And Alfred, King of the Saxons,

Had a book upon his knees,
And wrote down the wondrous tale
Of him who was first to sail

Into the Arctic seas.

"So far I live to the northward,

No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains;

To the westward all is sea.

"So far I live to the northward, From the harbor of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day, With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would you sail. "I own six hundred reindeer,

With sheep and swine beside;
I have tribute from the Finns,
Whalebone and reindeer-skins,
And ropes of walrus-hide.

"I ploughed the land with horses,
But my heart was ill at ease;
For the old seafaring men
Came to me now and then,

With their sagas of the seas;-
"Of Iceland and of Greenland,
And the stormy Hebrides,
And the undiscovered deep; -
OI could not eat nor sleep

For thinking of those seas.

"To the northward stretched the desert,
How far I fain would know;
So at last I sallied forth,
And three days sailed due north,

As far as the whale-ships go.
"To the west of me was the ocean,
To the right the desolate shore,
But I did not slacken sail
For the walrus or the whale,

Till after three days more.
"The days grew longer and longer,
Till they became as one,
And southward through the haze
I saw the sullen blaze

Of the red midnight sun.
"And then uprose before me,
Upon the water's edge,
The huge and haggard shape
Of that unknown North Cape,
Whose form is like a wedge.

"The sea was rough and stormy,

The tempest howled and wailed,
And the sea-fog, like a ghost,
Haunted that dreary coast,

But onward still Í sailed.
"Four days I steered to eastward,
Four days without a night:
Round in a fiery ring
Went the great sun, O King,
With red and lurid light.'
Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,
Ceased writing for a while;
And raised his eyes from his book,
With a strange and puzzled look,
And an incredulous smile.
But Othere, the old sea-captain,

He neither paused nor stirred,
Till the King listened and then
Once more took up his pen,

And wrote down every word. "And now the land," said Othere, "Bent southward suddenly, And I followed the curving shore And ever southward bore

Into a nameless sea.

"And there we hunted the walrus,

The narwhale, and the seal;
Ha! 't was a noble game!
And like the lightning's flame
Flew our harpoons of steel.
"There were six of us all together,
Norsemen of Helgoland;

In two days and no more
We killed of them threescore,
And dragged them to the strand!"
Here Alfred the Truth-Teller
Suddenly closed his book,
And lifted his blue eyes,
With doubt and strange surmise
Depicted in their look.

And Othere the old sea-captain

Stared at him wild and weird, Then smiled, till his shining teeth Gleamed white from underneath

His tawny, quivering beard. And to the King of the Saxons, In witness of the truth, Raising his noble head,

He stretched his brown hand, and said, "Behold this walrus-tooth"

DAYBREAK.

A WIND came up out of the sea,
And said, "O mists, make room for
me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."
It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing.'
And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near."
It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming
morn."

It shouted through the belfry-tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet ! in quiet lie.'

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF

AGASSIZ.

MAY 28, 1857.

It was fifty years ago

In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,
A child in its cradle lay.
And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: "Here is a story-book

Thy Father has written for thee." "Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread

In the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail,

She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;
Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;
And the mother at home says,
"Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn;
It is growing late and dark,
And my boy does not return!"

CHILDREN.

COME to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,

With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood, -
That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old, In the Legends the Rabbins have told Of the limitless realms of the air, Have you read it, -the marvellous story Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer? How, erect, at the outermost gates Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered,

By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?
The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, Among the dead angels, the deathless Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below; From the spirits on earth that adore, From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervor and passion of prayer; From the hearts that are broken with losses,

And weary with dragging the crosses Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands,

Into garlands of purple and red; And beneath the great arch of the portal, Through the streets of the City Immortal

Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; Yet the old medieval tradition, The beautiful, strange superstition, But haunts me and holds me the

more.

When I look from my window at night, And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars, Among them majestic is standing Sandalphon the angel, expanding

His pinions in nebulous bars. And the legend, I feel, is a part Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, The frenzy and fire of the brain, That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, The golden pomegranates of Eden, To quiet its fever and pain.

EPIMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT.
HAVE I dreamed? or was it real,
What I saw as in a vision,
When to marches hymeneal
In the land of the Ideal

Moved my thought o'er Fields Ely-
sian?

What are these the guests whose glances

Seemed like sunshine gleaming round
me?

These the wild, bewildering fancies,
That with dithyrambic dances

As with magic circles bound me?
Ah! how cold are their caresses!

Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms! Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, And from loose, dishevelled tresses

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture?
Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,
When they came to me unbidden;
Voices single, and in chorus,
Like the wild-birds singing o'er us
In the dark of branches hidden.

Disenchantment! Disillusion !
Must each noble aspiration
Come at last to this conclusion,
Jarring discord, wild confusion,
Lassitude, renunciation ?

Not with steeper fall nor faster,

From the sun's serene dominions, Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster,

Icarus fell with shattered pinions! Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora! Why did mighty Jove create thee Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance
Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.
Him whom thou dost once enamor,
Thou, beloved, never leavest;

In life's discord, strife, and clamor,
Still he feels thy spell of glamour;
Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.
Weary hearts by thee are lifted,
Struggling souls by thee are strength-
ened,

Clouds of fear asunder rifted,

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,

Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!

Therefore art thou ever dearer,

O my Sibyl, my deceiver ! For thou makest each mystery clearer, And the unattained seems nearer,

When thou fillest my heart with fever !

Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!

Though the fields around us wither, There are ampler realms and spaces, Where no foot has left its traces:

Let us turn and wander thither !

PRELUDE.

THE WAYSIDE INN.

ONE Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the
leaves

Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.

A region of repose it seems,
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills!
For there no noisy railway speeds,
Its torch-race scattering smoke and
gleeds;

But noon and night, the panting teams
Stop under the great oaks, that throw
Tangles of light and shade below,
On roofs and doors and window-sills.
Across the road the barns display
Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay,
Through the wide doors the breezes
blow,

The wattled cocks strut to and fro,
And, half effaced by rain and shine,
The Red Horse prances on the sign.
Round this old-fashioned, quaint abodo
Deep silence reigned, save when a gust
Went rushing down the county road,
And skeletons of leaves, and dust,

A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death,

And through the ancient oaks o'erhead
Mysterious voices moaned and fled.
But from the parlor of the inn
A pleasant murmur smote the ear,
Like water rushing through a weir;
Oft interrupted by the din
Of laughter and of loud applause,
And, in each intervening pause,
The music of a violin.

The fire-light, shedding over all
The splendor of its ruddy glow,
Filled the whole parlor large and low;
It gleamed on wainscot and on wall,
It touched with more than wonted grace
Fair Princess Mary's pictured face;
It bronzed the rafters overhead,
On the old spinet's ivory keys
It played inaudible melodies,

It crowned the sombre clock with flame,
The hands, the hours, the maker's name,
And painted with a livelier red
'The Landlord's coat-of-arms again;
And, flashing on the window-pane,
Emblazoned with its light and shade
The jovial rhymes, that still remain,
Writ near a century ago,

By the great Major Molineaux,
Whom Hawthorne has immortal made.

Before the blazing fire of wood
Erect the rapt musician stood;
And ever and anon he bent
His head upon his instrument,
And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,
The joy, the triumph, the lament,
The exultation and the pain ;
Then, by the magic of his art,

He soothed the throbbings of its heart,
And lulled it into peace again.

Around the fireside at their ease
There sat a group of friends, entranced
With the delicious melodies;
Who from the far-off noisy town
Had to the wayside inn come down,
To rest beneath its old oak-trees.
The fire-light on their faces glanced,
Their shadows on the wainscot danced,
And, though of different lands and
speech,

Each had his tale to tell, and each
Was anxious to be pleased and please
And while the sweet musician plays,
Let me in outline sketch them all,
Perchance uncouthly as the blaze
With its uncertain touch portrays
Their shadowy semblance on the wall.
But first the Landlord will I trace;
Grave in his aspect and attire ;
A man of ancient pedigree,
A Justice of the Peace was he,
Known in all Sudbury as "The Squire.'
Proud was he of his name and race,
Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh,
And in the parlor, full in view,
His coat-of-arms, well framed and
glazed,

Upon the wall in colors blazed;
He beareth gules upon his shield,
A chevron argent in the field,

With three wolf's heads, and for the

crest

A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed
Upon a helmet barred; below
The scroll reads, " By the name of
Howe."

And over this, no longer bright,
Though glimmering with a latent light,
Was hung the sword his grandsire bore
In the rebellious days of yore,
Down there at Concord in the fight.

A youth was there, of quiet ways,
A Student of old books and days,
To whom all tongues and lands were
known

;

And yet a lover of his own; With many a social virtue graced, And yet a friend of solitude A man of such a genial mood The heart of all things he embraced, And yet of such fastidious taste, He never found the best too good. Books were his passion and delight, And in his upper room at home Stood many a rare and sumptuous tome, In vellum bound, with gold bedight, Great volumes garmented in white, Recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome. He loved the twilight that surrounds The border-land of old romance; Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance, And banner waves, and trumpet sounds, And ladies ride with hawk on wrist,