Beauties have their hour,

Safely perched on the spring-budding tree:

For the ripened soul is trust and power, And beyond, the calm eternity.

FAREWELL TO HAVANA.

My sight is blank, my heart is lorn;
My tropic trance of joy I mourn,
That stolen summer of delight,
Dreamed on the breast of wintry night,

When sad, true souls abide the North,
And we, love-truants, issued forth

To find, with steady sail unfurled,
The glowing centre of the world.

The glorious sights went fleeting by ;
I had no hold on earth or sky:
Two little hands, one helpless heart,
Could claim and keep so small a part.
A shadow of the stately palm;

A burnish of the noontide calm;

A dream of faces new and strange,
Darkened and lit with sudden change;

A joy of flowers unearthly fair

In giant Nature's tangled hair;
A joy of fruits of other hue

And savor than my childhood knew ;
A sorrow, as the vista grew,
Longer and lesser, cherished too;
A pang of parting, heart-bereft

Of all I had, — is all I've left.

To cheer my journey what remains

Towards the rude heights where Winter reigns? What love-nursed thought shall shield my breast Warmer than cloak or sable vest?

One hope serene all comfort brings, —

Who made thy bonds did lend thy wings;

Who sends thee from this faery reign

Once brought thee here, and may again.

A WILD NIGHT.

THE storm is sweeping o'er the land, And raging o'er the sea:

It urgeth sharp and dismal sounds,

The Psalm of Misery.

The straining of the cordage now,

The creaking of a spar,

The deep dumb shock the vessel feels When billows strike and jar,

It breathes of distant seamen's hearts

That think upon their wives;

Of wretches clinging to the mast,

And wrestling for their lives.

The clouds are flying through the sky

Like spectres of affright:

Yon pale witch moon doth blast them all With bleared and ghastly light.

Great Demons flutter through the dark
Flame touched, with dusky wing;
And Passion crouches out of sight

Like a forbidden thing.

The blast doth scourge the forest through, Great oaks, and bushes small;

And God, the fable of the fools,

Looks silently on all.

Oh! if He watches, as I know,
Safe let Him keep our rest,

And give my little ones and me

The shelter of His breast.