How often, hither wandering down,

My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town!

He brought an eye for all he saw;

He mixed in all our simple sports;

They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusky purlieus of the law.

O joy to him, in this retreat,
Immantled in ambrosial dark,

To drink the cooler air, and mark
The landscape winking through the heat.

O sound to rout the brood of cares,

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, The gust that round the garden flew, And tumbled half the mellowing pears !

O bliss, when all in circle drawn

About him, heart and ear were fed, To hear him, as he lay and read The Tuscan poets on the lawn;

Or in the all-golden afternoon

A guest, or happy sister, sung,

Or here she brought the harp, and flung A ballad to the brightening moon!

Nor less it pleased, in livelier moods,

Beyond the bounding hill to stray, And break the livelong summer day With banquet in the distant woods;

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, Discussed the books to love or hate

Or touched the changes of the state, Or threaded some Socratic dream.

But if I praised the busy town,

He loved to rail against it still,

For, "ground in yonder social mill,
We rub each other's angles down,

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss
The picturesque of man and man."
We talked; the stream beneath us ran,
The wine-flask lying couched in moss,

Or cooled within the glooming wave;
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave,

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,

We heard behind the woodbine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honeyed hours.

THY Converse drew us with delight,

The men of rathe and riper years; The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

The proud was half disarmed of pride;
Nor cared the serpent at thy side

To flicker with his treble tongue.

The stern were mild when thou wert by;
The flippant put himself to school

And heard thee; and the brazen fool
Was softened, and he knew not why;

While I, thy dearest, sat apart,

And felt thy triumph was as mine;

And loved them more, that they were thine, The graceful tact, the Christian art;

Not mine the sweetness or the skill,

But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will.

DEAR friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near, in woe and weal;
O, loved the most when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown, human, divine!
Sweet human hand and lips and eye,
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, forever, ever mine!

Strange friend, past, present, and to be,
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold I dream a dream of good
And mingle all the world with thee.

THY Voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.

*

What art thou, then? I cannot guess;
But though I seem in star and flower
To feel thee, some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less:

My love involves the love before;

My love is vaster passion now;

Though mixed with God and Nature thou. I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice.
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee, though I die.

THE BUGLE SONG.

'HE splendour falls on castle walls

THE

And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes-dying, dying, dying!

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, further going!
O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow! let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes-dying, dying, dying!

O love, they die in yon rich sky;

They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer-dying, dying, dying!

COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.

I.

OME into the garden, Maud

COME

For the black bat, night, has flown!

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the roses blown.

II.

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

III.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune—
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

And a hush with the setting moon.