Its fulness, before but dimly seen,
As I lifted its veils and entered in
Entered, and saw with mute amaze
How squalid and narrow was the place.
Still, I fancied, perchance for me
The best of that which is here may be.
Searching in dusk, I forced my way

To the secret place where my chamber lay,

Choked with the sordid piles o'erthrown
Of a miser's dust which had been my own,
Till but little space for me remained,
All being filthy and weather-stained;
Whilst evil fungi, spawn of lust,
Pushed through the rotten floor, and
thrust

Unsightly growths in that evil space,
And vanity pressed in the crowded space
Till room was scanty for me to tread.
I gazed shadowed a moment before I fled,

For no gift of mine of love or care
Might live in that pestilential air;
Still, for the love of dreams bygone,
I could not leave him quite alone,
So I planted cypress to warn of death.
It might live, and its keen balsamic breath
Would wither these fungi one by one,
Giving entrance, perchance, to some ray of

sun.

Then I departed, earth's lesson o'er.
Never henceforth shall I enter more ;
And the thought was mine of former
dread

And former longings, and so I said,
"Blind I was when my dearest wish
Was ever to dwell in a home like this."
Knew, as I went forth to my rest,
My prayer was a child's, and God knew
best.

THE WAKING OF THE LARK

O BONNIE bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee,

As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird, Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred? Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?

Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow,

And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow;

But thou art not a prophet, thou, If naught but joy can touch thee now; If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.

Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted, The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited;

But thou art still the slave of dawn, And canst not sing till night be gone, Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver.

Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor,

And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her.

The moon, so sad and silver-pale, Is mistress of the nightingale; And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.

For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring;

And thou 'rt as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring.

The daisy, with its hood undone, The grass, the sunlight, and the sun These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.

Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance —

A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance;

A sound that wells from happy throats, A flood of song where beauty floats, And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river.

I CANNOT sing to thee as I would sing
If I were quickened like the holy lark,
With fire from Heaven and sunlight on his
wing,

Who wakes the world with witcheries of the dark

Renewed in rapture in the reddening air.
A thing of splendor do I deem him then,
A feathered frenzy with an angel's throat,
A something sweet that somewhere seems
to float

'Twixt earth and sky, to be a sign to men.
He fills me with such wonder and despair!
I long to kiss thy locks, so golden bright,
As he doth kiss the tresses of the sun.
Oh! bid me sing to thee, my chosen one,
And do thou teach me, Love, to sing
aright!