"She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing thro',

I would have paid her kiss for kiss, With usury thereto."

O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;

A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.

""T is little more: the day was warm;
At last, tired out with play,
She sank her head upon her arm
And at my feet she lay.

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.
I breathed upon her eyes
Thro' all the summer of my leaves
A welcome mix'd with sighs.

"I took the swarming sound of life The music from the townThe murmurs of the drum and fife

And lull'd them in my own.

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

"A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,

From head to ankle fine.

"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow'd all her rest
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.

"But in a pet she started up, And pluck'd it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup, And flung him in the dew.

“And yet it was a graceful gift —
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.

"I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree.

He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me.

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this."

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetize
The baby-oak within.

But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.

May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint,
That art the fairest-spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.

O rock upon thy towery top

All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop

Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

All grass of silky feather grow

And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells.

The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
That under deeply strikes!
The northern morning o'er thee shoot,
High up, in silver spikes!

Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!

And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride

She, Dryad-like, shall wear

Alternate leaf and acorn-ball

In wreath about her hair.

For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself

Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself?

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,

Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy
years.

The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring

The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit

Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow

To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro half-tears, would dwell

One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,

Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep

My own full-tuned, - hold passion in a leash,

And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd

Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! For Love himself took part against

himself

To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love O this world's curse, - beloved but hated

came

Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,

And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"

She push'd me from thee.

If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these No, not to thee, but to thyself in me : Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.

Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak,

To have spoken once? It could not but be well.

The slow sweet hours that bring us all

things good,

The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,

And all good things from evil, brought the night

In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart,

Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such

tears

As flow but once a life.

The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.

Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the words

That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;

Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused

Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen all the wheels of Time

:

Life needs for life is possible to will Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by

My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts

Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold,

If not to be forgotten-not at onceNot all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams,

O might it come like one that looks content,

With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burden from thy heart And leave thee freër, till thou wake refresh'd,

Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown

Full quire, and morning driv'n her plough of pearl

Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,

Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.

THE GOLDEN YEAR.

WELL, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:

It was last summer on a tour in Wales: Old James was with me: we that day had been

Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there,

And found him in Llanberis: then we crost

Between the lakes, and clamber'd half way up

The counter side; and that same song of his

He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the how much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give,

Cram us with all," but count not me the herd!

To which "They call me what they will," he said:

"But I was born too late: the fair new forms,

That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught

Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd

Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn.

"We 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,

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?" Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon

"Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answer'd James

"Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children's time, "T is like the second world to us that live; 'T were all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven

As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against

the rocks

And broke it,

James, -you know him,

-old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat :

"What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back,

This same grand year is ever at the doors." He spoke; and, high above, I heard

them blast

The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap

And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.

ULYSSES.

Ir little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, govern-
ments,

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose
margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled
on life

Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something