That's now complaining?), freely I forgive
Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth
Whose graves eat souls and all.

Yea, all you hearts

Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large :
Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild Saint

A Kempis, overmild; Epictetus,

Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct;
Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg,
O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touch
Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top
Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now,
And most adorable; Cadmon, in the morn
A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call
That late brought up the cattle; Emerson,

Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost

Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice Since Milton, yet some register of wit

Wanting;-all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked,

Your more or less, your little mole that marks
You brother and your kinship seals to man.

But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,

O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,—
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,—
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?"

BALTIMORE, 1880,

THE REVENGE OF HAMISH.

IT was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken

lay;

And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,

Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran

Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest

doe;

In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern

She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.

Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown

did go

Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;

And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,

For their day-dream slowlier came to a close,

Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.

Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,

The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous bound, The hounds swept after with never a sound,

But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was

nigh.