APRIL

The April winds are magical
And thrill our tuneful frames;
The garden walks are passional
To bachelors and dames. 
The hedge is gemmed with diamonds,
The air with Cupids full,
The cobweb clues of Rosamond
Guide lovers to the pool. 
Each dimple in the water,
Each leaf that shades the rock
Can cozen, pique and flatter,
Can parley and provoke. 
Goodfellow, Puck and goblins,
Know more than any book. 
Down with your doleful problems,
And court the sunny brook. 
The south-winds are quick-witted,
The schools are sad and slow,
The masters quite omitted
The lore we care to know.

MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE AEOLIAN HARP

Soft and softlier hold me, friends! 
Thanks if your genial care
Unbind and give me to the air. 
Keep your lips or finger-tips
For flute or spinet’s dancing chips;
I await a tenderer touch,
I ask more or not so much: 
Give me to the atmosphere,—­
Where is the wind, my brother,—­where? 
Lift the sash, lay me within,
Lend me your ears, and I begin. 
For gentle harp to gentle hearts
The secret of the world imparts;
And not to-day and not to-morrow
Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow;
But day by day, to loving ear
Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer. 
I’ve come to live with you, sweet friends,
This home my minstrel-journeyings ends. 
Many and subtle are my lays,
The latest better than the first,
For I can mend the happiest days
And charm the anguish of the worst.

CUPIDO

The solid, solid universe
Is pervious to Love;
With bandaged eyes he never errs,
Around, below, above. 
His blinding light
He flingeth white
On God’s and Satan’s brood,
And reconciles
By mystic wiles
The evil and the good.

THE PAST

The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed. 
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore. 
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in. 
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore. 
None can reenter there,—­
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.

THE LAST FAREWELL

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR’S BROTHER,
EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT
OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF
PORTO RICO, IN 1832