Thou art the brightest-but the last!
And if this trust, this love is vain-
If thou, all peerless as thou art,

Be not less fair than true of heart

My loves are o'er! The sun will shine Upon no grave so hush'd as this dark breast of mine.

SPIRIT-WHISPERS.

(Spirit-whisper in the poet's ear-MORNING.)

WAKE! poet, wake!-the morn has burst
Through gates of stars and dew,

And, wing'd by prayer since evening nursed,
Has fled to kiss the steeples first,

And now stoops low to you!

Oh, poet of the loving eye,

For you is dress'd this morning sky!

(Second whisper-NOON.)

Oh, poet of the pen enchanted!

A lady sits beneath a tree!

At last, the flood for which she panted-
The wild words for her anguish wanted,

Have gush'd in song from thee!
Her dark curls sweep her knees to pray
"God bless the poet far away!"

(Third whisper-MIDNIGHT.)

King of the heart's deep mysteries!

Your words have wings like lightning wove! This hour, o'er hills and distant seas,

They fly like flower-seeds on the breeze,
And sow the world with love!
King of a realm without a throne,
Ruled by resistless tears alone!

TO M, FROM ABROAD.

"The desire of the moth for the star-
Of the night for the morrow-
The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow."

SHELLEY.

"L'alma, quel che non ha, sogna e figura."

METASTASIO.

As, gazing on the Pleiades,

We count each fair and starry one,
Yet wander from the light of these
To muse upon the Pleiad gone
As, bending o'er fresh-gather'd flowers,
The rose's most enchanting hue
Reminds us but of other hours

Whose roses were all lovely too

So, dearest, when I rove among

The bright ones of this foreign sky,
And mark the smile, and list the song,
And watch the dancers gliding by,
The fairer still they seem to be,
The more it stirs a thought of thee!

The sad, sweet bells of twilight chime,
Of many hearts may touch but one,
And so this seeming careless rhyme
Will whisper to thy heart alone.
I give it to the winds! The bird,

Let loose, to his far nest will flee,
And love, though breathed but on a word,
Will find thee over land and sea.

Though clouds across the sky have driven,
We trust the star at last will shine,
And like the very light of heaven

I trust thy love. Trust thou in mine!

SUNRISE THOUGHTS AT THE CLOSE OF A BALL.

MORN in the East! How coldly fair
It breaks upon my fever'd eye!
How chides the calm and dewy air!

How chides the pure and pearly sky!

The stars melt in a brighter fire—

The dew, in sunshine, leaves the flowersThey, from their watch, in light retire, While we, in sadness, pass from ours.

I turn from the rebuking morn,—

The cold gray sky, and fading star,And listen to the harp and horn,

And see the waltzers near and farThe lamps and flowers are bright as yet, And lips beneath more bright than they,How can a scene so fair beget

The mournful thoughts we bear away!

'Tis something that thou art not here,
Sweet lover of my lightest word!
'Tis something that my mother's tear
By these forgetful hours is stirr'd!

But I have long a loiterer been

In haunts where Joy is said to be,
And though with Peace I enter in,
The nymph comes never forth with me!

TO A FACE BELOVED

THE music of the waken'd lyre

Dies not upon the quivering strings,

Nor burns alone the minstrel's fire
Upon the lip that trembling sings;
Nor shines the moon in heaven unseen,

Nor shuts the flower its fragrant cells,
Nor sleeps the fountain's wealth, I ween,
Forever in its sparry wells-

The spells of the enchanter lie

Not on his own lone heart-his own rapt ear and eye.

I look upon a face as fair

As ever made a lip of heaven

Falter amid its music-prayer!

The first-lit star of summer even
Springs not so softly on the eye,

Nor grows, with watching, half so bright,
Nor 'mid its sisters of the sky,

So seems of heaven the dearest light

Men murmur, where that face is seen,

My youth's angelic dream was of that look and mien.

Yet though we deem the stars are blest,

And envy, in our grief, the flower

That bears but sweetness in its breast,
And fear th' enchanter for his power,

And love the minstrel for the spell

He winds out of his lyre so well

The stars are almoners of light,
The lyrist of melodious air,

The fountain of its waters bright,
And every thing most sweet and fair