Who scarcely darest to inquire, "What is it makes me beat so low?"

Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross.

All night below the darken'd eyes; With morning wakes the will, and cries, "Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."

V.

I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

VI.

ONE writes, that " Other friends remain,”
That "Loss is common to the race
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common ! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe'er thou be,

Who pledgest now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draught be done, Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor, while thy head is bow'd,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought
At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;

Expecting still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
With wishes, thinking, here to-day,
Or here to-morrow will he come.

O somewhere, meek unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!

For now her father's chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;

And thinking "this will please him best,

She takes a riband or a rose;

For he will see them on to-night;

And with the thought her color burns;

And, having left the glass, she turns

Once more to set a ringlet right;

And, even when she turn'd, the curse

Had fallen, and her future Lord

Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,

Or kill'd in falling from his horse.

O what to her shall be the end?

And what to me remains of good?

To her, perpetual maidenhood,

And unto me no second friend.

VII.

DARK house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,

Doors, where my heart was used to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away

The noise of life begins again,

-

And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.

VIII.

A HAPPY lover who has come

To look on her that loves him well, Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home;

He saddens, all the magic light

Dies off at once from bower and hall, And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight:

So find I every pleasant spot

In which we two were wont to meet,
The field, the chamber and the street,

For all is dark where thou art not.

Yet as that other, wandering there

In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster'd up with care;

So seems it in my deep regret,

O my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet.

But since it pleased a vanish'd eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
That if it can it there may bloom,
Or dying, there at least may die.

IX.

FAIR ship, that from the Italian shore

Sailest the placid ocean-plains

With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.

So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favorable speed

Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead
Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn.

All night no ruder air perplex

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
As our pure love, thro' early light

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.

Sphere all your lights around, above;

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,

My friend, the brother of my love;

My Arthur, whom I shall not see

Till all my widow'd race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me.

X.

I HEAR the noise about thy keel;

I hear the bell struck in the night;
I see the cabin-window bright;

I see the sailor at the wheel.

Thou bringest the sailor to his wife,

And travell❜d men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;

And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life.

So bring him: we have idle dreams:
This look of quiet flatters thus
Our home-bred fancies: O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems

To rest beneath the clover sod,

That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains

The chalice of the grapes of God;

Than if with thee the roaring wells

Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; And hands so often clasp'd in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells.

XI.

CALM is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,

And only thro' the faded leaf

The chestnut pattering to the ground:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers

That twinkle into green and gold:

Calm and still light on yon great plain

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,

To mingle with the bounding main:

Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,

If any calm, a calm despair:

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,

And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.

XII.

Lo, as a dove when up she springs

To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe,

Some dolorous message knit below

The wild pulsation of her wings;

Like her I go; I cannot stay

I leave this mortal ark behind,

A weight of nerves without a mind, And leave the cliffs, and haste away

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large,

And reach the glow of southern skies,