I.

GENOA.

WHERE Genoa spreads white arms crescent-wise,
Her feet o'er well-packed bale and polished spar
Step on the quay with men of every star.
Her heart stays with her people; but her eyes
From those high garden-terraces devise

New realms of peaceful conquest, where afar
Ocean's white horses at the harbour bar
Wait ever for their rider to arise.

Here boy Columbus stood, and o'er the blue
Immeasurable fields imagined new.

Here young Mazzini, while for men he yearned,
Another world within their eyes discerned-

The one Republic without place or date.

So both for men lived,―and died execrate.

II.

BEETHOVEN.

BETWIXT the actual and unseen, alone,
Companionless, deaf, in dread solitude

Of soul amid the faithless multitude,

He lived, and fought with life, and held his own; Knew poverty, and shame which is not shown,

Pride, doubt, and secret heart-despair of good,— Insolent praise of men and petty feud;

Yet fell not from his purpose, framed and known.

For, as a lonely watcher of the night,

When all men sleep, sees the tumultuous stars Move forward from the deep in squadrons bright, And notes them, he through this life's prison bars Heard all night long the spheric music clear Beat on his heart,—and lived that men might hear.

III.

IN MORTEM F. D. MAURICE.

So day by day my life, thus nearer drawn
Down the dark avenues unto the dawn,
Cries to Thee: O Lord, Lord of life and death,
Whom from our gaze the sad night sundereth,
Reveal Thyself; be unto us no more

A darkly felt thick darkness by the shore ;
But like the wind, that wingeth cold and clear
Before the dawn by meadow-land and mere,
Blow on us; scatter from our sickly brains
The feverish fancies that ill conscience feigns;
Raise us to stand like men to meet the strife,
Fearless and grand, because within thy life
Our lives are hidden,—as is his to-day,
Thy servant who from sight hath passed away.

April 1872.

IV.

WILLIAM SMITH

(AUTHOR OF THORNDALE,' ETC.)

SUCH courage in so sensitive a frame
Had given the world rebuke, but that it came
In such light exquisite companionship
Of gentle glance and laughter-loving lip
That few, beholding, could forebode the force
Wherewith that inward current kept its course
In wave-like large emotion, calm and free,
Towards Truth, the high compelling deity.

So when, obedient to the heavenly guide,
Night-long the sea with stedfast-flowing tide
Rises along the land and searches o'er
Each bay and inlet of its bounding shore,
The moving goddess doth her empire trace
In lines of silver laughter on its face.