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 !«<
 
 MAIDEN ECSTASY
 
 LONDON : PRINTED TiY 
 
 Sl'OTTISVVOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND FARLIAMliNT STKEET
 
 MAIDEN ECSTASY 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS GORDON HAKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 PARABLES AND TALES ' ' NEW SYMBOLS' 'LEGENDS OF THE MOKKOVV ' 
 
 ETC. 
 
 ITonbou 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1880 
 
 \,The ri^ht 0/ translation is reserved^
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 The Betrothed 3 
 
 The Actress -13 
 
 The Spirit's Kiss 23 
 
 The Dancing Girl r • 33 
 
 The Visionary 43 
 
 The First Love 53 
 
 The Heart-Broken 6i 
 
 The Child of Romance 69 
 
 The Self-Conscious ....... 77 
 
 The Maid of Song 87 
 
 The Shepherdess 95 
 
 The Lost Angel 105 
 
 The Poetess 113 
 
 The Sun-Worshipper 123 
 
 83?; 
 
 *^QA*?
 
 THE BETROTHED
 
 THE BETROTHED. 
 
 I. 
 
 Her boat is scudding on and on 
 
 Like a white shell hand-pitched from out the creek ; 
 She holds the rope, her canvas flaps, anon 
 
 Is puffed like cherub's cheek. 
 Half smiles she while she watches, half she fears, 
 
 So fast she flits, so joyous feels to leap 
 Two waves as one whose jagged jaws she clears 
 
 That fall back empty as they prowl the deep. 
 
 II. 
 
 A sculptured and stone-cofiined race 
 By ancient death in armour clad for aye 
 
 In her survives ; that healthful, daring face 
 Mirthless yet seeming gay. 
 
 B 2
 
 The Betrothed. 
 
 Holding her lips to sip the salty gust, 
 Splashed by the spray-lit billows, wave by wave 
 
 The wind is parrying off the water's thrust 
 While all she sighs for is that glairy grave. 
 
 III. 
 
 A seigneur, watching from his bay. 
 
 Sees two dark lines, with danger in their trail, 
 Bar the west sky, that, while she seems at play, 
 
 A gust may sink her sail. 
 More than his honour, than his life far more. 
 
 He loves the venturous maid and spares not haste 
 To push his boat out with his ashen oar, 
 
 As though the fateful moment were her last. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She sees him, laughs, and drops her sail : 
 
 He presses on, rippling the sunny seas, 
 Grateful to tell her love's alluring tale 
 
 While sinks away the breeze. 
 In lulled enchantment, boat by boat they sit 
 
 Mating their hearts though it be not to wed : 
 Hers gives she, but her sire has plighted it. 
 
 Whence had that laugh an echo with the dead.
 
 The Betrothed^ 
 
 V. 
 
 Saith she, * Though martyrdom be ours 
 
 This can we bear : to us is daring given 
 Wherewith to meet the cloud that o'er us lowers ; 
 
 It is as health from heaven.' 
 He answers, * Hope yet have I when alone 
 
 To breathe in me a courage from above : 
 When you are nigh that whisperer is gone, 
 
 Because it has no place within your love.' 
 
 VI. 
 
 She says ' Let us await the end ! 
 
 Tears that to dryness flow, — such were our tears 
 To drop upon the burning sands, to blend 
 
 With the parched, desert years ! 
 Honour remains, through it can we behold 
 
 A world that still is beautiful and large ; 
 Our fathers won it in the days of old. 
 
 Unstained, the heirloom passes to our charge.' 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' When is the sacrifice to be, — 
 
 Your love in mine, but in that wedding shroud ? 
 She answers not, but seems to ask the sea 
 
 And darkly pluming cloud.
 
 The Betrothed. 
 
 These waver, while her passing wish has waned : 
 
 Her heart's hfe rising is again extinct, 
 As if her fatal promise were unchained 
 
 Only to be in stronger bonds relinked. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Sadly he says, ' My heart is rash 
 
 That would your spotless honour even pain, 
 For not as hands can we our conscience wash 
 
 And rid it of a stain. 
 Oh ! that some sudden turn of time would show 
 
 A way, yet open, to our hidden home. 
 Or point to the dark end, to never know 
 
 In its long night the suffering years to come ! ' 
 
 IX. 
 
 She murmurs, * Oh ! that newly born 
 
 We now could see the way we might have seen, 
 Free from our own remorse and others' scorn : 
 
 And this might once have been.' 
 She lifts her sail, she cuts a wave in twain ; 
 
 But the black lines have met, the gust comes down. 
 Her boat is drawn below the ready main 
 
 And lets her like a water lily drown.
 
 The Betrothed. 
 
 X. 
 
 He plunges to the burial plains 
 
 'Neath the reft surge, then thinking not of death ; 
 Not till the lovely lost one he regains 
 
 Who smiles without her breath. 
 He can but bear his darling to the shore, 
 
 O miracle of death wrought of a storm ! 
 To tend her ever, though she live no more, 
 
 And in his castle lay that precious form. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet she is his, her lips declared 
 
 Her heart's life to him in their latest bloom ; 
 Yes, she is his, ah ! thus ! and yet if spared 
 
 More sad had been her doom ! 
 His to the last, and now can human force 
 
 Not sever them ! ' Sweet lips, revive ! ' he cries, 
 As at his breast he breathes upon the corse 
 
 That, knowing not its life, there conquered lies. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Long has he sobbed to those meek charms, 
 Not hoping now, when comes a loving stare : 
 
 She wakes enclosed within his tender arms 
 Yet feels no stranger there
 
 8 The Betrothed. 
 
 But smiles, not turning from his gentle hold. 
 
 ' Kiss me, beloved ! ' she utters, and his cheek 
 ^he fondles as her arms his neck enfold, 
 
 Till in her quiet love again she speaks. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 * Have I slept long, for I have dreamed 
 
 My heart's life o'er again : its early ways 
 In one swift-flowing memory o'er me streamed 
 
 Into my youthful days. 
 In love with all until this love I knew. 
 
 When came a rush of joy, for then we met 
 And to your heart my heart in secret flew, 
 
 And still is yours, beloved ! and with you yet. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ' Then, I remember, still I went 
 
 Through my heart's life until a wind arose. 
 And o'er my sinking boat towards me you bent, 
 
 And being seemed to close, 
 But in your arms ! Oh ! in so sweet a rest, 
 
 I felt death's calm like life come over me 
 And hush me into slumber on your breast 
 
 Beneath those dreamy waters of the sea '
 
 The Betrothed. 
 
 XV. 
 
 He saw she knew not how she came 
 
 To be his own, and as the days passed by 
 None would recall the plighted lover's name 
 
 To her new memory. 
 From her heart's life the drowning flood erased 
 
 All but the one true love which clung within ; 
 So was her pledge, with all its ills, effaced, 
 
 And her life changed to what it might have been.
 
 THE ACTRESS
 
 THE ACTRESS. 
 
 I. 
 
 There lurks a subtle bane 
 
 In those dark eyes as 'twere an angel's sting, 
 While all would gaze again, 
 
 Would die to feel the ravishment they bring. 
 The film that they diffuse. 
 
 Glazing her soul's emotion, ofttimes swells 
 To tears that seem to muse 
 
 As with the glistening drops she works her spells, 
 
 II. 
 
 'Tis told of her, that nursed 
 
 In early childhood nigh a poisonous stream, 
 She drew the drops accursed 
 
 That still within those cypress-lashes gleam,
 
 14 The Actress. 
 
 Whence has her colour fled 
 
 And left a marble of her magic brow : 
 
 Yet her twain lips hang red 
 
 As doth the double cherry on the bough. 
 
 HI. 
 
 'Twas in a leafless land 
 
 That locusts stripped 3 where the furred monster 
 trode ; 
 Where sallow is the sand 
 
 And speckled like the belly of a toad. 
 But genius is her own ; 
 
 Art, grace, the rapture, unto her belong 
 Who can her voice intone 
 
 To all the passions of a world in song. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Her notes persuasive drop 
 
 From her ripe lips as from a mellow flute ; 
 They linger, then they stop 
 
 And leave the ebb-flood of emotion mute. 
 First love she disenchants. 
 
 That lists to her unwarily and meets 
 In her its loftier wants. 
 
 As on the softened heart her witchery beats.
 
 The Actress. 15 
 
 V. 
 
 Comes she to move the dead 
 
 And paradise re-model on the earth, 
 Or here her light to shed 
 
 As if another planet gave her birth ? 
 Even as her love transcends 
 
 All that can minister to man's desires, 
 Its wonder only ends 
 
 In thoughts of better worlds where rapture tires. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It is no play that holds 
 
 Men's fate suspended in her fervid part : 
 The actor whom she folds 
 
 Within her arms is carried to her heart. 
 Even lovers who would pour 
 
 From their awed tongues dumb words they dare not 
 speak, 
 Watch her, and mute no more 
 
 Turn their eyes from her and each other's seek. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Her witchery is love : 
 
 She of her plenty moulds it to all moods 
 That passion knoweth of ; 
 
 The love that finds its own, the love that broods.
 
 1 6 The Actress. 
 
 But deep behind her smile 
 
 She counts the torments her fond art supplies, 
 And never, in her guile. 
 
 Withholds the gaze wherein infection lies. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yet, precious seem the gifts 
 
 Of lips that tremble in their radiant place, 
 When her large eyes she lifts 
 
 And the love-shadow passes o'er her face. 
 Then diamond wreaths requite 
 
 Her flashing glance ; pearls, ruby set, repay 
 That smile of borrowed light 
 
 Lit by a soul whose love is far away. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But oh ! that heart which loves 
 
 And is despised, while through in-reaching gloom 
 The vengeful spirit moves 
 
 Champing in bridled hate the bit of doom. 
 Even then her mirror told 
 
 More had her charms dropped from her in a day 
 Than in the years of old ; 
 
 That time was there her face to disarray.
 
 The Actress. 1 7 
 
 X. 
 
 Her beauty feels its wane, 
 
 And lovers dare repel her false caress, 
 And change to them is gain 
 
 Now newer faces seize the hour's success. 
 Her eyes' empoisoning sting 
 
 At length harms not ; the serpent-art is dead, 
 While faint applauses ring 
 
 O'er her whose lightnings once the tempest led. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Long was her star's decline ; 
 
 Lustrous as in its rise, she tarries still ; 
 And who her art divine 
 
 Shall reach, and who the coming void re-fill ? 
 But gentler youth is balm 
 
 To the strained stage, and to the hurtful scenes 
 Brings nature's welcome calm, 
 
 As Spring the fretful Winter kindly weans, 
 
 XII. 
 
 As on the desert cast 
 
 Where her high life began ; of arts disarmed ; 
 One with the wintry blast. 
 
 She rails against the mighty she has charmed. 
 
 c
 
 1 8 The Actress. 
 
 Yet shall not end her fame ! 
 
 Not while she lives shall one her art displace, 
 But ages with her name 
 
 Shall ring till time all memory efface. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 O'er the dim city street, 
 
 Where cloaked-up splendour hastes from many a 
 door. 
 Falls down the galling sleet, 
 
 While crowds into the drama-palace pour. 
 Thither, oasis- decked 
 
 In flowers and drawn through desert-gusts, she brings 
 Her angry heart, self-wrecked ; 
 
 And ere the tocsin-stroke her triumph rings. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Cold as a fate that stakes 
 
 Her being on her will, in her farewell 
 That dreaded part she takes, — 
 
 The matron who by her own dagger fell. 
 As in her greatest day 
 
 Are many terror-stricken and depart ; 
 They feel it is no play ; 
 
 That her fierce hand must turn against her heart.
 
 The Actress. 
 
 19 
 
 XV. 
 
 Why does the knife remain 
 
 Where it was plunged, but that the woman dies ? 
 That jarring shriek of pain ; 
 
 That fall ; that body which dishevelled lies ! 
 'Twas not the Actress braved 
 
 That hour, but natural tears of anguish wept : 
 Her soul's repose she craved, 
 
 And her last triumph won, she truly slept. 
 
 c 2
 
 THE SPIRITS KISS
 
 THE SPIRITS KISS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Through its pale chrysalis her parting soul 
 Sees round it glow, in wide and dazzling maze, 
 
 Flowers of all hues wreathing a sombre pool, 
 The while with dying gaze 
 
 Her eyes untwist the beams, as from a spool 
 Of gorgeous sun-spun rays. 
 
 II. 
 
 She gathers in those colours, green and red 
 And azure, winding them with films of gold 
 
 Around her spotless spirit, thread by thread, 
 That, when her wings unfold. 
 
 In earth's flower-woven vesture garmented 
 She may her Heaven behold.
 
 24 The SpiriCs Kiss. 
 
 III. 
 
 But, a fond guest, she promises to stay 
 Within her lover's soul and there to He 
 
 Awhile in death ; not thence to pass away 
 Till he shall also die. 
 
 ' One are we, loved one,' oft-times would she say, 
 *So will I linger nigh.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 He, near her, sees the pool frown deep and dark. 
 As, overgrown with grass, against its rim 
 
 Floats helmless, oarless, her deserted bark 
 Oft pilotted by him. 
 
 Ere for her passage hence those waters stark 
 Were shadow-scored and dim. 
 
 v. 
 
 Yet is she gay ; the gloom cannot beguile 
 
 Her eyes from where her golden thread begins : 
 
 Intent upon the wreath, she has a smile 
 As angel-like she spins 
 
 The disentangled beams, and talks the while 
 Of the pure heaven she wins.
 
 The Spirifs Kiss. 25 
 
 VI. 
 
 ' She dies as perfect souls have died before,' 
 Sadly thinks he ; ' her raptures thrown away ; 
 
 Yet does her morrow seem to her as sure 
 As 'twere her wedding day, 
 
 Which, though she sleep with those who wake no 
 more. 
 Even death cannot delay. 
 
 vir. 
 ' Many have died,' he says, ' and thus have given 
 
 A promise the beloved again to see ; 
 But the warm vow has been as surely riven ; 
 
 You will not come to me ! ' 
 ' Beloved,' she says, * I'll come, be it from heaven, 
 
 Whate'er the barrier be ! ' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 She seems to vanish now into the glow 
 That love diffuses o'er her fleeting face, 
 
 While the blue skies to him appear to flow 
 O'er her in folds of grace. 
 
 Then break and leave her phantom form below ; 
 The earth once more her place.
 
 26 The SpU'it's Kiss. 
 
 IX. 
 
 As one whose soul departs and reappears, 
 He watches her ; he has a look of dread ; 
 
 He shudders 'mid his doubts, as one who fears 
 The coming of the dead, 
 
 And the deep pledge that from her mouth he hears 
 Can never be unsaid ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Still his eyes say, ' Beloved ! no safer cell 
 Than your dear body your dear spirit needs 
 
 To bar it from another last farewell ; 
 Oblivion all succeeds ; 
 
 Between the tomb and where the living dwell 
 No secret passage leads.' 
 
 XL 
 
 But her eyes say, ' To me, the lucid skies 
 Are as a glass ; 'yond them a brighter day, 
 
 Which is our night, spreads out the galaxies. 
 In all their bright array ; 
 
 So clear the path that when the body dies 
 The spirit knows its way.'
 
 The Spirit's Kiss. 27 
 
 XII. 
 
 Then his eyes say, ' Think of the glozing wave 
 Whose flood, at last, the firmament o'erpowers ; 
 
 That buries hopes themselves that cannot save ; 
 And love and grief devours, 
 
 Deepening the depths of the forgotten grave 
 O'er which it laps and lowers.' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But her eyes say, ' All lovely things emerge. 
 Though for a passing season they have died, 
 
 And rise anew, even ere the mortal dirge 
 Sends round its echoes wide. 
 
 The soul in its last ripple has a surge 
 Felt o'er heaven's inner side.' 
 
 xiv. 
 
 His hand held out, her hand has dropped in his. 
 
 ' Angel of Light ! ' he cries, ' come yet once more. 
 Our hands are joined \ be it the pledge of bliss j 
 
 And as to heaven you soar. 
 Into my lips, in one immortal kiss, 
 
 Your sacred spirit pcur ! '
 
 28 The Spirit's Kiss. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The one last rapture of her look unites 
 
 Their souls ; hers now the death-lamp, his the tomb 
 Where she would stay with her unravelled lights, 
 
 That can no more illume 
 The deep eye-hollow of the starless nights ; 
 
 The brooding place of doom ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A naked tree of life her grave embowers ; 
 
 There droops her wreath on which the sickly sun 
 But pastures now the slowly working hours : 
 
 His course for her has run ; 
 He heeds not now her everlasting flowers, 
 
 And they his glitter shun. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ' There lies she in a soul-devouring urn, 
 
 Or she would mind her pledge and come again : 
 
 But nevermore,' he cries, ' can she return 
 To still these achings vain : 
 
 Were hope a sun 'twould one day cease to burn 
 And ever dead remain.'
 
 The Spirit's Kiss, 29 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The kiss came not, but shapes that plunge in sleep 
 Startle his senses and his night-watch share : 
 
 In terror's track across his room they sweep 
 And pale the blacker air, 
 
 While tearless burn into the rayless deep 
 His eyes, in red despair. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A flickering soul, as in a charnel-house, 
 Shines dimly within his ; to him it clings, 
 
 As though the dead the living would espouse, 
 Whence terror comes that wrings 
 
 A heart no lingering courage can arouse ; 
 That beats as if on wings ! 
 
 XX. 
 
 This dread is gone ; in wondrous calm he lies 
 And feels her radiance not all from him torn, 
 
 Her image oft-times breaking on his eyes 
 Like slowly coming morn. 
 
 His heart has heaved its few remaining sighs ; 
 His hand falls fever-worn.
 
 30 The Spirifs Kiss. 
 
 xxr. 
 
 Falling, there drops an unseen hand in his, 
 While creeping terror o'er his being steals 
 
 His calm is death-webbed and a frozen bliss 
 His stiffened spirit seals, 
 
 When clings unto his lips an unseen kiss 
 And his last breath congeals.
 
 THE DANCING GIRL
 
 THE DANCING GIRL. 
 
 I. 
 
 On tiptoe poised amid a world of Song 
 As though sweet sound alhired her to the chase, 
 
 She steps into the dance, and threads a throng 
 Of Hmbs that dazzle space, 
 
 Till music drops and the tired notes among 
 She triumphs in the race. 
 
 II. 
 
 As one whose heart o'erruns the pregnant chords 
 Of the soul's tongue, so glides the dancing girl 
 
 When passion's flood in music's steps she fords 
 With nimble, circling swirl 
 
 Of limbs more fluent than the flow of words, 
 As dizzily they whirl.
 
 34 The Dancing Girl. 
 
 in. 
 
 Sweet thought must through the spirit's darkness creep 
 Ere it see day ; she all her being flings 
 
 Into the dance : the music's wondrous sweep 
 Unto her footfall clings, 
 
 And, as a nymph from out the billow leaps, 
 From her soul's fount she springs. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Draped in her gossamer, where'er she goes 
 A phant fold her inmost grace repeats, 
 
 While at her heart burns red the panting rose 
 That on her bosom beats : 
 
 But not the eyelash flame that hidden glows 
 One watchful lover meets. 
 
 V. 
 
 None dare interpret all her limbs express. 
 That clad in music thus divinely move ; 
 
 Those arms would all embrace, those lips caress 
 The heaven-descending dove : 
 
 More than the thought dare dream of they confess, 
 Because their art is love.
 
 The Dancing Girl. 35 
 
 VI. 
 
 At length she lifts her bashful eyes and sends 
 Their glory o'er the crowd that shouts her praise, 
 
 When in the midst is one who towards her bends 
 His soul's deep pitying gaze ; 
 
 And that sad look her hour of triumph ends, 
 And thenceforth on her stays. 
 
 VII. 
 
 That look 'mid crowded eyes, that only one, 
 She sees ; all else around the arena reels ; 
 
 And in that look entranced her power is gone ; 
 Naught present else she feels ; 
 
 Though to her heart she go to be alone, 
 That look to her appeals. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Her eyes, thus breaking once their bashful vow, 
 Are lost ; that gaze has closed their little range : 
 
 A frown, like grief's, is narrowing her brow ; 
 But most her smile is strange ; 
 
 As stricken by that pitying look, so now 
 Its panic does not change. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 The Dancing Girl. 
 
 IX. 
 
 That eye which spoke a sorrow still is near ; 
 
 Enough that once its gaze upon her came : 
 'Neath it the music staggers in her ear, 
 
 Yet fell it not in blame, 
 Though sank her feeble feet from her in fear, 
 
 Too weak to prop her shame. 
 
 X. 
 
 The stage is gone ; her homely griefs begin 
 Now nobler aims too late her heart controul : 
 
 Her face appears to steep itself in sin 
 Though innocent her soul, 
 
 Save that ere pride awoke she strove to win 
 The fascinating goal. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But she has won the world ; they cry aloud 
 To look upon her as they cross her door ; 
 
 She is their idol ; the deserted crowd 
 Must see her face once more : 
 
 Their goddess now, they call her from her cloud 
 That they may still adore.
 
 TJie Dancing Girl. 37 
 
 XII. 
 
 To her a minstrel sings with passion's voice, 
 ' Why hid'st thou from our sight, beloved bride? 
 
 Be at our feast, the world's desire rejoice, 
 All arms are opened wide \ 
 
 The prince invites ; oh ! hearken to his choice, 
 He calls thee to his side ! ' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The pitying look is gone, and meets her sight 
 The large-eyed rapture of the minstrel's gaze : 
 
 Their eyes consent, and in a strange delight 
 She listens while he plays ; 
 
 And love that singeth with a minstrel's might 
 Her fluttering heart obeys. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The crowd has borne her to the palace stairs : 
 She trembles and again her heart is sad ; 
 
 But for the hour she casts away her cares, 
 For she sees others glad : 
 
 Ah ! 'tis the minstrel who awaits her there, 
 In gold and purple clad !
 
 38 The Dancing Gwl. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The gentle crowds attend her as their own ; 
 
 Soft music sounds, and sylphs to her advance ; 
 The minstrel leads her to a velvet throne 
 
 And looks upon the dance. 
 Lost in her wonder there she sits alone 
 
 And gazes through her trance. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Then saith the minstrel, ' 'Tis the prince commands : 
 Be it my part to play, to dance be thine.' 
 
 The silver chords are ringing in his hands ; 
 She sees them flash and twine, 
 
 And can but listen, as she helpless stands, 
 To music's throb divine. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Still would she dance, but ravished at the sound 
 Seems held in some high snare above her thought ; 
 
 The hall spreads out like heaven, its blessed bound 
 Into sky-music caught. 
 
 Her senses dance, but ever from the ground, 
 Such wonder love has wrought.
 
 The Dancing Girl. 39 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Then knows he that his kingly spirit fills 
 
 Her perfect heart, and that his sorrowed eyes 
 
 Have lifted her to where her bosom thrills 
 And finds its paradise : 
 
 Himself the prince who loves her, and who wills 
 To win the beauteous prize. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 His music ends ; the spell has dropped ; when, lo ! 
 
 The hall of kings a sanctuary appears : 
 The sylphs, in double ranks, like vestals flow. 
 
 And each her cresset bears. 
 The broad-based altar-fire, with spiral glow, 
 
 A flame of love uprears. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The organ speaks, when swells a solemn peal j 
 
 And fondly sings the choir, ' Come forth, most Fair ! 
 
 The minstrel pleads, he seeks of thee his weal, 
 He prays thy heart to share.' 
 
 More bright the altar burns, the lovers kneel 
 Upon the sacred stair.
 
 THE VISIONARY
 
 THE VISIONARY. 
 
 Her eyes, that leap like fountains into day 
 At sounds of joy, are to the sunHght bhnd. 
 
 Yet through night splendours track their starry way 
 And every planet find : 
 
 Her soul inlaid with each familiar ray 
 In colours of the mind. 
 
 II. 
 To her lone eyes the sun had never been, 
 
 But hid in mists of glory, over bright. 
 Stretched out a kindly veil that served to screen 
 
 All evil from her sight. 
 Pure as the heavens was earth, to her, unseen 
 
 Save in the moon's soft light.
 
 44 The Visionary. 
 
 III. 
 
 The rolling blaze of noon, the pearl-shot skies 
 That in light's urgent gusts to redness glow, 
 
 Enact not sunimer-day before her eyes: 
 The sun she cannot know • 
 
 So, a lost star she seems afar that lies 
 From all this glare below. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Like the pale petals of a hanging rose 
 
 Her eyelids droop, though daylight be outside ; 
 
 But to the filtered moonbeams they unclose 
 As night-flowers open wide, 
 
 And drink of the new lustre while it flows 
 And clothes her as a bride, 
 
 V. 
 
 The Angelic Brother, Heaven's First Painter born, 
 Had coloured on her heart his Paradise, 
 
 That in day-blindness lives she not forlorn, 
 But knows the crowded skies ; 
 
 The future day beholds, the youthful morn, 
 Where vision never dies.
 
 The Visionary. 45 
 
 VI. 
 
 When the moon-mirror at her window stays 
 Flashing its signal from the drowsy sky, 
 
 She hails her day, allied to other days 
 Of jewelled memory, 
 
 And, the night through across the shadow strays 
 While worlds are passing by, 
 
 VII. 
 
 Her sightful soul bursts forth, her vision burns. 
 That, as her eyes on the calmed forest fall, 
 
 The trunks are whitened ; the green leafage turns 
 To silvered verdure, all ; 
 
 And icicled in light are sombre ferns, 
 And the black cypress, tall. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 She now is by the marsh whose mirror takes 
 Heaven's sisters down to its twin, watery skies. 
 
 And greater than the starless noontide makes 
 The world she there descries, 
 
 While all above her and beneath her breaks 
 On her exalted eyes.
 
 46 The Visionary. 
 
 IX. 
 
 She crieth : * What art thou, Sun, when this great scene 
 Is but thy shadow ! Oft I look on high 
 
 At yonder moon, and see no night between 
 My vision and the sky ; 
 
 How dark, then, to my soul has ever been 
 Thy one proud mystery ! 
 
 X. 
 
 ' While he still lived, who was to me a sun, 
 
 Here stood we where the marsh two heavens had blent 
 
 Sun over sun ; the day then o'er him shone, 
 My soul's last day, now spent : 
 
 Yet is the passion of that day my own 
 Though sun from sun be rent. 
 
 XL 
 
 ' Had I not loved content my heart had been 
 To bless its lot, and not in spirit weep 
 
 To see the paradise that he had seen ; 
 To share his lofty sleep, 
 
 And dream it was a sun that shone between 
 Our souls from yonder steep.
 
 The Visionary. 47 
 
 XII, 
 
 ' But still between us the night-glory flows ; 
 
 We see it, share its joys : the fuller day 
 Brought by slow-coming death his spirit knows ; 
 
 I linger on the way ; 
 Yet would I see how the great sun arose 
 
 And bless his mighty ray ! ' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Across the trembling air-gulphs from her soul 
 A light arose, as the moon-mirror hung 
 
 Before her, lucent as the marshy shoal 
 That heaven on heaven had flung : 
 
 She sees the sun in the moon-mirror roll 
 Its distant skies among. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It was the sun in glory visible 
 
 Through the moon-mirror, deepened like the flood 
 That held the night-orb, shining at its full, 
 
 And heavenly neighbourhood ; 
 In the moon -mirror, clear as glassy pool, 
 
 The sun before her stood.
 
 48 The Vistona7'y. 
 
 XV. 
 
 'O vision yet more wondrous than my dreams,'' 
 Her heart exclaims, ' that dost vouchsafe the Hglit 
 
 Which from all days hath been, that o'er me streams 
 And thus exalts my sight ! 
 
 To his dear eyes, that see me in those beams, 
 I am no more in night ! ' 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Her soul seemed lost as in a soul's embrace 
 Before the day-revealer, while he shone 
 
 In the new heaven and lit her raptured face, 
 Pale like the Parian stone 
 
 That of a life still bears the lovely trace. 
 Although the soul hath flown. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Her vision floats along the sunny deep 
 
 In the new heaven that spreads before her eyes, 
 
 While ever wider is the mirror's sweep 
 Across those foreign skies ; 
 
 When lo ! flash out, along the topmost steep. 
 The hills of Paradise !
 
 The Visionary. 
 
 49 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 While yet her spirit climbed the dizzy height 
 
 Step after step into eternal day, 
 Her eyes seemed watchful of the guiding light 
 
 Till glistened one last ray, 
 When, resting in the solemn vault of night, 
 
 Dead by the marsh she lay. 
 
 s
 
 THE FIRST LOVE 
 
 K 2
 
 THE FIRST LOVE. 
 
 I. 
 
 A NYMPH of laughter and her playmate boy 
 
 Knew in their youth a love already old, 
 Though in the safety of its perfect joy 
 
 It lingered still untold. 
 Her heart was his heart's friend, so closely knit, 
 
 A spark let fall on one, the fire had spread 
 And a new passion lit 
 
 To burn into the lips in friendship's stead. 
 
 II. 
 With crown and gryphons blazoned, high enrolled 
 
 Amid strange lists of station, was her name ; 
 Not so his own \ and he his love controlled 
 
 Till he had seized on fame.
 
 54 The First Love. 
 
 As sisters on a brother's love rely, 
 So lets she not her fancy rove in quest 
 
 Of rich-toned flattery, 
 
 But in her home finds hourly-smiling rest. 
 
 III. 
 
 Yet is her dream one day to wedded be 
 
 Unto his like, which many knew who sought 
 This lively maid, for in her heart was he 
 
 Her one all-guiding thought. 
 So, self-betrayed, had others learnt her choice ; 
 
 Had feigned by turns his glad and sombre mood ; 
 And with his ringing voice 
 
 Or sober looks, as chanced, her steps pursued. 
 
 IV, 
 
 But her heart too had caught his changeful way, 
 
 So 'gainst her seeming fickleness who strove 
 Lost by to-morrow all they won to-day : 
 
 There was no place for love. 
 Whether, all truth, no subtle arts they feign 
 
 Or mould their grace to please her in his stead, 
 All follow her in vain : 
 
 Heartless she seems, unwiUing to be wed.
 
 The First Love. 55 
 
 V. 
 
 Her playmate, oft at sea, brings back to shore 
 
 The missing charm, when twofold merriment 
 Springs up, as if one half their joy he bore 
 
 Whether he came or went. 
 And, though he leave, 'tis as a brother leaves, 
 
 For where joy is can no mischance appear : 
 'Tis but the heart which grieves 
 
 That fails to see a distant time as near. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Long was he absent, and her parents said 
 
 * 'Tis time to fix your heart and give your bond : 
 In her full beauty should a maiden wed 
 
 And think of life beyond.' 
 They urge her ; she surveys the world in vain : 
 
 Ere she can love must she his likeness know 
 But only meets again 
 
 Memories of joy no other can bestow. 
 
 VII. 
 
 At length one of the many brings the gifts 
 Seen but in one before ; so bright, so rare : 
 
 Towards him her heart, though anchored, slowly drifts \ 
 She meets the absent there.
 
 56 The First Love. 
 
 Sea-battles, storms, escapes, adventures few 
 Has he to tell her ; home-won victories 
 
 His path of peace bestrew, 
 And draw for him at last the promised prize. 
 
 VIII, 
 
 As with the peach, two kernels in their stone 
 
 Lie closely hidden 'neath one luscious rind. 
 So with this maid ; two hearts that seem but one 
 
 Are in her breast enshrined. 
 The weaker with a full affection teems, » 
 
 As doth a mother's who the feeble child 
 Still living priceless deems, 
 
 Until a stronger on her love has smiled. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But like a fairy garden 'neath filmed ice 
 
 That shuts in half a flower, her love-dreams melt, 
 And vanishes the little paradise 
 
 That did her prospect belt. 
 Upon the peaceful sea at anchor rides 
 
 A war-ship, and her first love steps on shore, 
 W^hen woe her heart betides 
 
 Which sinks, as drowning, at the cannon's roar.
 
 The First Love. 57 
 
 X. 
 
 His life-affection, loosed from its controul, 
 
 He tells her, and she listens in dismay : 
 Ere all the raptured words escape his soul 
 
 Her senses sink away. 
 From her white face the shifting bloom has fled 
 
 And sends up her heart's shadow to those cheeks, 
 Deserting her for dead. 
 
 When o'er her brow, in drops, the anguish breaks. 
 
 XL 
 
 'Twas nigh the beach, his flagship full in view. 
 
 He told her how for love of her he fought 
 When the grand vessel into battle flew 
 
 And won the prize he sought. 
 Now as a sea-king's was his will obeyed : 
 
 But glory, what avails it, what is fame 
 Unless his loving maid 
 
 Share with him all his honours and his name? 
 
 XII. 
 
 She clasps her bosom, flies from place to place 
 Heedless of where her tears fast falling drop ; 
 
 As though a sobbing sky came o'er her face 
 They never seem to stop.
 
 58 The First Love. 
 
 Then in her dire distress, besought to speak, 
 She only whispers, ' No, it cannot be ; ' 
 
 But looks around to seek 
 Some voice that yet may turn her destiny. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 * O God ! ' he cries, / Through all these hopeful years 
 
 Your love has been my lode-star ; not in vain ?' 
 The gust of words has driven back her tears ; 
 
 Her kisses fall like rain. 
 Her lips are maddened, both her arms embrace 
 
 His neck with a rude rapture, while her cheeks 
 Fondle his welcome face. 
 
 And turn his lips to kisses when he speaks.
 
 THE HEART-BROKEN
 
 THE HEART-BROKEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Whom hath the missile slain ? 
 
 While one is pierced, another, far remote, 
 Presses her heart : the sudden pain 
 
 Her bosom too hath smote. 
 He on the battle-field in other lands. 
 
 She in the hope and sunshine of her day 
 Basking in love, death-stricken stands, 
 
 And both are swept away. 
 
 II, 
 
 Her cheeks, rose-red and white, 
 The colour leaves them never to return 
 
 From when she felt his death-blow smite 
 And in her bosom burn.
 
 62 The Heart- Broken. 
 
 The spring is snapped, asunder are its ties : 
 She dares not stir, she feels her blood is shed ; 
 
 So dies she as her lover dies, 
 Although she fall not dead. 
 
 III. 
 
 She stayeth still below : 
 
 Must she within death's narrowing grasp survive 
 As long as blood is left to flow ? 
 
 She seemeth still alive ; 
 The slow dull pang awarded as her lot I 
 
 He sleeps, she hath her bosom only cleft ; 
 He is in death and suffers not ; 
 
 To her the world is left. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Twin hearts, o'er one alone 
 
 Death had no power, so bore a twofold curse 
 That, on his heart the ravage done, 
 
 The weapon sought for hers. 
 One tomb, although for one the other wait : 
 
 Her heart, there, bleeding on the shadowy wall 
 She pants to pass the half-open gate 
 
 And on the dead to fall.
 
 The Heart- Broken. (i'^y 
 
 V. 
 
 The sunset's yellow stain 
 
 Is on her now, lest pale as death she grow ; 
 Her beauty left to slowly wane 
 
 In that memorial glow. 
 With lips that shiver through the sultry days, 
 
 Death came and spoke to her ere winter-time, 
 And stabbed her with his frozen rays 
 
 And slew her in her prime. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Cold is she in the gust 
 
 Whose vulture-swoop whirls o'er her lover's mound ; 
 That blows about the autumnal dust ; 
 
 That has a pausing sound ; 
 And she can trace it from its furthest bourne 
 
 To where it stops, and where the dust it lays ; 
 Yet does it journey but to mourn 
 
 While at her heart it stays. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The world's so busy stir 
 
 Is like a past ; the sound of wedding-bells 
 Has some lost meaning, and to her 
 
 Of former being tells,
 
 64 The Hem^t-Broken. 
 
 Where love once found in memory a home, 
 Distant as now the soul from infant thought, 
 
 Whence shadows of old feeling come 
 And pass away as nought. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yet whence the flash of pain 
 
 That in its quiet doth her bosom wring? 
 'Neath where her hand is pressed again 
 
 Death turns about his sting. 
 She holds her breath, watches her agonies 
 
 Dragging her back into her first despair, 
 To learn it is the loved one dies, 
 
 And she the pang must bear. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Death, faithless to the dead, 
 
 Shines on her, with her living beauty toys ; 
 His ghastly halo, o'er her spread. 
 
 Her golden hair alloys. 
 Her cheeks seem in an open sepulchre ; 
 
 Her eyes are dulled, her lips, that wordless move. 
 The worm unseen appears to stir : 
 
 Yet what a face has love !
 
 The Heart-Broken. 65 
 
 X. 
 
 A year is gone at last : 
 
 On the new morrow she awakes so gay 
 That surely she forgets the past ? 
 
 Even thinks not of the day ! 
 What means it that her eyes in lustre range 
 
 An empty world, and, void of memory, 
 Into a bridal beauty change 
 
 Some blissful path to spy ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 Perchance, the love of old 
 
 Brings back its hour, and her expanded soul 
 Doth in its former light unfold ? 
 
 Her broken heart seems whole ! 
 But soon, as though a sudden thought had whirred, 
 
 She listens, 'tis the warning to depart : 
 With a light death-moan only heard, 
 
 Her hand falls from her heart. 
 
 ui^^^3^
 
 THE CHILD OF ROMANCE 
 
 F 2
 
 THE CHILD OF ROMANCE. 
 
 As suns may rise and set unknown 
 
 In paths beyond the farthest ken, 
 So maiden thoughts, in journeyings lone, 
 
 May hide from sight of men : 
 Though where they wander waves may only flow, 
 
 They seem in sunny gardens to alight, 
 Gathering their flowers where buds can only blow 
 
 To bloom in visions bright. 
 
 II. 
 
 Oft may a maiden's eyes be lift 
 
 And shed their longings o'er the air, 
 
 And see a vision towards them drift 
 Of him slie deems most fair.
 
 "JO The Child of Romance. 
 
 Who falls into her reverie of bliss 
 
 As though in life to play a lover's part, 
 
 Not pausing even to question who it is 
 Whose loadstone lures his heart. 
 
 III. 
 
 So dreams the daughter of Romance 
 
 By seas that delve their shifting caves, 
 And sows the love-germs of her glance 
 
 Among the ploughed-up waves. 
 So is her future, ere it comes, besprent 
 
 O'er her rapt eyes and there doth it disclose 
 The being unto whom her heart's consent 
 
 Prophetically flows. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Where streams of water-lightning ran 
 
 All night along the ocean-foam 
 Romance had ruled, ere known to man, 
 
 That dreamy maiden's home. 
 Had lit up darkness 'twixt the flash of waves. 
 
 There, sitting with her elbow on her knee 
 While flame the beacon-rock beneath her laves, 
 
 She looks out on the sea.
 
 The Chila of Romance. 71 
 
 V, 
 
 There doth the glow-worm gild its grange 
 
 Of wavy grass and o'er the blades, 
 Unconscious of its love-lamp, range 
 
 The pale, green misty shades. 
 There oft this child of young Romance would sit 
 
 Her head sunk back, her raven hair afloat 
 Self-wreathed in verdure, by the glow-worm lit, 
 
 Chartering her idle boat. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But the dream passes from her face 
 
 Now seas that feel the lightning-lash 
 Run at the troubled ship in chase 
 
 Along the beacon's flash. 
 Her kindled eyes, lit up in sudden fear. 
 
 Keep watch and with the pilotage of hope 
 Draw the rocks off ; the crazy vessel steer 
 
 Down the waves' curling slope. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The beacon turns, the sea is black, 
 
 And her strained eyes more darkly glare 
 
 Until her tower-flame flashes back 
 Its steady, wondering stare,
 
 72 The CJiild of Romance. 
 
 And shows her how the battering waves o'erwhehii 
 A ship at sea that like a mountain quakes, 
 
 Foundering, while with the wave its sundered helm 
 On the rock-shallow breaks. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Though sailors, strong and brave, may quail, 
 
 Her fears are younger than their fears ; 
 Though doubt may other breasts assail, 
 
 She takes the helm and steers, 
 Steers through the hearts of men and through the 
 waves ; 
 
 A thought of danger would her visions mock, 
 And from the storm the little crew she saves 
 
 And guides them to her rock. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Far off from where her watch-boat lay. 
 
 The crested waves upbear her fame. 
 And where they lave a wreck-strewn bay 
 
 A billow sounds her name. 
 But she has dearer thoughts than other's praise. 
 
 And to her mood the rock upon the shore 
 Brings back her visions, and of other days 
 
 She dreams her dream once more.
 
 The Child of Ro7nance. y^) 
 
 X. 
 
 When thinks she of that troubled night 
 
 Leaves it a dream that comes to pass ? 
 She muses in the glow-worm light 
 
 That smoulders through the grass : 
 Is it her dream that draws the one she loves, 
 
 The form her soul has fashioned to her own ? 
 Uncalled he comes who through her vision roves 
 
 At eventide alone. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A youth looks on her yet delays 
 
 His steps, for he must watch awhile 
 A love-dream ht by warmer rays 
 
 Than light a passing smile. 
 A sailor-youth she saved and saw no more ; 
 
 She knows him not, though thinking how he blessed 
 The glorious maid who steered him to the shore, 
 
 Right through the billows' crest. 
 
 XII. 
 
 She sees him not as on the night 
 
 When his lost vessel went in twain, 
 But as of old, when o'er her sight 
 '- He came to flit again :
 
 74 The Child of Romance. 
 
 Yet does she feel his coming to her side 
 
 In more than dream, that never knew her start 
 
 But now he stays, and with her doth abide 
 That image of her heart.
 
 THE SELF-CONSCIOUS
 
 THE SELF-CONSCIOUS. 
 
 Love, like an odour-bearing dew, distils 
 
 From her heart's flower, and with its innocence 
 Sweetens her soul and all her senses fills 
 
 With the new, heavenly sense. 
 Soon is her face with the love-witchery lit, 
 
 But when another comes its sweets to glean 
 It strives with bashful veil to cover it 
 
 Lest her new thoughts be seen. 
 
 II. 
 
 She is all love and one her love would claim, 
 Which 'jieath his look she trembles to confess, 
 
 As if her heart had sinned and in its shame 
 Was stricken passionless.
 
 'j^ The Se/f Conscious. 
 
 As though the hills were on her eyelids piled 
 She stood abashed, in all her thoughts reproved 
 
 To feel but yesterday she was a child 
 In sight of him she loved. 
 
 III. 
 Her thoughts are only tendril-like entwined 
 
 One with another, clinging as in play, 
 And dare not yet about a lover's wind, 
 
 But shrinking, drop away. 
 Even thus perturbed, such love-allurements crowd 
 
 Her helpless face, no man, the least of these 
 Could dwell on, were he to an angel vowed. 
 
 And turn away in peace. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Her childhood pious, all her yearnings pure, 
 None deemed in her the passion lay so deep, 
 
 Or that her heart could all that love endure 
 
 ■ And still its secret keep. 
 
 Shame held her who ere long had freely told 
 All her heart-sickness, now so hard to bear ; 
 
 But to avow it then appeared so bold, 
 She did her love forswear.
 
 The Self -Conscious. 79 
 
 V. 
 
 Alone, her love half-angrily returns ; 
 
 Its passion fuller, steeped in tears of shame, 
 Till every thought as its own cresset burns 
 
 And dies away as flame. 
 So, reaching to her soul, the infective fire 
 
 Flashes within her heart, runs on uncurbed, 
 Till but o'er embers creeps the pale desire 
 
 That first her soul disturbed. 
 
 VT. 
 
 Her lover, angered ; she with fainting breath, 
 
 Once hastily again each other crossed. 
 When seemed to both there was a sudden death 
 
 Whereby a world was lost : 
 That angered glance comes ever now behind 
 
 The loving look and passes to its place, 
 And thenceforth is the master of her mind. 
 
 The despot of her gaze. 
 
 VII. 
 
 False vision ! yet the false the true o'ertakes, 
 And, while the chase of madness lasts, her fate 
 
 Still borders on its course ; her love she stakes, 
 As seemeth, 'gainst his hate.
 
 8o The Self -Conscious. 
 
 On her crushed hope the unhoping heavy weighs, 
 Too weak to utter its Hfe-mocking moan : 
 
 All ! of itself what buried soul can raise 
 Its monument of stone ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Blank now the sacred page save that his eyes 
 
 Are graven where she turns the lost one's book, 
 And there they say her hope within them lies 
 
 As with a prophet's look. 
 Heaven hears her love, hears it before her praver. 
 
 Her blushes still upon the altar strewn ; 
 But ah ! the angered face again is there, 
 
 With it is she alone. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But she knows heaven, and there a soul unveils 
 
 That wants to see the face without desire 
 Which softens sorrow and o'er love prevails ; 
 
 But heaven appears to tire. 
 So at her heart must all her love remain 
 
 Stifled in grief ; and to her maddened breast, 
 Familiar as her home, comes back again 
 
 The heaven that has no rest.
 
 The Self-Coiisciotis. 8i 
 
 X. 
 
 Where are the tears, the tears so long unshed ? 
 
 Would they but flow and soothe the strangling pain 
 Round the fair throat, that, often clenched in dread, 
 
 Would still its scream restrain ! 
 Closed up the heaven-way to her muttered prayer. 
 
 The shriek ascends ; so is her reason choked. 
 And the sad ravings of her soul's despair 
 
 Are poured out uninvoked. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ' This hand, did I refuse so poor a thing, 
 
 When, were he now the flood that rushes by, 
 I would be gone and to his bosom cling, 
 
 Were it to sink and die ! 
 These eyes that he has loved, though still they bear 
 
 His image, would I give him ; even this breath — 
 Were it my last, and this wan, wasted hair 
 
 Down pouring unto death ! ' 
 
 XII. 
 
 Amazed, her loved one learns that all her speech 
 Is but the burning vow she fain had given, 
 
 Which, as she drifts away from human reach, 
 She mutters close to heaven.
 
 82 The Self -Conscious. 
 
 He enters at the chamber where slie hcs : 
 There, but the sob of waters holds her sense ; 
 
 There, but the flashing torrent in her eyes 
 Sparkleth and floweth hence. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 While burn her cheeks beneath his piercing smile, 
 
 He seems within her mind, tho' at her side ; 
 The angry spectre in a little while 
 
 Must to her chamber glide. 
 Wliy waits she, by one leap might she elude 
 
 The form that shall ascend when this is gone. 
 The look of love too long by her has stood, 
 
 Why doth it come alone ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 He leaves her, on her eyes the casement glows : 
 
 A balm-hung balcony of rustling leaves 
 Its broken, ever-flitting shadow throws. 
 
 Which the sun's tremor cleaves ; 
 The soothing sound of waters seems to say 
 
 That he is in their midst, that where they roll 
 Is bliss, and new-awaking unto day 
 
 And quiet to her soul.
 
 The Self -Conscious. Z^y 
 
 o 
 
 XV. 
 
 An impulse grows Avithin her, she must leap 
 
 Into the flood ; the heavings of his breast 
 Allure her thither in their cold to steep 
 
 Her heart that burns for rest. 
 Outside he stays to grieve, his only good 
 
 To think she is within ; but, now, alarms 
 Are heard, she wildly rushes to the flood 
 
 But rests upon his arms. 
 
 G 2
 
 THE MAID OF SONG
 
 THE MAID OF SONG. 
 
 When Autumn leaves are crisp and dry, 
 
 And hop like famished sparrows o'er the grass ; 
 When murky streams, turned noiselessly awry, 
 
 Round little icebergs pass ; 
 When hungry winds creep stealthily along 
 
 And paw the shivering rushes, — wooded dale 
 Hears not the Maid of Song ; 
 
 Mute in the silence of the nightingale. 
 
 II. 
 
 But when the passage birds of Spring 
 
 Burst like warm winds into the melting wood. 
 
 That thaws to hanging verdure while they sing 
 To earn love's livelihood,
 
 88 The Maid of Song. 
 
 'Tis then the joyous Maid of Song reveals 
 Her passion-notes, and covers the blank day 
 
 With sweetly trilling peals, 
 
 As flowers drop off the early blossomed May. 
 
 III. 
 She loves her voice, the trees shall lend 
 
 To it their leafy ears ; the shaking bough, 
 As 'neath the weight of singing-bird, shall bend : 
 
 It seeks of them no vow ; 
 No heart but hers its ceaseless ringing saps : 
 
 She has no nest whereof to guard the keep ; 
 When her tired notes relapse. 
 
 They break not on her mate's enchanted sleep. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She knew 'twas love so wildly sprang 
 
 From her heart's voice ; so must no other hear 
 Her secret : even the while she softly sang 
 
 She ofttimes stopped in fear. 
 As of the birds that build from chirp of morn, 
 
 'Mid sounds of bliss, their concert-woven nest, 
 Her love was virgin born — 
 
 The first full passion of her childish breast.
 
 The Maid of Song. 89 
 
 V. 
 
 As one who errs, and, unreprieved, 
 
 Prays with all passion, so her voice implores ; 
 It seems the lark's into blue mists received, 
 
 While heaven a song outpours. 
 With arms put forth, that fondly nurse her lyre, 
 
 With fingers dripping music on the strings, 
 With eyes of first desire 
 
 And face half turned above, she sweetly sings. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then doth she skip, as when at play 
 
 A child may see a child it wished to meet. 
 And hastes along, still humming on the way, 
 
 Her echo-voice to greet. 
 Chanting as o'er a lake her beauty skims, 
 
 For there a fond-faced sister-siren floats, 
 And, while the flood it swims. 
 
 Echoes to her her gurgling water-notes. 
 
 VII. 
 
 She sings — ' When come the merry times 
 You shall be wedded too, my sister sweet. 
 
 And to a lover's song give back the chimes 
 That vow for vow repeat.'
 
 90 The Maid of Song. 
 
 Tired of self-wooing, by the noontide lulled, 
 
 Her notes break off from endless song, and stop ; 
 
 Her shining eyes are dulled ; 
 Through too much love her resting eyelids drop. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 On evening's brink the noontide closed, 
 
 But o'er her sloped in sunbeams manifold. 
 As her soul's image on her face reposed ; 
 
 Yet she her secret told, 
 For, while she slept, she sang no more unheard ; 
 
 Her lover all her lonesome wanderings knew, 
 And watched her, as a bird 
 
 Would watch his mate, the love -long season through. 
 
 IX. 
 
 His lifted footsteps towards her creep 
 
 That the crisp sod may not betray his tread ; 
 Smiling he stops, and overlooks her sleep, 
 
 His hands above her spread. 
 He deems her his, caught in her lonely nest, 
 
 Yet stands he thus apart, in watchful trance, 
 Awed into rigid rest ; 
 
 Fain to go back, fain further to advance.
 
 The Maid of Song. 9 1 
 
 X. 
 
 Feebler her voice, her dreams among, 
 
 It runs in liroken strains, but to the close, 
 From where the water echoed back her song, 
 
 Her secret overflows. 
 He gleans more love the while her coyness sleeps. 
 
 Than maid e'er uttered with her eyes awake, 
 And his heart wildly leaps, 
 
 Dreading a listener may her slumber break. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She starts from sleep, in self-surprise ; 
 
 The love-dream on her cheeks had left its flush ; 
 Fondly she hopes 'twas this disturbed her eyes, 
 
 Her hand put o'er her blush. 
 She struggles, with a faltering innocence, 
 
 To veil her love, despite the trembling fears 
 That song had ruled her sense ; 
 
 For the last notes wind through her conscious ears. 
 
 XII. 
 
 He holds his hands, as o'er a cage, 
 
 With the bird-snarer's smile and aspect droll : 
 
 He has her love ; she feigns a maiden's rage — 
 But he has caught her soul.
 
 92 The Maid of Song. 
 
 Yet would she fly, but 'tis on fluttering wings, 
 So weak she seems — her soul so surely his, 
 
 While her own words he sings, 
 
 With voice that doubts not of its present bliss, 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The secret words her lips had sung 
 
 He sings again ; he tells her how the boughs, 
 Whose leaves had with her love-confession rung, 
 
 Still echo back her vows ; 
 Tells her the water that her image held 
 
 Has caught "her siren-melody by rote. 
 And, with its gurgle swelled, 
 
 Murmurs again the warblings of her throat. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 She all denies, though now she finds 
 
 Her secret known— in all its song arrayed ; 
 Told by the woods, the waters, and the winds, 
 
 Which have her love betrayed. 
 She all denies, but he the louder sings. 
 
 Until he lifts her voice to song again : 
 With love the welkin rings ; 
 
 Two hearts are wedded in one mingling strain.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 By one whose heart kept watch was heard the fame 
 Of a bright world that, like a ship of war, 
 
 Was launched in heaven beside the last that came 
 O'er the sky's outer bar : 
 
 Her land Chaldea, she that blessed name 
 Gave to the coming star. 
 
 II. 
 
 Child of a lord, they called on her to reign 
 O'er that old story-land whose shepherds deem 
 
 The stars a flock that studs a holy plain ; 
 And she had learned in dream 
 
 That her loved land, through her, that star should gain 
 And with its blessings teem.
 
 96 The Shepherdess. 
 
 III. 
 But heartless deeds were of her father told 
 
 Who the fair daughters, in the mountains born, 
 Had captured and to days of slavery sold 
 
 Where bends the Golden Horn : 
 A shepherd chief, who robbed his neighbour's fold, 
 
 And took the lamb unshorn. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She bears her crook o'er living plains, her way 
 
 Through tents in which the thoughtful shepherds 
 dwell 
 
 Who watch the heavens where the bright grazers stray 
 And think they hear the bell 
 
 Whose holy tinklings, as they softly play, 
 The fates of men foretell. 
 
 V. 
 
 So doth she haste to meet her shepherd-seers 
 And see the promised star that shall eclipse 
 
 The one which filled her father's land with tears ; 
 And learn from their own lips 
 
 The happy portents that to man it bears 
 From the new heaven it skips.
 
 The Shepherdess. 97 
 
 VI. 
 
 While Tigris aiid Euphrates still o'erleap 
 Their shallow bounds her camel slowly goes, 
 
 When nigh her tent, on vengeful errand, creep 
 Her father's olden foes, 
 
 And seize her, helpless, in her noon-day sleep 
 While all her tribes repose. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In a barred chamber, and in chains, a slave, 
 She weeps with eyes upon the Golden Horn, 
 
 And thinks of far-off waters as they lave 
 Blessed homes in Capricorn, 
 
 Where happy beings find the Heaven that gave 
 To her the star new-born. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Strangers have come and through her prison-grate 
 They count her price and would her love allure ; 
 
 But her eyes/estless watch and wide dilate ; 
 Their look can none endure, 
 
 So wild in sorrow and so mild in hate ; 
 In majesty so pure. 
 
 H
 
 98 The Shepherdess. 
 
 IX. 
 
 One comes towards whom the look of prayer she bends 
 That seems to utter ' Thou, my star, arise ! ' 
 
 And while that Heaven-adoring thought ascends 
 New sorrow fills her eyes, 
 
 That tells how Love is dead and beauty ends 
 When human pity dies ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Ail that he has, the mystic life he bears. 
 What is their worth, her soul in slavery ? 
 
 He pays the ransom, breaks the chain she wears, 
 As though some god were he : 
 
 Voiceless, she offers up to him the tears 
 Her anguish has set free. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Hand-maids and armed protectors are at hand, 
 All that to queenly power and pomp pertains, 
 
 And, passing waters from the stranger-land, 
 Her star-roofed home she gains, 
 
 Where her sleek camels, crimson-girded, stand 
 To bear her o'er the plains.
 
 The Shepherdess. 99 
 
 XII. 
 
 In her slow path the faithful seers arrive 
 And with proi^hetic tidings bid her cheer : 
 
 That night, they tell, the older worlds shall strive, 
 As the new star comes near, 
 
 And into depths of unknown darkness dive 
 And find no other sphere. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But Uttle heed gives she to their appeals : 
 The coming star, alas ! not yet is found ; 
 
 Deep-sighing in her silence, she reveals 
 A heart in slavery bound : 
 
 Her bonds are there, and there it is she feels 
 The chain about her wound. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 'Mid joyous shouts she sees her open gates, 
 But enters not, up-gazing in the thought 
 
 That never sleeps or in her breast abates. 
 Where is the star she sought ! 
 
 But now a greater seer her advent waits ; 
 He hath the tidings brought. 
 
 H 2
 
 lOo The Shepherdess. 
 
 XV. 
 
 ' The hour is come, the star is now in sight ; 
 
 Portents of blessed change the heavens bestrew 
 The shepherds upward gaze, the air is bright, 
 
 The sky is gold and blue, 
 The ancient stars are on their downward flight 
 
 And others come anew. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' And in the shower of burning worlds, self-hurled 
 From heaven to heaven, a lord is on his way 
 
 Around whose hosts the golden dust is whirled, 
 While, in divine array, 
 
 Green floats his shepherd-banner, wide-unfurled. 
 With flocks thereon at play.' 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The hour has come in clouds that hurry o'er 
 Her palace towers, and scatter while the rays 
 
 Of new-made light upon the valleys pour ; 
 While flocks awake and graze, 
 
 And shepherds sing and the new star adore : 
 But she, beholding, prays.
 
 The SJiephe7'dess. 
 
 lOl 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The seer of seers stands forth, he takes her hands 
 He cries, ' Thy star is come ! Be it to thee 
 
 A rich reward and to these teeming lands ; 
 The lord, who made thee free, 
 
 Now in his earthly place before thee stands, 
 Thy guiding-star to be.' 
 
 XIX. 
 
 She looks at heaven ; afar the cloud-vane drifts ; 
 
 Her face is pale, he comes, the lord is found : 
 She kneels, once more his slave ; the stranger lifts 
 
 The virgin from the ground, 
 And offers up for sacred wedding gifts 
 
 The chains her heart had bound.
 
 THE LOST ANGEL
 
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 THE LOST ANGEL. 
 
 An angel child had slid 
 
 Into the world, strange and alone : 
 Yet did all love, at its first fountain hid. 
 
 Spring up in her unsown. 
 This child, by many reared, became 
 
 A watcher of their flocks ; they took her in 
 But taught her not to breathe a mother's name, 
 
 Or feel her orphan soul to theirs akin. 
 
 II. 
 
 Her love grew up to fill 
 
 Scenes where the stumbling torrents leap, 
 O'er which, self-galaxied and free of will, 
 
 The golden eagles sweep.
 
 io6 The Lost Angel. 
 
 But less was she among her flocks 
 
 Than with the chamois on whose track she hung, 
 The vaulted avalanche that roofed the rocks 
 
 The dearest home of all she served among. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is her universe 
 
 And with a ksis she greets the sun, 
 Or listens as the laughter-floods rehearse 
 
 The thoughts that through her run. 
 But when a stranger passes by, 
 
 Like the wild creatures that refuse to stay 
 At her fond call, must she his presence fly, 
 
 Alarmed not, only timorous till away. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She springs to maidenhood 
 
 As a bright arrow skyward darts, 
 And, while she learns o'er earnest thoughts to brood, 
 
 Her early dream departs. 
 Things that have life without its cares, 
 
 The enticing flower, the waters' coaxing speech, 
 Give back for sighs the smiles of all her years, 
 
 And, not yet sad, a serious morrow teach.
 
 The Lost A ngel. i o 7 
 
 V. 
 
 Her home is with the poor, 
 
 But why hath she that angel's face 
 Which seems a stranger at the cottage door ? 
 
 Is there no better place 
 For this stray maid who knoweth not 
 
 Of that true paradise more beauteous still 
 Than had descended to her childish lot, 
 
 Slow with such souls as hers its seats to fill ? 
 
 VI, 
 
 Those eyes more richly shone 
 
 Than heaven, more open in their love ; 
 All lovely things rushed into them as one 
 
 Did she even speak or move. 
 Who gazed could never turn away, 
 
 For there was maiden beauty, as at first, 
 In its pure pomp and innocent display, 
 
 Despite a world at man's own choice accursed. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Those charms were scarce for one : 
 
 A face in all that wealth attired. 
 Unguarded, as a far-off desert lone. 
 
 As paradise desired !
 
 io8 The Lost AngeL 
 
 So many seek her poor abode, 
 
 Rich in the graces which the unwary win : 
 The fiends who crave to be avenged on good 
 
 Through love, the only love that loves to sin. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 One comes whose lordly mien 
 
 Gives all around a rustic air ; 
 So changed are all things in his presence seen 
 
 That only he seems there. 
 His voice, but trembling, shakes her will ; 
 
 And who look on are rapturous at his power 
 Which can controul a heart that budding still 
 
 Yet droops as 'twere a heavy-laden flower. 
 
 K. 
 
 Can love for love atone 
 
 With all the hidden woe it sends. 
 Can it to-day forecast the morrow's moan 
 
 In which its passion ends ? 
 But nature's priest has set his key 
 
 Within her heart, unlocked the golden door, 
 And heaven spreads out ; her soul in bliss is free \ 
 
 She looks not back, it is the earth no more.
 
 The Lost Angel. 109 
 
 The key stays in her heart 
 
 And he who turns it finds consent : 
 He can those thrilling lips in love dispart 
 
 And close them in content. 
 Her gaze is drawn into his gaze ; 
 
 She sees the light of heaven but through his eyes ; 
 She smiles his smile as on his lip it plays ; 
 
 When he is sad she sighs again his sighs. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Where did those vallies lie 
 
 That hid awhile her childhood's dream 
 And left a night-cloud on the noon-day sky, 
 
 A shadow on the stream ? 
 All changes ; soul in soul they track 
 
 The scenes that tell her of those infant years : 
 The wondrous dream o'er the lost path comes back ; 
 
 The world she loved once more on earth appears. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Lost in his arms she feels 
 
 A happier childhood has begun, 
 Until another change to her reveals 
 
 The work of death is done.
 
 I lo The Lost Angel. 
 
 O'er her, from birth, that lot had lowered : 
 Born low, what here availed an angel's charms 
 
 But by a lordly fiend to be devoured 
 
 And the sweet refuse cast out of his arms ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Her innocence remains, 
 
 The poison dreg subsides and leaves 
 A soul for ever pure, that nothing stains ; 
 
 It is an orphan grieves. 
 She tries her memory to repage, 
 
 To mark out there what thoughts to heaven she 
 takes, 
 What leaves behind her in her orphanage ; 
 
 Then, at one burst, her pent-up heart she breaks.
 
 THE POETESS
 
 THE POETESS. 
 
 The poetess, with drifting gaze that floats 
 
 Back on her inmost sight, 
 Seems one entranced who only tells the motes 
 
 That dance along the light ; 
 Yet holds she in her look the vales afar 
 
 Whose pastures doubly shine, 
 While burns her trembling mount whose summits are 
 
 To distant eyes divine. 
 
 II. 
 
 As a still bird that in its stillness hides 
 
 Seems not of living things 
 Till its neck glistens and at large it gUdes 
 
 On its defiant wings,
 
 1 1 4 The Poetess. 
 
 So, 'neath the summits of her two-peaked hill 
 
 Where seemeth nought to move, 
 In thought enthralled she tarries, waxing still 
 
 As solitary love. 
 
 III. 
 
 The poetess of maiden passion, she, 
 
 Though exiled be her joy, 
 Can with a note wake its full melody 
 
 And her stray bliss decoy. 
 As in the windings of a hollow shell 
 
 Rest memories of old, 
 In her the murmurs of past passion dwell 
 
 In rapture oft re-told. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Love's artless passion to a maiden breast 
 
 Can none like her recal. 
 So to her brow, for ages there to "rest, 
 
 The leaves of laurel fall ; 
 And hearts in mournmg to her mountain throng 
 
 To live again, to feel 
 Hers is the voice of an immortal song 
 
 No other can reveal.
 
 The Poetess. 1 1 5 
 
 V. 
 
 Her love, so early born, through childhood's days 
 
 In beauty only grew, 
 And, in its ardour, skipped in passion's ways 
 
 Ere it the passion knew \ 
 A torment to the hapless boy she chose, 
 
 Who shunned her but through shame, 
 While loving deeper than the blush that rose 
 
 When others spoke her name. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Breathless she sees towards her lone mount arise — 
 
 What phantom of despair ! 
 Is it that he through those death-seeing eyes 
 
 Seeks his last solace there ? 
 Vonder he comes whence spires and gilded ships 
 
 Are imaged in the bay 
 Whose light, blue-dyed in heaven, so plenteous dips, 
 
 'Tis seen thus far away. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' Why come you hither,' asks the poet-maid ; 
 
 * To reap a wilderness 
 Where is no vine, where olive tends no shade 
 
 To shelter man's distress ? 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 The Poetess. 
 
 It is my birth-place ; but a barren peak 
 
 Where maidens yearly bring 
 To me their secret grief and solace seek 
 
 And with their sisters sing. 
 
 VIII, 
 
 ' Here, to escape awhile the city's cry, 
 
 They come, heart-bruised and wan : 
 The white-winged, crimson-spotted butterfly 
 
 Dies at the touch of man.' 
 She turns aside and goes a little higher 
 
 O'er the last mountain spur, 
 Then sighs for him unseen, her heart on fire 
 
 While his eyes follow her. 
 
 IX. 
 
 She knows his face and hurries towards her peak ; 
 
 For, once he bade her die. 
 Seeks he the grave he told her there to seek, 
 
 Beside her now to lie ? 
 He knows not heaven had saved her and had sent 
 
 The message-birds of love 
 To soothe her grief, returning as they went. 
 
 On manna fed above.
 
 The Poetess. 1 1 7 
 
 X. 
 
 A little while and he has slowly clomb 
 
 The mountain path she crossed, 
 But nowhere doth he see a living home, 
 
 Or trace of her he lost. 
 * Nurse of young love, with sunbeam wings thou hiest 
 
 And everywhere may'st be ! 
 Peace speeds thee, and this broken heart thou fliest 
 
 In its sweet company ! ' 
 
 XI. 
 
 Still for another maid he looks around, 
 
 While up the crag he creeps, 
 And o'er the cliffs still sees her spirit bound 
 
 Where but a river leaps. 
 This, thought he, is the scene of sacrifice ; 
 
 He shudders at his breath. 
 And, with her image living in his eyes, 
 
 Would follow to her death. 
 
 XII. 
 
 One look towards heaven, when, at a cavern's mouth, 
 
 On wings that earthward beat. 
 Two doves along the sky, from north and south. 
 
 With fluttering pinions meet.
 
 1 1 8 The Poetess. 
 
 The birds are pairing by the poet-maid 
 Who scarce perceives him there ; 
 
 Though o'er her face his sorrow casts a shade 
 Ihat hghtens his despair. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Soft breathings issue from tlie cavern's mouth, 
 
 Not louder than a sigh, 
 But Uft his spirit in its thought of death 
 
 To dauntless ecstasy. 
 She lists, she hears his broken-hearted wail : 
 
 His shouts the woe-depths rend : 
 Now like volcanic rage his accents fail, 
 
 Now burn as they ascend. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 * Here did I spurn the lost one, when a child 
 
 She prayed to only prove 
 Her love eternal, and with heart enviled 
 
 I told her death was love ! 
 And then I pointed to the mountain side 
 
 Where the black water leaps, 
 And bade her dcathward with the torrent glide 
 
 Where love eternal sleeps.
 
 The Poetess. 119 
 
 XV. 
 
 ' The thought of her, in all her love to die, 
 
 I can no longer bear ; 
 'Tis bliss to rend it from its agony 
 
 And her brave end to share.' 
 She holds him : ' Stay, beloved wanderer, 
 
 Thine eyes shall weep no more : 
 I feci the holy phrenzy in me stir — 
 
 Be mute the torrent's roar ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' Look in my face, into my heart descend ! 
 
 Is boundless love not here 
 That shall not with this mortal being end, 
 
 That after shall appear ? 
 Have I not died ? Heaven drew me hithcrwards 
 
 In my fidelity, 
 And as I leapt the gulf these holy birds 
 
 Upbore me towards the sky.' 
 
 XVII. 
 
 She is a child again ; as ere its flood 
 
 She feels first passion rise, 
 And rush on towards her glorious womanhood 
 
 In love that prophesies.
 
 I20 
 
 The Poetess. 
 
 But cannot overtake the full delight • 
 And while the phrenzy glows 
 
 She casts herself with its inspiring might 
 On him whence it arose.
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER. 
 
 I. 
 
 As a wild comet through the night she hies, 
 Her face bent towards the temple of the sun, 
 
 With golden hair that on the darkness lies 
 
 Like break of dawn when daylight, scarce begun, 
 Meanders into flame whose flashes run 
 
 Along the lower skies. 
 
 II, 
 
 Soon as the sun lifts up the morning haze 
 
 She rushes towards him ; sinks unto the ground 
 
 And, clasping the all-shining Presence, prays 
 In his first beams : again her god is found ; 
 The startled shadows that her heart surround 
 
 Are dizzy in his rays.
 
 1 24 The Sun- Worshipper. 
 
 III. 
 
 ' Thee I adore, O Sun ! this heart is thine ! 
 The youth who blindly claims its ecstasy 
 
 Seeks not thy temple, honours not thy shrine ; 
 He kneels not, utters not his vows to thee 
 Who all the worlds beyond this world can'st see. 
 
 And niak'st all things divine.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 The sun-flowers turn to heaven as still she kneels, 
 Shall then her heart its coming vow deplore ? 
 
 Not uttered yet, all utterance it reveals. 
 And she restrains her ecstasy no more : 
 Her burning lips the hasty vow outpour 
 
 Which her heart trouble seals. 
 
 v. 
 
 ' Never, O Sun ! till sinking in the west 
 
 Thou risest where thy wondrous setting spreads, 
 
 While all who love thee slumber in thy rest. 
 Shall he, who proudly in thy presence treads 
 Enthrall me in the light his beauty sheds, 
 
 Or wed me to his breast ! '
 
 The Sun-Worahipper. 125 
 
 VI. 
 
 Silence has tongues ; she hears a sister say, 
 ' List to the voice of thy companion-mind ! 
 
 Thy love is still the same as yesterday ; 
 It has not passed, it only lags behind, 
 And thou art lonely as the wistful wind 
 
 Thou meet'st upon the way.' 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet she repeats her vow, her heart in pain, 
 
 To draw some love from heaven, as from the well 
 
 Whose radiant springs she once craved not in vain : 
 But ebbing hope allures her by its spell 
 To past despair, on other days to dwell, — 
 
 And suffer them again. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Across the hills of heliotrope she creeps, 
 Or winds within the many-shadowed wolds. 
 
 Till once again the sun her pathway sweeps, 
 And from her weary feet the way withholds ; 
 The sacred flowers embrace her in their folds ; 
 
 From dawn to dawn she sleeps.
 
 1 26 The Sun- Woj'shipper. 
 
 IX. 
 
 She sleeps ; so still, not even her shadow veers 
 Save when from side to side the moonflood roves ; 
 
 But in sky-dreams the sun to her appears, 
 Yet with the visage of the one she loves ; — 
 All through her sleep in phantom light he moves, 
 
 And still that face he bears. 
 
 X. 
 
 She sleeps, and with the beaming of a bride 
 Beholds that face ; ah ! never to be wed ! 
 
 Yet why a tear, no sorrow shall betide : 
 
 Though distant borne, his rays on her are shed ; 
 Her soul, along his way of glory sped, 
 
 Shall in his light abide. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She wakes up with the sun, but in his rise 
 
 Sees the rich twilight of her love-dream wane : 
 
 Day seems to sink in the deserted skies. 
 
 Whose broken, many-coloured beams remain 
 As of her dream whose night comes back again ; 
 
 'Twas dawn had closed her eyes.
 
 The Su7i-W or skipper. 127 
 
 XII. 
 
 The cloud-slopes blossom still, but cold and lone ; 
 
 Down them she floated in those heavenly dreams, 
 And still the veil that o'er her slumbers shone 
 
 Hangs gold-\\Tought in the fervour of those beams. 
 
 She kneels while watching the last fading gleams 
 O'er the grey twilight thrown. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 With speechless lips she questions the chill blaze : 
 Behold the sun returns ; that brighter flush 
 
 Were surely day ? Yet she mistrusts her gaze 
 Though the light widens and with lordly rush 
 The sun bursts forth in morning's youthful blush 
 
 And floods the heaven with rays. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Trembling she sees the paleness of her face 
 
 In those white clouds which now the sun surround, 
 
 Who doth in heaven his spectral way retrace. 
 
 Behold, the days brought back, the hours unwound, 
 The angry sun unto the zenith bound 
 
 And the pale moon replace !
 
 1 28 The Sim- Worshipper. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Perplexed, all lost, she staggers to the height 
 Where the twelve pillars in their beauty shine, 
 
 Tlie temple circling in the blessed light ; 
 
 There prostrate doth she o'er her vow repine ; 
 But fears to meet the arbiter divine 
 
 Who banishes the night. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 From the lone steps at length she looks above : 
 Behold the face is there that filled her dreams ; 
 
 The youth adored, triumphant o'er her love, 
 There radiant shines amid descending beams ; 
 His lustrous hair in the rich sunshine streams, 
 
 With golden lights inwove. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 She lifts her arms, she falls upon the face 
 
 She loved in heaven ; her yearning heart, too blest, 
 
 Doth in deep sobs its erring way retrace. 
 All passion weeps, while gathers in her breast 
 A bliss that bears her spirit to its rest 
 
 In that divine embrace. 
 
 Spottis'H'flodc iy' Co., Frinters, Neiv-strcet Square, London. 
 
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