O'erblown by Southland airs, The summer landscape basks in utter peace: In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen; Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze, With shifting shade and sheen. Hark! and you may not hear A sound less soothing than the rustle cool Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool, Chafed by a single stone. What vague, delicious dreams, Born of this golden hour of afternoon, And air balm-freighted, fill the soul with bliss, Transpierced like yonder clouds with lustrous gleams, Fantastic, brief as they, and, like them, spun Of gilded nothingness! All things are well with her. 'T is good to be alive, to see the light That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh With perfect pleasure) the mild breezes stir Among the garden roses, red and white, With whiffs of fragrancy. There is no troublous thought, No painful memory, no grave regret, To mar the sweet suggestions of the hour: The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without, Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget The morning's transient shower. PHANTASIES. (After Robert Schumann). I. Evening. Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west-- No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud. The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed, And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream, Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed, And traileth with the splendors of a dream Athwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes! Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam, The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies. But look again, and lo, the evening star! Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise, The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far, And from the heavens fine influences fall. Familiar things stand not for what they are: What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall The spirit is alert to apprehend, Imparting somewhat of herself to all. Labor and thought and care are at an end: The soul is filled with gracious reveries, And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend; For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies In this weird-lighted air--the monotone Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries, A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds. The apparition of yon star alone Breaks on the sense like music. Beyond word The peace that floods the soul, for night is here, And Beauty still is guide and harbinger. II. Aspiration.