(To R. L. S.)

YOUR bays shall all men bring, And flowers the children strew you. Once, as I stood in a thick west wood, I took from a fissure a precious thing, The homage whereof be to you!

A thing pearl-pale, yet stung With fire, as the morning’s beam is; Hid underground thro’ a solar round, Hardy and fragile, antique and young, More exquisite than a dream is.

No rose had so bright birth; No gem of romance surpassed it, By a minstrel-knight, for his maid’s delight, Borne from the moon-burnt marge of the earth, Where Paynim breakers cast it.

Rude-named, memorial, quaint, The dews and the darkness mould it: Scarce twice in an age is our heritage This glory and mystery without taint. Dear Stevenson, do you hold it

A text of grace, ah! much Beyond what the praising throng say: Only your art is its peer at heart, Only your touch is a wonder such, My wild little loving song says!

BROOK FARM.

DOWN the long road bent and brown, Youth, that dearly loves a vision, Ventures to the gates Elysian, As a palmer from the town,

Coming not so late, so far, Rocks and birches! for your story, Nor to prate of vanished glory Where of old was quenched a star;

Where, of old, in lapse of toil, Time, that has for weeds a dower, Bade the supersensual flower Starve in our New England soil.

But to Youth, whose radiant eyes Shatter mists of grief and daunting, Lost glad voices still are chanting ’Neath those unremaining skies; Still the dreams of fellowship Beat their wings of aspiration; And a smile of soft elation Trembles from his haughty lip,

If another dare deride Hopes heroic snapped and parted, Disillusion so high-hearted, All success is mean beside!