That tessellate the unseen, unthought star,-
To be the thing that now I feebly dream,
Flashing within my faintest, deepest gleam.

Ah! caverns of my soul! how thick your shade,
Where flows that life by which I faintly see:-
Wave your bright torches, for I need your aid,
Golden-eyed demons of my ancestry!

Your son though blinded hath a light within,
A heavenly fire which ye from suns did win.

And, lady, in thy hope my life will rise
Like the air-voyager, till I upbear
These heavy curtains of my filmy eyes
Into a lighter, more celestial air:

A mortal's hope shall bear me safely on,
Till I the higher region shall have won.

O Time! O Death! I clasp you in my arms,
For I can soothe an infinite cold sorrow,
And gaze contented on your icy charms
And that wild snow-pile which we call to-morrow;
Sweep on, O soft and azure-lidded sky,
Earth's waters to your gentle gaze reply.

I am not earth-born, though I here delay;
Hope's child, I summon infiniter powers,
And laugh to see the mild and sunny day
Smile on the shrunk and thin autumnal hours;
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me,—
If my bark sinks, 'tis to another sea.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891)
She Came and Went

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;-
I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome's measureless content,
So my soul held that moment's heaven;-
I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps

The orchards full of bloom and scent,

So clove her May my wintry sleeps;-
I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays;-
I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
And life's last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
Only to think she came and went.

From "The Vision of Sir Launfal"

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world and she to her nest,In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

From "The Biglow Papers"

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS

Guvener B. is a sensible man;

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;
But John P.
Robinson he

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

My aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?

We can't never choose him o' course,-thet's flat; Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:

He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,He's ben true to one party,-an' thet is himself ;— So John P. Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;

He don't vally princerple morn'n an old cud;
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?
So John P.
Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village,
With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint,
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint;
But John P.
Robinson he

Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.

The side of our country must ollers be took,
An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country.
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry;
An' John P.
Robinson he

Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;
Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, faw, fum;
An thet all this big talk of our destinies

Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez it aint no sech thing; an', of course, so must we.

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P. Robinson he

Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.

Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us

The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!

From "Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration" JULY 21, 1865

Weak-winged is song,

I

Nor aims at that clear-ethered height
Whither the brave deed climbs for light:
We seem to do them wrong,

Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,
Our trivial song to honor those who come
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,
Live-battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire:
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,
A gracious memory to buoy up and save
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave
Of the unventurous throng.

II

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome,
And offered their fresh lives to make it good:
No lore of Greece or Rome,

No science peddling with the names of things,
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates,

Can lift our life with wings

Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits And lengthen out our dates

With that clear fame whose memory sings

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates : Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!

Not such the trumpet-call

Of thy diviner mood,

That could thy sons entice

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,
Into War's tumult rude;

But rather far that stern device

The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood
In the dim, unventured wood,

The VERITAS that lurks beneath
The letter's unprolific sheath,

Life of whate'er makes life worth living,
Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,
One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.