Upon the highest mountains my young feet

Ached, that no pinions from their lightness grew, My starlike eyes the stars would fondly greet,

Yet win no greeting from the circling blue; Fair, self-subsistent, each in its own sphere,

They had no care that there was none for me: Alike to them that I was far or near,

Alike to them, time and eternity.

'But, from the violet of lower air,

Sometimes an answer to my wishing came,
Those lightning-births my nature seemed to share,
They told the secrets of its fiery frame—
The sudden messengers of Hate and Love,
The thunderbolts that arm the hand of Jove,

And strike sometimes the sacred spire, and strike the sacred

grove.

'Come in a moment, in a moment gone,

They answered me, then left me still more lone;

They told me that the thought which ruled the world

As yet no sail upon its course had furled,

That the creation was but just begun,

New leaves still leaving from the primal one,

But spoke not of the goal to which my rapid whee.s would

run.

"Still, still my eyes, though tearfully, I strained
To the far future which my heart contained,
And no dull doubt my proper hope profaned.
At last, oh bliss! thy living form I spied,

Then a mere speck upon a distant sky;
Yet my keen glance discerned its noble pride,
And the full answer of that sun-filled eye:

I knew it was the wing that must upbear

My earthlier form into the realms of air.

"Thou knowest how we gained that beauteous height,
Where dwells the monarch of the sons of light;

Thou knowest he declared us two to be
The chosen servants of his ministry—
Thou as his messenger, a sacred sign
Of conquest, or with omen more benign,
To give its due weight to the righteous cause,
To express the verdict of Olympian laws.

"And I to wait upon the lonely Spring,

Which slakes the thirst of bards to whom 'tis given

The destined dues of hopes divine to sing,

And weave the needed chain to bind to heaven:

Only from such could be obtained a draugh♦

For him who in his early home from Jove's own cup has quaffed.

"To wait, to wait, but not to wait too long,

Till heavy grows the burden of a song;

O bird! too long hast thou been gone to-day,

My feet are weary of their frequent way,

The spell that opes the Spring my tongue no more can

say.

If soon thou com'st not, night will fall around,
My head with a sad slumber will be bound,
And the pure draught be spilt upon the ground.

"Remember that I am not yet divine;
Long years of service to the fatal Nine
Are yet to make a Delphian vigour mine

Oh, make them not too hard, thou bird of Jove!
Answer the stripling's hope, confirm his love;
Receive the service in which he delights,
And bear him often to the serene heights,
Where hands that were so prompt in serving thee
Shall be allowed the highest ministry,
And Rapture live with bright Fidelity."

A

WEAVER sat by the side of his loom,

A-flinging his shuttle fast;

And a thread that would wear till the hour of doom Was added at every cast.

His warp had been by the angels spun,

And his weft was bright and new,

Like threads which the morning unbraids from the su
All jewelled over with dew.

And fresh-lipped, bright-eyed, beautiful flowers
In the rich, soft web were bedded;

And blithe to the weaver sped onward the hours:
Not yet were Time's feet leaded!

But something there came slow stealing by,
And a shade on the fabric fell;

And I saw that the shuttle less blithely did fly--
For Thought hath a wearisome spell!

And a thread that next o'er the warp was lain,
Was of melancholy gray;

And anon I marked there a tear-drop's stain,
Where the flowers had fallen away.

But still the weaver kept weaving on,
Though the fabric all was gray;

And the flowers, and the buds, and the leaves, were gone,
And the gold threads cankered lay.

And dark-and still darker-and darker grew
Each newly-woven thread;

And some there were of a death-mocking hue,
And some of a bloody red.

And things all strange were woven in—

Sighs, and down-crushed hopes, and fears;
And the web was broken, and poor, and thin,
And it dripped with living tears.

And the weaver fain would have flung it aside,
But he knew it would be a sin;

So in light and in gloom the shuttle he plied,
A-weaving these life-cords in.

And as he wove, and, weeping, still wove,
A tempter stole him nigh;

Ana, with giozing words, he to win him strove-
But the weaver turned his eye.

He upward turned his eye to heaven,
And still wove on-on-on!

Till the last, last cord from his heart was riven
And the tissue strange was done.

Then he threw it about his shoulders bowed,
And about his grizzled head;

And, gathering close the folds of his shroud,
Laid him down among the dead.

And I after saw, in a robe of light,

The weaver in the sky:

The angels' wings were not more bright,
And the stars grew pale it nigh.

And I saw, mid the folds, all the iris-hued flowers
That beneath his touch had sprung;
More beautiful far than these stray ones of ours,
Which the angels have to us flung.

And wherever a tear had fallen down,
Gleamed out a diamond rare;
And jewels befitting a monarch's crown
Were the footprints left by Care.

And wherever had swept the breath of a sigh,

Was left a rich perfume;

And with light from the fountain of bliss in the sky Shone the labour of Sorrow and Gloom.

And then I prayed, "When my last work is done, And the silver life-cord riven,

Be the stain of Sorrow the deepest one

That I bear with me to heaven!"