here, on the rocky isles,
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles
Beside the pebbly shore.

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows,
With wind-flowers frail and fair,
While I, upon his isle of snow,
Seek and defy the bear.
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,
This arm his savage strength shall tame,
And drag him from his lair.

When crimson sky and flamy cloud
Bespeak the summer o'er,
And the dead valleys wear a shroud
Of snows that melt no more,
I'll build of ice thy winter home,
With glistening walls and glassy dome,
And spread with skins the floor.

The white fox by thy couch shall play;
And, from the frozen skies,
The meteors of a mimic day
Shall flash upon thine eyes.
And I--for such thy vow--meanwhile
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile.
Till that long midnight flies.

THE JOURNEY OF LIFE.

Beneath the waning moon I walk at night,
And muse on human life--for all around
Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight,
And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground,
And broken gleams of brightness, here and there,
Glance through, and leave unwarmed the death-like air.

The trampled earth returns a sound of fear--
A hollow sound, as if I walked on tombs;
And lights, that tell of cheerful homes, appear
Far off, and die like hope amid the glooms.
A mournful wind across the landscape flies,
And the wide atmosphere is full of sighs.

And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on,
Watching the stars that roll the hours away,
Till the faint light that guides me now is gone,
And, like another life, the glorious day
Shall open o'er me from the empyreal height,
With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light.

TRANSLATIONS.

VERSION OF A FRAGMENT OF SIMONIDES.

The night winds howled, the billows dashed
Against the tossing chest,
As Danae to her broken heart
Her slumbering infant pressed.

"My little child"--in tears she said--
"To wake and weep is mine,
But thou canst sleep--thou dost not know
Thy mother's lot, and thine.

"The moon is up, the moonbeams smile--
They tremble on the main;
But dark, within my floating cell,
To me they smile in vain.

"Thy folded mantle wraps thee warm,
Thy clustering locks are dry;
Thou dost not hear the shrieking gust,
Nor breakers booming high.

"As o'er thy sweet unconscio