My Neighbor.[D]

WHO art thou that nigh to me Alone dost dwell, perpetually? The latch against thy door is mute, I have not heard thy kind salute, And though I live here at the gate, Have never known thy birth or state, Nor seen thy wide colonial lands With slaves obeying all commands, Or children playing at thy knee; Ah, neighbor mine, unneighborly!

The sun beats hard upon thy roof, The tree’s cool shadow waves aloof; Thou dost not heed, nor speak in ire, Nor wound thy calm with vain desire. The cones that patter as they fall, The drifts that build thine outer wall, The rains that glisten in the trace Of thine inscription, dimmed apace, The winds that blow, the birds that sing,— Thou carest not for any thing!

Two centuries and more art thou In solitude abiding; now This town is other than thy town; Its lanes are highways broad and brown; The oaken houses of thy day, And inns, and booths, are swept away. Strange spires would meet thine eager eye, New ships sail in, new banners fly; And names are kept of them that fell In wars to thee incredible.

How beautiful thine endless rest! The quiet conscience in thy breast, Thy hidden place of peace, where pass The ghost-like stirrings of the grass; The long immunity from strife, The tumult, love; the trouble, life; The blossom at thy feet, to be A thousand summers, dust like thee; The winding-sheet, that white as worth, Shuts all thy failings in the earth.

My silent neighbor! thou and I Keep unobtrusive company. For us each wild October weaves The glistening clouds, the glowing leaves, And March by March the robin sings, Against the solemn porch of King’s, His sweet good-morrow to us both. O be not harsh with me, nor wroth, That I, apart from all the throng, Break, too, thy silence with a song!

FOOTNOTE:

[D] Jacob Sheafe, an old Boston worthy, laid away in 1658, in a quiet northerly corner of King’s Chapel Burying-Ground.

THE SEA-GULL.

OVER the ships that are anchored, Over the fleets that part, Over the cities dark by the shore, High as a dream thou art!

Beautiful is thy coming, Light is thy wing as it goes; And O but to leap and follow this hour Thy perfect flight to the close,

O but to leap and follow Where freedom and rest may be; Where the soul that I loved in surpassing love Hath vanished away, with thee!

LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY.

DARLING of the cloistered flowers, Rising meekly after showers, Every cup a waving censer,— Winds are softer at thy coming; By thee goes the wild bee, humming Music richer and intenser.

Indian balsam is thy breathing, Sabbath stillness thy enwreathing; Peace and thee no thought can sever. In thy plaintive looks and tender, Things of long-forgotten splendor Thrill my inmost spirit ever.

And I love thee in such fashion, With so much of truth and passion, In this sad wish to enshrine thee: Only pure hearts be thy wearers, Only gentlest hands thy bearers, Even if therefore mine resign thee;

Even if now I yield thee wholly To the pure and gentle solely, On whose breast thy cheek is lying! Droop and glisten where she laid thee, And remember me that made thee, Dear, so happy in thy dying.

LOVER LOQUITUR.

LIEGE lady! believe me, All night, from my pillow I heard, but to grieve me, The plash of the willow; The rain on the towers, The winds without number, In the gloom of the hours, And denial of slumber:

And nigh to the dawning,— My heart aching blindly, Unresting and mourning That you were unkindly— What did I ostensibly, Ah, what under heaven, Liege lady! but sensibly Doze till eleven?

VITALITY.

WHEN I was born and wheeled upon my way, As fire in stars my ready life did glow, And thrill me thro’, and mount to lips and lids: I was as dead when I died yesterday As those mild shapes Egyptian, that we know Since Memnon sang, are housed in pyramids.

TO THE RIVER.

FRIEND CHARLES! ’tis long since even for a space We stood in cordial parley: you and I, (Albeit about the selfsame city lie The daily orbits we in silence pace), Seldom, how seldom, see each other’s face! Always had you a mill to turn near by, A race to aid; and I, with scarce a sigh, Passed, on like duties bound with heavy grace. But now good Leisure puts all things in tune, Now o’er their brimming bowls in odorous whiff The gods send up the clouds above us curled, Let us go forth, my Charles! thro’ fields of June Together, gladly, lovingly, as if We could not have enough of this sweet world.

THE SECOND TIME THEY MET.

“OH, would I might see my love,” sang he, As he dreamed in his true heart of her, As he rode that day up the highway wide, With his feathers gay, and the lute at his side; “Oh, would I might see my love,” sang he, “My love that knows not I love her.”

“Oh, would I might see my love,” sang she, As she sat in the porch above him, With the web half-spun in her fingers fair, And a ray of the sun in her brown, brown hair; “Oh, would I might see my love,” sang she, “My love that knows not I love him.”

Then as their eyes met, with a start I forget Whether shame, or delight, or sorrow, The sky in its glow seemed to interest her, And he bent very low to fasten his spur; But “Oh, would I might see my love,”—dear me! They sang it no more till the morrow.