There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing

Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing;

And his failures arise (though he seem not to know it)

160

From the very same cause that has made him a poet,

A fervor of mind which knows no separation

'Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration,

As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowing

If 't were I or mere wind through her tripod was blowing;

Let his mind once get head in its favorite direction

And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection,

While, borne with the rush of the metre along,

The poet may chance to go right or go wrong,

Content with the whirl and delirium of

To its deeps within deeps by the stroke of Beethoven;

But, set that aside, and 't is truth that I speak,

Had Theocritus written in English, not Greek,

I believe that his exquisite sense would scarce change a line

In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral
Evangeline.
That's not ancient nor modern, its place
is apart

Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art,

'T is a shrine of retreat from Earth's hubbub and strife

As quiet and chaste as the author's own life.

The loath gate swings with rusty creak;
Once, parting there, we played at pain;
There came a parting, when the weak
And fading lips essayed to speak
Vainly,-"Auf wiedersehen!"

Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,
Though thou in outer dark remain;
One sweet sad voice ennobles death,
And still, for eighteen centuries saith
Softly,-"Auf wiedersehen!"

If earth another grave must bear,
Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain,
And something whispers my despair,
That, from an orient chamber there,
Floats down, "Auf Wiedersehen!"

20

Putnam's Monthly, Dec., 1854.

INVITA MINERVA

The Bardling came where by a river grew The pennoned reeds, that, as the westwind blew,

Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew

What music slept enchanted in each stem, Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,

And with wise lips enlife it through and through.