m a-longing for the sea!)

Then when I die, a grave for me--
But in the graveless sea!
Where is no stone for an eye to spell
Thro' the lichen a name, a date and a verse.
Let me be laid in the deeps that swell
And sigh and wander--an ocean hearse!
(I'm a-longing for the sea!)

THE VICTORY

See, see!--the blows at his breast,
The abyss at his back,
The perils and pains that pressed,
The doubts in a pack,
That hunted to drag him down
Have triumphed? and now
He sinks, who climbed for the crown
To the Summit's brow?

No!--though at the foot he lies,
Fallen and vain,
With gaze to the peak whose skies
He could not attain,
The victory is, with strength--
No matter the past!--
He'd dare it again, the dark length,
And the fall at last!

AT WINTER'S END

The weedy fallows winter-worn,
Where cattle shiver under sodden hay.
The plough-lands long and lorn--
The fading day.

The sullen shudder of the brook,
And winds that wring the writhen trees in vain
For drearier sound or look--
The lonely rain.

The crows that train o'er desert skies
In endless caravans that have no goal
But flight--where darkness flies--
From Pole to Pole.

The sombre zone of hills around
That shrink in misty mournfulness from sight,
With sunset aureoles crowned--
Before the night.

MOTHER-LOVE

The seraphs would sing to her
And from the River
Dip her cool grails of radiant Life.
The angels would bring to her,
Sadly a-quiver,
Laurels she never had won in earth-strife.

And often they'd fly with her
O'er the star-spaces--
Silent by worlds where mortals are pent.
Yea, even would sigh with her,
Sigh with wan faces!
When she sat weeping of strange discontent.

But one said, "Why weepest thou
Here in God's heaven--
Is it not fairer than soul can see?"
"'Tis fair, ah!--but keepest thou
Not me depriven
Of some one--somewhere--who needeth most me?

"For tho' the day never fades
Over these meadows,
Tho' He has robed me and crowned--yet, yet!
Some love-fear for ever shades
All with sere shadows--
Had I no child _there_--whom I forget?"

TO A SINGING WARBLER

"Beauty! all--all--is beauty?"
Was ever