Now Love, and Pride, alas! in vain,
Up and down their glances strain.
The painted sled stands where it stood;
The kennel by the corded wood;
The gathered sticks to stanch the wall
Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall;
The ominous hole he dug in the sand,
And childhood's castles built or planned;
His daily haunts I well discern—
The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn-
And every inch of garden ground
Paced by the blessed feet around,
From the roadside to the brook
Whereinto he loved to look.

Step the meek birds where erst they ranged;

The wintry garden lies unchanged:
The brook into the stream runs on;
But the deep-eyed boy is gone.

On that shaded day,

Dark with more clouds than tempests are,
When thou didst yield thy innocent breath
In birdlike heavings unto death,
Night came, and Nature had not thee;
I said: "We are mates in misery."
The morrow dawned with needless glow;
Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow;
Each tramper started; but the feet

Of the most beautiful and sweet
Of human youth had left the hill

And garden- they were bound and still.
There's not a sparrow or a wren,
There's not a blade of Autumn grain,
Which the four seasons do not tend,
And tides of life and increase lend;
And every chick of every bird,

And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
Oh, ostrich-like forgetfulness!
Oh loss of larger in the less!

Was there no star that could be sent,
No watcher in the firmament,
No angel from the countless host
That loiters round the crystal coast,
Could stoop to heal that only child,
Nature's sweet marvel undefiled,
And keep the blossom of the earth,
Which all her harvests were not worth?
Not mine-I never called thee mine,
But Nature's heir-if I repine,

And seeing rashly torn and moved
Not what I made, but what I loved,
Grew early old with grief that thou
Must to the wastes of Nature go-
"Tis because a general hope

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope.
For flattering planets seemed to say
This child should ills of ages stay,
By wondrous tongue, and guided pen,
Bring the flown Muses back to men.
Perchance not he, but Nature, ailed;
The world and not the infant failed.
It was not ripe yet to sustain

A genius of so fine a strain,

Who gazed upon the sun and moon
As if he came unto his own;

And, pregnant with his grander thought,
Brought the old order into doubt.

His beauty once their beauty tried;
They could not feed him, and he died,
And wandered backward as in scorn,
To wait an æon to be born.

Ill day which made this beauty waste,
Plight broken, this high face defaced!
Some went and came about the dead;
And some in books of solace read;
Some to their friends the tidings say;
Some went to write, some went to pray;
One tarried here, there hurried one;
But their heart abode with none.
Covetous Death bereaved us all,
To aggrandize one funeral.
The eager fate which carried thee
Took the largest part of me.
For this losing is true dying;
This is lordly man's down-lying,
This his slow but sure reclining,
Star by star his world resigning.

The deep Heart answered: "Weepest thou? Worthier cause for passion wild

IfI had not taken the child.

And deemest thou as those who pore,
With aged eyes, short way before-
Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast
Of matter, and thy darling lost?
Taught he not thee-the man of eld,
Whose eyes within his eyes beheld
Heaven's numerous hierarchy span
The mystic gulf from God to man?
To be alone wilt thou begin
When worlds of lovers hem thee in?
To-morrow when the masks shall fall
That dizen Nature's carnival,

The pure shall see by their own will,
Which overflowing Love shall fill,
'Tis not within the force of Fate
The fate-conjoined to separate.
But thou, my votary, weepest thou?
I gave thee sight-where is it now?
I taught thy heart beyond the reach
Of ritual, bible, or of speech;
Wrote in thy mind's transparent table,
As far as the incommunicable;
Taught thee each private sign to raise,
Lit by the super-solar blaze.
Past utterance, and past belief,
And past the blasphemy of grief,
The mysteries of Nature's heart;
And though no muse can these impart,
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.

"I came to thee as to a friend; Dearest, to thee I did not send Tutors, but a joyful eye, Innocence that matched the sky, Lovely locks, a form of wonder, Laughter rich as woodland thunder, That thou might'st entertain apart The richest flowering of all art; And, as the great all-loving Day Through smallest chambers takes its way, That thou might'st break thy daily bread With prophet, saviour, and head; That thou might'st cherish for thine own The riches of sweet Mary's son, Boy-rabbi, Israel's paragon.

And thoughtest thou such guest
Would in thy hall take up his rest?
Would rushing life forget her laws,
Fate's glowing revolution pause?
High omens ask diviner guess,
Not to be conned to tediousness.
And know my higher gifts unbind
The zone that girds the incarnate mind.
When the scanty shores are full
With Thought's perilous, whirling pool;
When frail Nature can no more,
Then the Spirit strikes the hour:
My servant Death, with solving rite,
Pours finite into infinite.

155

"Wilt thou freeze Love's tidal flow,
Whose streams through Nature circling go?
Nail the wild star to its track
On the half-climbed zodiac?
Light is light which radiates;
Blood is blood which circulates;
Life is life which generates;
And many-seeming life is one-
Wilt thou transfix and make it none?
Its onward force too starkly pent
In figure, bone, and lineament?
Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate,
Talker! the unreplying Fate?
Nor see the genius of the whole
Ascendant in the private soul,
Beckon it when to go and come,
Self-announced its hour of doom?
Fair the soul's recess and shrine,
Magic-built to last a season;
Masterpiece of love benign;
Fairer than expansive reason,
Whose omen 'tis, and sign.

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know
What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?
Verdict which accumulates

From lengthening scroll of human fates,
Voice of earth to earth returned,
Prayers of saints that inly burned-
Saying: What is excellent,

As God lives, is permanent;

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain ;
Hearts' love will meet thee again.
Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye

Up to his style, and manners of the sky.

Not of adamant and gold
Built he heaven stark and cold;
No, but a nest of bending reeds,
Flowering grass, and scented weeds:
Or like a traveller's fleeing tent,
Or bow above the tempest bent;
Built of tears and sacred flames,
And virtue reaching to its aims;
Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
Silent rushes the swift Lord
Through ruined systems still restored,
Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless,
Plants with worlds the wilderness;
Waters with tears of ancient sorrow
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.
House and tenant go to ground,
Lost in God, in Godhead found."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Casa Wappy.*

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy -
The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death, as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our dearth,
Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,

As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee; Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight,

To bless us given;

Beauty embodied to our sight,

A type of heaven!

So dear to us thou wert, thou art Even less thine own self than a part Of mine, and of thy mother's heart, Casa Wappy!

* The self-appellative of a beloved child.

Thy bright, brief day knew no decline, 'Twas cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine,

Beloved boy!

This moon beheld thee blythe and gay; That found thee prostrate in decay; And ere a third shone, clay was clay, Casa Wappy!

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,
Earth's undefiled,

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,
Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to Fate's decree;

Yet had we hoped that Time should see
Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,
Casa Wappy!

Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;

There dost thou glide before me still,

A form of light!

I feel thy breath upon my cheek,
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak,
Till oh! my heart is like to break,
Casa Wappy!

Methinks thou smil'st before me now,

With glance of stealth;

The hair thrown back from thy full brow
In buoyant health;

I see thine eyes' deep violet light-
Thy dimpled cheek carnationed bright—
Thy clasping arms so round and white-
Casa Wappy!

The nursery shows thy pictured wall, Thy bat, thy bow,

Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball;

But where art thou?

A corner holds thine empty chair;
Thy playthings, idly scattered there,
But speak to us of our despair,
Casa Wappy!

Even to the last, thy every word,

To glad, to grieve,

Was sweet, as sweetest song of bird On Summer's eve;

For Charlie's sake I will arise;

I will anoint me where he lies,
And change my raiment, and go in
To the Lord's house, and leave my sin
Without, and seat me at his board,
Eat, and be glad, and praise the Lord.
For wherefore should I fast and weep,
And sullen moods of mourning keep?
I cannot bring him back, nor he,
For any calling, come to me.

The bond the angel Death did sign,
God sealed-for Charlie's sake, and mine.

I'm very poor-this slender stone Marks all the narrow field I own;