TO A YEAR.

Fly, Year, not backward down blind gulfs of night, Thick with the swarm of miscreated things:

Forth, flying year, through calms and broader light, Clear-eyed, strong-bosom'd year, on strenuous

wings;

Bearing a song more high-intoned, more holy
Than the wild Swan's melodious melancholy,
More rapturous than the atom lark outflings.

I follow on slow foot and unsubdued:

Have I not heard thy cry across the wind? Not seen thee, Slayer of the serpent brood,Error, and doubt, and death, and anguish blind? I follow, I shall know thee by thy plumes

Flame-tipped, when on that morn of conquered tombs,

I praise amidst my years the doom assigned.

A SONG OF THE NEW DAY.

The tender Sorrows of the twilight leave me,

And shall I want the fanning of smooth wings? Will it grieve me

Shall I not miss sweet sorrows?

To hear no cooing from soft dove-like things?

Let Evening hear them! O wide Dawn uprisen, Know me all thine; and ye, whose level flight Has pierced the drear hours and the cloudy prison, Cry for the pathless spaces and the light!

SWALLOWS.

Wide fields of air left luminous,
Though now the uplands comprehend

How the sun's loss is ultimate:

The silence grows; but still to us

From yon air-winnowing breasts elate

The tiny shrieks of glee descend.

Deft wings, each moment is resigned Some touch of day, some pulse of light,

While yet in poised, delicious curve,

Ecstatic doublings down the wind,

Light dash and dip and sidelong swerve, You try each dainty trick of flight.

Will not your airy glee relent

At all? The aimless frolic cease?

Know ye no touch of quelling pain,
Nor joy's more strict admonishment,
No tender awe at day-light's wane,
Ye slaves of delicate caprice?

Hush, once again that cry intense!
High-venturing spirits have your will!
Urge the last freak, prolong your glee,
Keen voyagers, while still the immense
Sea-spaces haunt your memory,
With zests and pangs ineffable.

Not in the sunshine of old woods

Ye won your warrant to be gay

By duteous, sweet observances,

Who dared through darkening solitudes, And 'mid the hiss of alien waves,

The larger ordinance obey.

MEMORIALS OF TRAVEL.

I. COACHING.

(In Scotland.)

Where have I been this perfect summer day,
-Or fortnight is it, since I rose from bed,
Devour'd that kippered fish, the oatmeal bread,
And mounted to this box? O bowl away
Swift stagers through the dusk, I will not say
'Enough,' nor care where I have been or be,
Nor know one name of hill, or lake, or lea,
Or moor, or glen! Were not the clouds at play
Nameless among the hills, and fair as dreams?
On such a day we must love things not words,
And memory take or leave them as they are.
On such a day! What unimagined streams
Are in the world, how many haunts of birds,
What fields and flowers,-and what an evening

Star!