LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. The highest use of happy love is this; To make us loving to the loveless ones; Willing indeed to halve our meed of bliss, If our sweet plenty others' want atones: Of love's abundance may God give thee store, To spend in love's sweet charities, LENORE. LOVE'S FOOTSTEPS. I sang a song of olden times, Sitting upon our sacred hill-- Sang it to feel my bosom thrill To the sweet pathos of its rhymes. I trilled the music o'er and o'er, And happy, gazed upon the scene, Thinking that there had never been So blue a sea, so fair a shore. A vague half dream was in my mind; I hardly saw how sat the sun; I noted not the day was gone The rosy western hills behind. 'Till, soft as if Apollo blew For me the sweet Thessalian flute, I heard a sound which made me mute, And more than singing thrilled me through. THY STEP--well known and well beloved! No more I dreamed on shore or sea; I thought of, saw but only thee, Nor spoke, but blushed to be so moved. THE POET'S MINISTERS. POET. Oh, my soul! the draught is bitter Yet it must be sweetly drunken: Heart and soul! the grinding fetter Galls, yet have ye never shrunken: Heart and soul, and pining spirit, Fail me not! no coward weakness Such as ye are should inherit-- Be ye strong even in your meekness. Born were ye to these strange uses, To brief joy and crushing ill, To small good and great abuses; Yet oh, yield not, till they kill. The stag wounded runneth steady With his blood in streams a-gushing; Soul and spirit, be ye ready For the arrows toward ye rushing. SPIRIT OF THE FLOWERS. Now what ails our gentle friend? In his eye a meaning double, Sorrow and defiance blend-- Let us soothe him of his trouble. Poet! do not pass us by: See how we are robed to meet you; Heed you not our perfumed sigh? Heed you not how sweet we greet you? Ever since the breath of morn We have waited for your coming, Fearing when the bee's dull horn Round our quiet bower was humming: We have kept our sweets for thee-- Poet, do not pass us by: Place us on thy breast, for see! By the sunset we must die. SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN STREAM. Bathe thy pale face in the flood Which overflows this crystal fountain, Then to rouse thy sluggish blood, Seek its source far up the mountain. Note thou how the stream doth sing Its soft carol, low and light, To the jagged rocks that fling Mildew shadows, black and blight. Learn a lesson from the stream, Poet! though thy path may lie Hid forever from the gleam Of the blue and sunny sky,-- Though thy way be steep and long, Sing thou still a cheerful song!