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TO HELEN.

I saw thee once-once only-years ago:
I must not say how many-but not many.
It was a July midnight: and from out

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery silken veil of light,

With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe,—
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death,--
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturned faces of the roses,

And on thine own, upturned,―alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!-oh, God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me! I paused-I looked-
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

The pearly luster of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths—
The happy flowers and the repining trees-
Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
Died in the arms of the adoring air.

All-all expired save thee-save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes
Savo but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.

I saw but them-they were the world to me:
I saw but them-saw only them for hours

Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

How daring an ambition! yet how deep-
How fathomless a capacity for love!

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.
They would not go,-they never yet have gone.

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.
They follow me-they lead me through the years—
They are my ministers-yet I their slave.

Their office is to illumine and enkindle
My duty to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,

And sanctified in their elysian fire.

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven-the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still-two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

ΤΟ

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,

Maintained "the power of words,"-denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain

Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:

And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables-
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew

That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”— Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart, Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought, Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel

(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures")
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
I can not write-I can not speak or think—
Alas, I can not feel; for 'tis not feeling,
This standing motionless upon the golden
Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
Upon the left, and all the way along,
Amid unpurpled vapors, far away,

To where the prospect terminates-thee only.

A VALENTINE.

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes, Brightly expressive of the twins of Lœda,

3 Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly the lines!-they hold a treasure * Divine,—a talisman—an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure
The words-the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a saber,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lies perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets, as the name is a poet's, toɔ.
Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto-Mendez Ferdinando-Still form a synonym for Truth.-Cease trying! You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

[To translate the address, read the first letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth, and so on to the end. The name will thus appear.]

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