NORWAY.

THE MIDNIGHT DAY.

H! give me back my star-bespangled skies

That soothe the eye relieved from watch of

Repose is part of life, but shuns the ray

[day;

Of garish midnight sun that never dies.
Let me once more to call of Morn arise,
Let Evening once again my senses sway;
Here are no peep of dawn, no twilight grey,
No change whereto the changing heart replies.
Bright resurrection with the morning's beam!
Warm death of sleep in sunless tomb of night!
Mysterious doth your alternation seem,
Foreshadowing some far greater dark and light;
Imagination in your course may see

The type of Death and Immortality.

GRE

NORWAY.

THE MID-DAY NIGHT.

REAT Night! whose vasty shadow doth en-
shroud

For period so prolonged this arctic zone,
Thou art not robed in sable garb alone,

But all about thy brow sparkles a crowd

Of stars, with more than starlight e'en endowed, While with wrought canopy of precious stone

Aurora Borealis gems thy throne,

And thy Moon's modest smile half seemeth proud.
Dark Beauty! thus adorned, mother of dreams
That revel in thee, unalarmed by day,

How far with thee man's eye to wander seems,
How dost thou lead the straining soul away!
But ah! while thought would scan thy magic light,
Thou hast but this blank answer-All is Night.

PIC DU MIDI DE BIGORRE.

Addressed to General Nansouty, who has voluntarily stationed himself in an Observatory on the top of this mountain.

MOUNT, mount, and dare these rugged

steeps on high,

Leave in the vale thy luxuries below!

Where is thy merit here, thou butterfly,

That flutterest only in the summer's glow?

But ye, whose hearts would aught of grandeur know, Turn to these topmost crags your wondering eye; Behold a dweller here, who winds and snow, Soldier of Science, bravely can defy !

A white-haired warrior ye shall see revealed,

Who, working out his theme alone in age,

And gathering glory in this other field,

Doth with the changing heaven and air engage: The sword of Science in his grasp ye find,

Mars still at heart, Apollo tunes his mind.

THE FIELD OF BALACLAVA.

On visiting this spot, on a very fine day, from Sebastopol.

UMMER'S hot sun shone brilliant where I

SUMM

stood,

And honey-gathering bees hummed in mine ear, The landscape basked in quietude, but near There rose a monument that spoke of blood. Sorrow stands next to joy, evil to good,

But what should this harsh record purport here,
Where all a sinless Eden might appear,

Where Peace sat smiling in her sweetest mood?
Attend. Some five-and-twenty years ago

There raged a battle o'er this dozing field,
When led by wrong command, yea, even so,
To duty vowed, though slaughter stared revealed,

Up this long rise, and to my very feet

Galloped Six Hundred hearts Death's fire to meet !

August 23, 1879.

I

A DREAM.

DREAMED that I had floated far away

Into the realms of space, until the sun Had dwindled to a star, while still not one Of all the stars could yield a solar ray. Earth all beyond e'en contemplation lay,

That atom, where I hung, was known to none:
Above, below, around, through darkness shone
Stars and stars only-I had lost the day.

And then I dreamed that I had been too bold,
That from this silent void I must return,
That teeming life I'had left for barren cold,
Where not for me these alien lights could burn:
Then, waking, I believed my dream had told,

Man only in the sphere of Man can learn.