And here, all summers are comprised

The nightly frosts shrink exorcised

Before the priestly moonshine!

And every wind with stolid feet,

In wandering down the alleys sweet,
Steps lightly on the sunshine;

And (having promised Harpocrate
Among the nodding roses, that

No harm shall touch his daughters)

Gives quite away the noisy sound,
He dares not use upon such ground,

To ever-trickling waters.

Yet, sun and wind! what can ye do,

But make the leaves more brightly shew

In posies newly gathered ?

I look

away from all your

best;

To one poor flower unlike the rest,

A little flower half-withered.

I do not think it ever was

A pretty flower, to make the

grass

Look greener where it reddened:

And now it seems ashamed to be
Alone, in all this company,

Of aspect shrunk and saddened!

A chamber-window was the spot
It grew in, from a garden-pot,
Among the city shadows:

If any, tending it, might seem
To smile, 'twas only in a dream
Of nature in the meadows.

How coldly, on its head, did fall
The sunshine, from the city wall,
In pale refraction driven !
How sadly plashed upon its leaves
The raindrops, losing in the eaves

The first sweet news of Heaven!

And those who planted, gathered it

In gamesome or in loving fit,

And sent it as a token

Of what their city pleasures be,

For one, in Devon by the sea

And garden-blooms, to look on.

But SHE, for whom the jest was meant,
With a grave passion innocent

Receiving what was given,

Oh! if her face she turned then,
Let none say 'twas to gaze again
Upon the flowers of Devon!

...

Because, whatever virtue dwells

In genial skies-warm oracles

For gardens brightly springing,

The flower which grew beneath your eyes,

Ah sweetest friends, to mine supplies

A beauty worthier singing!

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN.

"THERE is no God," the foolish saith,—

But none,

"There is no sorrow;"

And nature oft, the cry of faith,

In bitter need will borrow:

Eyes, which the preacher could not school,

By wayside graves are raised;

And lips say,

"God be pitiful,"

Who ne'er said, "God be praised."

Be pitiful, O God!

The tempest stretches from the steep

The shadow of its coming

The beasts grow tame, and near us creep,
As help were in the human-

Yet, while the cloud-wheels roll and grind,

We spirits tremble under!—

The hills have echoes; but we find

No answer for the thunder.

Be pitiful, O God!

The battle hurtles on the plains-
Earth feels new scythes upon her :

We reap our brothers for the wains,
And call the harvest.. honour,—
Draw face to face, front line to line,
One image all inherit,—

Then kill, curse on, by that same sign,

Clay, clay, and spirit, spirit.

Be pitiful, O God!

The plague runs festering through the town,

And never a bell is tolling;

And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon,

Nod to the dead-cart's rolling!

The

young child calleth for the cup

The strong man brings it weeping;