What prince hereditary of their line, Uprising in the strength and flush of youth, Their glory shall inherit and prolong?
THE FOUR PRINCESSES AT WILNA
A PHOTOGRAPH
Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean As from a castle window, looking down On some gay pageant passing through a town, Yourselves the fairest figures in the scene;With what a gentle grace, with what serene Unconsciousness ye wear the triple crown Of youth and beauty and the fair renown Of a great name, that ne'er hath tarnished been!
From your soft eyes, so innocent and sweet, Four spirits, sweet and innocent as they, Gaze on the world below, the sky above;Hark! there is some one singing in the street;"Faith, Hope, and Love! these three," he seems to say;"These three; and greatest of the three is Love."HOLIDAYS
The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;The secret anniversaries of the heart, When the full river of feeling overflows;--The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail, White as a cloud that floats and fades in air, White as the whitest lily on a stream, These tender memories are;--a Fairy Tale Of some enchanted land we know not where, But lovely as a landscape in a dream.
WAPENTAKE
TO ALFRED TENNYSON
Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;Not as a knight, who on the listed field Of tourney touched his adversary's shield In token of defiance, but in sign Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, In English song; nor will I keep concealed, And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes of song, Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong, To thee our love and our allegiance, For thy allegiance to the poet's art.
THE BROKEN OAR
Once upon Iceland's solitary strand A poet wandered with his book and pen, Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen, Wherewith to close the volume in his hand.
The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand, The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken, And from the parting cloud-rack now and then Flashed the red sunset over sea and land.
Then by the billows at his feet was tossed A broken oar; and carved thereon he read, "Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee";And like a man, who findeth what was lost, He wrote the words, then lifted up his head, And flung his useless pen into the sea.
THE CROSS OF SNOW
In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face--the face of one long dead--Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
**************
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
FLIGHT THE FOURTH
CHARLES SUMNER
Garlands upon his grave, And flowers upon his hearse, And to the tender heart and brave The tribute of this verse.
His was the troubled life, The conflict and the pain, The grief, the bitterness of strife, The honor without stain.
Like Winkelried, he took Into his manly breast The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke A path for the oppressed.
Then from the fatal field Upon a nation's heart Borne like a warrior on his shield!--So should the brave depart.
Death takes us by surprise, And stays our hurrying feet;The great design unfinished lies, Our lives are incomplete.
But in the dark unknown Perfect their circles seem, Even as a bridge's arch of stone Is rounded in the stream.
Alike are life and death, When life in death survives, And the uninterrupted breath Inspires a thousand lives.
Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight.
So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men.
TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE
The ceaseless rain is falling fast, And yonder gilded vane, Immovable for three days past, Points to the misty main,It drives me in upon myself And to the fireside gleams, To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, And still more pleasant dreams,I read whatever bards have sung Of lands beyond the sea, And the bright days when I was young Come thronging back to me.
In fancy I can hear again The Alpine torrent's roar, The mule-bells on the hills of Spain, The sea at Elsinore.
I see the convent's gleaming wall Rise from its groves of pine, And towers of old cathedrals tall, And castles by the Rhine.
I journey on by park and spire, Beneath centennial trees, Through fields with poppies all on fire, And gleams of distant seas.
I fear no more the dust and heat, No more I feel fatigue, While journeying with another's feet O'er many a lengthening league.
Let others traverse sea and land, And toil through various climes, I turn the world round with my hand Reading these poets' rhymes.
From them I learn whatever lies Beneath each changing zone, And see, when looking with their eyes, Better than with mine own.
CADENABBIA
LAKE OF COMO
No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks The silence of the summer day, As by the loveliest of all lakes I while the idle hours away.
I pace the leafy colonnade Where level branches of the plane Above me weave a roof of shade Impervious to the sun and rain.
At times a sudden rush of air Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, And gleams of sunshine toss and flare Like torches down the path I tread.
By Somariva's garden gate I make the marble stairs my seat, And hear the water, as I wait, Lapping the steps beneath my feet.
