O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de- | Peering and gazing with insatiate looks Through blinding lenses, or in wearying books? lis, Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and YET in the darksome crypt I left so late, The bluebird, breathing from his azure Whose only altar is its rusted grate, Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent plumes The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping While the dim seasons dragged their meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. shrouded train, ing yard, And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, Why dream I here within these caging Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper walls, shone, Deaf to her voice, while blooming Na- Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling ture calls; cone. Not all unblest the mild interior scene | A mingled race, the wreck of chance When the red curtain spread its falling screen; O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, And the long evening only flew too fast; and time, Or the wide chair its leathern arms would In some quaint corner of his master's Its silver cherubs smiling as they The Aldine anchor on his opening page; There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly heard, Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower. Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, Not quite deserted when its guests were flown; Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, Ready to answer, never known to ask, Claiming no service, prompt for every task. mind, In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confined, "Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?) Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine! In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; High over all, in close, compact array, Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. In lower regions of the sacred space Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach, On those dark shelves no housewife In spectral pictures, or in crabbed hand profanes, speech; O'er his mute files the monarch folio Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, | Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, To each far listener tell a different tale. Lully and Geber, and the learned crew That loved to talk of all they could not The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor those names of Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, That many love, and all agree to Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by praise, one, Or point the titles, where a glance may Each dull concussion, till his task is read The dangerous lines of party or of creed? Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show What few may care and none can claim to know. Each has his features, whose exterior seal A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal; Go to his study, -on the nearest shelf Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. What though for months the tranquil dust descends, Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends, done. Toil's patient daughter, when the wel come note Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat, Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street, Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet ; The bell, responsive to her secret flame, With every note repeats her lover's name. The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane, Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, While the damp offspring of the modern Hears the stern accents, as they come Flaunts on my table with its pictured Their only burden one despairing No! dress; Not less I love each dull familiar face, Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known Nor less should miss it from the ap- Ere homeward breezes swept him to his pointed place; own, I snatch the book, along whose burning Starts at the echo as it circles round, leaves His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, sound; The early favorite's unforgotten charms, Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; share, My old MAGNALIA must be standing His first farewell, the flapping canvas there! THE BELLS. spread, The seaward streamers crackling over head, WHEN o'er the street the morning peal His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to From yon tall belfry with the brazen Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep, tongue, While the brave father stood with tear less eye, Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need Smiling and choking with his last good- God help thee, guarded by the passive by. T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats, With the same impulse, every nerve it meets, Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride On the round surge of that aerial tide! O child of earth! If floating sounds like these Steal from thyself their power to wound or please, If here or there thy changing will inclines, As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, Then try thy brother's, judging by thine Thy torches ready for the answering peal own, But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range, While its own standards are the sport of change, Nor count us rebels when we disobey The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway. NON-RESISTANCE. From bellowing fort and thunderfreighted keel! THE MORAL BULLY. YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, Seems of the sort that in a crowded place PERHAPS too far in these considerate One elbows freely into smallest space; days A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, Has patience carried her submissive Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip; ways; Wisdom has taught us to be calm and One of those harmless spectacled mameek, chines, To take one blow, and turn the other The Holy-Week of Protestants convenes ; Whom school-boys question if their walk cheek; It is not written what a man shall do, If the rude caitiff smite the other too! transcends The last advices of maternal friends; Whom John, obedient to his master's | And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen sign, Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, While Peter, glistening with luxurious In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, scorn, Husks his white ivories like an ear of Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast corn; Dark in the brow and bilious in the That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's cheek, chest, Whose yellowish linen flowers but once Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear a week, Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare That chase from port the maddened bucsuits, And the laced high-lows which they call Feels the same comfort while his acrid their boots words caneer, Well mayst thou shun that dingy front | Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds, severe, But him, O stranger, him thou canst not Or with grim logic prove, beyond de Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? Points to the text of universal love, To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on pa His velvet throat against thy corded Who, though he carries but a doubtful wrist, trace His loosened tongue against thy doubled Of angel visits on his hungry face, fist! pay, The MORAL BULLY, though he never Has dodged some vices in a shabby Nor kicks intruders down his entry The right to stick us with his cutthroat Though meekness plants his backward- And bait his homilies with his brother worms ? sloping hat, |