Part 3 (2/2)

And through the still grey air The night comes down, and hangs her lamp on high, Like a wan lily blossomed on the sky, s.h.i.+ning so ghostly fair,

Or looming up the heights, Those awful spectres of the frozen zone Splinter the crystal of heaven's sapphire dome, With arrowy-glancing lights.

The while hoa.r.s.e night winds rave, The old year looking backward to his prime With dim fond eyes, down the last steps of time Goes maundering to his grave!

A FAREWELL

Down the steep west unrolled, I watch the river of the sunset flow, With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold, Into the dusk below.

And even as I gaze, The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er, And all is grey and dark, like those lost days, The days that are no more.

No more through whispering pines, I shall behold, in the else silent even, The first faint star-watch set along the lines Of the white tents of heaven.

Before the earliest buds Have softly opened, heralding the May With tender light illuming the gray woods, I shall be gone away.

Ah! wood-walks winding sweet Through all the valleys sloping to the west, Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet, In musical unrest,--

Ye will not miss me here With all the bright things of the coming May, And the rejoicing of the awakened year,-- I shall be far away.

Yet in your loneliest nooks, I know where all the greenest mosses grow, And where the violets lift their first sweet looks, Out of the waning snow.

And I have heard, unsought, Under the musing shadows of the beech, Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought, In half-articulate speech.

And oh! ye shadowy bands, Rank above rank along yon rocky height, That lift into the heavens your mailed hands, And linked armour bright.

What other eyes will trace From this dear window haunted with the past, Strange likeness to some well beloved face, Among your profiles vast?

What stranger hands will tend The nameless treasures I must leave behind,-- My flowers, my birds, and each inanimate friend, Linked closer than my kind.

These glorious landscapes old, Framed in my cottage windows,--hill-sides dun, With umber shadows lightened to pale gold By touches of the sun,--

Valleys like emeralds set Lonely and sweet in the dusk hills afar, That half enclose them, like a carcanet That holds a diamond star.

Will any gentler face, Weary and sad sometimes, like mine grow bright Touched with your simple beauty-in my place, My garden of delight?--

I know not,--yet farewell Sweet home of mine,--my parting song is o'er, And stranger forms among your bowers shall dwell, Where I return no more.

THE NEWS-BOY'S DREAM OF THE NEW YEAR

Under the bare brown rafters, In his garret bed he lay, And dreamed of the bright hereafters.

And the merry morns of May.

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