So hold I commerce with the dead;
Or so methinks the dead would say ;
Or so shall grief with symbols play
And pining life be fancy-fed.

Now looking to some settled end,

That these things pass, and I shall prove A meeting somewhere, love with love, I crave your pardon, O my friend;

If not so fresh, with love as true,
I, clasping brother-hands, aver
I could not, if I would, transfer
The whole I felt for him to you.

For which be they that hold apart
The promise of the golden hours?
First love, first friendship, equal powers,

That marry with the virgin heart.

Still mine, that cannot but deplore,
That beats within a lonely place,
That yet remembers his embrace,
But at his footstep leaps no more,

My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest

Quite in the love of what is gone, But seeks to beat in time with one That warms another living breast.

Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring,
Knowing the primrose yet is dear,
The primrose of the later year,
As not unlike to that of Spring.

LXXXVI

SWEET after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening over brake and bloom
And meadow, slowly breathing bare

The round of space, and rapt below
Thro' all the dewy tassell'd wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood
In ripples, fan my brows and blow

The fever from my cheek, and sigh

The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and
Death,

Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

From belt to belt of crimson seas

On leagues of odor streaming far,
To where in yonder orient star
A hundred spirits whisper Peace.'

LXXXVII

I PAST beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown;
I roved at random thro' the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;

And heard once more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophet blazon'd on the panes ;

And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Among the willows; paced the shores And many a bridge, and all about

The same gray flats again, and felt

The same, but not the same; and last Up that long walk of limes I past To see the rooms in which he dwelt.

Another name was on the door.

I linger'd; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys. That crash'd the glass and beat the floor;

Where once we held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and art,
And labor, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land,

When one would aim an arrow fair,

But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there;

And last the master-bowman, he,

Would cleave the mark.

A willing ear

We lent him. Who but hung to hear The rapt oration flowing free

From point to point, with power and grace
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions when we saw
The God within him light his face,

And seem to lift the form, and glow
In azure orbits heavenly-wise;
And over those ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo?