With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-light mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne
Through dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.
A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odors haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armor that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and
Are touched, are turned to finest air.
The clouds are broken in the sky,
And through the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: "O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on the prize is near."
pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-armed I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.
SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way,
"And have you lost your heart?" she said;
“And are you married yet, Edward Gray ?
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:
Bitterly weeping I turned away :
"Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.
"Ellen Adair she loved me well,
Against her father's and mother's will:
To-day I sat for an hour and wept,
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.
"Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Filled I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.
"Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back to-day: 'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
To trouble the heart of Edward Gray
There I put my face in the
Whispered, Listen to my despair:
I repent me of all I did:
Speak a little, Ellen Adair!'
"Then I took a pencil, and wrote
On the mossy stone, as I lay,
'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
And here the heart of Edward Gray !'
"Love may come, and love may go,
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:
But I will love no more, no more,
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
"Bitterly wept I over the stone:
Bitterly weeping I turned away:
There lies the body of Ellen Adair!
And there the heart of Edward Gray!
WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.
O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:
But let it not be such as that
You set before chance-comers,
But su h whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.
No vain libation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind.
To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.
I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favored lips of mine;
Until the charm have power to make
New life-blood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break
In full and kindly blossom.
I pledge her silent at the board;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.
Through many an hour of summer suns
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs
The current of my days:
I kiss the lips I once have kissed;
The gas-light wavers dimmer;
And softly, through a vinous mist,
My college friendships glimmer.
I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,
Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men,
Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them-
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.
Ah yet, though all the world forsake,
Though fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather;
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.
Let there be thistles, there are grapes;
If old things, there are new;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
Yet glimpses of the true.
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,
We lack not rhymes and reasons,
As on this whirligig of Time
We circle with the seasons.
This earth is rich in man and maid;
With fair horizons bound:
This whole wide earth of light and shade
Comes out, a perfect round.
High over roaring Temple-bar,
And, set in Heaven's third story,
I look at all things as they are,
But through a kind of glory.
Head-waiter, honored by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,
The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But though the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?
For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
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