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FLOWERS.

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;

Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth,-these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,

Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part

Of the self-same universal being

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gaily in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

These in flowers and men are more than seeming;
Workings are they of the self-same powers,
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,

Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;
Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,

And in Summer's green emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield;
Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,

On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant,

In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

I HAVE read, in some old marvellous | I have read, in the marvellous heart of tale,

Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,

No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But, when the old cathedral bell

Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmed air.

Down the broad valley fast and far

The troubled army fied:
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

man,

That strange and mystic scroll,

That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,

Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.
And, when the solemn and deep church.
bell

Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.

MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR.

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And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers ;-
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain!

There he stands in the foul weather,
The foolish, fond Old Year,

Crowned with wild flowers and with beat her,

Like weak, despised Lear,

A king, -a king!

Then comes the summer-like day,

Bids the old man rejoice!

His joy! his last! Oh, the old man gray Loveth that ever-soft voice,

Gentle and low.

To the crimson woods he saith,

To the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath,
"Pray do not mock me so !
Do not laugh at me!"

And now the sweet day is dead!
Cold in his arms it lies;

No stain from its breath is spread
Over the glassy skies,

No mist or stain!

Then, too, the Old Year dieta,

And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
In the wilderness alone,
"Vex not his ghost!"

Then comes, with an awful roar,
Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
The wind Euroclydon,

The storm-wind!

Howl! howl! and from the forest
Sweep the red leaves away!
Would the sins that thou abhorest,
O Soul! could thus decay,
And be swept away!

For there shall come a mightier blast,
There shall be a darker day;

And the stars, from heaven down-cast, Like red leaves be swept away!

Kyrie, eleyson! Christe, eleyson !

L'ENVOI.

Iz voices, that arose

After the Evening's close,

Go, mingle yet once more With the perpetual roar

And whispered to my restless heart Of the pine forest, dark and hoar!

repose!

Go, breathe it in the ear

Of all who doubt and fear,

Tongues of the dead, not lost, But speaking from death's frost, Like fiery tongues at Pentecost !

And say to them, "Be of good cheer!" Glimmer, as funeral lamps,

Ye scands, so low and calm,

That in the groves of balm

Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!

Amid the chills and damps

Of the vast plain where Death encamps!

Ballads.

THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR.

PREFATORY NOTE

THE following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, for 1838-9, says,

"There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or AnteGothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the twelfth century; that style which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics, called the round-arch style, the same which in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture.

"On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern architecture will concur, THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. This remark applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the alterations that it subsequently received; for there are several such alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern times to various uses, for example, as the substructure of a windmill, and latterly as a hay magazine. To the same times may be referred the windows, the fireplace, and the apertures made above the columns. That this building could not have been erected for a windmill is what an architect will easily discern."

I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well established for the purpose of a ballad, though doubtless many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho," Goá bless me! did I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was nothing but a windmill? and nobody could mistake it but one who had the like in his head."

"SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armour drest,

Comest to daunt me !
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
Ana, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe

From the heart's chamber

"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse!
For this I sought thee.

"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,

Tamed the ger-falcon ;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.

"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew

With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led ;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.

"Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long Winter out;
Often our midnight shout

Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,

Filled to o'erflowing.

"Once, as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,

Burning, yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine

Fell their soft splendour.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade

Our vows were plighted.

Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.

"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrel stand
To hear my story.

"While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft

The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.

"She was a Prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!

Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?

"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,—
Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen !—
When on the white-sea strand,
Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.
"Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,

When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw

Laugh as he hailed us.

"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
Death! was the helmsman's hail,
Death without quarter !
Mid-ships with iron-keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water.

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