Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.

IN broad daylight, and at noon,
Yesterday I saw the moon

TWILIGHT.

Sailing high, but faint and white,
As a school-boy's paper kite,

In broad daylight, yesterday,
I read a Poet's mystic lay;
And it seemed to me at most
As a phantom, or a ghost.

But at length the feverish day
Like a passion died away,
And the night, serene and still,
Fell on village, vale, and hill.

Then the moon, in all her pride,
Like a spirit glorified,

Filled and overflowed the night
With revelations of her light.

And the Poet's song again

Passed like music through my brain;

Night interpreted to me

All its grace and mystery.

TWILIGHT.

THE twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

65

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness
To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother Drive the color from her cheek?

DAYBREAK.

A WIND came up out of the sea,

66

And said, “O mists make room for me.'

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, Ye mariners, the night is gone."

And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."

It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"

99

THE CITY AND THE SEA.

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near."

It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn.

It shouted through the belfry tower, "Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie.”

THE CITY AND THE SEA.

THE panting City cried to the Sea,

"I am faint with heat,

Oh breathe on me!"

67

And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath
To some will be life, to others death!"

As to Prometheus, bringing ease
In pain, come the Oceanides,1

So to the city, hot with the flame
Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.

It came from the heaving breast of the deep,
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.

1 In the classic fable Prometheus was chained to a rock for punishment, and the daughters of Ocean came to console him.

Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be ;
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?

FOUR BY THE CLOCK.1

FOUR by the clock! and yet not day;
But the great world rolls and wheels away,
With its cities on land, and its ships at sea,
Into the dawn that is to be!

Only the lamp in the anchored bark
Sends its glimmer across the dark,
And the heavy breathing of the sea
Is the only sound that comes to me.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;

1 "Nabant, September 8, 1860, four o'clock in the morning."