"Thou sow'st no gold, and shalt not reap!" Muttered earth, turning in her sleep; "Come home to the Eternal Deep!" Murmured a voice, and a wide sweep Of wings through thy soul's hush did creep, As of thy doom o'erflying; It seem'd that thy strong heart would leap Out of thy breast, and thou didst weep, But not with fear of dying; Men could not fathom thy deep fears, They could not understand thy tears, The hoarded agony of years Of bitter self-denying. So once, when high above the spheres Thy spirit sought its starry peers, It came not back to face the jeers Of brothers who denied it; Star-crowned, thou dost possess the deeps Of God, and thy white body sleeps Where the lone pine forever keeps Patient watch beside it. Poet! underneath the turf, Soft thou sleepest, free from morrow, Thou hast struggled through the surf Of wild thoughts and want and sorrow. Now, beneath the moaning pine, Full of rest, thy body lieth, While far up is clear sunshine, Underneath a sky divine, Her loosed wings thy spirit trieth; Oft she strove to spread them here, But they were too white and clear For our dingy atmosphere. Thy body findeth ample room In its still and grassy tomb By the silent river; But thy spirit found the earth Narrow for the mighty birth Which it dreamed of ever; Thou wast guilty of a rhyme Learned in a benigner clime, And of that more grievous crime, An ideal too sublime For the low-hung sky of Time. The calm spot where thy body lies Gladdens thy soul in Paradise, It is so still and holy; Thy body sleeps serenely there, And well for it thy soul may care, It was so beautiful and fair, Lily white so wholly. From so pure and sweet a frame Thy spirit parted as it came, Gentle as a maiden; Now it lieth full of rest-- Sods are lighter on its breast Than the great, prophetic guest Wherewith it was laden. FANCIES ABOUT A ROSEBUD, PRESSED IN AN OLD COPY OF SPENSER. Who prest you here? The Past can tell, When summer skies were bright above, And some full heart did leap and swell Beneath the white new moon of love. Some Poet, haply, when the world Showed like a calm sea, grand and blue, Ere its cold, inky waves had curled O'er the numb heart once warm and true; When, with his soul brimful of morn, He looked beyond the vale of Time, Nor saw therein the dullard scorn That made his heavenliness a crime; When, musing o'er the Poets olden, His soul did like a sun upstart To shoot its arrows, clear and golden, Through slavery's cold and darksome heart. Alas! too soon the veil is lifted That hangs between the soul and pain, Too soon the morning-red hath drifted Into dull cloud, or fallen in rain!