But I, with kingship over kings, am free.
I love not, hate not: right and wrong agree:
And fangs of snakes and lures of doves to me
Are vain, are vain, Nirvâna.

So by mine inner contemplation long,

By thoughts that need no speech nor oath nor song, My spirit soars above the motley throng

Of days and nights, Nirvâna.

O Suns, O Rains, O Day and Night, O Chance, O Time besprent with seven-hued circumstance, I float above ye all into the trance

That draws me nigh Nirvâna.

Gods of small worlds, ye little Deities
Of humble Heavens under my large skies,
And Governor-Spirits, all, I rise, I rise,
I rise into Nirvâna.

The storms of Self below me rage and die.
On the still bosom of mine ecstasy,

A lotus on a lake of balm, I lie

Forever in Nirvâna.

MACON, GEORGIA, 1869.

THE RAVEN DAYS.

OUR hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks
Some sign out of the far land of To-morrow,

Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks.

Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking.

Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade.
Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking,
We lie in chains, too weak to be afraid.

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Will ever any warm light come again?
Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow

Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain ?

PRATTVILLE, ALABAMA, February, 1868.

BABY CHARLEY.

HE 's fast asleep. See how, O Wife,
Night's finger on the lip of life

Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife,
Of busy Baby Charley.

One arm stretched backward round his head,

Five little toes from out the bed

Just showing, like five rosebuds red,

-So slumbers Baby Charley.

Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through
Those lucent eyelids, veined with blue,
That shut away from mortal view
Large eyes of Baby Charley.

O sweet Sleep-Angel, throned now
On the round glory of his brow,
Wave thy wing and waft my vow
Breathed over Baby Charley.

I vow that my heart, when death is nigh,
Shall never shiver with a sigh

For act of hand or tongue or eye

That wronged my Baby Charley!

MACON, GEORGIA, December, 1869.

A SEA-SHORE GRAVE.

To M. J. L.

BY SIDNEY AND CLIFFORD LANIER..

O WISH that's vainer than the plash

Of these wave-whimsies on the shore :

"Give us a pearl to fill the gash—

God, let our dead friend live once more!"

O wish that 's stronger than the stroke
Of yelling wave and snapping levin ;
"God, lift us o'er the Last Day's smoke,
All white, to Thee and her in Heaven!"

O wish that's swifter than the race
Of wave and wind in sea and sky;
Let's take the grave-cloth from her face
And fall in the grave, and kiss, and die!

Look! High above a glittering calm
Of sea and sky and kingly sun,

She shines and smiles, and waves a palm-
And now we wish-Thy will be done!

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, 1866.

SOULS AND RAIN-DROPS.

LIGHT rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea, Then vanish, and die utterly.

One would not know that rain-drops fell If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.

So souls come down and wrinkle life
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.
One might not know that souls had place
Were 't not for the wrinkles in life's face.