And my soul was a stagnant tide, Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride

Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling

bride.

Ah, less-less bright

The stars of the night

Than the eyes of the radiant girl!

And never a flake

That the vapour can make

With the moon-tints of purple and pearl, Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curlCan compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless curl.

Now Doubt-now Pain
Come never again,

For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long

Shines, bright and strong,

Astarté within the sky,

While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye

While ever to her

young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

ELDORADO.

GAILY bedight,
A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old

This knight so bold

And o'er his heart a shadow

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

FAIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is

No more-no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No more! alas, that magical sad sound

Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more

Thy memory no more! Accursed ground

Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!

"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante !"

TO MY MOTHER.

BECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.

My mother-my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

ISRAFEL.*

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"
None sing so wildly well

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon,

The enamoured moon

Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin

(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)

Pauses in Heaven.

*And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.- KORAN.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,

Where deep thoughts are a dutyWhere Love's a grown up GodWhere the Houri glances are

Imbued with all the beauty

Which we worship in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,

Best bard, because the wisest !

Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above

With thy burning measures suitThy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy lute

Well may

the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely-flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.