DELIA

He looks from the mountain-chain

Toward the seas, that cleave in twain

The continents; his hand

Points southward o'er the land

Of Roumili! O Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

And the words break from his lips:
"I am the builder of ships,

And my ships shall sail these seas
To the Pillars of Hercules!
I say it; the White Czar,
Batyushka! Gosudar!

"The Bosphorus shall be free;
It shall make room for me;
And the gates of its water-streets
Be unbarred before my fleets.
I say it; the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

"And the Christian shall no more
Be crushed, as heretofore,
Beneath thine iron rule,
O Sultan of Istamboul!

I swear it! I the Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!"

DELIA.

123

SWEET as the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little

lives,

Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain, But never will be sung to us again,

Is thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling; it is best.

FLOWER-DE-LUCE

The poems in this division were published under the title Flower-de-Luce in 1867. The title poem was written March 20,

1866.

FLOWER-DE-LUCE.

BEAUTIFUL lily, dwelling by still rivers,

Or solitary mere,

Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers
Its waters to the weir!

Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worry
Of spindle and of loom,

And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry
And rushing of the flume.

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,

But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.

The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,
And round thee throng and run

The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,
The outlaws of the sun.

The burnished dragon-fly is thy attendant,
And tilts against the field,

And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield.

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,

Who, armed with golden rod

And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities
Hauntest the sylvan streams,
Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties
That come to us as dreams.

O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river
Linger to kiss thy feet!

O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever
The world more fair and sweet.

PALINGENESIS.

"For

In a letter dated March 20, 1859, Mr. Longfellow says: my own part, I am delighted to hear the birds again. Spring always reminds me of the Palingenesis, or re-creation, of the old alchemists, who believed that form is indestructible and that out of the ashes of a rose the rose itself could be reconstructed, - if they could only discover the great secret of Nature. It is done every spring beneath our windows and before our eyes; and is always so wonderful and so beautiful!" The poem, which was printed in the Atlantic for July, 1864, appears to have been written, or at any rate revised, just before publication.

I LAY upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea

In caverns under me,

And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,

Until the rolling meadows of amethyst

Melted away in mist.

PALINGENESIS

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
Seemed peopled with the shapes

Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
On faces seen in dreams.

A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
Stood lonely as before;

And the wild-roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
Their petals of pale red.

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists

Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume.

Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?

What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?

127

"Oh, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors,

The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,

When the swift stream of life

Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders