To lisp my very earliest word,
While to the wild wood I did lie
A child-with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings-
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away-forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

FAIRYLAND.

Dim vales-and shadowy floods-
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over:
Huge moons there wax and wane-
Again—again—again—

Every moment of the night

Forever changing places,

And they put out the star-light

With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial

One more filmy than the rest

(A kind which, upon trial,

They have found to be the best)
Comes down-still down-and down
With its center on the crown

Of a mountain's eminence.

While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls

Over hamlets, over halls,

Wherever they may be

O'er the strange woods-o'er the sea

Over spirits on the wing

Over every drowsy thing—
And buries them up quite

In a labyrinth of light-
And then, how deep!-O, deep
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies.

With the tempests as they toss
Like almost any thing-

Or a yellow Albatross.

They use that moon no more
For the same end as before
Videlicet a tent-

Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less-
So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around,
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody-

Then-ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of a lone lake.

Yet the terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight-

A feeling not the jeweled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define-
Nor love-although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

SONG.

I saw thee on thy bridal day

When a burning blush came o'er thee, Through happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee:

And thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)

Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame-
As such it well may pass―

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

When that deep blush would come o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay. The world all love before thee.

TO M. L. S.

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun-of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope-for life-ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith,
In Truth-in Virtue-in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be
light!"

At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes-
Of all who owe thee most-whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship-oh, remember
The truest-the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by

him

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think His spirit is communing with an angel's.

SPIRIT OF THE DEAD.

Thy soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstoneNot one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in thy solitude

Which is not loneliness-for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again

In death around thee-and their will
Shall overshadow thee, be still,

The night-tho' clear-shall frown-
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given-
But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee forever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish-
Now are visions ne'er to vanish-
From thy spirit shall they pass

No more-like dew-drops from the grass.

The breeze-the breath of God-is stlil-
And the mist upon the hill