Now all is silence,

All desolation;

Tenantless what was

Once habitation; Guests all departed,

None now come hither;

Gone is the master,

No one knows whither.

Now the park grasses
Copsewood is shading;
Now the trim garden
Briars invading ;
Fruit-trees untended,.
Box out of order,
Grass on each pathway,

Weeds in each border.

Warblers no longer

Sing there in cages— There the gray howlet

War with birds wages; Choked up the fountain

Where it was flowing

Nettles and groundsel

Rankly are growing.

One thing alone there

Ever remaining,

Mocks winter's snow-drift,

Mocks summer's raining

Token of terror,

Drops from a source ill

Twenty red blood-stains

On the gray door-sill.

In the deep midnight,

So the boors tell us, Comes a fair lady

With a lord jealous; Words and a knife-stroke, Curses and laughter; Vanish the phantoms;

Silence comes after.

The sky is dark, and dark the bay below
Save where the midnight city's pallid glow
Lies like a lily white

On the black pool of night.

O rushing steamer, hurry on thy way
Across the swirling Kills and gusty bay,
To where the eddying tide

Strikes hard the city's side!

For there, between the river and the sea,
Beneath that glow,-the lily's heart to me,
A sleeping mother mild,

And by her breast a child.

"CALL ME NOT DEAD."

Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone

Into the company of the everliving

High and most glorious poets! Let thanksgiving
Rather be made. Say-" He at last hath won

Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,
Music and song and light of immortal faces:
To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,
He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.

To-morrow (who can say) Shakespeare may pass,—

And our lost friend just catch one syllable
Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well,—
Or Milton, or Dante, looking on the grass

Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still

To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill."

THE CELESTIAL PASSION.

O white and midnight sky, O starry bath,

Wash me in thy pure, heavenly, crystal flood:
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath—
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!
Receive my soul, ye burning, awful deeps,

Touch and baptize me with the mighty power
That in ye thrills, while the dark planet sleeps;
Make me all thine for one blest, secret hour!
O glittering host, O high angelic choir,

Silence each tone that with thy music jars;
Fill me even as an urn with thy white fire
Till all I am is kindred to the stars!
Make me thy child, thou infinite, holy night,
So shall my days be full of heavenly light.

HYMN.

SUNG AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE OBELISK TO THE

CITY OF NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 22, 1881.

I.

Great God, to whom since time began

The world has prayed and striven;
Maker of stars, and earth, and man—
To Thee our praise is given.

Here, by this ancient Sign
Of Thine own Light divine,
We lift to Thee our eyes
Thou Dweller of the Skies,-
Hear us, O God in Heaven!

II.

Older than Nilus' mighty flood
Into the Mid-sea pouring,

Or than the sea, Thou God hast stood,—

Thou God of our adoring!

Waters and stormy blast

Haste when Thou bid'st them haste;

Silent, and hid, and still,

Thou sendest good and ill:

Thy ways are past exploring.

III.

In myriad forms, by myriad names, Men seek to bind and mould Thee; But Thou dost melt, like wax in flames, The cords that would enfold Thee. Who madest life and light,

Bring'st morning after night,

Who all things did'st create—

No majesty, nor state,

Nor word, nor world, can hold Thee

IV.

Great God, to whom since time began
The world has prayed and striven;
Maker of stars, and earth, and man—
To Thee our praise is given.