A little hint to solace woe,

A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know." Like an Æolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes: Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet

voice?" I cried.

"A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove,
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the grass for
flowers.

I wonder'd, while I paced along:
The woods were fill'd so full with song,
There seem'd no room for sense of
wrong.

So variously seem'd all things wrought,
I marvell'd how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, 6.
Rejoice! re-
joice!"

THE DAY DREAM.

PROLOGUE.

O LADY FLORA, let me speak:
A pleasant hour has past away
While, dreaming on your damask
cheek,

The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,

I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last

Across my faney, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past,

And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had,

And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it Turn your face,

Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place,

And order'd words asunder fly.

THE SLEEPING PALACE.

I.

THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;

And learn the world, and sleep again, To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth

In divers seasons, divers climes; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times. II,

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep

Thro' sunny decades new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads would we reap The lower and quintessence of change.

III.

Ah, yet would I-and would I might! So much your eyes my fancy takeBe still the first to leap to light

That I right kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right, or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song,

Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

IV.

For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden burst
In carol, every bud to flower,
What eyes, like thine, have waken'd
hopes?

What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?

Where on the double rosebud droops
The fulness of the pensive mind:
Which all too dearly self-involved,
Yet sleeps a dreainless sleep to me;
A sleep by kisses undissolved,

That lets thee neither hear nor see: But break it. In the name of wife, And in the rights that name may give,

Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,
And that for which I care to live.

EPILOGUE.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, "What wonder, if he thinks me fair?"

What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light?

Or old-world trains, upheld at court By Cupid-boys of blooming hue- But take it-earnest wed with sport, And either sacred unto you.

AMPHION.

My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree,
And waster than a warren:

Yet say the neighbors when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all

That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion !

And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!
'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove

He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oaks began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down

Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.
The linden broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
And down the middle buzz! she went
With all her bees behind her;
The poplars, in long order due,"
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.

('ame wet-shot alder from the wave, ('ame yews, a dismal coterie; Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,

Poussetting with a sloe-tree: Old elms came breaking from the vine, The vine stream'd out to follow, And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine From many a cloudy hollow. And wasn't it a sight to see,

When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended; And shepherds from the mountain

eaves

Look'd down, half-pleased, halffrighten'd,

As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!
Oh! nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;

So youthful and so flexile then,
You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle ! shake the
twigs!

And make her dance attendance, Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,

And scirrhous roots and tendons.
'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle;
The very sparrows in the hedge

Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading;
O Lord! 'tis in my neighbour's
ground,

The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises,

And Works on Gardening thro there,

And Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there.
The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbors clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.
But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
The spindlings look unhappy.
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed

Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil,
And years of cultivation,
Upon my proper patch of soil

To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom:
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

ST. AGNES' EVE.
DEEP on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapor goes:
May my soul follow soon!

The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,

Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord:

Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soil'd and

dark,

To yonder shining ground;
As this pale taper's earthly spark,
To yonder argent round;

So shows my soul before the Lamb,
My spirit before Thee;

So in mine earthly house I am,
To that I hope to be.

Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,

Thro' all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment white and clean.
He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strews her lights below,
And deepens on and up! the gates
Roll back, and far within
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom
waits,

To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,
One sabbath deep and wide
A light upon the shining sea-
The Bridegroom with his bride!

SIR GALA HAD.

My good blade carves the casques of

men,

My tough lance thrusteth sure. My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,

The horse and rider reel:

They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall! For them I battle till the end,

To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:

I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and
thril;

So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims.
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair.

Fair gleams the snowy altar cloth,

The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark ;

I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.

A gentle sound, and awful light!
Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,

The cock crows ere the Christmas
morn,

The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and
mail:

But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

I leave the plain, I climb the height:
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields
A maiden knight--to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;

I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

I muse on you that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odors haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armor that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and
eyes.

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony

Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
"(just and faithful knight of God !
Ride on the prize is near."

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.