The first spring in the pursuing,

The first pride in the Begun,—

First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what

is won

LXII.

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.

LXIII.

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.

LXIV.

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.

LXV.

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.'

LXVI.

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,

the bower.

LXVII.

and my first was of

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.

LXVIII.

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, were those changes

overcame.

LXIX.

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.

LXX.

Springs the linden-tree as greenly,
Stroked with light adown its rind;

VOL. I--10

And the ivy-leaves serenely

Each in either intertwined;

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

LXXI.

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.

LXXII.

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.

LXXIII.

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

Hark! my spirit in it prayeth

Through the sunshine and the frost,

And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost.

LXXIV.

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!

A SONG AGAINST SINGING.

TO E. J. H.

I.

THEY bid me sing to thee,

Thou golden-haired and silver-voicéd child,With lips by no worse sigh than sleep's defiled, With eyes unknowing how tears dim the sight, And feet all trembling at the new delight Treaders of earth to be!

II.

Ah no! the lark may bring

A song to thee from out the morning cloud,
The merry river from its lilies bowed,

The brisk rain from the trees, the lucky wind,
That half doth make its music, half doth find,—
But I-I may not sing.

III.

How could I think it right,

New-comer on our earth as, Sweet, thou art,
To bring a verse from out an human heart
Made heavy with accumulated tears,

And cross with such amount of weary years
Thy day-sum of delight?

IV.

Even if the verse were said,

Thou, who wouldst clap thy tiny hands to hear The wind or rain, gay bird or river clear,

Wouldst, at that sound of sad humanities,
Upturn thy bright uncomprehending eyes
And bid me play instead.

V.

Therefore no song of mine,

But prayer in place of singing; prayer that would
Commend thee to the new-creating God,
Whose gift is childhood's heart without its stain
Of weakness, ignorance, and changing vain-
That gift of God be thine!

VI.

So wilt thou aye be young,

In lovelier childhood than thy shining brow
And pretty winning accents make thee now.
Yea, sweeter than this scarce articulate sound
(How sweet!) of 'father,' 'mother,' shall be found
The ABBA on thy tongue.

VII.

And so, as years shall chase

Each other's shadows, thou wilt less resemble
Thy fellows of the earth who toil and tremble,
Than him thou seest not, thine angel bold
Yet meek, whose ever-lifted eyes behold
The Ever-loving's face.