COMPENSATION.

You shake your head and talk of evil days:
My friend, I learn'd ere I had told twelve years
That truth of yours,-how irrepressible tears
Surprise us, and strength fails, and pride betrays,
And sorrows lurk for us in all the ways

Of joyous living. But now to front my fears

I set a counter-truth which comes and cheers
Our after-life, when, temperate, the heart weighs
Evil with good. Do never smiles surprise
Sad lips? Did the glad violets blow last spring
In no new haunts? Or are the heavens not fair
After drench'd days of June, when all the air
Grows fragrant, and the rival thrushes sing,

Until stars gather into twilight skies?

N

TO A CHILD DEAD AS SOON AS BORN.

A little wrath was on thy forehead, Boy,

Being thus defeated; the resolved will

Which death could not subdue, was threatening

still

From lip and brow. I know that it was joy

No casual misadventure might destroy

To have lived, and fought and died. Therefore I

kill

The pang for thee, unknown; nor count it ill
That thou hast entered swiftly on employ

Where Life would plant a warder keen and pure.

I thought to see a little piteous clay

The grave had need of, pale from light obscure
Of embryo dreams; thy face was as the day
Smit on by storm. Palms for my child, and bay!
Thus far thou hast done well, true son endure.

February 1871.

BROTHER DEATH.

When thou would'st have me go with thee, O

Death,

Over the utmost verge, to the dim place,

Practise upon me with no amorous grace

Of fawning lips, and words of delicate breath,
And curious music thy lute uttereth;

Nor think for me there must be sought-out ways
Of cloud and terror; have we many days
Sojourned together, and is this thy faith?
Nay, be there plainness 'twixt us; come to me
Even as thou art, O brother of my soul;

Hold thy hand out and I will place mine there;
I trust thy mouth's inscrutable irony,

And dare to lay my forehead where the whole

Shadow lies deep of thy purpureal hair.

THE MAGE.

When I shall sing my songs the world will hear, -Which hears not these,-I shall be white with age, My beard on breast great as befits a mage

So skilled; but song is young, and in no drear

Tome-crammed, lamp-litten chamber shall mine

fear

To pine ascetic. Where the woods are deep,
Thick leaves for arras, in a noonday sleep

Of breeze and bloom, gaze, but my art revere !
There I will sit, and score rare wisardry

In characters vermilion, azure, gold,

With bird, starred flower, and peering dragon-fly Limned in the lines; and secrets shall be told Of greatest Pan, and lives of wood-nymphs shy, Blabbed by my goat-foot servitor overbold.

WISE PASSIVENESS.

Think you I choose or that or this to sing?

I lie as patient as yon wealthy stream

Dreaming among green fields its summer dream,

Which takes whate'er the gracious hours will bring

Into its quiet bosom; not a thing

Too common, since perhaps you see it there

Who else had never seen it, though as fair

As on the world's first morn; a fluttering

Of idle butterflies; or the deft seeds
Blown from a thistle-head; a silver dove
As faultlessly; or the large, yearning eyes
Of pale Narcissus; or beside the reeds
A shepherd seeking lilies for his love,
And evermore the all-encircling skies.