English

III

On she came, that joyous creature,
Sunlight laughing from each feature,
Glorious Summer ! her bright eyes
Glowing forth from galaxies
Of flowers her crowned head enwreathing.
The rich life of roses breathing
From her lips entranced the heart:
Then the King forgot coy Spring
With her wreaths unblossoming;
For the Enchantress held a wand
That made time and life forgot,
Till he asked no heaven beyond
His life with her own inwrought,
Of herself the immortal part;
Taintless of earth's base alloy,

I

The Old Year on his couch was laid
Like an aged King forsaken,
In his need by those betrayed
Who had loved him and obeyed.
They had fled, alas! and left
That Old Man to pine away,
Of his state and strength bereft;
Fallen from him like leaves shaken
From the oak in winter's day,
When the birds their flight have taken
To realms of a brighter ray,
When the breeze no answers waken
From its branches seared and grey.

II

S PRING had loved him in his youth;

XXII

A form all changed, the storm and wreck escaped, with weeds defaced;
Who walks with thoughtful steps and slow along the evening waste,
On life's strand standing lonely, like the exiled ghost of yore,
Sighing in vain his soul toward lost youth's delicious shore.

XXIII

Yet what art thou, so changed, but child of that departed youth?
Now knowing good and evil in the knowledge-fruit of truth;
Then slave to passionate impulse, thou, and error; now sublime

XV

I closed my eyes to fix the living vision I had raised;
Faces that were familiar lights again upon me gazed;
I heard their words, dream-music, by wind wakened, when it flings
Its spirit-thrilling touches on the harp's electric strings.

XVI

The thistle that waved by me broke that dream of shadows; I
Alone stood on the heath before the wind and open sky:
The past receded, cloud-like, o'er youth's far horizon seen;
I stood within the present, and yearned back to what had been.

XVII

VIII

All stirring impresses of life were sobered by the scene,
While staid reflection looked within the glass of what had been,
For not a mound I trod on was forgotten now, or tree
Rose in that surging scene whose image had not entered me;

IX

Then when material Nature, mother-like, embraced her child;
Then when each impulse flowed like hers, fresh, free, and undefiled;
I stood, the Man, returned; the breeze that o'er my forehead blew
Was welcomed as a blessing which that wild boy never knew!

X

I

I KNELT down as I poured my spirit forth by that grey gate,
In fulness of my gratitude and with a joy sedate;
I stood on that wild heath alone, and offered up apart
The frankincense of love that, fountain-like, gushed from my heart.

II

And while I breathed that orison, and felt a holy glow
Pervade my inmost being with its calm and equal flow;
While the sun shone within me, and the air elastic played,
And to and fro the wheat-field like the wavy ocean swayed;

III

May is dancing into light
As the Spanish Admiral,
From a dream of phantom fight,
Wakens at his sentry's call.
Shall he leave Cavite's lee,
Hunt the Yankee fleet at sea?

O Montojo, to thy deck,
That to-day shall float its last!
Quick! To quarters! Yonder speck
Grows a hull of portent vast.
Hither, toward Cavite's lee
Comes the Yankee hunting thee!

Not for fear of hidden mine

'T WAS the very verge of May
When the bold Olympia led
Into Boca Grande gray
Dewey's squadron, dark and dread —
Creeping past Corregidor,
Guardian of Manila's shore.

Do they sleep who wait the fray?
Is the moon so dazzling bright
That our cruisers' battle-gray
Melts into the misty light?
Ah! the rockets flash and soar!
Wakes at last Corregidor!

All too late their screaming shell

I walked within the waves' chill breath,
Enfolded as with veils of death;
The bearded mists that deepening grew,
As foam-flakes on their eddies flew.
Before me the Moon's sinking face
Glowed like a fireless altar-place;
White vapours ghost-like flitted by,
Hurriedly catching the ray cast
Sicklily from her livid eye.
I dared not look behind; I felt
The ground was hallowed where I trod;
That I the limits had o'er-passed
Of life, and entered on the sod
Where Kings pre-Adamite had dwelt.

I looked where late the Altar shone;
But the warrior-Kings were gone.
Each Shape had resumed his throne;
But the life had heavenward flown
Forth from each impassive stone.
I rose, and stole forth from the church,
And passed through that ancient porch,
Thoughtful, wrapt, and silently;
Like one who turns with restless eye
From some disturbing mystery;
A presence he durst not control,
That hath entered in his soul.
I paced toward the hoary Sea;
Beneath the stars the sheeted waves