Peace! while we shroud this man of men Let no unhallowed word be spoken! He will not answer thee again, His mouth is sealed, his wand is broken. Some holier cause, some vaster trust Beyond the veil, he doth inherit: O gently, Earth, receive his dust, And Heaven soothe his troubled spirit! December 3, 1872. LATER POEMS. LATER POEMS. THE SONGSTER. A MIDSUMMER CAROL. I. Within our summer hermitage I have an aviary,— ’Tis but a little, rustic cage, That holds a golden-winged Canary,— A bird with no companion of his kind. But when the warm south-wind Blows, from rathe meadows, over The honey-scented clover, I hang him in the porch, that he may hear The voices of the bobolink and thrush, The robin’s joyous gush, The bluebird’s warble, and the tunes of all Glad matin songsters in the fields anear. Then, as the blithe responses vary, And rise anew, and fall, In every hush He answers them again, With his own wild, reliant strain, As if he breathed the air of sweet Canary. II. Bird, bird of the golden wing, Thou lithe, melodious thing! Where hast thy music found? What fantasies of vale and vine, Of glades where orchids intertwine, Of palm-trees, garlanded and crowned, And forests flooded deep with sound,— What high imagining Hath made this carol thine? By what instinct art thou bound To all rare harmonies that be In those green islands of the sea, Where thy radiant, wildwood kin Their madrigals at morn begin, Above the rainbow and the roar Of the long billow from the Afric shore? Asking other guerdon None, than Heaven’s light, Holding thy crested head aright, Thy melody’s sweet burden Thou dost proudly utter, With many an ecstatic flutter And ruffle of thy tawny throat For each delicious note. —Art thou a waif from Paradise, In some fine moment wrought By an artist of the skies, Thou winged, cherubic Thought? Bird of the amber beak, Bird of the golden wing! Thy dower is thy carolling; Thou hast not far to seek Thy bread, nor needest wine To make thine utterance divine; Thou art canopied and clothed And unto Song betrothed! In thy lone aërial cage Thou hast thine ancient heritage; There is no task-work on thee laid But to rehearse the ditties thou hast made; Thou hast a lordly store, And, though thou scatterest them free, Art richer than before, Holding in fee The glad domain of minstrelsy. III.