And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "to my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled,

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,

"I grow bolder and still more bold.

The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth,
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,
Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm.

I feed on whom I fed.

"Aye, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, "Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

L

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.

See, it smiles as it is sleeping.
Mocking your untimely weeping.

II.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,

So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year : — be calm and mild,

Trembling hours, she will arise

With new love within her eyes.

IV.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave.
And April weeps - but, O, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

TO NIGHT.

I.

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!

II.

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;

Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,

Touching all with thine opiate wand

Come, long sought!

To trike Deat came and ced
Modis for me?

Tay sweet dild Sleep, the Simp-eyed

Mummed Tee a noon-tide bee,

Stall I beste bear thy side?

Wolds for me?- And I replied,
No, not thee!

T.

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Seep will come when thou art filed;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,

Come soon, soon !

TO EMILIA VIVIANI.

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet basil and mignonette?

Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be.
Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?

For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower the very doubt endears

My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

TIME.

UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality!

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee,

Unfathomable Sea?