Moist perhaps by ocean surf,

Forgotten amid splendid tombs,

Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms.
On earth I dream; - I die to be:
Time! shake not thy bald head at me.
I challenge thee to hurry past,
Or for my turn to fly too fast.

Think me not numbed or halt with age,
Or cares that earth to earth engage,
Caught with love's cord of twisted beams,
Or mired by climate's gross extremes.
I tire of shams, I rush to Be,
I pass with yonder comet free,
Pass with the comet into space
Which mocks thy æons to embrace ;
Eons which tardily unfold

Realm beyond realm, — extent untold;
No early morn, no evening late,

Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate,
Whose shining sous, too great for fame,
Never heard thy weary name;
Nor lives the tragic bard to say
How drear the part I held in one,
How lame the other limped away.

TERMINUS.

IT is time to be old,

To take in sail :

The god of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root,

Fancy departs: no more invent,

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;

A little while

Still plan and smile,

And, fault of novel germs,

Mature the unfallen fruit.

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,

Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.'

As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.'

DIRGE.

KNOWS he who tills this lonely field,
To reap its scanty corn,

What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn ?

In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood

As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone, the holy ones
Who trod with me this lovely vale;
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,

Who made this world the feast it was,

Who learned with me the lore of time, Who loved this dwelling-place!

They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood;
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy, -
They treated nature as they would.

They colored the horizon round;

Stars flamed and faded as they bade;
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf,
Which once our childhood knew;
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine-warbler

Singing aloft in the tree! Hearest thou, O traveller,

What he singeth to me?

Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,

Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
Its heavy tale divine.

'Go, lonely man,' it saith;

"They loved thee from their birth;

Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.

'You cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.'

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