ou think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?"

Here, too, is the grand ballad of "The Cumberland," and the delicate
fancy of "The Snow-Flakes," expressing what every sensitive observer has
so often felt,--that the dull leaden trouble of the winter sky finds the
relief in snow that the suffering human heart finds in expression. Then
there is "A Day of June," an outburst of the fulness of life and love in
the beautiful sunny weather of blossoms on the earth and soft clouds in
the sky.

"O life and love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?"

To this poem the date is added, June, 1860.

And here, at length, is the last poem. We pause as we reach it, and turn
back to the first page of "Outre-Mer." "'Lystenyth, ye godely gentylmen,
and all that ben hereyn!' I am a pilgrim benighted on my way, and crave
a shelter till the storm is over, and a seat by the fireside in this
honorable company. As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands,
and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales of the countries I
have passed through in my pilgrimage." It is the gay confidence of
youth. It is the bright prelude of the happy traveller and scholar, to
whom the very quaint conceits and antiquated language of romance are
themselves romantic, and who makes himself a bard and troubadour. Hope
allures him; ambition spurs him; conscious power assures him. His eager
step dances along the ground. His words are an outburst of youth and
joy. Thirty years pass by. What sober step pauses at the Wayside Inn? Is
this the jocund Pilgrim of Outre-Mer? The harp is still in his strong
hand. It sounds yet with the old tenderness and grace and sweetness. But
this is the man, not the boy. This is the doubtful tyro no longer, but
the wise master, honored and beloved. To how many hearts has his song
brought peace! How like a benediction in all our homes his music falls!
Ah! not more surely, when the stretched string of the full-tuned harp
snaps in the silence, the cords of every neighboring instrument respond,
than the hearts which love the singer and his song thrill with the
heart-break of this last poem:--

"O little feet, that such long years
Must wander on through doubts and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load!
I, nearer to