220 MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE ÆOLIAN HARP.

MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE ÆOLIAN HARP.

SOFT and softlier hold me, friends!
Thanks if your genial care

Unbind and give me to the air.

Keep your lips or finger-tips

For flute or spinet's dancing chips;
I await a tenderer touch,

I ask more or not so much:

Give me to the atmosphere,

Where is the wind, my brother, where?

Lift the sash, lay me within,

Lend me your ears, and I begin.

For gentle harp to gentle hearts

The secret of the world imparts;

And not to-day and not to-morrow

Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow;
But day by day, to loving ear

Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer.

I've come to live with you, sweet friends,
This home my minstrel-journeyings ends.
Many and subtle are my lays,
The latest better than the first,
For I can mend the happiest days

And charm the anguish of the worst.

CUPIDO.

THE solid, solid universe

Is pervious to Love;

With bandaged eyes he never errs,
Around, below, above.

His blinding light

He flingeth white

On God's and Satan's brood,

And reconciles

By mystic wiles

The evil and the good.

THE PAST.

THE debt is paid,

The verdict said,

The Furies laid,

The plague is stayed,

All fortunes made;

Turn the key and bolt the door,

Sweet is death forevermore.

Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in.

All is now secure and fast;

Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door

Bolted down forevermore.

None can re-enter there,

No thief so politic,

No Satan with a royal trick

Steal in by window, chink, or hole,

To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.

THE LAST FAREWELL.

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832.

FAREWELL, ye lofty spires

That cheered the holy light!
Farewell, domestic fires

That broke the gloom of night!
Too soon those spires are lost,
Too fast we leave the bay,

Too soon by ocean tost

From hearth and home away,
Far away, far away.

Farewell the busy town,

The wealthy and the wise,
Kind smile and honest frown
From bright, familiar eyes.
All these are fading now;
Our brig hastes on her way,

Her unremembering prow
Is leaping o'er the sea,

Far away, far away.

Farewell, my mother fond,
Too kind, too good to me;
Nor pearl nor diamond
Would pay my debt to thee.
But even thy kiss denies
Upon my cheek to stay;

The winged vessel flies,
And billows round her play,
Far away, far away.

Farewell, my brothers true,
My betters, yet my peers;
How desert without you
My few and evil years

But though aye one in heart,

Together sad or gay,

Rude ocean doth us part;

We separate to-day,

Far away, far away.

Farewell I breathe again
To dim New England's shore ;
My heart shall beat not when
I pant for thee no more.
In yon green palmy isle,
Beneath the tropic ray,
I murmur never while
For thee and thine I pray;
Far away, far away.

IN MEMORIAM.

EDWARD BLISS EMERSON.

I MOURN upon this battle-field,
But not for those who perished here.
Behold the river-bank

Whither the angry farmers came,

In sloven dress and broken rank,
Nor thought of fame.

Their deed of blood

All mankind praise;

Even the serene Reason says,
It was well done.

The wise and simple have one glance
To greet yon stern head-stone,
Which more of pride than pity gave
To mark the Briton's friendless grave.
Yet it is a stately tomb;

The grand return

Of eve and morn,

The year's fresh bloom,

The silver cloud,

Might grace the dust that is most proud.

Yet not of these I muse

In this ancestral place,

But of a kindred face

That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.

Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star! What hast thou to do with these