And the squirrel leaps adown,
Holding fast the filbert brown;
And the lark, with more of mirth
In his song than suits the earth,
Droppeth some in soaring high,
To pour the rest out in the sky:
While the woodland doves, apart
In the copse's leafy heart,
Solitary, not ascetic,
Hidden and yet vocal seem
Joining in a lovely psalm,
Man's despondence Nature's calm,
Half mystical and half pathetic,
Like a sighing in a dream.

All these sounds the river telleth,
Softened to an undertone
Which ever and anon he swelleth
By a burden of his own,

In the ocean's ear.
Ay! and ocean seems to hear
With an inward gentle scorn,
Smiling to his caverns worn.

II.

Hearken, hearken!

The child is shouting at his play
Just in the tramping funeral's way:
The widow moans as she turns aside
To shun the face of the blushing bride,
While, shaking the tower of the ancient
church,

The marriage-bells do swing:
And in the shadow of the porch

An idiot sits, with his lean hands full
Of hedgerow flowers and a poet's skull,
Laughing loud and gibbering,
Because it is so brown a thing,
While he sticketh the gaudy poppies red
In and out the senseless head
Where all sweet fancies grew instead.
And you may hear, at the self-same time,
Another poet who reads his rhyme,
Low as a brook in summer air, -
Save when he droppeth his voice adown,
To dream of the amaranthine crown
His mortal brow shall wear.

And a baby cries with a feeble sound
'Neath the weary weight of the life
new-found;

And an old man groans, - with his

testament

spent:

And lovers twain do softly say, As they sit on a grave, "for aye, for aye!"

And foemen twain, while Earth their mother

Looks greenly upward, curse each other.
A school-boy drones his task, with looks
Cast over the page to the elm-tree rooks.
A lonely student cries aloud
Eureka! clasping at his shroud;
A beldame's age-cracked voice doth sin
To a little infant slumbering:
A maid forgotten weeps alone,
Muffling her sobs on the trysting stone;
A sick man wakes at his own mouth's
wail;

A gossip coughs in her thrice-told tale;
A muttering gamester shakes the dice;
A reaper foretells good luck from the
skies;

A monarch vows as he lifts his hand to them;

A patriot leaving his native land to them,
Cries to the world against perjured state;
A priest disserts upon linen skirts;
A sinner screams for one hope more;
A dancer's feet do palpitate

A piper's music out on the floor;
And nigh to the awful Dead, the living
Low speech and stealthy steps are
giving,

Because he cannot hear;

And he who on that narrow bier

Has room enow, is closely wound

In a silence piercing more than sound.

III.

Hearken, hearken!
God speaketh to thy soul;
Using the supreme voice which doth
confound

All life with consciousness of Deity,
All senses into one;

As the seer-saint of Patmos, loving Johr,
For whom did backward roll
The cloud-gate of the future, turned to

see

The Voice which spake. It speaketh

now

Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast

And are wanting a great song for
Italy free,

Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said.

But this woman, this, who is agonized here,

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head

Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at? Oh vain!

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast

With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?

Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed,

And I proud, by that test.

What art's for a woman? to hold on her knees

Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat

Cling, strangle a little! to sew by degrees,

And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat!

To dream and to dote.

To teach them . . . It stings there. I made them indeed

Speak plain the word "country." I taught them, no doubt, That a country's a thing men should die for at need.

I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant turned out.

And when their eyes flashed . . . O my beautiful eyes!

I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels

Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise,

When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels ! -God! how the house feels!

'Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say,

But have no tune to charm away

Sad dreams that through the eyelid creep,

But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber when
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!

O delved gold the wailers' heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God makes a silence through you all,
"And giveth His beloved sleep.”

His dew drops mutely on the hill;
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men toil and

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;

The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And, thick and loud, the swinking crowd

at every stroke pant "ho!" Leap out, leap out, my masters! leap out, and lay on load!

Let's forge a goodly anchorthick and broad;

-a bower

For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode;

And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road

The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the main-mast by the board;

The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners - the bower yet remains!

And not an inch to flinch he deigns

save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing- here am I!"

Swing in your strokes in order! let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime.

But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be,

The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we!

Strike in, strike in!-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red;