Osca more, once more. Inarimé,

I see thy purple hills!—once more I hear the billows of the bay

Wash the white pebbles on thy shore. High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, Like a great galleon wrecked and

cast

Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,
A mouldering landmark of the Past.
Upon its terrace-walk I see

A phantom giding to and fro;
It is Colonna,-it is she

Who lived and loved so long ago, Pescara's beautiful young wife,

The type of perfect womanhood, Whose life was love, the life of life, That time and change and death withstood.

For death that breaks the marriage band

In others, only closer pressed The wedding ring upon her hand,

And closer locked and barred her
breast.

She knew the life-long martyrdom,
The weariness, the endless pain

Of waiting for some one to come

Who nevermore would come again. The shadows of the chestnut-trees, The odour of the orange blooms, The song of birds, and, more than these,

The silence of deserted rooms;
The respiration of the sea,

The soft caresses of the air,
All things in nature seemed to be
But ministers of her despair;
Till the o'erburdened heart, so long
Imprisoned in itself, found vent
And voice in one impassioned song
Of inconsolable lament.

Then as the sun, though hidden from sight,

Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, Her life was interfused with light, From realms that, though unseen, exist.

Inarimé! Inarimé!

Thy castle on the crags above In dust shall crumble and decay, But not the memory of her love.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown
about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt:
To stay at home is best.

A hawk is hovering in the sky;

To stay at home is best.

With tints that brightened and were

multiplied.

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!

Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,

Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;

Dying, to leave a memory like the breath

Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,

A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

leaves are loud

With sounds of unintelligible speech,

Sounds as of surges on a shingly

beach,

[crowd;

Or multitudinous murmurs of a

endowed,

Thou speakest a different dialect to

each;

moves round;

So slowly that no human eye hath power

To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower

The painted ship above it, homeward bound,

but seems motionless, as if aground;

Yet both arrive at last; and in his

THE ceaseless rain is falling fast,

And yonder gilded vane, Immovable for three days past, Points to the misty main. It drives me in upon myself, And to the fireside gleams, To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, And still more pleasant dreams. I read whatever bards have sung Of lands beyond the sea, And the bright days when I was young Come thronging back to me.

I fancy I can hear again

The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,

And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.
I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.
I fear no more the dust and heat,

No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet,

O'er many a lengthening league. Let others traverse sea and land,

And toil through various climes, I turn the world round with my hand, Reading these poet's rhymes. From them I learn whatever lies Beneath each changing zone, And see, when looking with their eyes, Better than with mine own.