Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving lynxes! Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring creeds Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes, The stony convent with its cross and beads! How often gazing where a bird reposes, Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with the tide, I lose myself in strange metempsychosis And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side; From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle muffled, Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest sense to hear My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes unruffled, Where'er I wander still is nestling near; The great blue hollow like a garment o'er me; Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time; While seen with inward eye moves on before me Thought's pictured train in wordless pantomime. A voice recalls me.--From my window turning I find myself a plumeless biped still; No beak, no claws, no sign of wings discerning,-- In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill. ON THE THRESHOLD INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF POEMS BYDIFFERENT AUTHORS AN usher standing at the door I show my white rosette; A smile of welcome, nothing more, Will pay my trifling debt; Why should I bid you idly wait Like lovers at the swinging gate? Can I forget the wedding guest? The veteran of the sea? In vain the listener smites his breast,-- "There was a ship," cries he! Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, He needs must listen to the tale. He sees the gilded throng within, The sparkling goblets gleam, The music and the merry din Through every window stream, But there he shivers in the cold Till all the crazy dream is told. Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye That held his captive still To hold my silent prisoners by And let me have my will; Nay, I were like the three-years' child, To think you could be so beguiled! My verse is but the curtain's fold That hides the painted scene, The mist by morning's ray unrolled That veils the meadow's green, The cloud that needs must drift away To show the rose of opening day. See, from the tinkling rill you hear In hollowed palm I bring These scanty drops, but ah, how near The founts that heavenward spring! Thus, open wide the gates are thrown And founts and flowers are all your own! TO GEORGE PEABODY DANVERS, 1866 BANKRUPT! our pockets inside out! Empty of words to speak his praises! Worcester and Webster up the spout! Dead broke of laudatory phrases! Yet why with flowery speeches tease, With vain superlatives distress him? Has language better words than these? THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! A simple prayer--but words more sweet By human lips were never uttered, Since Adam left the country seat Where angel wings around him fluttered. The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, The children cluster to caress him, And every voice unbidden cries, THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD BLESS HIM! AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB