Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

III.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims
The body, the house, no eye can probe,-
Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs?

IV.

And there again! But my heart may guess Who tripped behind; and she sang perhaps: So, the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

V.

Wall upon wall are between us: life

And song should away from heart to heart! I-prison-bird, with a ruddy strife

At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start

VI.

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing

That's spirit: though cloistered fast, soar free; Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring

Of the rueful neighbors, and-forth to thee!

APPARITIONS.
I.

SUCH a starved bank of moss

Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across :

Violets were born!

II.

Sky-what a scowl of cloud

Till near and far,

Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

III.

World-how it walled about

Life with disgrace

Till God's own smile came out :

That was thy face!

NATURAL MAGIC.

ALL I can say is—I saw it!

I.

The room was as bare as your hand.

I locked in the swarth little lady,-I swear,

From the head to the foot of her—well, quite as bare!
"No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, “taking my stand
At this bolt which I draw!" And this bolt-I withdraw it,
And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered
With-who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered?
Impossible! Only I saw it!

All I can sing is-I feel it !

II.

This life was as blank as that room;

I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed?

Walls, ceiling, and floor,—not a chance for a weed!

Wide opens the entrance: where's cold now, where's gloom? No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it,

Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing, These fruits of your bearing-nay, birds of your winging! A fairy-tale! Only I feel it!

MAGICAL NATURE.

I.

FLOWER-I never fancied, jewel-I profess you!
Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.
Save but glow inside and-jewel, I should guess you,
Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.

II.

You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel-
Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime !
Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel,
Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!

GARDEN FANCIES.

I. THE FLOWER'S NAME.

I.

HERE'S the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss

Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!

She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, As back with that murmur the wicket swung; For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, To feed and forget it the leaves among.

II.

Down this side of the gravel-walk

She went while her robe's edge brushed the box: And here she paused in her gracious talk

To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged in valiant row,

I will never think that she passed you by! She loves you, noble roses, I know;

But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

III.

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.
What a name! Was it love, or praise?
Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

IV.

Roses, if I live and do well,

I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell,

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase, But do not detain me now; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found.

V.

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not,
Stay as you are and be loved forever!
Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not,
Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never!
For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle,

Twinkling the audacious leaves between,
Till round they turn and down they nestle;
Is not the dear mark still to be seen?

VI.

Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
Whither I follow her, beauties flee:

Is there no method to tell her in Spanish

June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,

Treasures my lady's lightest footfall!

-Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces—
Roses, you are not so fair after all!

II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS.

I.

PLAGUE take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centuries back was so good as to die,
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;
This, that was a book in its time,

Printed on paper and bound in leather,
Last month in the white of a matin-prime
Just when the birds sang all together,

II.

Into the garden I brought it to read,
And under the arbute and laurustine

Read it, so help me grace in my need,
From title-page to closing line.
Chapter on chapter did I count,

As a curious traveler counts Stonehenge;
Added up the mortal amount,

And then proceeded to my revenge.

III.

Yonder's a plum-tree with a crevice
An owl would build in, were he but sage;
For a lap of moss, like a fine pont levis

In a castle of the middle age,

Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber;

When he'd be private, there might he spend

Hours alone in his lady's chamber:

Into this crevice I dropped our friend.

IV.

Splash, went he, as under he ducked,

-At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate; Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked

To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;

Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf,

Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ;

Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.

V.

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss

And gum that locked our friend in limbo,

A spider had spun his web across,

And sat in the midst with arms akimbo:
So, I took pity, for learning's sake,

And, de profundis, accentibus lætis,
Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake;
And up I fished his delectable treatise.

VI.

Here you have it, dry in the sun,

With all the binding all of a blister,

And great blue spots where the ink has run,
And reddish streaks that wink and glister

O'er the page so beautifully yellow :

Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks! Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow? Here's one stuck in his chapter six!