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And now he dives into a rainbow's rivers,

In streams of gold and purple he is drowned; Shrilly the arrows of his song he shivers,

As tho' the stormy drops were turned to sound;
And now he issues thro',

He scales a cloudy tower,
Faintly, like falling dew,

His fast notes shower.

Let every wind be hushed, that I may hear
The wond'rous things he tells the world below;
Things that we dream of he is watching near,
Hopes that we never dreamed he would bestow.
Alas! the storm hath rolled

Back the gold gates again,
Or surely he had told

All heaven to men !

So the victorious Poet sings alone,

And fills with light his solitary home,

And thro' that glory sees new worlds foreshown, And hears high songs and triumphs yet to come; He waves the air of time

With thrills of golden chords,

And makes the world to climb
On linked words.

What if his hair be grey, his eyes be dim,

If wealth forsake him, and if friends be cold; Wonder unbars her thousand gates to him, Truth never fails, nor beauty waxeth old;

More than he tells, his eyes

Behold, his spirit hears,
Of grief, and joy, and sighs
'Twixt joy and tears.

Blest is the man who with the sound of song
Can charm away the heartache, and forget
The frost of penury, and the stings of wrong,
And drown the fatal whisper of regret!
Darker are the abodes

Of kings, tho' his be poor,
While fancies, like the gods,
Pass through his door.

Singing thou scalest heaven upon thy wings,
Thou liftest a glad heart into the skies;
He maketh his own sunrise while he sings,
And turns the dusty earth to Paradise ;
I see thee sail along

Far up the sunny streams,
Unseen, I hear his song,

I see his dreams.

FREDERICK TENNYSON.

FLOWER AND FRUIT.

A LITTLE child lay on its mother's knee

In shade of summer boughs; and that fond mother

Waved in one hand the flowers of a wild tree,

And a fair branch of fruitage in the other.

Longing he lay, and glancing his blue eyes
From one to other-for his will was loth

To fix its choice—he sighed his first-born sighs, Stretched out both arms, and would have clutched them both.

A grey old man peeped thro' the leaves, and blessed That lovely child-then sadly turned apart,

And, sitting down a little from the rest,

Sighed, as he murmured thus to his own heart :—

Within the violet's cup no nectar flows,

Tho' its rich breath fills the delighted air; When the ripe fruit is glistening on the boughs The lovely blossom is no longer there:

When the young sun is arming him at morn,
His beauty makes sweet rainbows in the sky;
But, when his wheels are up the zenith borne,
He hath no power for such soft magist'ry:

When the swift heart of the enchanted boy
Speaks through his downy cheeks and starry eyes,
An hour of love is worth eternal joy,

And beauty all the treasures of the wise;

But when the time-worn heart begins to bud
With leaves of truth, like the autumnal green,
No pulse of rapture stirs the drowsy blood,

Scarce stirring with the pulses that have been.

Ah me! in what immortal hour of time,
Under what star, in what enchanted weather,
In what new Eden, in what fairy clime,

Nature, shall thy perfections meet together?

When youthful hearts, rejoicing in their May,
Shall bide in cheerful faith the unborn hour,
And the wise spirit not regret the day

That brings the fruit, but takes away the flower?

When Hope and Love, so lavish of delight,

Shall laugh and sing, yet crown their early years With those rare buds, more odorous than bright, And that wise spirit, now the growth of tears ?

Ah! vexed Life, there is no other wand

But Death's cold finger-take him for thy friend; He leadeth Truth and Beauty hand in hand,

He brings thee Youth and Knowledge without end. FREDERICK TENNYSON.

I

THE HONEYSUCKLE.

PLUCKED a honeysuckle where

The hedge on high is quick with thorn,

And climbing for the prize, was torn,

And fouled my feet in quag water;

And by the thorns and by the wind

The blossom that I took was thinn'd,

And yet I found it sweet and fair.

Thence to a richer growth I came,
Where, nursed in mellow intercourse,
The honeysuckles sprang by scores,
Not harried like my single stem,

All virgin lamps of scent and dew.
So from my hand that first I threw,
Yet plucked not any more of them.

SYMBOLS.

DANTE G. ROSSETTI.

I

WATCHED a rosebud very long,

Brought on by dew and sun and shower, Waiting to see the perfect flower.

Then, when I thought it should be strong,
It opened at the matin hour

And fell at evensong.

I watched a nest from day to day,
A green nest full of pleasant shade,
Wherein three speckled eggs were laid :
But when they should have hatched in May
The two old birds had grown afraid
Or tired, and flew away.

Then, in my wrath, I broke the bough
That I had tended so with care,
Hoping its scent should fill the air :
I crushed the eggs, not heeding how
Their ancient promise had been fair;
I would have vengeance now.

E

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