SONNETS

I

YESTERDAY.

PALE pilgrim of the heavens, that late didst glide
With sunbeam staff the violet vales along,
Where fountains of fresh dew gushed up in song,
To bathe thy golden feet, and then subside—
Last wave that sparkled on Time's ebbing tide-
How are thy bright limbs laid amid the throng
Of vanished days, that drooped o'er earthly wrong,
Seeing how virtue is to vice allied,

And vanished blushingly. Sad Yesterday!

Night's winding-sheet is round thee, and the eyes

That found a health, or fever, in thy ray,

And thoughtfully perused on evening skies

Thine elegy, star-lettered-now away

Turn their brief thoughts of thee, and thus men moralize.

II

TO-DAY.

A LIBERAL worlding, gay philosopher,
Art thou that lift'st thy young and yellow head
O'er the dim burial of the scarce-cold dead,
Building above thy brother's sepulchre

A home of love that sense might almost err,
Deeming thy end therein to woo and wed
The flower-haired Earth for ever. Yet the red
In yonder west may well such dreams deter!
Yes, thou, all-hailed To-day! whose out-stretched hand
Scatters loose riches on a bankrupt land,

Even thou art but a leaf from off the tree

Of yellowing Time; a grain of glistening sand
Dashed from the waters of that unsailed sea,
Where thou to-night shalt sink, and I as soon may

be.

III

TO-MORROW.

WHO shall imagine how thy wing may sweep,
Many and mighty nations lying bare,

To blight-war-famine? Who shall say if e'er
The day may burn again? how men that sleep
May wake, and wander up and down, and keep
Their eyes on the dark east in long despair!
Or, coming, wak'st thou from thy cloudy lair
A lion-sun? or like a lark, to reap
Music in heaven for the glad ear of earth?
The signs of many yesterdays appear

But fading sparks on gossip memory's hearth;
Thine are as comets burning. For thy birth
Freedom, half stifled in the clasp of Fear,

Looks o'er a wailing world. The dawn, the dawn, is near.

IV

WISHES OF YOUTH.

GAILY and greenly let my seasons run ;

And should the war-winds of the world uproot
The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit

Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun ;

The dews be turned to ice-fair days begun

In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit
Despair and discord keep Hope's harpstrings mute;
Still let me live as Love and Life were one :
Still let me turn on earth a childlike gaze
And trust the whispered charities that bring
Tidings of human truth; with inward praise
Watch the weak motion of each common thing,
And find it glorious—still let me raise

On wintry wrecks an altar to the spring.

ON TIME.

To one that marks the quick and certain round
Of year on year, and finds how every day
Brings its grey hair, or bears a leaf away

From the full glory with which life is crowned,
Ere youth becomes a shade, and fame a sound;
Surely to one that feels his foot on sand
Unsure, the bright and ever-visible hand
Of Time points far above the lowly bound
Of pride that perishes; and leads the eye
To loftier objects and diviner ends—
A tranquil strength, sublime humility,

A knowledge of ourselves, a faith in friends,
A sympathy for all things born to die,

With cheerful love for those whom truth attends.