O little hearts! that throb and beat With such impatient feverish heat, Such limitless and strong desires; 15 Mine that so long has glowed and burned With passions into ashes turned, Now covers and conceals its fires. O little souls! as pure and white And crystalline as rays of light 20 Direct from Heaven, their source divine; Refracted through the mist of years, How red my setting sun appears, How lurid looks this soul of mine! _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow._ CCLXXXIV _SONG._ ‘O lady, thy lover is dead,’ they cried; ‘He is dead, but hath slain the foe; He hath left his name to be magnified In a song of wonder and woe.’ ‘Alas! I am well repaid,’ said she, 5 ‘With a pain that stings like joy; For I feared, from his tenderness to me, That he was but a feeble boy. ‘Now I shall hold my head on high, The queen among my kind. 10 If ye hear a sound, ’tis only a sigh For a glory left behind.’ _George MacDonald._ CCLXXXV _SONNET._ A hundred wings are dropt as soft as one; Now ye are lighted--lovely to my sight The fearful circle of your gentle flight, Rapid and mute, and drawing homeward soon: And then the sober chiding of your tone, 5 As ye sit there from your own roofs arraigning My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done, Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining! O happy, happy race! for though there clings A feeble fear about your timid clan, 10 Yet are ye blest! with not a thought that brings Disquietude, while proud and sorrowing man, An eagle weary of his mighty wings, With anxious inquest fills his little span. _Charles Tennyson._ CCLXXXVI _SONNET._ The Ocean at the bidding of the Moon For ever changes with his restless tide: Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon With kingly pauses of reluctant pride, And semblance of return. Anon from home 5 He issues forth anew, high-ridged and free-- The gentlest murmur of his seething foam Like armies whispering where great echoes be. O leave me here upon this beach to rove, Mute listener to that sound so grand and lone; 10 A glorious sound, deep drawn, and strongly thrown, And reaching those on mountain heights above, To British ears, (as who shall scorn to own?) A tutelar fond voice, a saviour tone of love. _Charles Tennyson._ CCLXXXVII _ALMOND BLOSSOM._