However it got there, deprive who could

Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,

Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse, Achilles and his Friend?--though Wolf -ah, Wolf!

Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?

But then, "No dream's worth waking"Browning says:

And here's the reason why I tell thus much.

I, now mature man, you anticipate,
May blame my Father justifiably
For letting me dream out my nonage
thus,

And only by such slow and sure degrees Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff,

Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.

Why did he ever let me dream at all, Not bid me taste the story in its strength? Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified

To rightly understand mythology, Silence at least was in his power to keep: I might have-somehow-correspondingly

Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,

Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,

My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus'

The Ethics"? In translation, if you please,

Exact, no pretty lying that improves, To suit the modern taste: no more, no less-

The "Ethics: " 't is a treatise I find hard To read aright now that my hair is gray, And I can manage the original.

At five years old--how ill had fared its leaves !

Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite, At least I soil no page with bread and milk.

Nor crumple, dogs-ear and deface-boys'

IN A LECTURE-ROOM

AWAY, haunt thou not me,
Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,
Save to perplex the head,
And leave the spirit dead.

Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below,

Fed by the skiey shower,

And clouds that sink and rest on hilltops high,

Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen,
incessantly?

Why labor at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore?
1840.

BLANK MISGIVINGS

How often sit I, poring o'er

My strange distorted youth, Seeking in vain, in all my store, One feeling based on truth; Amid the maze of petty life,

A clue whereby to move, A spot whereon in toil and strife To dare to rest and love.

So constant as my heart would be, So fickle as it must,

1849.

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,

Through winds and tides one compass guides

To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze; and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,

On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare.-
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

And His immediate presence He
From human hearts withdrew,
The soul perplexed and daily vexed
With sensuous False and True,
Amazed, bereaved, no less believed,
And fain would see Him too :
"He is!" the prophet-tongues pro-
claimed;

66

In joy and hasty fear,

He is!" aloud replied the crowd,

Is here, and here, and here."

"He is! They are!" in distance seen On yon Olympus high,

In those Avernian woods abide
And walk this azure sky:

66

They are! They are!"-to every show

Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall,

On thousand altars burned:
"They are! They are!"-On Sinai's top
Far seen the lightnings shone,
The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,
And God said, "I am One."

God spake it out, "I, God, am One;"
The unheeding ages ran.
And baby-thoughts again, again,

Have dogged the growing man:
And as of old from Sinai's top

God said that God is One,

By Science strict so speaks He now
To tell us, There is None!

Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's
A Mécanique Céleste!

And heart and mind of human kind
A watch-work as the rest!

Is this a Voice, as was the Voice,
Whose speaking told abroad,
When thunder pealed, and mountain
reeled,

The ancient truth of God?

Ah, not the Voice; 'tis but the cloud,
The outer-darkness dense,

Where image none, nor e'er was seen
Similitude of sense.

"Tis but the cloudy darkness dense
That wrapt the Mount around;
While in amaze the people stays,
To hear the Coming Sound.

Is there no prophet-soul the while
To dare, sublimely meek,

Within the shroud of blackest cloud
The Deity to seek?

'Midst atheistic systems dark,

And darker hearts' despair,

That soul has heard perchance His word,