Part 25 (1/2)

Not silent! no, the radiant stars Still singing as they s.h.i.+ne, Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, Have voices sweet as thine.

Wake, then, in happier realms above, The songs of bygone years, Till angels learn those airs of love That ravished mortal ears!

AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS

”Purpureos spargam flores.”

THE wreath that star-crowned Sh.e.l.ley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets; Though all the G.o.ds their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower.

Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring?

The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow.

No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The gra.s.s has quenched my white-rayed gem, The flowering ”Star of Bethlehem,”

Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen.

Nature, who treads her n.o.bles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings.

Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place.

When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through, I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew.

Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame The sweet, dead poet's holy name; The G.o.d of music gave thee birth, Called from the crimson-spotted earth, Where, sobbing his young life away, His own fair Hyacinthus lay.

The hyacinth my garden gave Shall lie upon that Roman grave!

AFTER A LECTURE ON Sh.e.l.lEY

ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee!

Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, And torches flaring in the weedy caves, Where'er the waters lay with icy hands The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; The coa.r.s.e, dark women, with their hanging locks, And lean, wild children gather from the sh.o.r.e To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, ”One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!”

Till Ocean, clas.h.i.+ng in his jointed mail, Raised the pale burden on his level s.h.i.+eld.

Slow from the sh.o.r.e the sullen waves retire; His form a n.o.bler element shall claim; Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.