Gold Hair, Cold Hair! Daughter to a King! Wrapp'd in bands of snow-white silk with jewels glittering,

Tiny slippers of the gold upon thy feet so thin,

Silver cradle velvet-lin'd for thee to slumber in,

Pygmy pages, crimson-hair'd, to serve thee on their knees,

To fan thy face with ferns and bring thee honey bags of bees,

I was but a peasant lass, my babe had but the milk,

Gold Hair, Cold Hair! raimented in silk!

Pale Thing, Frail Thing! dumb and weak and thin,

Altho' thou ne'er dost utter sigh thou'rt shadow'd with a sin;

Thy minnie scorns to suckle thee, thy minnie is an elf,

Upon a bed of rose's-leaves she lies and fans herself;

And though my heart is aching so for one afar from me,

I often look into thy face and drop a tear for thee,

And I am but a peasant born, a lowly cotter's wife,

Pale Thing, Frail Thing! sucking at my life!

Weak Thing, Meek Thing! take no blame from me,

Altho❜ my babe may moan for lack of what I give to thee;

For though thou art a faëry child, and though thou art my woe,

To feel thee sucking at my breast is all the bliss I know;

It soothes me, tho' afar away I hear my daughter call,

My heart were broken if I felt no little lips at all!

If I had none to tend at all, to be its nurse and slave,

Weak Thing, Meek Thing! I should shriek and rave!

I'll lean my head against the wall and close my weary eyes,

And think my own babe draws the milk with balmy pants and sighs, And smile and bless my little one and sweetly pass away,

Bright Eyes, Light Eyes! Daughter of a Fay!

THE CHURCHYARD

How slowly creeps the hand of Time
On the old clock's green-mantled face!
Yea, slowly as those ivies climb,

The hours roll round with patient pace;
The drowsy rooks caw on the tower,
The tame doves hover round and round;
Below, the slow grass hour by hour

Makes green God's sleeping-ground.

All moves, but nothing here is swift;

The grass grows deep, the green boughs shoot;

From east to west the shadows drift;

The earth feels heavenward underfoot; The slow stream through the bridge doth stray

With water-lilies on its marge, And slowly, pil'd with scented hay, Creeps by the silent barge.

He, I suppose, with such a care to carry,

Wander'd disconsolate and waited long, Smiting his breast, wherein the notes would tarry,

Chiding the slumber of the seed of song:

Then in the sudden glory of a minute

Airy and excellent the proem came, Rending his bosom, for a god was in it, Waking the seed, for it had burst in flame.

So even I athirst for his inspiring,

I who have talk'd with Him forget again, Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring Offer to God a patience and a pain ;

Then through the mid complaint of my confession,

Then through the pang and passion of my prayer,

Leaps with a start the shock of his possession,

Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.

Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter

MENE and MENE in the folds of flame, Think you could any memories thereafter Wholly retrace the couplet as it came?

Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder

Sang to the earth the secret of a star, Scarce could ye catch, for terror and for wonder,

Shreds of the story that was peal'd so far.

So when the old delight is born anew,
And God re-animates the early bliss,
Seems it not all as one first trembling kiss
Ere soul knew soul with whom she has to
do?

O nights how desolate, O days how few,
O death in life, if life be this, be this!
O weigh'd alone as one shall win or miss
The faint eternity which shines therethro'!
Lo, all that age is as a speck of sand
Lost on the long beach where the tides are
free,

And no man metes it in his hollow hand
Nor cares to ponder it, how small it be;
At ebb it lies forgotten on the land
And at full tide forgotten in the sea.

A LETTER FROM NEWPORT φαίη κ ̓ ἀθανάτους καὶ ἀγήρως ἔμμεναι αἰεὶ ὃς τότ ̓ ἐπαντιάσεἰ ὅτ ̓ Ἰάονες ἄθροοι εἶεν. THE Crimson leafage fires the lawn,

The pil'd hydrangeas blazing glow; How blue the vault of breezy dawn

Illumes the Atlantic's crested snow! 'Twixt sea and sands how fair to ride

Through whispering airs a starlit way, And watch those flashing towers divide Heaven's darkness from the darkling bay!

Ah, friend, how vain their pedant's part, Their hurrying toils how idly spent, How have they wrong'd the gentler heart Which thrills the awakening continent, Who have not learnt on this bright shore What sweetness issues from the strong, Where flowerless forest, cataract-roar, Have found a blossom and a song!