Destined to work and to live

Left it, and thou, alas,

Only to laugh and to die!

But something prompts me: Not thus
Take leave of Heine, not thus

Speak the last word at his grave!
Not in pity, and not

With half censure-with awe

Hail, as it passes from earth

Scattering lightnings, that soul!

The spirit of the world

Beholding the absurdity of men,

Their vaunts, their feats,-let a sardonic smile, For one short moment, wander o'er his lips. That smile was Heine! for its earthly hour

The strange guest sparkled; now 'tis pass'd

away.

That was Heine! and we,

Myriads who live, who have lived,

What are we all, but a mood,

A single mood, of the life

Of the Being in whom we exist,
Who alone is all things in one.

Spirit, who fillest us all!

Spirit who utterest in each
New-coming son of mankind

Such of thy thoughts as thou wilt!
O thou, one of whose moods,

Bitter and strange, was the life
Of Heine-his strange, alas!

His bitter life- may a life

Other and milder be mine!
May'st thou a mood more serene,
Happier, have utter'd in mine!
May'st thou the rapture of peace
Deep have embreathed at its core !
Made it a ray of thy thought!
Made it a beat of thy joy!

REVOLUTIONS.

BEFORE man parted for this earthly strand,

While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood,

God put a heap of letters in his hand,

And bade him make with them what word he could.

And man has turn'd them many times; made Greece, Rome, England, France;-yes, nor in vain essay'd Way after way, changes that never cease!

The letters have combined; something was made.

But ah, an inextinguishable sense

Haunts him that he has not made what he should!
That he has still, though old, to recommence,
Since he has not yet found the word God would!

And empire after empire, at their height

Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on; Have felt their huge frames not constructed right, And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne.

One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear
The word, the order, which God meant should be.
-Ah, we shall know that well when it comes near !
The band will quit man's heart; he will breathe free.

STANZAS FROM

THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE.

THROUGH Alpine meadows soft suffused

With rain, where thick the crocus blows,

Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.

The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke among the woods
Over his boiling cauldron broods.

Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing-then blotting from our sight.