places,
Where no sorrow came to rouse thee from the heaven of thy dreams,
Where the wood-birds gave thee music, and the path the wild bee
traces
For its sweetness thou could'st follow, or repose by gentle streams.

O poor world! immersed in folly, O dull world! that will not hearken
To the music of a Poet singing of the Beautiful,
Close your heart against its teaching, though it be so sweet, and
darken
All the sunshine of the spirit by the coldness of your rule.

* * * * *

Who would bid us draw the curtain that conceals the poet's sorrow,
Who would need to _hear_ his anguish when they look upon his brow,--
It is written there in tracings far more true than tongue could
borrow,
It is brimming in his glances, once so bright, so woeful now.

Gaze upon him! dost thou know him? to his long-left home returning,
For his step is very feeble, and his cheek is very pale,
And amid it like a sunset is the hectic plague-spot burning,
Ye who know no shatter'd hope-dreams, gaze upon him--there's the
tale!

O the holy love of woman! O the gentle love of woman!
Breathing like a balmy zephyr on the fever'd brows of care,
Centrate sweetness of all sweetness, only in its sorrow human,
Joy without you were a phantom, grief without you were despair!

See! how tenderly she leads him with her arm around him pressing,
As to shield him from the rough world that had wrought him so much
woe,
And his eyes are filled with moisture, scarcely can he breathe his
blessing,
But she feels it in the throbbing of his full heart as they go.

Gaze again into her kind eyes, gaze into them, weary poet,
Fill thy soul with holy calmness from the fountain of her love,
If there's peace for thy poor spirit in this earth they will bestow
it,
For she is a gentle angel sent to bless thee from above.

And she said, as she bent o'er him, half in language, half in
glances,
For there is a hidden meaning far too deep for words to tell,
"We will dwell," she said, "with nature, nourishing all gentle
fancies,
And the lark shall be our minstrel, and the flowers shall love us
well."

So he smiled upon her gently with a glance more sad than weeping,
That a bitter thrill ran through her like a harp struck suddenly,
And she thought upon the summer with cold shadows o