Ah, happy day, refuse to go!
Hang in the heavens forever so!
Forever let thy tender mist

Lie like dissolving amethyst

Deep in the distant dales, and shed

Thy mellow glory overhead!

Yet wilt thou wander,-call the thrush, And have the wilds and waters hush To hear his passion-broken tune,

Ah, happy day of happy June!

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

What love do I bring you? The earth,
Full of love, were far lighter;
The great hollow sky, full of love,
Something slighter.

Earth full and heaven full were less
Than the full measure given;
Nay, say a heart full,—the heart
Holds earth and heaven!

MOTHER MINE.

When by the ruddy fire I spelled
In one old volume and another,
Those ballads haunted by fair women,
One of them always seemed my mother.

In storied song she dwelt, where dwell Strange things and sweet of eld and eerie, The foam of Binnorie's bonny mill-dams, The bowing birks, the wells o' Wearie.

All the Queen's Maries she did know,
The eldritch knight, the sisters seven,
The lad that lay upon the Lomonds

And saw the perch play in Lochleven.

Burd Helen had those great gray eyes,

Their rays from shadowy lashes flinging; That smile the winsome bride of Yarrow Before her tears were set to singing.

That mouth was just the mouth that kissed
Sir Cradocke under the green wildwood;
Fair Rosamond was tall as she was

In those fixed fancies of my childhood.

And when she sang-ah, when she sang! Birds are less sweet, and flutes not clearer—

In ancient halls I saw the minstrel,

And shapes long dead arose to hear her!

Darlings of song I've heard since then,

But no such voice as hers was, swelling

Like bell-notes on the winds of morning,
All angelhood about it dwelling.

No more within those regions dim

Of rich romance my thoughts would place her,

Her life itself is such a poem

She does not need old names to grace her.

Long years have fled, but left her charm

Smiling to see that years are fleeter,

Those ballads are as sweet as ever,

But she is infinitely sweeter.

For love, that shines through all her ways,
Hinders the stealthy hours from duty,
A soul divinely self-forgetful

Has come to blossom in her beauty.

While the low brow, the silver curl.

The twilight glance, the perfect features,

The rose upon a creamy pallor,

Make her the loveliest of creatures.

Now with the glow that on the face

Like moonlight on a flower has found her, With the tone's thrill, a faint remoteness, Half like a halo hangs around her.

Half like a halo? Nay, indeed,

I never saw a picture painted— Such holy work the years have rendered— So like a woman that is sainted,

WITNESSES.

Whenever my heart is heavy,
And life seems sad as death,
A subtle and marvelous mockery
Of all who draw their breath,
And I weary of throned injustice,

The rumor of outrage and wrong,
And I doubt if God rules above us,

And I cry, O Lord, how long,
How long shall sorrow and evil

Their forces around them draw?
Is there no power in thy right hand,
Is there no life in thy law?

Then at last the blazing brightness

Of day forsakes its height, Slips like a splendid curtain

From the awful and infinite night; And out of the depths of distance, The gulfs of purple space,

The stars steal, slow and silent,

Each in the ancient place,Each in armor shining,

The hosts of heaven arrayed,

And wheeling through the midnight

As they did when the world was made.

And I lean out among the shadows

Cast by that far white gleam,

And I tremble at the murmur

Of one mote in the mighty beam,

As the everlasting squadrons

Their fated influence shed,

While the vast meridians sparkle

With the glory of their tread.

That constellated glory

The primal morning saw,

And I know God moves to his purpose,

And still there is life in his law!

I have a little kinsman

Whose earthly summers are but three,

And yet a voyager is he

Greater than Drake or Frobisher,

Than all their peers together!

He is a brave discoverer,

And, far beyond the tether

Of them who seek the frozen Pole,

Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.

Ay, he has travelled whither

A winged pilot steered his bark
Through the portals of the dark,
Past hoary Mimir's well and tree,
Across the unknown sea.

Suddenly, in his fair young hour,
Came one who bore a flower,
And laid it in his dimpled hand

With this command: