state

(What though her banner now is furled),

And keeps within her guarded gate The household treasures of the world:

What joy amid all this to find

One single bird, or flower, or leaf, Earth's any simplest show designed For pleasure, what though frail or brief

If but that leaf, or bird, or flower, Were wafted from the western strand,

To breathe into one happy hour The freshness of my native land!

That joy is mine-the bird I hear,

The flower is blooming near me now, The leaf that some great bard might

wear

In triumph on his sacred brow.

For, lady, while thy voice and face Make thee the Tuscan's loveliest guest,

Within this old romantic space

Laid his staff and mantle down, Where the demons laughed to madness What the night-winds could not drown

Never came a voice of gladness

Though the cups should foam and
flow,

And the pilgrim thus proclaiming
Rose to go.

"All the night I hear the speaking
Of low voices round my bed,
And the dreary floor a-creaking
Under feet of stealthy tread :-
Like a very demon shrieking
Swings the black sign to and fro-
Come, arise, thou cheerless keeper,
For I go.

"On the hearth the brands are lying In a black, unseemly show; Through the roof the winds are sighing,

And they will not cease to blow; Through the house sad hearts replying Send their answer deep and lowCome, arise, thou cheerless keeper, For I go.

West.

A NIGHT AT THE BLACK SIGN.

YE, who follow to the measure Where the trump of Fortune leads, And at inns aglow with pleasure Rein your golden-harnessed steeds, In your hours of lordly leisure

Have ye heard a voice of woe
On the starless wind of midnight
Come and go?

Pilgrim brothers, whose existence
Rides the higher roads of Time,
Hark, how from the troubled distance,
Voices made by woe sublime,
In their sorrow, claim assistance,
Though it come from friend or foe-
Shall they ask and find no answer?
Rise and go.

And of chambers glowing warm, Or of travellers benighted,

Overtaken by the storm.

Urge me not; your hand is blighted
As your heart is-even so!
Come, arise, thou cheerless keeper,
For I go.

"Tell me not of goblets teeming
With the antidote of pain,
For its taste and pleasant seeming
Only hide the deadly bane;
Hear your sleepers tortured dreaming,
How they curse thee in their woe!
Come, arise, thou cheerless keeper,
For I go.

"I will leave your dreary tavern
Ere I drink its mandragore:
Like a black and hated cavern,

There are reptiles on the floor; They have overrun your tavern, They are at your wine below! Come, arise, thou fearful keeper, For I go.

Jay

How the tunnelling fox looked out of his hole,

Like one who notes if the skies are clear.

No mower was there to startle the birds

With the noisy whet of his reeking scythe;

The quail, like a cow-boy calling his herds,

Whistled to tell that his heart was blithe.

Now all was bequeathed with pious

care

The groves and fields fenced round with briers

To the birds that sing in the cloisters of air,

And the squirrels, those merry woodland friars.

LINES TO A BIRD

WHICH SUNG AT MY WINDOW ONE MORNING IN LONDON.

WHENCE Comest thou, oh wandering soul of song?

Round the celestial gates hast thou been winging,

And hearkening to the angels all night long

To brighten earth with somewhat of their singing?

Thou child of sunshine, spirit of the flowers!

Nature, through thee, with loving tongue rejoices,

Until these walls dissolve themselves to bowers,

And all the air is full of woodland voices.

toil

Was a sexton somewhere far away.

Instead, you saw how the rabbit and

mole

Burrowed and furrowed with never a fear:

of dew,

Float round me now with music on

their pinions,

Such as I heard while yet my years were few,

By native streams, in boyhood's lost dominions.

And with the breath of morning on my brow,

I hear the accents of the few who love me;

Sing on, full heart! I am no exile

now

This is no foreign sky that smiles above me.

And, armed with courage, rise-and so depart;

But what sweet bird shall sing to me to-morrow?

THE SCULPTOR'S LAST HOUR.

The heart's own music, floating here to bless me,

And little ones who smiled upon my knee

Now clap the dimpled hands that would caress me.

Oh! music sweeter than the sweetest chime

Of magic bells by fairies set a-swinging;

I am no pilgrim in a foreign clime, With these blest visions ever round me clinging.

I hear a voice no melody can reach ; Dear lips, speak on in your accustomed measure,

And teach my heart what you so well can teach,

How only love is earth's enduring pleasure.

Oh! music sweeter than the Arcadian's tune,

Wooing the dryads from the woodlands haunted;.

Or than beneath the mellow harvest

moon

Trembles at midnight over lakes enchanted!

Oh! sweeter than the herald of the morn,

The clarion lark, that wakes the drowsy peasant,

Is this which thrills my breast, so else forlorn,

And with the Past and distant fills the Present.

Thus, with the music ringing in my heart,

I may awhile forget an exile's sor

row,

soul's statue.

THE middle chimes of night were dead ;

The sculptor pressed his sleepless bed, With locks grown gray in a world of sin;

His eyes were sunken, his cheeks were thin;

And, like a leaf on a withering limb,
The fluttering life still clung to him.

While gazing on the shadowy wall,
He heard the muffled knocker fall:-
Before an answering foot could stir,
Entered the midnight messenger:
Around his shining shoulders rolled
Long and gleaming locks of gold;
The radiance of his features fell
In Beauty's light unspeakable,
And like the matin song of birds,
Swelled the rich music of his words.

"Arise! it is your monarch's will;
Ere sounds from the imperial hill
The warder's trumpet-blast,
His palace portal must be passed:
Arise! and be the veil withdrawn,
And let the long-wrought statue
dawn!

The stars that fill the fields of light
Must pale before its purer light;
The unblemished face-the spotless
limb,

Must shine among the seraphim:
Faultless in form-in nothing dim-
It must be ere it come to Him!"

The sculptor rose with heavy heart,
And slowly put the veil apart,
And stood with downcast look, en-
tranced,

The while the messenger advanced, And thought he heard, yet knew not why.

His hopes like boding birds go by,

And felt his heart sink ceaselessly
Down, like the friendless dead at sea.
O! for one breath to stir the air,
To break the stillness of despair;
Welcome alike, though it were given
From sulphurous shade, or vales of
heaven!

Now on the darkness swelled a sigh!-
The sculptor raised his languid eye,
And saw the radiant stranger stand
Hiding his sorrow with his hand;
His heart a billowy motion kept,

And ever, with its fall and rise,
The stillness of the air was swept
With a long wave of sighs.

The old man's anxious asking eyes Grew larger with their blank surprise,

With wonder why he wept :

And while his eyes and wonder grew,

Came, with the tears which gushed

anew,

The music of the stranger's tongue, But broken, like a swollen rill That heaves adown its native hill, Sobbing where late it sung:—

"Is this the statue fair and white A long laborious life hath wrought, And which our generous Prince hath bought?

Is this (so soulless, soiled, and dull)
To pass the golden gates of light
And stand among the beautiful?
The lines which seam the front and
cheek

Too well unholy lusts bespeak;
The brow by Anger's hand is weighed,
And Malice there his scar hath made;
There Scorn hath set her seal secure,
And curled the lip against the poor;
And Hate hath fixed the steady glance
Which Jealousy hath turned askance;
While thoughts, of those dark parents

born

Innumerable, from night till morn, And morn till night, have wrought their will,

Like stones upon a barren hill.
Old man! although thy locks be gray,
And life's last hour is on its way-
Although thy limbs with palsy
quake,

Thy hands, like windy branches,

shake

Ere from yon rampart high and round The watchful warder's blast shall sound,

Let this be altered-still it may,Your Monarch brooks no more delay!" The stranger spake and passed away.

A moment stood the aged man

With lips apart, and looks aghast,
Still gazing where the stranger
passed.

And now a shudder o'er him ran,
As chill November's breezes sweep
Across the dying meadow grass ;
His tongue was dry, he could not
speak,

His eyes were glazed like heated
glass.

But when the tears began to creep
Adown the channels of his cheek,

A long and shadowy train,

Born of his sorrowing brain, With shining feet, and noiseless tread, By dewy-eyed Repentance led, Around the statue pressed: With eager hand and swelling breast, Hope, jubilant, the chisel seized

And heavenward turned the eye; Forgiveness, radiant and pleased, The ridges of the brow released ·

While with a tear and sigh Sweet Charity the scorn effaced; And Mercy, mild and fair, Upon the lips her chisel placed, And left her signet there: And Love, the earliest - born of Heaven,

Over the features glowing, ran; While Peace, the best and latest given, Finished what Hope began.

THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.

THROUGH the darkened streets of Florence,

Moving toward thy church, Saint Lorenz,

Marched the bearers, masked and singing,

With their ghostly flambeaux flinging

Ghostlier shadows, that went winging

Round the portals and the porches,
As if spirits, which had hovered
In the darkness undiscovered,
Danced about the hissing torches,
Like the moths that whirl and caper
Drunken round an evening taper.
Unconsoled and unconsoling
Rolled the Arno, louder rolling
As the rain poured-and the tolling
Though the thick shower fell de-
murely,

Fell from out one turret only,
Where the bell swung sad and lonely
Prisoned in the cloud securely.
Masked in black, with voices solemn,
Strode the melancholy column,
With a stiff and soulless burden,
Bearing to the grave its guerdon,
While the torch flames, vexed and
taunted

By the night winds, leapt and flaunted,

'Mid the funeral rains that slanted, Those brave bearers marched and chanted,

Through the darkness thick and dreary,

With a woful voice and weary,

MISERERE.

Light to light, and dark to dark,

Kindred natures thus agree; Where the soul soars none can mark, But the world below may hark— Miserere, Domine!

Dew to dew, and rain to rain,

Swell the streams and reach the sea; When the drouth shall burn the plain,

Then the sands shall but remain-
Miserere, Domine!