XI.

God, God!

With a child's voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly-
God, God!

Thou knowest eyelids raised not always up
Unto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droop,
As ours, o'er many a tear!

Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
Two little tears suffice to cover all.

Thou knowest,-Thou, who art so prodigal
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer,
Expiring in the woods-that care for none
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

XII.

O blissful Mouth, which breathed the mournful breath We name our souls,-self spoilt !-by that strong passion Which paled thee once with sighs,-by that strong death Which made thee once unbreathing-from the wrack, Themselves have called around them, call them back— Back to thee in continuous aspiration!

For here, O Lord,

For here they travel vainly,-vainly pass
From city pavement to untrodden sward,
Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass
Cold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vain
The greatest speed of all these souls of men,
Unless they travel upward to Thy Throne !
There, sittest THOU, the satisfying ONE,
With help for sins, and holy perfectings
For all requirements-while the archangel, raising
Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,
Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings!

TO BETTINE,

THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE.

"I have the second sight, Goethe !"-Letters of a Child.

I.

BETTINE, friend of Goethe, Hadst thou the second sightUpturning worship and delight, With such a loving duty, To his grand face, as women will, The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still?

II.

Before his shrine to doom thee,
Using the same child's smile,

That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile
For the first time, won from thee,
Ere star and flower grew dim and dead,
Save at his feet, and o'er his head.

III.

Digging thine heart, and throwing
Away its childhood's gold,

That so its woman-depth might hold
His spirit's overflowing.

For surging souls, no worlds can bound,
Their channel in the heart have found.

IV.

O child, to change appointed,
Thou hadst not second sight!
What eyes the future view aright,
Unless by tears anointed?

Yea, only tears themselves can show
The burning ones that have to flow.

V.

O woman, deeply loving,
Thou hadst not second sight!
The star is very high and bright,
And none can see it moving.
Love looks around, below, above,
Yet all his prophecy is―love.

VI.

The bird thy childhood's playing

Sent onward o'er the sea,

Thy dove of hope, came back to thee
Without a leaf. Art laying

Its wet cold wing, no sun can dry,
Still in thy bosom, secretly?

VII.

Our Goethe's friend, Bettine,

I have the second sight!

The stone upon his grave is white,
The funeral stone between ye;
And in thy mirror thou hast viewed
Some change as hardly understood.

VIII.

Where's childhood? where is Goethe? The tears are in thine eyes.

Nay, thou shalt yet reorganise

Thy maidenhood of beauty

In his own glory, which is smooth
Of wrinkles, and sublime in youth.

IX.

The poet's arms have wound thee,
He breathes upon thy brow,
He lifts thee upward in the glow

Of his great genius round thee,-
The childlike poet undefiled
Preserving evermore THE CHILD.

MAN AND NATURE.

A SAD man on a summer day
Did look upon the earth, and say--
"Purple cloud the hill-top binding;
Folded hills, the valleys wind in ;
Valleys, with fresh streams among you;
Streams, with bosky trees along you;
Trees, with many birds and blossoms;
Birds, with music-trembling bosoms;
Blossoms, dropping dews that wreathe you,
To your fellow flowers beneath you;
Flowers, that constellate on earth;
Earth, that shakest to the mirth
Of the merry Titan ocean,
All his shining hair in motion !
Why am I thus the only one

Who can be dark beneath the sun?”

But when the summer day was past,
He looked to heaven, and smiled at last,
Self-answered so-

"Because, O cloud,

Pressing with thy crumpled shroud

Heavily on mountain top;

Hills that almost seem to drop,

Stricken with a misty death,

To the valleys underneath ;

Valleys, sighing with the torrent;

Waters, streaked with branches horrent;
Branchless trees, that shake your head
Wildly o'er your blossoms spread
Where the common flowers are found;
Flowers, with foreheads to the ground;
Ground, that shriekest while the sea
With his iron smiteth thee-

I am, besides, the only one

Who can be bright without the sun."

A SEA-SIDE WALK.

I.

WE walked beside the sea,

After a day which perished silently

Of its own glory—like the Princess weird

Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!" And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;

So runs the Arab tale.

II.

The sky above us showed

An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,

As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!
And, shining with a gloom, the water grey
Swang in its moon-taught way.

III.

Nor moon nor stars were out.

They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;
And Silence's impassioned breathings round
Seemed wandering into sound.

IV.

O solemn-beating heart

Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever-
And, what time they are slackened by him ever,
So to attest his own supernal part,

Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong,
The slackened cord along.

V.

For though we never spoke

Of the grey water and the shaded rock,