Unto the prescience of instinctive love
Some humbler prophecy of joy disclose ?

Cold vestal of the leafy convent cell,

The traitor days have thy calm trust betrayed;

The sea wind boldly parts thy shining leaves

To let the angel in. Be not afraid !

The gold-winged sun, divinely penetrant, The pure annunciation of the morn Breathes o'er thy chastity, and to thy soul The tender thrill of motherhood is borne.

Set wide the glory of thy perfect bloom! Call every wind to share thy scented breaths!

No life is brief that doth perfection win. To-day is thine - to-morrow thou art death's!

OF ONE WHO SEEMED TO HAVE FAILED

DEATH's but one more to-morrow. Thou art gray

With many a death of many a yesterday. O yearning heart that lacked the athlete's force

And, stumbling, fell upon the beaten course, And looked, and saw with ever glazing eyes Some lower soul that seemed to win the prize!

Lo, Death, the just, who comes to all alike, Life's sorry scales of right anew shall strike.

Forth, through the night, on unknown shores to win

The peace of God unstirred by sense of sin!
There love without desire shall, like a mist
At evening precious to the drooping flower,
Possess thy soul in ownership, and kissed
By viewless lips, whose touch shall be a
dower

Of genius and of winged serenity,
Thou shalt abide in realms of poesy.
There soul hath touch of soul, and there

the great

Cast wide to welcome thee joy's golden gate.

Freeborn to untold thoughts that age on age Caressed sweet singers in their sacred

sleep,

As if, with Uriel's crown,

I stood in some great temple of the Sun, And looked, as Uriel, down!)

Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green

With all the common gifts of God.
For temperate airs and torrid sheen
Weave Edens of the sod;

Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold

Broad rivers wind their devious ways;
A hundred isles in their embraces fold
A hundred luminous bays;

And through yon purple haze
Vast mountains lift their plumëd peaks
cloud-crowned;

And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps,

An unhewn forest girds them grandly round,

In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps! Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze

Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth! Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays

Above it, as to light a favorite hearth!
Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the
West

See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!

And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast

Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers!

Bear witness with me in my song of praise, And tell the world that, since the world began,

No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
Or given a home to man.

But these are charms already widely blown!
His be the meed whose pencil's trace
Hath touched our very swamps with grace,
And round whose tuneful way
All Southern laurels bloom;

The Poet of "The Woodlands," unto whom
Alike are known

The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone,

And the soft west wind's sighs;
But who shall utter all the debt,
O Land wherein all powers are met
That bind a people's heart,

The world doth owe thee at this day,

And which it never can repay,

Yet scarcely deigns to own!
Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing
The source wherefrom doth spring
That mighty commerce which, confined
To the mean channels of no selfish mart,
Goes out to every shore

Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships

That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands;

Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; And gladdening rich and poor,

Doth gild Parisian domes,

Or feed the cottage - smoke of English homes,

And only bounds its blessings by mankind!
In offices like these, thy mission lies,
My Country! and it shall not end

As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend In blue above thee; though thy foes be hard

And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark; make thee great

In white and bloodless state;
And haply, as the years increase
Still working through its humbler reach
With that large wisdom which the ages

teach

Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace!

As men who labor in that mine

Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed
Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead,
Hear the dull booming of the world of
brine

Above them, and a mighty muffled roar
Of winds and waters, yet toil calmly on,
And split the rock, and pile the massive ore,
Or carve a niche, or shape the arched roof;
So I, as calmly, weave my woof
Of song, chanting the days to come,
Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air
Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each
dawn

Wakes from its starry silence to the hum
Of many gathering armies. Still,

In that we sometimes hear,

Upon the Northern winds, the voice of woe Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I

know

The end must crown us, and a few brief years Dry all our tears,

I may not sing too gladly. To Thy will Resigned, O Lord! we cannot all forget That there is much even Victory must regret.

And, therefore, not too long

From the great burthen of our country's wrong

Delay our just release!
And, if it may be, save
These sacred fields of peace

From stain of patriot or of hostile blood!
Oh, help us, Lord! to roll the crimson flood
Back on its course, and, while our banners
wing

Northward, strike with us! till the Goth shall cling

To his own blasted altar-stones, and crave Mercy; and we shall grant it, and dictate The lenient future of his fate

There, where some rotting ships and crumbling quays

Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas.

Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,

Walk grave and thoughtful men, Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade

As lightly as the pen.

And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim

Over a bleeding hound, Seem each one to have caught the strength of him

Whose sword she sadly bound.

Thus girt without and garrisoned at home, Day patient following day,

Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome,

Across her tranquil bay.

Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands

And spicy Indian ports,

Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands, And summer to her courts.

But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,
The only hostile smoke

Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,

From some frail floating oak.

Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in smiles,

And with an unscathed brow, Rest in the strong arms of her palm crowned isles,

As fair and free as now?