They came, for that last look, around his pyre. One strewed white roses, on whose leaves were hung Her tears, like dew; and in discreet attire Warbled her tuneful sorrow. Next among The group, a fair-haired virgin moved serenely, Whose saintly heart no vain repinings wrung, Reached the calm dust, and there, composed and queenly, Gazed, but the missal trembled in her hand: “That’s with the past,” she said, “nor may I meanly Give way to tears!” and passed into the land. The third hung feebly on the portals, moaning, With whitened lips, and feet that stood in sand, So weak they seemed,—and all her passion owning. The fourth, a ripe, luxurious maiden, came, Half for such homage to the dead atoning By smiles on one who fanned a later flame In her slight soul, her fickle steps attended. The fifth and sixth were sisters; at the same Wild moment both above the image bended, And with immortal hatred each on each Glared, and therewith her exultation blended, To know the dead had ’scaped the other’s reach! Meanwhile, through all the words of anguish spoken, One lowly form had given no sound of speech, Through all the signs of woe, no sign nor token; But when they came to bear him to his rest, They found her beauty paled,—her heart was broken: And in the Silent Land his shade confest That she, of all the seven, loved him best. THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. Once more on the fallow hillside, as of old, I lie at rest For an hour, while the sunshine trembles through the walnut-tree to the west,— Shakes on the rocks and fragrant ferns, and the berry-bushes around; And I watch, as of old, the cattle graze in the lower pasture-ground. Of the Saxon months of blossom, when the merle and mavis sing, And a dust of gold falls everywhere from the soft mid-summer’s wing, I only know from my poets, or from pictures that hither come, Sweet with the smile of the hawthorn-hedge and the scent of the harvest-home. But July in our own New England—I bask myself in its prime, As one in the light of a face he loves, and has not seen for a time! Again the perfect blue of the sky; the fresh green woods; the call Of the crested jay; the tangled vines that cover the frost-thrown wall: Sounds and shadows remembered well! the ground-bee’s droning hum; The distant musical tree-tops; the locust beating his drum; And the ripened July warmth, that seems akin to a fire which stole, Long summers since, through the thews of youth, to soften and harden my soul. Here it was that I loved her—as only a stripling can, Who doats on a girl that others know no mate for the future man; It was well, perhaps, that at last my pride and honor outgrew her art, That there came an hour, when from broken chains I fled—with a broken heart.