again on the horizon’s rim,
Take back the vision and the sweet emotion,
Oh lovely Cadiz! bride so fair and dim!
Drained is the cup thou filled’st me to the brim,
And dropped within the bluest wave of Ocean!
Rome
The sun had set, the city gates were passed,
Up swelled the mighty dome;
The dream of childhood had come true at last,
We were in Rome!
The fountains trembled in their light and shade,
The pale new moon was dropping down the sky,
The pillars of the stately colonnade
Seemed to be marching by.
And Rome lay all before us in its glory,
Its glory and its beautiful decay,
But, like the student in the oft-read story,
I could have turned away,
To the still chamber with its half-closed shutter,
Where the beloved father lay in pain,
To sit beside him in contentment utter,
Never to part again.
The Grace of Keats
But one rude stone for him whose song
Revived the Grecian’s plastic ease,
Till men and maidens danced along
In youth perpetual on his frieze!
Where lies that mould of senses fine
Men knew as Keats awhile ago,
We cannot trace a single sign
Of all that made his joy below.
There are no trees to talk of him
Who knew their hushes and their swells,
Where myriad leaves in forest dim
Build up their cloudy citadels.
No mystic-signaled passion-flowers
Spread their flat discs, while buds more fair
Swing like great bells, in frail green towers,
To toll away the summer air.
O Mother Earth! thy sides he bound
With far-off Venus’ warmer zone,
With statelier sons thy landscape crowned,
Whose chiming voices matched thine own!
O Mother Earth, what hast thou brought
This tender frame that loved thee well?
Harsh grass and weeds alone are wrought
On his low grave’s uneven swell.
Avignon
The July day grew to a close, the fret of travel passed,
The cool and moonlit court-yard of the inn was gained at last,
Where oleanders greeted us between their stately ranks,
As pink and proud as if they grew on native Indian banks:
Seen from our chamber-window’s ledge, they looked more strangely fair,
Like blossomed baskets, lightly poised upon the summer air.
When came the sultry morning sun, I did not care to go
On dusty roads, but stayed to see my oleanders glow
Within their shadowy oasis;—the pilgrimage was long
To Petrarch’s home; hot alien winds dried up his dewy song;—
Though Laura’s cheek, with centuries sweet, still blushes at his call,
Her blush was not so bright as yours, my oleanders tall!
And fiercer grew the summer day, while in the court below,
The white-capped peasant-women kept moving to and fro,
With little laughs, and endless talks, whose murmur rose to me
Like the spring-chats of careless birds from blossomed apple-tree;
And, hearing it, I blessed the choice that kept me there that day,
With my stately oleanders keeping all the world at bay.
The masonry of Nismes was lost, but still I could not sigh,
For Roman work looks sad when we have bidden Rome goodbye;
Prison and castle of the Pope stood close upon the hill,
But of castle and of prison my soul had had its fill;—
I knew that blood-stains, old and dark, clung to the inner wall,
And blessed the lovely, living bloom of oleanders tall.
Thou pleasant, pleasant court-yard, I make to thee a crown
Of gems from Murray’s casket, then shut the red lid down,
Contented if I still may keep, beneath a sky of blue,
The tender treasure of the day when first my spirit knew
Thy quiet, and thy shadow, and thy bird-like gossip, all
Enclosed within that sunset wreath of oleanders tall.
Rouen, Place de la Pucelle
Here blooms the legend, fed by Time and Chance,
Fresh as the morning, though with centuries old,
The whitest lily on the shield of France,
With heart of virgin gold.
Along the square she moved, sweet Joan of Arc,
With face more pallid than a daylit star,
Half-seen, half-doubted, while before her dark
Stretched the array of war.
Swift passed the battle-smoke of lying breath
From off her path, as if a wind had blown,
Showing no faithless King, but righteous Death,
On the low wooden throne.
He would reward her: she who meekly wore
Alike the gilded mail and peasant gown,
As meekly now received one honor more,
The formless, fiery crown.
A white dove trembled up the heated air,
And in the opening zenith found its goal;
Soft as a downward feather, dropped a prayer
For each repentant soul.
The Sick-Room
A spirit is treading the earth,
As wind treads the vibrating string;
I know thy feet so beautiful,
Thy punctual feet, O Spring!
They slide from far-off mountains,
As slides the untouched snow;
They move over deepening meadows,
As vague cloud-shadows blow.
Thou wilt not enter the chamber,
The door stands open in vain;
Thou art pluming the wands of cherry
To lattice the window pane.
Thou flushest the sunken orchard
With the lift of thy rosy wing;
The peach will not part with her sunrise
Though great noon-bells should ring.
O life, and light, and gladness,
Tumultuous everywhere!
O pain and benumbing sadness,
That brood in the heavy air!
Here the fire alone is busy,
And wastes, like the fever’s heat,
The wood that enshrined past summers,
Past summers as bounteous as fleet.
The beautiful hanging gardens
That rocked in the morning wind,
And sheltered a dream of Faery,
And life so timid and kind,
The shady choir of the bobolink,
The race-course of squirrels gay—
They are changed into trembling smoke-wreaths,
And a heap of ashes gray.
An Opium Fantasy
Soft hangs the opiate in the brain,
And lulling soothes the edge of pain,
Till harshest sound, far off or near,
Sings floating in its mellow sphere.
What wakes me from my heavy dream?
Or am I still asleep?
Those long and soft vibrations seem
A slumberous charm to keep.
The graceful play, a moment stopped,
Distance again unrolls,
Like silver balls, that, softly dropped,
Ring into golden bowls.
I question of the poppies red,
The fairy flaunting band,
While I a weed, with drooping head,
Within their phalanx stand.
“Some airy
