THE BLACK COACH.

IN the black coach you must ride, —

You, so dainty once a time.

We who saw your bloom of pride,

Stifle now the crop of crime,

Lest its poisonous, fruitful birth

Scatter monsters o'er the earth.

She had holidays as gay

As the highest you have known,

Lady, flitting fast away,
With your chariot for a throne.
Wild-flowers for a moment please
In the hands of pampered ease.

Lifted, like a summer treasure
In a golden goblet placed,

To decline in mournful leisure,
Scorned, untended, and disgraced;
With the meadow yet in sight

Where the daisies glisten white.

Come, a carriage blacker still,
Narrowed to the form you bear;
Bring the last of good and ill;
Take the leavings of despair.

Death's cold purity condense
Vaporous sin to soul's intense.

Ere the prison-gates unswing,
Let the spirit portals ope;

While the Winter holds the Spring
Shall the grave-mound cover hope;
Come the pang that ends all woe,
God can better pardon so.

PLAY.

FROM yon den of double-dealing
With its Devil's host,

Come I, maddened out of healing.

All is lost.

So the false wine cannot blind me,

Nor the braggart toast,

But I know that Hell doth bind me;

All is lost.

Where the lavish gain attracts us,

And the easy cost,

While the damning dicer backs us,

All is lost.

Blest the rustic in his furrows,

Toil and sweat-embossed;

Blest are honest souls in sorrows:

All is lost.

Wifely love, the closer clinging When men need thee most,

Shall I come, dishonor bringing?

All is lost.

Babe in silken cradle lying,

To low music tossed,

Will they wake thee for my dying?

All is lost.

Yonder, where the river grimly

Whitens like a ghost,

Must I plunge and perish dimly:

All is lost.

THE LOST JEWEL.

CAST on the turbid current of the street,

My pearl doth swim;

Oh for the diver's cunning hands and feet

To come to him!

No: I'll not seek the madness of thine eyes,

And holy loves re-edify the heart

The passions use.