CCXX.

SONNET

Written on Hearing of the Outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.

BLOW ye the trumpet, gather from afar
The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold.
Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold;
Break through your iron shackles—fling them far.
O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar

Grew to his strength among his deserts cold;
When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled

The growing murmurs of the Polish war!
Now must your noble anger blaze out more
Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,
The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before-

Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan;

Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore

Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

CCXXI.

A RECUSANT.

THE Church stands there beyond the orchard-blooms;
How yearningly I gaze upon its spire!

Lifted mysterious through the twilight glooms,
Dissolving in the sunset's golden fire,

Or dim as slender incense morn by morn
Ascending to the blue and open sky.
For ever when my heart feels most forlorn
It murmurs to me with a weary sigh,
How sweet to enter in, to kneel and pray
With all the others whom we love so well!
All disbelief and doubt might pass away,
All peace float to us with its Sabbath bell.
Conscience replies, There is but one good rest,
Whose head is pillowed upon Truth's pure breast.

CCXXII.

FORGETFULNESS.

I ASK one boon of heaven; I have indeed,
And I will tell it thankfully, filled high,
Nor ruffled, as I drank it, with a sigh,
The cup of joy; to love has been my meed,
And to be loved-and ofttimes could I read

In others' hearts with mine a sympathy:
But joy and love beam on us but to die
And foster memory, most bitter weed.
And this has been my bane, to fling behind

One look into the west, where day dwells yet,
Then turn me shivering to the cold night wind
And dream of joys and loves that long have set:
'Tis for this sleepless viper of the mind

I ask one boon of heaven-to forget.

CCXXIII.

TO A BIRD

That Haunted the Waters of Laken, in the Winter.

O MELANCHOLY bird !-a winter's day
Thou standest by the margin of the pool,

And taught by God dost thy whole being school
To patience, which all evil can allay ;
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey:
And given thyself a lesson to the fool
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,

And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools nor the professor's chair,
Though these be good, true wisdom to impart ;
He who has not enough for thee to spare
Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart,
And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair :
Nature is always wise in every part.

CCXXIV.

THE HARVEST HOME.

THE crimson moon, uprising from the sea,
With large delight foretells the harvest near:
Ye shepherds, now prepare your melody
To greet the soft appearance of her sphere;
And, like a page enamoured of her train,
The star of evening glimmers in the west :
Then raise, ye shepherds, your observant strain,
That so of the Great Shepherd here are blest.

Our field are full with the time-ripened grain, Our vineyards with the purple clusters swell; Her golden splendour glimmers on the main, And vales and mountains her bright glory tell : Then sing, ye shepherds, for the time is come When we must bring the enriched harvest home.