The first spring in the pursuing,

The first pride in the Begun,

First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is

won

Exaltations in the far light
Where some cottage only is;

Mild dejections in the starlight,

Which the sadder-hearted miss;

And the child-cheek blushing scarlet for the very shame of bliss.

I have lost the sound child-sleeping
Which the thunder could not break;
Something too of the strong leaping
Of the staglike heart awake,

Which the pale is low for keeping in the road it ought to take.

Some respect to social fictions

Has been also lost by me;

And some generous genuflexions,

Which my spirit offered free

To the pleasant old conventions of our false humanity.

All my losses did I tell you,

Ye perchance would look away,—

Ye would answer me,

"Farewell! you

Make sad company to-day,

And your tears are falling faster than the bitter words you say."

For God placed me like a dial
In the open ground with power,
And my heart had for its trial

All the sun and all the shower:

And I suffered many losses,-and my first was of the

bower.

Laugh you? If that loss of mine be
Of no heavy-seeming weight-

When the cone falls from the pine-tree,

The young children laugh thereat;

Yet the wind that struck it riseth, and the tempest shall be great.

One who knew me in my childhood
In the glamour and the game,

Looking on me long and mild, would

Never know me for the same.

Come, unchanging recollections, where those changes

overcame !

By this couch I weakly lie on,

While I count my memories,

Through the fingers which, still sighing,

I press closely on mine eyes,——

Clear as once beneath the sunshine, I behold the bower arise.

Springs the linden-tree as greenly,

Stroked with light adown its rind;

And the ivy-leaves serenely

Each in either intertwined;

And the rose-trees at the doorway, they have neither grown nor pined.

From those overblown faint roses

Not a leaf appeareth shed,

And that little bud discloses

Not a thorn's-breadth more of red

For the winters and the summers which have passed me

overhead.

And that music overfloweth,

Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves :

Thrush or nightingale-who knoweth ?

Fay or Faunus-who believes?

But my heart still trembles in me to the trembling of the leaves.

Is the bower lost, then? who sayeth
That the bower indeed is lost?

Hark! my spirit in it prayeth

Through the solstice and the frost,—

And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and utter

most

Till another open for me

In God's Eden-land unknown,
With an angel at the doorway,

White with gazing at His throne;

And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing-" All is lost. . . and won!"

THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE.

A KNIGHT of gallant deeds

And a young page at his side,
From the holy war in Palestine
Did slow and thoughtful ride,

As each were a palmer and told for beads

The dews of the eventide.

"O young page,” said the knight,

"A noble page art thou!

Thou fearest not to steep in blood

The curls upon thy brow;

And once in the tent, and twice in the fight.

Didst ward me a mortal blow."

"O brave knight," said the page,

"Or ere we hither came,

We talked in tent, we talked in field,
Of the bloody battle-game;

But here, below this greenwood bough,

I cannot speak the same.

"Our troop is far behind,

The woodland calm is new;

Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs,
Tread deep the shadows through;
And in my mind, some blessing kind
Is dropping with the dew.

"The woodland calm is pure—

I cannot choose but have

A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees Which in our England wave,

And of the little finches fine

Which sang there while in Palestine
The warrior hilt we drave.

"Methinks, a moment gone,

I heard my mother pray!

I heard, Sir Knight, the prayer for me
Wherein she passed away ;

And I know the heavens are leaning down
To hear what I shall say."

The page spake calm and high,
As of no mean degree;

Perhaps he felt in nature's broad,

Full heart, his own was free :

And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, Then answered smilingly

"Sir Page, I pray your grace!

Certes, I meant not so

To cross your pastoral mood, Sir Page,
With the crook of the battle-bow;
But a knight may speak of a lady's face,
I ween, in any mood or place,.

If the grasses die or grow.

"And this I meant to say--
My lady's face shall shine
As ladies' faces use, to greet
My page from Palestine ;
Or, speak she fair or prank she gay,
She is no lady of mine.

"And this I meant to fear

Her bower may suit thee ill;
For, sooth, in that same field and tent,
Thy talk was somewhat still :

And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear
Than thy tongue for my lady's will!"

Slowly and thankfully

The young page bowed his head ;
His large eyes seemed to muse a smile,
Until he blushed instead,

And no lady in her bower, pardiè,
Could blush more sudden red :

"Sir Knight, thy lady's bower to me

-

Is suited well," he said

Beati, beati mortui !

From the convent on the sea,
One mile off, or scarce so nigh,
Swells the dirge as clear and high
As if that, over brake and lea,
Bodily the wind did carry

The great altar of St. Mary,

And the fifty tapers burning o'er it,