I would be born and die.

"Single I

grew, like some green plant, whose root Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath, Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit Changed, I was ripe for death.

"My God, my land, my father, these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers' emptied of all joy
Leaving the dance and song,

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,

Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labors longer from the deep

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep To gather and tell o'er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

By signs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat.

The arching limes are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leafy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.

Or only look across the lawn,

Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.

MARGARET.

1.

O SWEET pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower

Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,

From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho' you stood

Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.

2.
You love, remaining peacefully,

To hear the murmur of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea,

Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway

Remaining betwixt dark and bright:

Lull'd echoes of laborious day

Come to you, gieams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.

3.

What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet,

Sang looking thro' his prison bars? Exquisite Margaret, who can tell The last wild thought of Chatelet, Just ere the fallen axe did part The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well? 4.

A fairy shield your Genius made

And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,

Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods,
Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes

Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aerially blue

But ever trembling thro' the dew
Of dainty-woful sympathies.

5.

O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

THE BLACKBIRD.

O BLACKBIRD! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot the round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all

Are thine: the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the Spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the Summer jenneting.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody

That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares,

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year, you must not die :
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.

He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.

Old year, you must not go;

So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.

I knew your brother: his mute dust
I honor and his living worth:
A man more pure and bold and just
Was never born into the earth.

I have not look'd upon you nigh,
Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep.
Great Nature is more wise than I:

I will not tell you not to weep.

And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, I will not even preach to you,

"Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain."

Let Grief be her own mistress still.

She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done-to weep or not to weep.

I will not say "God's ordinance
Of death is blown in every wind;"
For that is not a common chance
That takes away a noble mind.
His memory long will live alone

In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun,

And dwells in heaven half the night.

Vain solace! Memory standing near

Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters as I wrote.

I wrote I know not what. In truth,
How should I soothe you anyway,
Who miss the brother of your youth?
Yet something I did wish to say:

For he too was a friend to me:

Both are my friends, and my true breast Bleedeth for both: yet it may be

That only silence suiteth best.

Words weaker than your grief would make

Grief more. "Twere better I should cease; Although myself could almost take

The place of him that sleeps in peace.

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,

While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.

Nothing comes to thee new or strange, Sleep full of rest from head to feet;

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas?

It is the land that freemen till,

That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will;

A land of settled government,

A land of just and old renown, Where freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent:

The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute

Opinion, and induce a time

When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute;

Tho' Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great-
Tho' every channel of the State
Should almost choke with golden sand-

Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth,

Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South.

Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,

Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Come rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fulness of her face-

Grave mother of majestic works,

From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, And, King-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.

The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine,

Make bright our days and light our dreams Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes !

LOVE thon thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.

True love turn'd round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,

Nor feed with crude imaginings

The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might

To weakness, neither hide the ray

From those, not blind, who wait for day. Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.