SONG. FOR MUSIC. A LAKE and a fairy boat From the dragons that watch us here! Thy gown should be snow-white silk; Red rubies should deck thy hands, BALLAD. SPRING it is cheery, Winter is dreary, Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly; When he's forsaken, Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die? Love will not clip him, Maids will not lip him, Maud and Marian pass him by; Youth it is sunny, Age has no honey, What can an old man do but die? June it was jolly, O for its folly! A dancing leg and a laughing eye! Youth may be silly, What can an old man do but die? Friends they are scanty, If he has followers, I know why; (Buying him crutches!) What can an old man do but die? HYMN TO THE SUN. GIVER of glowing light! Though but a god of other days, The kings and sages Of wiser ages Still live and gladden in thy genial rays. King of the tuneful lyre, Still poets' hymns to thee belong; Though lips are cold Whereon of old Thy beams all turned to worshipping and song Lord of the dreadful bow, None triumph now for Python's death; But thou dost save From hungry grave The life that hangs upon a summer breath Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise; But waking flowers At morning hours Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies. God of the Delphic fane, No more thou listenest to hymns sublime; On winds at eve A solemn echo to the end of time. TO A COLD BEAUTY. LADY, wouldst thou heiress be To Winter's 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, When the little buds unclose, Red, and white, and pied, and blue, And that virgin flower, the rose, Opes her heart to hold the dew, Wilt thou lock thy bosom up Let not cold December sit Thus in Love's peculiar throne; - RUTH. SHE stood breast-high amid the corn, On her cheek an autumn flush, Round her eyes her tresses fell; And her hat, with shady brim, Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean THE SEA OF DEATH. A FRAGMENT. METHOUGHT I saw Life swiftly treading over endless space; Sad were my thoughts that anchored silently And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : And so they lay in loveliness, and kept The birth-night of their peace, that Life even wept For there were neighbor brows scarred by the brunts |