I Alphonso live and learn, Seeing nature go astern. Things deteriorate in kind, Lemons run to leaves and rind, Meagre crop of figs and limes,

Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom’s paean in my verse, That the slave who caught the stra… Should throb until he snapped his… But the Spirit said, 'Not so;

WHEN the pine tosses its cones To the song of its waterfall tones… Who speeds to the woodland walks? To birds and trees who talks? Cæsar of his leafy Rome,

Though loath to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My honeyed thought For the priest’s cant,

Long I followed happy guides,— I could never reach their sides. Their step is forth, and, ere the… Breaks up their leaguer, and away. Keen my sense, my heart was young,

The Sphinx is drowsy, The wings are furled; Her ear is heavy, She broods on the world. “Who’ll tell me my secret,

I do not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me. In plains that room for shadows ma…

Himself it was who wrote His rank, and quartered his own co… There is no king nor sovereign sta… That can fix a hero’s rate; Each to all is venerable,

Higher far, Upward, into the pure realm, Over sun or star, Over the flickering Dæmon film, Thou must mount for love,—

And I behold once more My old familiar haunts; here the b… The same blue wonder that my infan… Admired, sage doubting whence the… Whence brought his sunny bubbles e…

Of Paradise, O hermit wise, Let us renounce the thought. Of old therein our names of sin Allah recorded not. Who dear to God on earthly sod

The south—wind brings Life, sunshine, and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire, But over the dead he has no power,

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. This quarre...