its sport;

167

I cannot spare the luxury of believing That all things beautiful are what they

seem,

Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing

Would, like the Patriarch's, soothe a dying hour;

With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing,

As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower;

With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil;

With motions graceful as a bird's in air,

Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That e'er clenched fingers in a captive's hair!

That in thy breast there springs a poison fountain,

Deadlier than that where bathes the
Upas-tree;

And in thy wrath, a nursing cat-o'mountain

Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee!

thy speeches,

The secret of their mastery,-they are short.

I sailed with storm upon the deep,
I shouted to the eagle soaring;
I hung me from the rocky steep
When all but spirits were asleep,
To feel the winds about me sweep,
And hear the gallant waters roaring:
For every sound and shape of strife
To me was as the breath of life.
But I am strangely altered now:
I love no more the bugle's voice,
The rushing wave, the plunging prow,
The mountain with its clouded brow,
The thunder when the blue skies bow
And all the sons of God rejoice.

I love to dream of tears and sighs,
And shadowy hair, and half-shut eyes!

Some are away,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guileless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in, and thinned our little band;
Some like a night-flash passed away,
And some sank lingering day by day;

And cruel ocean has his share.

We're not all here.

We are all here!

Even they, the dead,-though dead, so dear,

Fond memory, to her duty true, Brings back their faded forms to view.

And fykes for them are flitting;
But fears and cares, baith grit and sma',
We by and by o'er-pit them a';
But death there 's nae o'er-pitting.

And nature's ties are hard to break, When thus they maun be broken;