That morn when men to one another said “Browning is dead in Venice,” ere the thrill Of the tidings touched us, lo! our eyes beheld Strange portent flashed upon the winter sky. From hill to hill the jewel-splendid span Of the light rainbow leaped, transcendent joy, The brave bright delicate bridge, frail as a flower, Yet firm enough to bear the feet of Hope. --“Browning is dead,” they told us; but our thoughts Followed along the aerial sunbuilt arch The onward quest of that still ardent soul. Could he be holden of death, who built indeed, Flinging his lyric faith across the vast, An iris-bridge for man while words endure? DESIRE OF FAME O unapproachable glories of the night! You type not my desire: enough for me The vanished meteor’s immortality, Brief memory of a moment touched with light. ROSE-RENT Life! lordly giver and gay! I, for this manor of Time, Lightly and lovingly pay Rent with the rose of a rhyme. THE FRIGATE-GHOST Yes, you may build her again As she was when she sailed the sea; She may bear the brave old name, And the harbors hail her the same; ’Tis her semblance, it is not she! She is gone from our mortal ken. I know not how or when, But her spirit escaped away From the dock and the dull decay, From the uses of unprized age And the changes wrought of men; Like a wild sea-bird from a cage, Her soul took flight from the form To the tides that none can tame, To the restless fields of her fame, To the wet salt wind and the storm! Somewhere she ranges free, Stately, a shape of light, Revisiting leagues of sea Illumined with glorious fight. She hangs like a lucent cloud On the coast where her guns spoke loud, In the gates of the Moslem proud, Till the Crescent grew faint with fright. Exultant she bounds on the brine, Tracing the course of the race When the Æolus held her in chase, And the Belvidere and the Shannon, And the Africa, ship-o’-the-line, With another, doomed to her cannon, To be blazoned in flame at the last, When the grim sea-duel was done: God rest the souls that passed Ere the Guerrière’s leeward gun! Ere the noblest flag on the sea Came down to the Stripes and Stars! Oh, the frigate-ghost, as she ranges free, Thrills yet through her spectral spars!