TO AN ENTHUSIAST.

Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature’s truth,
Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind,
And still a large late love of all thy kind. 
Spite of the world’s cold practice and Time’s tooth,—­
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth,
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind
Thine eyes with tears,—­that thou hast not resign’d
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth: 
For as the current of thy life shall flow,
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain’d,
Through flow’ry valley or unwholesome fen,
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe
Thrice cursed of thy race,—­thou art ordain’d
To share beyond the lot of common men.

TO A COLD BEAUTY.

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be
  To Winters cold and cruel part? 
When he sets the rivers free,
  Thou dost still lock up thy heart;—­
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,
But in the whiteness of thy brow?

Scorn and cold neglect are made
  For winter gloom and winter wind,
But thou wilt wrong the summer air,
  Breathing it to words unkind,—­
Breath which only should belong
To love, to sunlight, and to song!

When the little buds unclose. 
  Red, and white, and pied, and blue,
And that virgin flow’r, the rose,
  Opes her heart to hold the dew,
Wilt thou lock thy bosom up
With no jewel in its cup?

Let not cold December sit
  Thus in Love’s peculiar throne: 
Brooklets are not prison’d now,
  But crystal frosts are all agone,
And that which hangs upon the spray,
It is no snow, but flow’r of May!

SONNET.

DEATH.

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this,—­but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,—­and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.

SERENADE.

Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how
  I wake and passionate watches keep;
And yet while I address thee now,
  Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. 
’Tis sweet enough to make me weep,
  That tender thought of love and thee,
That while the world is hush’d so deep,
  Thy soul’s perhaps awake to me!

Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep! 
  With golden visions of thy dower,
While I this midnight vigil keep,
  And bless thee in thy silent bower;
To me ’tis sweeter than the power
  Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl’d,
That I alone, at this still hour,
  In patient love outwatch the world.