TO L. M. S

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning,-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night,-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun,—of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope-for life-ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth-in Virtue-in Humanity,-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallow'd bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes,-
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship,-oh, remember
The truest-the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by him,

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

His spirit is communing with an angel's.

ROMANCE.

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet

Hath been a most familiar bird,-
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child-with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years

So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares

Through gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings Its down upon my spirit flings

That little time with lyre and rhyme To while away-forbidden things! My heart would feel to be a crime, Unless it trembled with the strings.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.

Thy soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone: Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secresy.

Be silent in that solitude

Which is not loneliness,- for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again

In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.

The night, though clear, shall frown,—
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given:
But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee forever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,— Now are visions ne'er to vanish:

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more-like dewdrops from the grass.

The breeze-the breath of God-is still;
And the mist upon the hill

Shadowy - shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token,—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

ΤΟ

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see

The wantonest singing birds,

Are lips—and all thy melody

Of lip-begotten words.

Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrin'd,

Then desolately fall,

Oh, God! on my funereal mind

Like starlight on a pall.

Thy heart-thy heart—I wake and sigh,

And sleep to dream till day

Of the truth that gold can never buy-Of the baubles that it may.

A DREAM.

In visions of the dark night
I have dream'd of joy departed;
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah, what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream—that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What tho' that light, thro' storm and night. So trembled from afar,

What could there be more purely bright In Truth's Cay star?