THE GOLDEN YEAR.

E sleep and wake and sleep, but all things

move;

The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; And human things returning on themselves Move onward, leading up the golden year.

Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,

Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore,
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,

And slow and sure comes up the golden year.

When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,

But smit with freër light shall slowly melt

In many streams to fatten lower lands,

And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Thro' all the season of the golden year.

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens ?
If all the world were falcons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.

Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;

Knit land to land, and blowing havenward

With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.

But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,

And like a lane of beams athwart the sea
Thro' all the circle of the golden year.

ND on her lover's arm she leant,

And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went

In that new world which is the old :

Across the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day

The happy princess follow'd him.

I'd sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss ;' 'O wake for ever, love,' she hears,

'O love, 'twas such as this and this.' And o'er them many a sliding star,

And many a merry wind was borne, And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn.

'O eyes long laid in happy sleep!'
'O happy sleep, that lightly fled!'
'O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!'

'O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!' And o'er them many a flowing range

Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,