High the fields are waving;
Orchard fruit is blest—
Summer's merry saving
For Winter's happy rest.
O'er the clover lea
The blossom-loving bee,
Neglectful of her Maker
Tho' 'tis Sunday-morn,
Little Sabbath-breaker!
Winds her humming horn,
Where lilybell and rose
No door denying close—
Asking neither price nor pay,
Wooing what may pass that way,
To be their sweets' partaker.

Bell and book unheeding,
The quiet kine are feeding,
The birds are on the wing,
The pebbled runnels ring,
The rivers still are flowing,
The graceful corn is growing,
The frolic wind is blowing—
And yet, the world caressing,
Unwrinkled by a frown,
The blue sky sends a blessing
On all creation down.

Mistily, dreamily, steals a faint glimmer—
Hill-tops grow lighter, tho' stars become dimmer:

First a streak of grey;
Then a line of green;
Then a sea of roses
With golden isles between.

All along the dawnlit prairies
Stand the flowers, like tip-toe fairies
   Waiting for the early dew:
               Listening—
               Glistening—
         As the morning
      Walks their airy muster thro,'
All the newborn blossoms christening
        With a sacrament of dew.
        And from them a flower with wings,
Their angel that watched thro' the night,
         The beautiful butterfly springs
                 To the light.

Silks have rustled, fans have fluttered;
Sneers and compliments been uttered;
And many found, as find they ought,
In church the object that they sought;
Business finds a turn in trade;
Praise, its victim; wit, its butt;
New acquaintance have been made;
Old acquaintances been cut.

Shivering on the naked floor,
By the cold, denying door,
And where the drafty windows soar
The dust encumbered galleries o'er,
Stand the hundreds of the poor.
Those, at least, who still can wear
A coat that is not worn too bare.
For rags are never suffered there.

As the Bishop mounts the pulpit
    Sink the whispers, coughs, and hums;
And here and there a scattered sinner
    Rising in the House of God,

Shews he
Knows the
    Rosy,
    Cosy,
    Dosy,
    Prosy,

    Bishop, with a smile and nod.

The Prelate bows his cushioned knee;
Oh! the Prelate 's fat to see;
Fat the priests who minister,
Fat, each roaring chorister,
Prebendary, Deacon, Lector,
Chapter, Chanter, Vicar, Rector,
Curate, Chaplain, Dean and pastor,
Verger, Sexton, Clerk, Schoolmaster,
From mitre tall, to gold-laced hat,
Fat 's the place—and all are fat.

Brethren! profit by the lesson! see the hand that's
        stretching down
To shield the woolsack, counter, ledger, altar, mitre,
        sabre, crown!
Then be patient in Affliction! envy not the rich and
        great!
" A contrite and a broken heart" alone, shall enter at
        the gate.
You may think the rich are happy, but you little know
        the cost;
By the gain of earthly treasures are eternal treasures
        lost.
For this life is short and fleeting, and they choose a
        poorer share;
Let them revel—let them triumph: they shall suffer
        doubly, there.
Your afflictions are your blessings; by disaster you are
        tried;
Those are happiest who are saddest , if the searching test
        they bide.
Tears are gladder far than smiles; disease is healthier
        far than health;
Rags are warmer far than ermine; want is richer far
        than wealth;
Hunger feeds you more than plenty; strife is peace and
        peace is strife;
Loss is gain and gain is loss; life is death and death is
        life.

There's a mansion old 'mid the hills of the west,
So old, that men know not by whom it was built;
But its pinnacles grey thro' the forest hoar
Have glimmered a thousand years and more;
And many a tale of sorrow and guilt
Would blanch the cheek, if its stones could speak
The secrets locked in its silent breast.
Its lords have been great in the olden day;
But the pride of their strength has been broken away:
They moulder unknown in their native land,
And their home has long past to a stranger-hand.

Now Devilson reaches his heart's desire,
And takes his place as a country squire
But since his origin all can trace,
Affects a pride in his origin base;
And since all in this land you may buy and sell,
Is determined to buy a good name as well:
He buys much, when he offers a five-pound reward
To the slave who'll starve longest and labour most hard
He buys more, when he bids a whole parish be fed
On an annual banquet at two pence the head;
His character's rising by rapid degrees,
Till he pays a young saint at a chapel of ease,—
When the bargain's completed as soon as began.
And he's stamped a respectable, popular man.
He's soon made Justice, and Sheriff in time;
And high, and still higher, determined to climb,
Looks around for an anchor to steady his life,
And from a poor peer buys a termagant wife.

The Lady Malice is tall and thin;
Her skin is of a dusky tan,
With black hairs dotting her pointed chin;
She's like a long, lean, lanky man.
Her virtue's positively fierce;
Her sharp eyes every weakness pierce,
Sure some inherent vice to find
In every phase of human kind.

*         *        *        *

Devilson's thickset, short, and red;
Nine-tenths of the man are his paunch and head;
His hair is tufty, dense, and dark;
His small eyes flash with a cold gray spark,
Whose fitful glimmer will oft reveal
When a flinty thought strikes on his heart of steel.
He's sensual lips and a bold hook nose;
And he makes himself felt wherever he goes;
He's stern to the rich, and he's hard to the poor;
But he's many a little, low amour;
And their cost is small—for he culls them all
From the Workhouse-yard and the Servant's Hall.
So Devilson lives with his titled bride;
And the saintliest pity him more than chide;—
For they feel the full force of his married bliss!
Oh! the peerage are more than avenged in this;
Since, if he once rained an absentee race,
She tortures him endlessly, face to face.

To where a canvass lured my eye,
From the narrow room and the clouded sky,
Away and away, to Italy!
With its crested ripples sparkling
And its watery furrows darkling;
And its white sail like a swallow,
Darting over the hollow;
And its sun intensely bright;
And its sea intensely blue;
And its crowds of lazy nations,
With nothing on earth to do;
And its old cyclopean ruins,—
Dust of empires dead,—
Footprints of the giants,
In which the pigmies tread
And its white-domed cities tying;
With the faintest veil of haze,
Like a dream of boyhood visioned
By the light of other days. 
And its olive-leaf scarce trembling,
And its sky so pure and still;
Not a frown from earth to zenith,
Save one small cloud on the hill.
The olive-leaf scarce trembling—
The cloud so small and fair;
Just enough to say—the spirit
Of a storm is watching there!
Thro' the forest's leafy masses,
You might sea how the current ran,
As a thought in whispers passes,
Thro' the myriad tribes' of man;
And the cloud, like Jupiter's eagle,
Looking down on his old Rome,
Perched, waiting on his mountain,
Till the thunder-day shall come—
A Laurel in the foreground,
Lone and withering,
For ever stands expectant
Of its unreturning spring;
And a painter lies beneath it,
With his brush and palette near,
Catching Truth's white inspiration,
Like light in a prism clear,
And throwing it back in Fancy's
Rich-tinted atmosphere.

Round Florence the tempests are clouding;
        The mountains a deluge have hurled;
For the tyrants of nations are crowding
        To blot that fair light from the world.

Like vultures that sweep from the passes
        To come to the feast of the dead,
In black, heavy, motionless masses
        Their mighty battalions are spread.

'Tis eve: and the soldiers of Florence
        To meet them are marching amain;
The foe stand like Ocean awaiting
        The streamlet that glides o'er the plain.

Then the blood of the best and the bravest.
        Had poured like the rain on the sod,—
But the spirit of night stood between them,
        Proclaiming the truce of their God.

It touches the heart of the tyrant,—
        It gives him the time to repent;—
The morn on the mountain has risen!
        The hour of salvation is spent!

The multitudes break into motion,
        The trumpets are stirring the flood
An islet surrounded by ocean,
        The ranks of the citizens stood.

But the vanguard is Valour and Glory;
        The phalanx is Freedom and Right;
The leaders are Honour and Duty;
        Are they soldiers to fail in the fight?

Then, hail to thee! Florence the fearless!
        And, hail to thee! Florence the fair!
Ere the mist from the mountain has faded,
        What a triumph of arms shall be there!

Men counted him a dreamer:—dreams
Are but the light of clearer skies,
Too dazzling for our naked eyes;
And when we catch their Hashing beams,
We turn aside, and call them dreams!
Oh, trust me!—every truth that yet
In greatness rose and sorrow set,
That time to ripening glory nurst,
Was called an idle dream at first!

And when Florence had fallen and bowed the knee
To the golden pride of the Medici,
Then princes and bishops and cardinals tore
From her temples and trophies their coveted store;
And hung on the wall
Of their selfish hall,
What was meant for the eyes and the hearts of all.

Thus past the picture from hand to hand,
Till it wandered away to a cloudy land,
And I found it lost in the barren-gloom
Of a country gentleman's dining room.

Then methought that the form 'neath the withered tree
From its blighted laurel appealed to me;
And that I could read in its earnest eyes
The spirit of thoughts like these arise:

_________________

The earth may take the body,
    Consuming what it gave:
But God said to the spirit—
    " Thou shalt not see the grave!"

Upon his canvass pages,
    The painter throws his heart:
Yet England's barbarous nobles
    Have buried living art.

Far scattered in dull mansions,
    With none to see and taste,
Its crystal springs lie hidden
    In Mammon's golden waste.

If Poets write for nations,
    Free as shines the sun,
The Painter and the Sculptor
    Have never wrought for one.

As well might Byron's Harold,
    In one dark folio kept, 
In one loan's sordid chamber
    Thro' endless years have slept.

The treasures on your panels,
    And down your galleries spread.
Are heartless robberies practised
    On the living and the dead.

Is it for this, that on one work
    My soul's whole energy I cast?
Thought! ardour! feeling! hope! and joy!
    And gave my life at last!

Go! stranger! rouse the sons of thought!
    Go! tell them far and near!
And take me! take me to the world!
    Or make the world come here!

Since then, a sterile-thoughted man 
    Had lorded it o'er Leawood fair, 
Who as an errand-boy began,
    And ended as a millionnaire.

And his son by slow degrees,
    Mounted life with golden feet,—
For the son knew how to please,
    As the sire knew how to cheat.

        Down the hill-side tripping brightly,
        O'er the pebbles tinkling lightly,
'Mid the meadows rippling merrily, the   mountain
            current goes;
        By the broken rocks careering,
        Through the desert persevering,
Flowing onward ever, ever singing as it flows.

        But oh! the darksome caves
        That swallow up the waves!
Oh! the shadow haunted forest and the sandy
            shallows wide!
        Oh! the hollow-reeded fen,
        Like the stagnant minds of men,
A desert for the silver foot of mountain-cradled
            tide!

        And oh! the withered leaves
        From the fading forest-eaves,
Pressing on its forehead like the signet of decay;
        And the cold cloud's troubling tear
        On its crystal waters clear,
Like a haunting sorrow gliding down the future
            of its way.

—His fancy was busy again within
To think how much better his work might have
            been
With a light brought there and a shade thrown
            here:
'Twas well that he had not the canvas near,
For the painters, then, were Despair and Fear.

But hark! a sound on the silence steals!
'Tis a shout—a shout in the distance peals!
It gathers—it deepens—it rolls this way!
" Lenora! haste to the casement—say!
'Tis finished!—but—who has won the day?"

Near and more near
Is the loud acclaim:
You could almost hear
The victorious name:
" They come! by the beat
Of their flooding feet!
Now!—now—they are reaching the end of the
            street!"
The maiden's heart is fluttering wild,
And even the father arose from his seat
And stood by his child,
But incredulous smiled:
" There's a way to the left.  They will turn to
            the square."
"No! onward!—right onward!—they pause not
            there!
And the senators pass
Through the multitude's mass!
Scarce three doors off— they come! — they
            come!"

The maiden has sunk from the window-side:
'Tis past a fear!—'tis past a doubt!
There's a stir within—there's a rush without—
They mount the stair—the door flies wide—
Oh! joy to the lover! and joy to the bride!
The eldest of the train advances
In his hand the garland glances;
Gold—precious, glittering to the sight;
Pledge of hopes that are still more bright,
For love is wreathed in its leaves of light!
They call him:—is their voice unheard?
He rose not as in duty bound;
He bowed not as they gathered round;
They placed the garland on his head—
He gave no thanks—he spoke no word—
But slowly sank like a drooping flower
Beneath the weight of too full a shower:
         The painter of Florence was dead!