Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught
After the master's sketch fills and o'erfills
My apprehension? why seek Italy,

Who cannot circumnavigate the sea

Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn The nearest matters for a thousand days?

EXPERIENCE.

THE lords of life, the lords of life,

I saw them pass,

In their own guise,

Like and unlike,

Portly and grim, —

Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,

Succession swift and spectral Wrong,

Temperament without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name;

Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,

Among the legs of his guardians tall,
Walked about with puzzled look;
Him by the hand dear Nature took,
Dearest Nature, strong and kind,

Whispered, Darling, never mind!

To-morrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!'

WEALTH.

WHO shall tell what did befall,
Far away in time, when once,
Over the lifeless ball,

Hung idle stars and suns?

What god the element obeyed?

Wings of what wind the lichen bore,

Wafting the puny seeds of power,

Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?
And well the primal pioneer

Knew the strong task to it assigned,
Patient through Heaven's enormous year
To build in matter home for mind.
From air the creeping centuries drew
The matted thicket low and wide,
This must the leaves of ages strew
The granite slab to clothe and hide,
Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.
What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled

(In dizzy æons dim and mute

The reeling brain can ill compute)

Copper and iron, lead and gold?

What oldest star the fame can save

Of races perishing to pave

The planet with a floor of lime?

Dust is their pyramid and mole:

Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed
Under the tumbling mountain's breast,
In the safe herbal of the coal?

But when the quarried means were piled,
All is waste and worthless, till
Arrives the wise selecting will,
And, out of slime and chaos, Wit
Draws the threads of fair and fit.
Then temples rose, and towns, and marts,
The shop of toil, the hall of arts;
Then flew the sail across the seas
To feed the North from tropic trees;
The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,
Where they were bid the rivers ran;
New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream,
Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.
Then docks were built, and crops were stored,
And ingots added to the hoard.

But, though light-headed man forget,

Remembering Matter pays her debt:

Still, through her motes and masses, draw

Electric thrills and ties of Law,

Which bind the strength of Nature wild
To the conscience of a child.

DAYS.

DAUGHTERS of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,

Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleachéd garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily

Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.