1885.

Here be shadows large and long ;
Here be spaces meet for song;
Grant, O garden-god, that I,
Now that none profane is nigh,-
Now that mood and moment please,-
Find the fair Pierides !

A LEGACY

AH,

H, Postumus, we all must go :

This keen North-Easter nips my shoulder; My strength begins to fail; I know

You find me older;

I've made my Will.

Dear, faithful friend

My Muse's friend and not my purse's ! Who still would hear and still commend My tedious verses,—

How will you live-of these deprived?

I've learned your candid mind. The venal

The sordid soul had scarce survived

A test so penal;

But you-Nay, nay, 'tis so.

The rest

Are not as you: you hide your merit ; You, more than all, deserve the best

True friends inherit ;

Not gold, that hearts like yours despise ; Not "spacious dirt" (your own expression), No; but the rarer, dearer prize—

The Life's Confession!

You catch my thought? What! Can't you

guess?

You, you alone, admired my Cantos ;

I've left you, P., my whole MS.,

In three portmanteaus !

1873.

A FANCY FROM FONTENELLE

"De mémoires de Roses on n'a point vu
mourir le Jardinier."

THE Rose in the garden slipped her bud,

And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,

As she thought of the Gardener standing

by

"He is old,-so old! And he soon must die !"

The full Rose waxed in the warm June air, And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare ;

And she laughed once more as she heard his tread

"He is older now! He will soon be dead!"

But the breeze of the morning blew, and found That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the

ground;

And he came at noon, that Gardener old, And he raked them gently under the mould.

And I wove the thing to a random rhyme, For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener, Time.

1885.