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X.

LOVE'S LOFTY FOOD.

LOVE's lofty food so lifts my spirit up,
I envy Jove not his ambrosial dew.
I gaze on Beauty, and my soul anew
All else forgets in her inebriate cup.
Her songs, her words I prison in my soul,
That it may kneel before them in its cell,
Conquered by Love. Unknown his fatal spell,
Thrice blessed, I yield to Laura's twin control,
I drink the music of her every tone,

Whose holy harmony to Heaven is dear

And none can feel who've not its rapture known.

I feed my eyes upon her speaking face,
Where concentrated visibly appear,

Art, genius, beauty, beatific grace.

XI.

LOVE'S SWEET ANGER.

SWEET anger, sweetest wrath, sweet peace, sweet ire,
Sweet pain, sweet woe, sweet burthen of sweet good,
Sweet speech, so sweetly felt and understood,

With thy sweet pinions fan this sweetest fire.
Weep not, my soul, but suffer and be brave,
In thy too ardent flame bid honor come
Unto thy aid, and hold her blessed to whom
I erst did say, "Thou only me canst save!”
Another Century, perchance, will sing
With sigh of envy, this undying flame,

And weep my love's melodious suffering.

While others will exclaim, "Oh, blinding woe!

Why seal'dst our eyelids? Why did we not claim An earlier birth-or they a later know ?"

SONNETS FROM DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

I.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT

"TIS Saturday, precisely half-past three,
P. M., the twenty-sixth of February,
Fifty-six (but with dates I will not tarry),
And, holding back my breath, I list for thee.

My elbow rests upon my study-table,

My hand imbeds my cheek. With studious look
Mine eyes are bent upon an open book,

And, yet, to read a line I am not able,

Although the volume is by Thackeray.

My tell-tale thoughts through Reason's hands have slipped

(I would to Heaven their pinions had been clipped)

And, laughing, flown to meet thee on thy way,

To whisper how thine absence does unnerve me— And thy dear presence turn my heart all topsy-turvy.

II.

MY SOUL'S PHYSICIAN.

WHEN I was on the edge of twenty-three,
Late in the year of fifty-one, I think,

To see me writhe they gave me gall to drink-
And maddened by the draught, I sent for thee,
Who, like a kind physician, came to me,
Sat down beside the sick-bed of my soul,
Administered all antidotes for dole

In mollifying balm of sympathy.

Then, dashing from its violet brink the tear
That rose to tremble thanks, I flung apart,
Confidingly, the portals of my heart,
And bade thee look into its sepulchre-
And thy kind greeting of its early dead
Through all this life shall be rememberèd.

III.

FANCY'S PICTURE.

INTENT to seek afar some resting-place,
Fancy with partial pencil painted thee
Upon the tablets of my memory,
That I might gaze for ever on thy face,
Without the scrutiny of green-eyed jury
Envy impannels, with an oath sublime,
To twist the acts of innocence to crime,
And put the straight-laced public in a fury.
To seek that foreign home I did not go,
But did elect, upon my native soil,

Impatiently in paths of pain to toil

For laurels, which through years should greener grow And, now, above the hazy horizon

Of my young starless life thou'st risen like a sun.

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