TO A FALSE FRIEND.

Our hands have met, but not our hearts; Our hands will never meet again.

Friends, if we have ever been, Friends we cannot now remain: I only know I loved you once, I only know I loved in vain; Our hands have met, but not our hearts; Our hands will never meet again!

Then farewell to heart and hand!

I would our hands had never met: Even the outward form of love Must be resign'd with some regret.

Friends, we still might seem to be, If I my wrong could e'er forget; Our hands have join'd but not our hearts: I would our hands had never met!

ODE.

AUTUMN.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?--With the sun, Opening the dusky eyelids of the south, Till shade and silence waken up as one, And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.

Where are the merry birds?--Away, away, On panting wings through the inclement skies, Lest owls should prey Undazzled at noon-day, And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?--In the west, Blushing their last to the last sunny hours.

When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer,--the green prime,-- The many, many leaves all twinkling?--Three On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime Trembling,--and one upon the old oak tree!

Where is the Dryad's immortality?-- Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard, The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain, And honey been save stored The sweets of summer in their luscious cells; The swallows all have wing'd across the main; But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.

Alone, alone, Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone, With the last leaves for a love-rosary; Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily, Like a dim picture of the drowned past In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away, Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded Under the languid downfall of her hair; She wears a coronal of flowers faded Upon her forehead, and a face of care;-- There is enough of wither'd everywhere To make her bower,--and enough of gloom; There is enough of sadness to invite, If only for the rose that died, whose doom Is Beauty's,--she that with the living bloom Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light: There is enough of sorrowing, and quite Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,-- Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl; Enough of fear and shadowy despair, To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

SONNET.

SILENCE.

There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave--under the deep deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush'd--no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free.

That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyaena, calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,-- There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

SONNET.

WRITTEN IN KEATS' "ENDYMION."

I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains.

And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps In dear remembrance,--lonely, and forlorn, Singing it to herself until she weeps Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn:-- And as I mused, in dull imaginings, There came a flash of garments, and I knew The awful Muse by her harmonious wings Charming the air to music as she flew-- Anon there rose an echo through the vale Gave back Enydmion in a dreamlike tale.

SONNET.

TO AN ENTHUSIAST.

Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, And still a large late love of all thy kind.

Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth,-- For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind Thine eyes with tears,--that thou hast not resign'd The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth: For as the current of thy life shall flow, Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen, Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe Thrice cursed of thy race,--thou art ordain'd To share beyond the lot of common men.

TO A COLD BEAUTY.

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be To Winters cold and cruel part?

When he sets the rivers free, Thou dost still lock up thy heart;-- Thou that shouldst outlast the snow, But in the whiteness of thy brow?

Scorn and cold neglect are made For winter gloom and winter wind, But thou wilt wrong the summer air, Breathing it to words unkind,-- Breath which only should belong To love, to sunlight, and to song!

When the little buds unclose.

Red, and white, and pied, and blue, And that virgin flow'r, the rose, Opes her heart to hold the dew, Wilt thou lock thy bosom up With no jewel in its cup?

Let not cold December sit Thus in Love's peculiar throne: Brooklets are not prison'd now, But crystal frosts are all agone, And that which hangs upon the spray, It is no snow, but flow'r of May!

SONNET.

DEATH.

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this,--but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft,--and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men.

SERENADE.

Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how I wake and passionate watches keep; And yet while I address thee now, Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep.