Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

II.

Spirit of BEAUTY, thou dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shir

upon

Of human thought or form, — where art the gone?

Why dost thou pass away and leave o

state,

This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desc

late?

Ask why the sunlight not for ever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain rive Why aught should fail and fade that once

shown,

Why fear and dream and death an birth

Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,-why man has such a scop For love and hate, despondency and hope?

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III.

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,

Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains

driven,

Or music by the night wind sent, Thro' strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

IV.

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds de

part

And come, for some uncertain moments lent,
Man were immortal, and omnipotent,

Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state withi his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies,

That wax and wane in lovers' eyesThou- that to human thought art nourish

ment,

Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not-lest the grave
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

should be,

V.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and spe
Thro' many a listening chamber, cave an

ruin,

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pur
suing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which ou
youth is fed;

I saw them not

I was not heard
When musing deeply on the lot

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Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring

News of birds and blossoming,

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

VI.

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine- have I not kept the vow?

With beating heart and streaming eyes, even

now

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers

Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou-O awful LOVELINESS,

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot ex

press.

VII.

The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past- there is a harmony

In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply

Its calm to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,

Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.

Fragment: Home

D

EAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,

The least of which wronged

Memory ever makes

Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.