And then some other question'd if she came
From foreign lands, and still she did not speak.
Another, if the boy were hers: but she
To all their queries answer'd not a word,
Which made the amazement more, till one of them
Said, shuddering, "Her spectre !" But his friend
Replied, in half a whisper, "Not at least
The spectre that will speak if spoken to.
Terrible pity, if one so beautiful

Prove, as I almost dread to find her, dumb!"

But Julian, sitting by her, answer'd all:
"She is but dumb, because in her you see
That faithful servant whom we spoke about,
Obedient to her second master now;

Which will not last. I have her here to-night a guest

So bound to me by common love and loss
What! shall I bind him more? in his behalf,
Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him
That which of all things is the dearest to me,
Not only showing? and he himself pronounced
That my rich gift is wholly mine to give.

"Now all be dumb, and promise all of you
Not to break in on what I say by word
Or whisper, while I show you all my heart."
And then began the story of his love
As here to-day, but not so wordily-
The passionate moment would not suffer that-
Past thro' his visions to the burial; thence
Down to this last strange hour in his own hall;

And then rose up, and with him all his guests
Once more as by enchantment: all but he,
Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again,
And sat as if in chains-to whom he said:

"Take my free gift, my cousin, for your wife; And were it only for the giver's sake, And tho' she seem so like the one you lost, Yet cast her not away so suddenly,

Lest there be none left here to bring her back: I leave this land forever." Here he ceased.

Then taking his dear lady by one hand,
And bearing on one arm the noble babe,
He slowly brought them both to Lionel.
And there the widower husband and dead wife
Rushed each at each with a cry, that rather seem'd
For some new death than for a life renew'd;
At this the very babe began to wail;

At once they turned, and caught and brought him in
To their charmed circle, and, half killing him
With kisses, round him closed and claspt again.
But Lionel, when at last he freed himself
From wife and child, and lifted up a face

All over glowing with the sun of life,

And love, and boundless thanks-the sight of this
So frighted our good friend, that turning to me
And saying, "It is over: let us go" -
There were our horses ready at the doors-
We bade them no farewell, but mounting these
He past forever from his native land;

And I with him, my Julian, back to mine.

Than its precursor, till the eye in vain Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade Dappled with hollow and alternate rise Of interpenetrated arc, would scan Definite round.

I know not if I shape These things with accurate similitude From visible objects, for but dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream, The memory of that mental excellence Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind

With its past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought Absorbed me from the nature of itself

With its own fleetness. Where is he, that borne
Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream,
Could link his shalop to the fleeting edge,
And muse midway with philosophic calm
Upon the wondrous laws which regulate
The fierceness of the bounding element?

My thoughts which long had grovelled in the slime
Of this dull world, like dusky worms which house
Beneath unshaken waters, but at once
Upon some earth-awakening day of Spring
Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft
Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides
Double display of star-lit wings, which burn
Fan-like and fibred with intensest bloom;
Even so my thoughts erewhile so low, now felt
Unutterable buoyancy and strength

To bear them upward through the trackless fields Of undefined existence far and free.

Then first within the South methought I saw

A wilderness of spires, and crystal pile

Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome,
Illimitable range of battlement

On battlement, and the Imperial height
Of canopy o'ercanopied.

Behind

In diamond light up spring the dazzling peaks
Of Pyramids, as far surpassing earth's

As heaven than earth is fairer. Each aloft

Upon his narrowed eminence bore globes
Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances

Of either, showering circular abyss

Of radiance. But the glory of the place
Stood out a pillared front of burnished gold,
Interminably high, if gold it were

Or metal more ethereal, and beneath

Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze
Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan,
Through length of porch and valve and boundless
hall,

Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom
The snowy skirting of a garment hung,
And glimpse of multitude of multitudes
That ministered around it - if I saw
These things distinctly, for my human brain
Staggered beneath the vision, and thick night
Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell.

With ministering hand he raised me up:
Then with a mournful and ineffable smile,
Which but to look on for a moment filled

My eyes with irresistible sweet tears,

In accents of majestic melody,

Like a swoln river's gushings in still night
Mingled with floating music, thus he spake:
"There is no mightier Spirit than I to sway
The heart of man; and teach him to attain
By shadowing forth the Unattainable;

And step by step to scale that mighty stair
Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds
Of glory of heaven.* With earliest light of Spring,
And in the glow of sallow Summertide,

And in red Autumn when the winds are wild
With gambols, and when full-voiced Winter roofs
The headland with inviolate white snow,

I play about his heart a thousand ways,
Visit his eyes with visions, and his ears
With harmonies of wind and wave and wood,
-Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters
Betraying the close kisses of the wind-
And win him unto me: and few there be
So gross of heart who have not felt and known
A higher than they see: they with dim eyes
Behold me darkling. Lo! I have given thee
To understand my presence, and to feel

My fullness: I have filled thy lips with power.

I have raised thee nigher to the spheres of heaven,
Man's first, last home: and thou with ravished sense
Listenest the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years. I am the Spirit,
The permeating life which courseth through
All th' intricate and labyrinthine veins
Of the great vine of Fable, which, outspread
With growth of shadowing leaf and clusters rare,
Reacheth to every corner under heaven,
Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth;

So that men's hopes and fears take refuge in
The fragrance of its complicated glooms,

And cool impleachéd twilights. Child of man,
Seest thou yon river, whose translucent wave,
Forth issuing from the darkness, windeth through
The argent streets o' the city, imaging
The soft inversion of her tremulous domes,
Her gardens frequent with the stately palm,
Her pagods hung with music of sweet bells,
Her obelisks of rangéd chrysolite,

Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by,
And gulphs himself in sands, as not enduring
To carry through the world those waves, which bore
The reflex of my city in their depths.

Oh city: oh latest throne! where I was raised
To be a mystery of loveliness

Unto all eyes, the time is well-nigh come
When I must render up this glorious home
To keen Discovery; soon yon brilliant towers
Shall darken with the waving of her wand;
Darken and shrink and shiver into huts,
Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand,
Low-built, mud-walled, barbarian settlements.
How changed from this fair city!"

Thus far the Spirit:
Then parted heaven-ward on the wing: and I
Was left alone on Calpe, and the moon
Had fallen from the night, and all was dark!

"Be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect."

235

ELEGIACS.

LOWFLOWING breezes are roaming the broad valley dimmed in the gloming:

Thro' the blackstemmed pines only the far river shines.

Creeping through blossomy rushes and bowers of roseblowing bushes,

Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall. Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;

Deeply the turtle coos; shrilly the owlet halloos; Winds creep: dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:

Over the pools in the burn watergnats murmur and

mourn.

Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmering water outfloweth :

Twin peaks shadowed with pine slope to the dark hyaline.

Lowthroned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad

Throbbing in wild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.

The ancient poetess singeth that Hesperus all things bringeth,

Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.

Thou comest morning and even; she cometh not morning or even.

False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind?

THE "HOW" AND THE "WHY."

?

I AM any man's suitor,

If any will be my tutor:
Some say this life is pleasant,
Some think it speedeth fast,
In time there is no present,
In eternity no future,

In eternity no past.

We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die, Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The bulrush nods unto its brother.
The wheatears whisper to each other:
What is it they say? what do they there?

Why two and two make four? why round is not square?

Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly? Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows

sigh?

Why deep is not high, and high is not deep?

Whether we wake, or whether we sleep?

Whether we sleep, or whether we die?

How you are you? why I am I?

Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The world is somewhat; it goes on somehow: But what is the meaning of then and now?

I feel there is something; but how and what?

I know there is somewhat: but what and why?

I cannot tell if that somewhat be I.

The little bird pipeth-"why? why?" In the summer woods when the sun falls low, And the great bird sits on the opposite bough, And stares in his face, and shouts "how? how?" And the black owl scuds down the mellow twilight, And chants "how? how?" the whole of the night.

Why the life goes when the blood is spilt?

What the life is? where the soul may lie?
Why a church is with a steeple built:
And a house with a chimney-pot?
Who will riddle me the how and the what?
Who will riddle me the what and the why?

SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS

OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND NOT IN UNITY WITH ITSELF.

OH GOD! my God! have mercy now.

I faint, I fall. Men say that thou
Didst die for me, for such as me,
Patient of ill, and death, and scorn,
And that my sin was as a thorn
Among the thorns that girt thy brow,
Wounding thy soul. That even now,
In this extremest misery

Of ignorance, I should require
A sign and if a bolt of fire

Would rive the slumbrous summer noon

While I do pray to thee alone,

Think my belief would stronger grow!

Is not my human pride brought low?
The boastings of my spirit still?
The joy I had in my free will

All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?
And what is left to me, but thou,
And faith in thee? Men pass me by:
Christians with happy countenances-
And children all seem full of thee!
And women smile with saintlike glances
Like thine own mother's when she bowed
Above thee, on that happy morn
When angels spake to men aloud,
And thou and peace to earth were born.
Goodwill to me as well as all-
-I one of them: my brothers they :
Brothers in Christ-a world of peace
And confidence, day after day;
And trust and hope till things should cease,
And then one Heaven receive us all.

How sweet to have a common faith!
To hold a common scorn of death!
And at a burial to hear

The creaking cords which wound and eat Into my human heart, whene'er

Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear,

With hopeful grief, were passing sweet!

A grief not uninformed, and dull,
Hearted with hope, of hope as full
As is the blood with life, or night
And a dark cloud with rich moonlight.
To stand beside a grave, and see
The red small atoms wherewith we

236

Are built, and smile in calm, and say— "These little motes and grains shall be Clothed on with immortality

More glorious than the noon of day.

All that is pass'd into the flowers,
And into beasts and other men,

And all the Norland whirlwind showers
From open vaults, and all the sea
O'erwashes with sharp salts, again
Shall fleet together all, and be
Indued with immortality."

Thrice happy state again to be
The trustful infant on the knee!
Who lets his waxen fingers play
About his mother's neck, and knows
Nothing beyond his mother's eyes.
They comfort him by night and day,
They light his little life alway;

He hath no thought of coming woe3;
He hath no care of life or death,
Scarce outward signs of joy arise,
Because the Spirit of happiness
And perfect rest so inward is;
And loveth so his innocent heart,
Her temple and her place of birth,
Where she would ever wish to dwell,
Life of the fountain there, beneath
Its salient springs, and far apart,
Hating to wander out on earth,
Or breathe into the hollow air,
Whose chillness would make visible
IIer subtil, warm, and golden breath,
Which mixing with the infant's blood,
Fullfills him with beatitude.
Oh! sure it is a special care
Of God, to fortify from doubt,
To arm in proof, and guard about
With triple mailéd trust, and clear
Delight, the infant's dawning year.
Would that my gloomed fancy were
As thine, my mother, when with brows
Propped on thy knees, my hands upheld
In thine, I listened to thy vows,
For me outpoured in holiest prayer —
For me unworthy!-and beheld
Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew
The beauty and repose of faith,
And the clear spirit shining through.
Oh! wherefore do we grow awry

From roots which strike so deep? why dɛre
Paths in the desert? Could not I
Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt,
To th' earth-until the ice would melt
Here, and I feel as thou hast felt?

What Devil had the heart to scathe
Flowers thou hadst reared-to brush the dow
From thine own lily, when thy grave
Was deep, my mother, in the clay?
Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I
So little love for thee? But why
Prevailed not thy pure prayers? Why pray
To one who heeds not, who can save
But will not? Great in faith, and strong
Against the grief of circumstance
Wert thou, and yet unheard? What if
Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive
Through utter dark a full-sailed skiff,
Unpiloted i' the echoing dance

Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low
Unto the death, not sunk! I know
At matins and at evensong,
That thou, if thou wert yet alive,

In deep and daily prayers would'st strive
To reconcile me with thy God.
Albeit, my hope is gray, and cold

At heart, thou wouldest murmur still-
"Bring this lamb back into thy fold,

My Lord, if so it be thy will."
Would'st tell me I must brook the rod,
And chastisement of human pride;
That pride, the sin of devils, stood
Betwixt me and the light of God!
That hitherto I had defied,

And had rejected God that Grace
Would drop from his o'erbrimming love,

As manna on my wilderness,

If I would pray that God would move
And strike the hard, hard rock, and thence,
Sweet in their utmost bitterness,

Would issue tears of penitence

Which would keep green hope's life. Alas!
I think that pride hath now no place
Or sojourn in me. I am void,
Dark, formless, utterly destroyed.

Why not believe then? Why not yet
Anchor thy frailty there, where man
Hath moored and rested? Ask the sea
At midnight, when the crisp slope waves
After a tempest, rib and fret
The broadimbaséd beach, why he
Slumbers not like a mountain torn?
Wherefore his ridges are not curls
And ripples of an inland meer?
Wherefore he moaneth thus, nor can
Draw down into his vexéd pools

All that blue heaven which hues and paves
The other? I am too forlorn,

Too shaken: my own weakness fools

My judgment, and my spirit whirls,
Moved from beneath with doubt and fear.

"Yet," said I, in my morn of youth,
The unsunned freshness of my strength,
When I went forth in quest of truth,
"It is man's privilege to doubt,
If so be that from doubt at length,
Truth may stand forth unmoved of change,
An image with profulgent brows,
And perfect limbs, as from the storm
Of running fires and fluid range
Of lawless airs at last stood out
This excellence and solid form
Of constant beauty. For the Ox
Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills
The hornéd valleys all about,
And hollows of the fringed hills
In summerheats, with placid lows
Unfearing, till his own blood flows
About his hoof. And in the flocks
The lamb rejoiceth in the year,
And raceth freely with his fere,
And answers to his mother's calls
From the flowered furrow. In a time,
Of which he wots not, run short pains
Through his warm heart; and then, from whence
He knows not, on his light there falls
A shadow; and his native slope,
Where he was wont to leap and climb,
Floats from his sick and filmed eyes,
And something in the darkness draws
His forehead earthward, and he dies.
Shall men live thus, in joy and hope
As a young lamb, who cannot dream,
Living, but that he shall live on?
Shall we not look into the laws
Of life and death, and things that seem,
And things that be, and analyze
Our double nature, and compare
All creeds till we have found the one,

If one there be?" Ay me! I fear
All may not doubt, but every where
Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God,
Whom call I Idol? Let thy dove
Shadow me over, and my sins