Poems, third period | Page 6

the tourney was sought by the knight.
Though the aspect of life
was now dreary and wild,
Yet love remained ever both lovely and
mild.
An altar of holiness, free from all stain,
The Muses in silence
upreared;
And all that was noble and worthy, again
In woman's
chaste bosom appeared;
The bright flame of song was soon kindled
anew
By the minstrel's soft lays, and his love pure and true.
And so, in a gentle and ne'er-changing band,
Let woman and minstrel
unite;
They weave and they fashion, with hand joined to hand, The
girdle of beauty and right.
When love blends with music, in unison
sweet,
The lustre of life's youthful days ne'er can fleet.
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT.
The clouds fast gather,
The forest-oaks roar--
A maiden is sitting

Beside the green shore,--
The billows are breaking with might, with

might,
And she sighs aloud in the darkling night,
Her eyelid heavy
with weeping.
"My heart's dead within me,
The world is a void;
To the wish it
gives nothing,
Each hope is destroyed.
I have tasted the fulness of
bliss below
I have lived, I have loved,--Thy child, oh take now,

Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!"
"In vain is thy sorrow,
In vain thy tears fall,
For the dead from their
slumbers
They ne'er can recall;
Yet if aught can pour comfort and
balm in thy heart,
Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can
impart,
Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!"
"Though in vain is my sorrow,
Though in vain my tears fall,--

Though the dead from their slumbers
They ne'er can recall,
Yet no
balm is so sweet to the desolate heart,
When love its soft pleasures no
more can impart,
As the torments that love leaves behind it!"
TO MY FRIENDS.
Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present,
none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if
ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth
would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this
highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.

We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the
right.
Brighter zones, my friends, no doubt excel
This, the land wherein
we're doomed to dwell,
As the hardy travellers proclaim;
But if
Nature has denied us much,
Art is yet responsive to our touch,
And
our hearts can kindle at her flame.
If the laurel will not flourish here--

If the myrtle is cold winter's prey,
Yet the vine, to crown us, year
by year,
Still puts forth its foliage gay.

Of a busier life 'tis well to speak,
Where four worlds their wealth to
barter seek,
On the world's great market, Thames' broad stream;

Ships in thousands go there and depart--
There are seen the costliest
works of art,
And the earth-god, Mammon, reigns supreme
But the
sun his image only graves
On the silent streamlet's level plain,
Not
upon the torrent's muddy waves,
Swollen by the heavy rain.
Far more blessed than we, in northern states
Dwells the beggar at the
angel-gates,
For he sees the peerless city--Rome!
Beauty's glorious
charms around him lie,
And, a second heaven, up toward the sky

Mounts St. Peter's proud and wondrous dome.
But, with all the
charms that splendor grants,
Rome is but the tomb of ages past;

Life but smiles upon the blooming plants
That the seasons round her
cast.
Greater actions elsewhere may be rife
Than with us, in our contracted
life--
But beneath the sun there's naught that's new;
Yet we see the
great of every age
Pass before us on the world's wide stage

Thoughtfully and calmly in review
All. in life repeats itself forever,

Young for ay is phantasy alone;
What has happened
nowhere,--happened never,--
That has never older grown!
PUNCH SONG.
Four elements, joined in
Harmonious strife,
Shadow the world forth,

And typify life.
Into the goblet
The lemon's juice pour;
Acid is ever
Life's
innermost core.
Now, with the sugar's
All-softening juice,
The strength of the acid

So burning reduce.
The bright sparkling water
Now pour in the bowl;
Water all-gently

Encircles the whole.

Let drops of the spirit
To join them now flow;
Life to the living

Naught else can bestow.
Drain it off quickly
Before it exhales;
Save when 'tis glowing,

The draught naught avails.
NADOWESSIAN DEATH-LAMENT.
See, he sitteth on his mat
Sitteth there upright,
With the grace with
which he sat
While he saw the light.
Where is now the sturdy gripe,--
Where the breath sedate,
That so
lately whiffed the pipe
Toward the Spirit great?
Where the bright and falcon eye,
That the reindeer's tread
On the
waving grass could spy,
Thick with dewdrops spread?
Where the limbs that used to dart
Swifter through the snow
Than
the twenty-membered hart,
Than the mountain roe?
Where the arm that sturdily
Bent the deadly bow?
See, its life hath
fleeted by,--
See, it hangeth low!
Happy he!--He now has gone
Where no snow is found:
Where with
maize the fields are sown,
Self-sprung from the ground;
Where with birds each bush is filled,
Where with game the wood;

Where the fish, with joy unstilled,
Wanton in the flood.
With the spirits blest he feeds,--
Leaves us here in gloom;
We can
only praise his deeds,
And his corpse entomb.
Farewell-gifts, then, hither bring,
Sound the death-note sad!
Bury
with him everything
That can make him glad!
'Neath his head the hatchet hide
That he boldly swung;
And the

bear's fat haunch beside,
For