Still towards the steep Parnassian way
The moon-led pilgrims wend,
Ah, who of all that start to-day
Shall ever reach the end?

Year after year a dream-fed band
That scorn the vales below,
And scorn the fatness of the land
To win those heights of snow,—­

Leave barns and kine and flocks behind,
And count their fortune fair,
If they a dozen leaves may bind
Of laurel in their hair.

Like us, dear Poet, once you trod
That sweet moon-smitten way,
With mouth of silver sought the god
All night and all the day;

Sought singing, till in rosy fire
The white Apollo came,
And touched your brow, and wreathed your lyre,
And named you by his name;

And led you, loving, by the hand
To those grave laurelled bowers,
Where keep your high immortal band
Your high immortal hours.

Strait was the way, thorn-set and long—­
Ah, tell us, shining there,
Is fame as wonderful as song? 
And laurels in your hair!

A NEW YEAR LETTER

To Two Friends married in the New Year

(To.  Mr. And Mrs. Welch)

Another year to its last day,
Like a lost sovereign, runaway,
Tips down the gloomy grid of time: 
In vain to holloa, ’Stop it! hey!’—­
A cab-horse that has taken fright,
Be you a policeman, stop you may;
But not a sovereign mad with glee
That scampers to the grid, perdie,
And not a year that’s taken flight;
To both ’tis just a grim good night.

But no! the imagery, say you,
Is wondrous witty—­but not true;
For the old year that last night went
Has not been so much lost as spent: 
You gave it in exchange to Death
For just twelve months of happy breath.

It was a ticket to admit
Two happy people close to sit—­
A ‘Season’ ticket, one might say,
At Time’s eternal passion play.

O magic overture of Spring,
O Summer like an Eastern King,
O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen,
O Winter, alabaster tomb
Where lie the regal twain serene,
Gone to their yearly doom.

But all you bought with that spent year,—­
Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it? 
Nothing at all to hold compare
With what you buy with this New Year. 
A home! ah me, you could not buy
Another half so precious toy,
With all the other years to come
As that grown-up doll’s house—­a home.

O wine upon its threshold stone,
And horse-shoes on the lintel of it,
And happy hearts to keep it warm,
And God Himself to love it! 
Dear little nest built snug on bough
Within the World-Tree’s mighty arms,
I would I knew a spell that charms
Eternal safety from the storm;

To give you always stars above,
And always roses on the bough—­
But then the Tree’s own root is Love,
Love, love, all love, I vow.