The rivers run chill,
The red sun is sinking,
And I am grown old,
And life is fast shrinking;
Here’s enow for sad thinking!

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light! 
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—­
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky: 
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from Heav’n
Than when I was a boy.

THE POET’S PORTION.

What is a mine—­a treasury—­a dower—­
A magic talisman of mighty power? 
A poet’s wide possession of the earth. 
He has th’ enjoyment of a flower’s birth
Before its budding—­ere the first red streaks,—­
And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks.

Look—­if his dawn be not as other men’s! 
Twenty bright flushes—­ere another kens
The first of sunlight is abroad—­he sees
Its golden ’lection of the topmost trees,
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn.

When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn
Linger for harvesting?  Before the leaf
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf
The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame. 
No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name,
But he will sip it first—­before the lees. 
’Tis his to taste rich honey,—­ere the bees
Are busy with the brooms.  He may forestall
June’s rosy advent for his coronal;
Before th’ expectant buds upon the bough,
Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow.

Oh! blest to see the flower in its seed,
Before its leafy presence; for indeed
Leaves are but wings on which the summer flies,
And each thing perishable fades and dies,
Escap’d in thought; but his rich thinkings be
Like overflows of immortality: 
So that what there is steep’d shall perish never,
But live and bloom, and be a joy forever.

ODE TO THE MOON.

I.