Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, May stormless stars control thy horoscope; In keel and hull, in every spar and rope, Be night and day to thy dear office true! Ocean, men’s path and their divider too, No fairer shrine of memory and hope To the underworld adown thy westering slope E’er vanished, or whom such regrets pursue: Smooth all thy surges as when Jove to Crete Swam with less costly burthen, and prepare A pathway meet for her home-coming soon With golden undulations such as greet The printless summer-sandals of the moon And tempt the Nautilus his cruise to dare! TO WHITTIER ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. New England’s poet, rich in love as years, Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks Thy steps allure us, which the wood-thrush hears As maids their lovers', and no treason fears; Through thee her Merrimacs and Agiochooks And many a name uncouth win gracious looks, Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears: Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, The lily’s anchorage, which no eyes behold Save those of stars, yet for thy brother’s sake That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as bold As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, Far heard across the New World and the Old. ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H. G. WILD. Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall The sunset stays: that hill in glory rolled, Those trees and clouds in crimson and in gold, Burn on, nor cool when evening’s shadows fall. Not round _these_ splendors Midnight wraps her pall; _These_ leaves the flush of Autumn’s vintage hold In Winter’s spite, nor can the Northwind bold Deface my chapel’s western window small: On one, ah me! October struck his frost, But not repaid him with those Tyrian hues; His naked boughs but tell him what is lost, And parting comforts of the sun refuse: His heaven is bare,--ah, were its hollow crost Even with a cloud whose light were yet to lose! _April, 1854._ TO MISS D. T. ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF LITTLE STREET ARABS. As, cleansed of Tiber’s and Oblivion’s slime, Glow Farnesina’s vaults with shapes again That dreamed some exiled artist from his pain Back to his Athens and the Muse’s clime, So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime, Purged by Art’s absolution from the stain Of the polluting city-flood, regain Ideal grace secure from taint of time. An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song; For as with words the poet paints, for you The happy pencil at its labor sings, Stealing his privilege, nor does him wrong, Beneath the false discovering the true, And Beauty’s best in unregarded things. WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE.