No one is so accursed by fate,

No one so utterly desolate,

But some heart, though unknown,

Responds unto his own.

For Time will teach thee soon the truth,

Endymion.

There are no birds in last year's nest!1 It is not always May.

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

The prayer of Ajax was for light.2

O suffering, sad humanity! who lie

O afflicted ones,

ye

Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!

My soul is full of longing

For the secret of the Sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.
Books are sepulchres of thought.
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
O thou child of many prayers!

The rainy Day.

The Goblet of Life.

Ibid.

The Secret of the Sea. Wind over the Chimney.

Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.3

Maidenhood.

Ibid.

The Spanish Student. Act ii. Sc. 3.

In last year's nests

This year no sparrow rests.

CERVANTES: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. lxxiv.

En los nidos de antaño

No hay pajaros hogano.

See FRANÇOIS VILLON:

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
Where are the snows of yester year?

ROSSETTI's translation.

2 The light of Heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
POPE: The Iliad, book xvii. line 730.

3 See Byron, page 553.

A banner with the strange device.

This is the place. Stand still, my steed,
Let me review the scene,

And summon from the shadowy past
The forms that once have been.

Excelsior.

A Gleam of Sunshine.

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

The Day is done.

As the mist resembles the rain.

Ibid.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Ibid.

The Building of the Ship.

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith trumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, are all with thee!

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.

Ibid.

The Fire of Drift-wood.

There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there;

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair.

Resignation.

The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mournings for the dead.

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

Resignation.

Ibid.

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers

May be heaven's distant lamps.

Ibid.

There is no death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

Ibid.

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.

Ibid.

Fear that reigns with the tyrant, and envy the vice of republics.

Part i. 1.

Neither locks had they to their doors nor bars to their

windows;

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of

the owners;

There the richest was poor and the poorest lived in abundance.

Ibid.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

Ibid.

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the

angels.

Part i. 3.

Talk not of wasted affection! affection never was wasted;
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters returning
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of
refreshment.
Evangeline. Part ii. 1.

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.

Ibid.

And as she looked around, she saw how Death the con

soler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame.1

Part ii. 5.

The Ladder of Saint Augustine.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.

The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

Ibid.

The Herons of Elmwood.

He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.2

The Dutch Picture.

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.

Morituri salutamus.

1 I held it truth, with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

TENNYSON: In Memoriam, i.

2 Sir Francis Drake entered the harbour of Cadiz, April 19, 1587, and destroyed shipping to the amount of ten thousand tons lading. To use his own expressive phrase, he had “singed the Spanish king's beard." KNIGHT: Pictorial History of England, vol. iii. p. 215.

With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,

Is Sisyphus rolling

His stone up the mountain!

The Masque of Pandora.

Chorus of the Eumenides.

All things come round to him who will but wait.1

Tales of a Wayside Inn. Parti. The Student's Tale.

A town that boasts inhabitants like me

Can have no lack of good society.

Ibid. The Poet's Tale. Parti. The Birds of Killingworth.

Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing;

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,2 Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. Part iii. The Theologian's Tale: Elizabeth. iv.

Time has laid his hand

Upon my heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.

The Golden Legend. iv.

Hospitality sitting with Gladness.

Translation from Frithiof's Saga.

1 See Emerson, page 617.
And soon, too soon, we part with pain,
To sail o'er silent seas again.

THOMAS MOORE: Meeting of the Ships.
Two lives that once pass are as ships that divide.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. A Lament.

We twain have met like the ships upon the sea.
ALEXANDER SMITH.
As two floating planks meet and part on the sea,
O friend! so I met and then parted from thee.

A Life Drama.

W. R. ALGER: The brief chance Encounter. As vessels starting from ports thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in the naked breadths of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch in the dark.

HOLMES: Professor at the Breakfast Table.