I may live in my thoughts of flame--
The tie is broken that kept me back,
And my spirit is on, for fame!

But alas! I am dreaming as if I knew
The spell of the tablet green;
I forgot how like to a broken reed,
Is the lot on which I lean.
There is nothing true of my idle dream,
But the wreck of my early love;
And my mind is coined for my daily bread,
And how can it soar above?

THE ANNOYER.

Sogna il guerrier le schiere,
Le sel ve il cacciator;
E sogna il pescator;
Le reti, e l' amo. _Metastatio._

Love knoweth every form of air,
And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
Like thought's mysterious birth.
The moonlight sea and the sunset sky
Are written with Love's words,
And you hear his voice unceasingly,
Like song in the time of birds.

He peeps into the warrior's heart
From the tip of a stooping plume,
And the serried spears, and the many men
May not deny him room.
He'll come to his tent in the weary night,
And be busy in his dream;
And he'll float to his eye in morning light
Like a fay on a silver beam.

He hears the sound of the hunter's gun,
And rides on the echo back,
And sighs in his ear like a stirring leaf,
And flits in his woodland track.
The shade of the wood, and the sheen of the river,
The cloud, and the open sky--
He will haunt them all with his subtle quiver,
Like the light of your very eye.

The fisher hangs over the leaning boat,
And ponders the silver sea,
For Love is under the surface hid,
And a spell of thought has he.
He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet,
And speaks in the ripple low,
Till the bait is gone from the crafty line,
And the hook hangs bare below.

He blurs the print of the scholar's book,
And intrudes in the maiden's prayer.
And profanes the cell of the holy man,
In the shape of a lady fair.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
In earth, and sea, and sky,
In every home of human thought,
Will Love be lurking nigh.

STARLIGHT.

The evening star will twinkle presently.
The last small bird is silent, and the bee
Has gone into his hive, and the shut flowers
Are bending as if sleeping on the stem,