Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,

His conquered Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass;
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways;
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind; of waters blue,

That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap; and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with

thee;

The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long;

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

To Althea-From Prison

317

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

T

TO LUCASTA.

James Russell Lowell.

ELL me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie

Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.

True, a new mistresse now I chase-
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you, too, should adore;

I could not love thee, deare, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

Richard Lovelace.

TO ALTHEA-FROM PRISON.

HEN Love, with unconfinèd wings,

W" Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair

And fettered to her eye

The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,

When health and draughts go free-
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be-
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free-
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Richard Lovelace.

The Song of the Chattahoochee 319

THE SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE.

UT of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,

*

I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,

The rushes cried Abide, Abide,
The wilful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurels turned my tide,

The ferns and the fondling grass said, Stay.
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed, Abide, Abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,

Here in the valleys of Hall.

High o'er the hills of Habersham,

Veiling the valleys of Hall,

The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,

* From "Poems of Sidney Lanier." Copyright 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier, and published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.

And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,

The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone

-Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,

Ruby, garnet, and amethyst—

Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call-

Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,

And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.

Sidney Lanier.

O, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD.

WHY should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.