O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,

Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine, that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned,

Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light

Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,

How lurid looks this soul of mine!

Flower-de-Luce.

BEAUTIFUL lily, dwelling by still rivers,
Or solitary mere,

Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers
Its waters to the weir!

Thou laughest at the mill, the whirr and worry
Of spindle and of loom,

And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry
And rushing of the flume.

Born to the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,

But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.

The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,
And round thee throng and run

The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,
The outlaws of the sun.

The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,

And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield.

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod

And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities
Hauntest the sylvan streams,

Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties
That come to us as dreams.

O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river
Linger to kiss thy feet!

O flower of song, bloom on, and make for ever
The world more fair and sweet.

PALINGENESIS.

I LAY upon the headland-height, and listened

To the incessant sobbing of the sea

In caverns under me,

And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened. Until the rolling meadows of amethyst

Melted away in mist.

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes

Seemed peopled with the shapes

Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
On faces seen in dreams.

A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
Stood lonely as before;

And the wild roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
Their petals of pale red.

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists

Could recreate the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume.

Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?

What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?

"O, give me back!" I cried, "the vanished splendours, The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,

When the swift stream of life

Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap
Into the unknown deep!"

And the sea answered, with a lamentation,
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,
"Alas! thy youth is dead!

It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation;
In the dark places with the dead of old

It lies for ever cold!"

Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,

Only to give me pain;

But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on my way, like one who looks before,
And turns to weep no more."

Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
Of sunsets burning lo

Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations Light up the spacious avenues between

This world and the unseen!

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,
What households, though not alien, yet not mine,
What bowers of rest divine;

To what temptations in lone wildernesses,
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,
The bearing of what cross!

I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic book which hold
The story still untold,

But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until "The End " I read.

THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD.

BURN, O evening hearth, and waken
Pleasant visions, as of old!

Though the house by winds be shaken,
Safe I keep this room of gold!

Ah, no longer wizard Fancy
Builds her castles in the air,
Luring me by necromancy
Up the never-ending stair!

But, instead, she builds me bridges
Over many a dark ravine,
Where beneath the gusty ridges
Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

And I cross them, little heeding
Blast of wind or torrent's roar,
As I follow the receding

Footsteps that have gone before.

Naught avails the imploring gesture,
Naught avails the cry of pain!
When I touch the flying vesture,
'Tis the grey robe of the rain.

Baffled I return, and leaning
O'er the parapets of cloud,
Watch the mist that intervening
Wraps the valley in its shroud.

And the sounds of life ascending
Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear,
Murmur of bells and voices blending
With the rush of waters near.

Well I know what there lies hidden,
Every tower and town and farm,
And again the land forbidden
Reassumes its vanished charm.

Well I know the secret places,
And the nests in hedge and tree;
At what doors are friendly faces,
In what hearts are thoughts of me.

Through the mist and darkness sinking,
Blown by wind and beaten by shower,
Down I fling the thought I'm thinking,
Down I toss this Alpine flower.

HAWTHORNE.

MAY 23, 1864.

How beautiful it was, that one bright day
In the long week of rain!

Though all its splendour could not chase away
The omnipresent pain.

The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,
And the great elms o'erhead

Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms,
Shot through with golden thread.

Across the meadows, by the grey old manse,
The historic river flowed;

I was as one who wanders in a trance,
Unconscious of his road.

The faces of familiar friends seemed strange:

Their voices I could hear,

And yet the words they uttered seemed to change
Their meaning to my ear.

For the one face I looked for was not there,
The one low voice was mute;

Only an unseen presence filled the air,
And baffled my pursuit.