That truth informing mind and heart,
The simplest cottager may part,

Ungrieved, with charm and spell;
And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee
The voice of grateful memory
Shall bid a kind farewell! *

XLIII.

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

A ROCK there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;

Yet there the glowworms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;

And one coy Primrose to that Rock

The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,

Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft

And marked it for my own;

A lasting link in Nature's chain
From highest heaven let down!

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;

*See Note at the end of this Volume.

The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;

And to the rock the root adheres
every fibre true.

In

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:

So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,

The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
I gave this after-lay.

I sang, Let myriads of bright flowers, Like thee, in field and grove

Revive unenvied; - mightier far

Than tremblings that reprove

Our vernal tendencies to hope,

Is God's redeeming love;

That love which changed, for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age,

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called,
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose

Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
Before and when they die;

And makes each soul a separate heaven,
A court for Deity.

XLIV.

1881.

PRESENTIMENTS.

PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light

Retire in fear of shame ;

All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch

Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

VOL. II.

16

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;

And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,

And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you, and combine

To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from your visionary skill,

And teach us to beware.

The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,

That no philosophy can lift,

Shall vanish, if ye please,

Like morning mist: and, where it lay,

The spirits at your bidding play

In gayety and ease.

Star-guided contemplations move

Through space, though calm, not raised above

Prognostics that ye rule;

H

The naked Indian of the wild,

And haply, too, the cradled Child,
Are pupils of your school.

But who can fathom your intents,
Number their signs or instruments?
A rainbow, a sunbeam,

A subtle smell that Spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo, or a dream.

The laughter of the Christmas hearth
With sighs of self-exhausted mirth
Ye feelingly reprove;

And daily, in the conscious breast,
Your visitations are a test

And exercise of love.

When some great change gives boundless scope
To an exulting Nation's hope,

Oft, startled and made wise

By your low-breathed interpretings,
The simply-meek foretaste the springs

Of bitter contraries.

Ye daunt the proud array of war,
Pervade the lonely ocean far

As sail hath been unfurled;

For dancers in the festive hall

What ghastly partners hath your call

Fetched from the shadowy world.