Now no more in tuneful motion
Life with love and duty glides ;
Reason's meteor-lighted ocean
Bears us down its mazy tides;
Head is clear and hand is strong,
But our heart no haven knows;
Sun of Truth! the night is long,—
Let thy radiance interpose !

GHOSTS.

WHY wilt Thou ever thus before me stand,
Thou ghostly Past?

Always between me and the happy land
Thy shade is cast.

Thou art no midnight phantom of remorse,
That I would lay :-

My life has run a plain unnoted course,
In open day.

I would enjoy the Present, I would live
Like one new-born :

I value not the gifts Thou hast to give-
Knowledge and Scorn.

I would, for some short moments, cease to judge

Reckon-compare:

And this small bliss Thou wilt persist to grudge,

Still haunting there.

Thou makest all things heavy with regrets;

Too late-too soon:

My mind is like a sun that ever sets,
And knows no noon :

I am become the very fool of time,—
The world for me

Has no sure test of innocence or crime;
All things may be :

For every notion that has filled my

Leaves such a trace

That every instant it may rise again
And claim its place.

brain

Faces and fancies I have cursed or cherished Throng round my head;

In vain I call on thee to leave the perishedTo hide the dead.

Confused and tossed on this ideal sea,

I hardly keep

A sense of weak and maimed identity,
More than in sleep:

Save when the Future wins my yearning gaze,

That shore where still

Imagination resolutely stays

The tide of ill.

SHADOWS.

I.

THEY owned their passion without shame or fear,
And every household duty counted less

Than that one spiritual bond, and men severe
Said they should sorrow for their wilfulness.

And truth the world went ill with them: he knew That he had broken up her maiden life,

Where only pleasures and affections grew,

And sowed it thick with labour, pain, and strife.

What her unpractised weakness was to her
The presence of her suffering was to him;
Thus at Love's feast did Misery minister,
And fill their cups together to the brim.

They asked their kind for hope, but there was none,
Till Death came by and gave them that and more;
Then men lamented,—but the earth rolls on,
And lovers love and perish as before.

II.

They seemed to those who saw them meet

The worldly friends of every day,

Her smile was undisturbed and sweet,

His courtesy was free and gay.

But yet if one the other's name
In some unguarded moment heard,

The heart, you thought so calm and tame,
Would struggle like a captured bird :

And letters of mere formal phrase
Were blistered with repeated tears,—
And this was not the work of days,
But had gone on for years and years!

Alas, that Love was not too strong
For maiden shame and manly pride!
Alas, that they delayed so long
The goal of mutual bliss beside.

Yet what no chance could then reveal,
And neither would be first to own,
Let fate and courage now conceal,
When truth could bring remorse alone.

III.

Beneath an Indian palm a girl

Of other blood reposes,

Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl,

Amid that wild of roses.

Beside a northern pine a boy

Is leaning fancy-bound,

Nor listens where with noisy joy

Awaits the impatient hound.

Cool grows the sick and feverish calm,—
Relaxed the frosty twine,-

The pine-tree dreameth of the palm,
The palm-tree of the pine.

As soon shall nature interlace
Those dimly-visioned boughs,

As these young lovers face to face
Renew their early vows!

IV.

She had left all on earth for him,
Her home of wealth, her name of pride,
And now his lamp of love was dim,
And, sad to tell, she had not died.

She watched the crimson sun's decline, From some lone rock that fronts the sea,"I would, O burning heart of mine, There were an ocean-rest for thee.

"The thoughtful moon awaits her turn,
The stars compose their choral crown,
But those soft lights can never burn,
Till once the fiery sun is down."

-

V.

I had a home wherein the weariest feet

Found sure repose;

And Hope led on laborious day to meet Delightful close!