Peace! Let the long procession come,
For hark, the mournful, muffled drum,
The trumpet's wail afar,
And see, the awful car!

Peace! Let the sad procession go,
While cannon boom and bells toll slow.
And go, thou sacred car,
Bearing our woe afar!

Go, darkly borne, from State to State,
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait

To honor all they can
The dust of that good man.
Go, grandly borne, with such a train
As greatest kings might die to gain.

ADSUM

DECEMBER 23-24, 1863

THE Angel came by night
(Such angels still come down),
And like a winter cloud

Passed over London town;
Along its lonesome streets,
Where Want had ceased to weep,
Until it reached a house

Where a great man lay asleep;
The man of all his time

Who knew the most of men,
The soundest head and heart,
The sharpest, kindest pen.
It paused beside his bed,

And whispered in his ear;
He never turned his head,

But answered, "I am here."

Into the night they went.

At morning, side by side, They gained the sacred Place Where the greatest Dead abide. Where grand old Homer sits In godlike state benign; Where broods in endless thought The awful Florentine; Where sweet Cervantes walks, A smile on his grave face; Where gossips quaint Montaigne, The wisest of his race; Where Goethe looks through all With that calm eye of his; Where-little seen but Light The only Shakespeare is! When the new Spirit came, They asked him, drawing near, "Art thou become like us?

He answered, "I am here."

AN OLD SONG REVERSED

"THERE are gains for all our losses." So I said when I was young.

If I sang that song again,
"T would not be with that refrain,

Which but suits an idle tongue.

Youth has gone, and hope gone with it,
Gone the strong desire for fame.
Laurels are not for the old.
Take them, lads. Give Senex gold.
What's an everlasting name?

"Not under the roots of the roses, But under the luminous wings Of the King of kings

The soul of my love reposes,

With the light of morn in her eyes, Where the Vision of Life discloses Life that sleeps not nor dies."

"Under or over the skies
What is it that never dies?
Spirit-if such there be-

Whom no one hath seen nor heard,
We do not acknowledge thee;

For, spoken or written word,
Thou art but a dream, a breath;
Certain is nothing but Death!"

I saw the one I love, and heard her speak, Heard, in the listening watches of the night, The sweet words melting from her sweeter lips:

But what she said, or seemed to say, to me I have forgotten, though, till morning broke, I kept repeating her melodious words. Long, long may Jami's eyes be blest with sleep,

Like that which last night stole him from himself,

That perfect rest which, closing his tired lids, Disclosed the hidden beauty of his love, And, filling his soul with music all the while, Imposed forgetfulness, instructing him That silence is more significant of love Than all the burning words in lovers' songs!

THE FLIGHT OF THE ARROW

THE life of man
Is an arrow's flight,
Out of darkness
Into light,
And out of light
Into darkness again;
Perhaps to pleasure,
Perhaps to pain!

There must be Something,
Above, or below;
Somewhere unseen
A mighty Bow,
A Hand that tires not,
A sleepless Eye
That sees the arrows
Fly, and fly;
One who knows

Why we live and die.

THE VISION OF THE SNOW

"SHE has gone to be with the angels;"
So they had always said
To the little questioner asking

Of his fair, young mother, dead.
They had never told of the darkness

Of the sorrowful, silent tomb, Nor scared the sensitive spirit

By linking a thought of gloom

With the girl-like, beautiful being,
Who patiently from her breast,
Had laid him in baby-sweetness,
To pass to her early rest.

And when he would lisp-"Where is she?"

Missing the mother-kiss,

They answered - "Away in a country
That is lovelier far than this:-

"A land all a-shine with beauty

Too pure for our mortal sight, Where the darling ones who have left us Are walking in robes of white."

And with eagerest face he would listen, His tremulous lips apart,

Till the thought of the Beautiful Country
Haunted his yearning heart.

One morn, as he gazed from the window,
A miracle of surprise,
A marvellous, mystic vision

Dazzled his wondering eyes.

Born where the winter's harshness

Is tempered with spring-tide glow, The delicate Southern nursling

Never had seen the snow.

And clasping his childish fingers,
He turned with a flashing brow,
And cried — “ We have got to heaven -
Show me my mother now!"

THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE

"GARÇON! You - you

Snared along with this cursed crew? (Only a child, and yet so bold, Scarcely as much as ten years old!)