What great fear, should one say, "Three days

That change the world might change as well

Your fortune; and if joy delays, Be happy that no worse befell!" What small fear, if another says, "Three days and one short night beside May throw no shadow on your ways; But years must teem with change untried,

With chance not easily defied,

With an end somewhere undescried."
No fear!-or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn.

1855.

A PICTURE AT FANO

DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave

That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special minis

try,

And time come for departure, thou, suspending

Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,

Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no

more,

From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,

-And suddenly my head is covered o'er With those wings, white above the child who prays

Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding

Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know,

For I should have thy gracious face in

stead,

Thou bird of God! And wilt thou

bend me low

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands

Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,

Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,

And all lay quiet, happy and sup pressed.

you,

Yet locks you safe from end to end

Of this dark world, unless he needs you,

Just saves your light to spend ?

His clenched hand shall unclose at last, I know, and let out all the beauty: My poet holds the future fast,

Accepts the coming ages' duty, Their present for this past.

That day the earth's feast-master's brow Shall clear, to God the chalice raising; "Others give best at first, but thou

Forever set'st our table praising, Keep'st the good wine till now!"

Meantime, I 'll draw you as you stand, With few or none to watch and wonder:

I'll say-a fisher, on the sand

By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land.

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes Whereof one drop worked miracles,

And colored like Astarte's eyes Raw silk the merchant sells ?

And each bystander of them all Could criticise, and quote tradition

How depths of blue sublimed some pall -To get which, pricked a king's ambition;

Worth sceptre, crown and ball.

Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh, The sea has only just o'er-whispered! Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh,

As if they still the water's lisp heard Through foam the rock-weeds thresh. Enough to furnish Solomon

Such hangings for his cedar-house, That, when gold-robed he took the throne

In that abyss of blue, the Spouse Might swear his presence shone

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb

What time, with ardors manifold,

The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take, My hand sought hers as in earnest need,

And round she turned for my noble sake, And gave me herself indeed.

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world.

The wren is he, with his maiden face. -You look away and your lip is curled? Patience, a moment's space!

For see, my friend goes shaking and white;

He eyes me as the basilisk:

I have turned, it appears, his day to night,

Eclipsing his sun's disk.

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief: "Though I love her-that, he comprehends

One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)

And be loyal to one's friends!"

And she,--she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'T is mine,-can I let it fall?

With no mind to eat it, that's the worst! Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?

"T was quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst

When I gave its stalk a twist.

And I,-what I seem to my friend, you

see:

What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:

What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?

No hero, I confess.

T is an awkward thing to play with souls,

And matter enough to save one's own:

Than we who never have turned a rhyme?

Sing, riding's a joy. For me, I ride. And you, great sculptor-so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave, And that's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn!

You acquiesce, and shall I repine? What, man of music, you grown gray With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end!"

I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine. Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being-had I signed the bondStill one must lead some life beyond,

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.

And yet she has not spoke so long! What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned,

We, fixed so, ever should so abide? What if we still ride on, we two, With life forever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity,And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, forever ride? 1855.

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARN ING IN EUROPE

LET us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row! That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,