Birds of Passage.

1858.

FLIGHT THE FIRST.

come i gru van cantando lor lai, Facendo in aer di sè lunga riga.

DANTE.

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than
truth;

The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their roots in thoughts of
ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will ;—

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

| We have not wings. we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and
kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast
eyes,

We

may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.
Nor deem the irrevocable Past,

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

PROMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT.

Of that flight through heavenly por- Make their darkened lives resplendent

THE PHANTOM SHIP.

And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, That, to quiet their troubled spirits,

Who sailed so long ago.

He had sent this Ship of Air.

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

A MIST was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,

And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;

And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover,
Were all alert that day,

To see the French war-steamers speeding over,
When the fog cleared away.

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,
Their cannon through the night,

Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,
The sea-coast opposite.

And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations
On every citadel;

Each answering each, with morning salutations,
That all was well.

And down the coast, all taking up the burden,
Replied the distant forts,

As if to summon from his sleep the Warden
And Lord of the Cinque Ports.

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,
No drum-beat from the wall,

No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure
Awaken with its call!

No more, surveying with an eye impartial
The long line of the coast,

Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal
Be seen upon his post!

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,

Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall has scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room,

And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,
The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,
But smote the Warden hoar;

Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble,
And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'erhead:

Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated
That a great man was dead.

HAUNTED HOUSES.

ALL houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;

Owners and occupants of earlier dates

From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss