TO THE CRITIC.

Of all my verses, say that one is good,

So shalt thou give more praise than Hope might claim; And from my poet-grave, to vex thy soul,

No ghost shall rise, whose deeds demand a name.

A thousand loves, and only one shall stand
To show us what its counterfeits should be;
The blossoms of a spring-tide, and but one
Bears the world's fruit, the seed of History.

A thousand rhymes shall pass, and only one
Show, crystal-shod, the Muse's twinkling feet;
A thousand pearls the haughty Ethiop spurned
Ere one could make her luxury complete.

In goodliest palaces, some meanest room The owner's smallness shields contentedly. Nay, further of the manifold we are, But one pin's point shall pass eternity.

Exalt, then, to the greatness of the throne One only of these beggarlings of mine;

I with the rest will dwell in modest bounds: The chosen one shall glorify the line.

PHILOSOPHY.

NAKED and poor thou goest, Philosophy!

Thy robe of serge hath lain beneath the stars;

Thy weight of tresses, ponderously free,

Of iron hue, no golden circlet bars.

Thy pale page, Study, by thy side doth hold,
As by Cyprigna's her persuasive boy :

Twin sacks thou bear'st; one doth thy gifts infold,
Whose modest tendering proves immortal joy.

The other at thy patient back doth hang
To keep the boons thou'rt wonted to receive:
Reproof therein doth hide her venomed fang,
And hard barbaric arts, that mock and grieve.

Here is a stab, and here a mortal thrust;

Here galley service brought the age to loss;

Here lies thy virgin forehead rolled in dust

Beside the martyr stake or hero cross.

They who besmirched thy whiteness with their pitch,

Thy gallery of glories did complete ;

They who accepted of thee so grew rich,

Men could not count their treasures in the street.

Thy hollow cheek, and eye of distant light,
Won from the chief of men their noblest love;
Olympian feasts thy temperance requite,
And thy worn weeds a priceless dowry prove.

I know not if I've caught the matchless mood
In which impassioned Petrarch sang of thee;
But this I know, the world its plenitude

May keep, so I may share thy beggary.

KOSMOS.

Or dust the primal Adam came

In wondrous sequency evolved,

With speech that gave creation name,
Of art and artist never solved.

With something of a mother-pang
The Sun conceived the starry spheres
That from her burning bosom sprang,
Immortal children of her tears.

From height of heat, and stress of span, The measured Earth took poise and hold; And beasts, the prophecy of man,

And man, were latent in her mould.