THE POEMS OF 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDR1CH
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ^
 
 THE POEMS 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE PAINT AND CLAY CLUB 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 1882
 
 Copyright, 1873 and 1876, 
 By T. B. ALDRICII. 
 
 Copyright, 1882, 
 BY HOUGIITON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Go.
 
 P5 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 FLO\VER AND THORN 13 
 
 I. 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 PROEM 17 
 
 A TURKISH LEGEND 18 
 
 AN ARAB WELCOME 19 
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 20 
 
 THE UNFORG1VEN 21 
 
 DRESSING THE BRIDE 23 
 
 TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN 24 
 
 TIGER-LILIES 26 
 
 THE SULTANA 27 
 
 THE WORLD'S WAY 28 
 
 LATAKIA 29 
 
 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN 33 
 
 HASCHEESH 35 
 
 A PRELUDE 36 
 
 II. 
 
 INTERLUDES. 
 
 BEFORE THE RAIN 41 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN 42 
 
 1281506
 
 ii CONTENTS. 
 
 IIKSPERIUES 43 
 
 CASTLES 44 
 
 INGRATITUDE 45 
 
 DECEMBER 46 
 
 THE FADED VIOLET 48 
 
 AMONTILLADO 49 
 
 THE LUNCH 51 
 
 THE ONE WHITE ROSE 52 
 
 NAMELESS PAIN 52 
 
 LANDSCAPE 55 
 
 AT TWO-AND-TWENTY 56 
 
 GLAMOURIE 57 
 
 PALABRAS CARINOSAS 58 
 
 MAY 59 
 
 THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND . . . . 00 
 
 WEDDED 61 
 
 ROMANCE 62 
 
 DESTINY 63 
 
 UNSUNG 64 
 
 FROST-WORK 65 
 
 ROCOCO 66 
 
 HAUNTED 67 
 
 FABLE 68 
 
 A SNOW-FLAKE 71 
 
 IDENTITY 71 
 
 ACROSS THE STREET 72 
 
 NOCTURNE 73 
 
 AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT 74 
 
 RENCONTRE 75 
 
 LOVE'S CALENDAR "5 
 
 A WINTER-PIECE "6 
 
 QUATRAINS 77 
 
 Day and Night 77
 
 CONTENTS. iii 
 
 Maple Leaves 77 
 
 A Child's Grave 78 
 
 Pessimist and Optimist 78 
 
 Grace and Strength 78 
 
 Among the Pines 78 
 
 From the Spanish 79 
 
 Masks 79 
 
 Coquette 79 
 
 Epitaphs 79 
 
 Popularity 80 
 
 Human Ignorance 80 
 
 Spendthrift 80 
 
 The Iron Age 80 
 
 On Reading 83 
 
 The Rose 83 
 
 Moonrise at Sea 83 
 
 The Difference 83 
 
 From Eastern Sources 84 
 
 The Parcae 84 
 
 PALINODE 85 
 
 III. 
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND 89 
 
 BABY BELL 98 
 
 PAMPINA 103 
 
 LAMIA 106 
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP 108 
 
 8EADRIFT 110 
 
 IN THE OLD CHURCH TOWER 114 
 
 PISCATAQUA RIVER 115 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS . . 117
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA 119 
 
 AN OLD CASTLE 121 
 
 LOST AT SEA 124 
 
 IN AN ATELIER 126 
 
 THE QUEEN'S RIDE 129 
 
 DIRGE 133 
 
 THE PIAZZA OF ST. MARK AT MIDNIGHT 135 
 
 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS 136 
 
 THORWALDSEN 140 
 
 IV. 
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK, ETC. 
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK 143 
 
 MIANTOWONA 154 
 
 THE GUERDON 162 
 
 TITA'S TEARS 165 
 
 THE LADY OF CA8TELNORE 167 
 
 THE TRAGEDY 171 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELI 174 
 
 JUDITH. 
 
 I. Judith in the Tower 191 
 
 II. The Camp of Assur 204 
 
 III. The Flight 215 
 
 V. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 First Series. 
 
 MIRACLES 231 
 
 FREDERICKSBURG 232 
 
 PURSUIT AND POSSESSION 233 
 
 EGYPT 234 
 
 EUTERPE . 237
 
 CONTENTS. v 
 
 AT BAT RIDGE, LONG ISLAND 238 
 
 BY THE POTOMAC 239 
 
 Second Series. 
 
 ENAMORED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME 240 
 
 THREE FLOWERS 241 
 
 AN ALPINE PICTURE 242 
 
 TO L. T. IN FLORENCE 243 
 
 ENGLAND . 244 
 
 THE I.ORELEI 247 
 
 BARBERRIES 248 
 
 HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL 249 
 
 EVEN THIS WILL PASS AWAY 250 
 
 AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 251 
 
 THE RARITY OF GENIUS 252 
 
 SLKEP . 253
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PORTRAIT ...... Engraved on steel by J. A. J. Wilcox. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A TURKISH LEGEND ........ Marcus Waterman. 17 
 
 " And all is ruin save one wrinkled gate 
 Whereon is written, 'Only God is great.' " 
 
 DRESSING THE BRIDE ......... F. D. Millet. 23 
 
 ' So, after bath, the slave-girls brought 
 The broidered raiment for her wear." 
 
 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN . . Marcus Waterman. 32 
 
 " The place where the clustered palm-trees are, 
 At the last of the thirty palace-gates." 
 
 BEFORE THE RAIN .......... W. L. Taylor. 41 
 
 " The poplars showed 
 The white of their leaves, the amber grain 
 Shrunk in the wind." 
 
 DECEMBER ............. S. E. Carlsen. 47 
 
 " Only the wild wind moaning 
 Over the lonely house." 
 
 LANDSCAPE ............. W. L. Taylor. 54 
 
 " In yonder cottage shines a light, 
 Far-gleaming like a gem." 
 
 FABLE .............. Marcus Waterman. 69 
 
 "On other neighboring branches stood 
 Other birds who heard his song." 
 
 MAPLE LEAVES ............ W. L. Metcalf. 77 
 
 " October turned my maple's leaves to gold. 1 '
 
 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MOONRISE AT SEA . W. F. Halsall. 82 
 
 "Up from the dark the moon begins to creep." 
 
 SPRING IX XEW ENGLAND ........ E. H. GaiTett. 91 
 
 "The bleak North lets loose its wailing broods 
 Of winds upon us, and the gray sea grieves 
 Along our coast." 
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND E. H. Garrett 94 
 
 '* In many a moss-hung wood, the twilight's haunt by day." 
 
 BABY BELL . , W. B. Closson. 98 
 
 " How fair she grew from day to day." 
 
 BABY BELL W. B. CloSSOD. 102 
 
 " She only crossed her little hands ; 
 She only looked more meek and fair." 
 
 SEA DRIFT W. L. Metcalf. Ill 
 
 "See where she stands on the wet sea-sands. 
 Looking across the water." 
 
 PISCATAQUA RIVER W. F. Halsall. 116 
 
 " To see the rounded sun go down. 
 And with its parting fires 
 Light up the windows of the town." 
 
 ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA 119 
 
 From a medallion by T. H. Bartlett. 
 
 " Minerva, Pallas, what you will 
 A winsome creature, Greek or Roman." 
 
 THE QUEEN'S RIDE W.L.Taylor. 131 
 
 " Vale, upland, plain, and hill 
 Wait your coining." 
 
 FKIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK W. L. Metcalf. 145 
 
 "To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn, 
 He turned with measured steps and slow, 
 Trimming his lantern as he went." 
 
 FKIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK W. L. Metcalf. 149 
 
 " From break of dawn tilt curfew-chime 
 He bent above the lengthening page, 
 Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme."
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix 
 
 TMIANTOWONA ............ F. W. Rogers. 160 
 
 " Up from the centre, 
 
 Slowly, superbly, 
 Rose a Pond-Lily." 
 
 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE ....... W. L. Taylor. 169 
 
 " Her few walks led all one way, and all ended at the gray 
 And ragged, jagged rocks that fringe the lonely beach." 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-c<ELi ........ H. Sandham. 1 75 
 
 Wrinkled and withered and old and gray, 
 A dry Franciscan from crown to toe." 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-ccELi ........ H. Sandham. 187 
 
 "Then, like a man gone suddenly wild, 
 He tugged at the bolts, flung down the chain." 
 
 JUDITH .............. W. L. Metcalf. 193 
 
 "Judith in the tower." 
 
 JUDITH ............ Marcus Waterman. 202 
 
 " And there, outside the city of her love, 
 The warm blood at her pulses, Judith paused." 
 
 W. L. Metcalf. 220 
 
 " Then Judith moved, obsequious, and placed 
 The meats before him, and poured out the wine ; 
 Holding the golden goblet while he ate." 
 
 EGYPT ............... H. Sandham. 235 
 
 " A wide-browed Sphynx . . . 
 With orbless sockets stares across the land." 
 
 THE LORELEI ............ W. B. Closson. 246 
 
 " Then she by that soft magic which she had 
 Would lure him. 
 
 The engravers are : GEORGE F. ANDREW, W. B. CLOSSON, W. J. 
 DANA, J. P. DAVIS, FRANK FRENCH, ARTHUR HAYMAN, and S. L. 
 PUTNAM.
 
 FLOWER AND THORN.
 
 FLOWER AND THORN. 
 TO L. A. 
 
 AT Shiraz, in a sultan's garden, stood 
 A tree whereon a curious apple grew, 
 One side like honey, and one side like rue. 
 
 Thus sweet and bitter is the life of man, 
 The sultan said, for thus together grow 
 Bitter and sweet, but wherefore none may know. 
 
 Herewith together you have flower and thorn. 
 Both rose and brier, for thus together grow 
 Bitter and sweet, but wherefore none may know. 
 
 Take them and keep them, 
 Silvery thorn and flower, 
 Plucked just at random 
 In the rosy weather 
 Snowdrops and pansies, 
 Sprigs of wayside heather, 
 And five-leaved wild-rose 
 Dead within an hour.
 
 14 FLOWER AND THORN. 
 
 Take them and keep them : 
 Who can tell? some day, dear, 
 (Though they be withered, 
 Flower and thorn and blossom,) 
 Held for an instant 
 Up against thy bosom, 
 They might make December 
 Seem to thee like May, dear!
 
 I. 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD.
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 You ask us if by rule or no 
 Our many-colored songs are wrought : 
 Upon the cunning loom of thought, 
 We weave our fancies, so and so. 
 2
 
 18 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 The busy shuttle comes and goes 
 Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves 
 A tissue out of autumn leaves, 
 With here a thistle, there a rose. 
 
 With art and patience thus is made 
 The poet's perfect Cloth of Gold : 
 W T hen woven so, nor moth nor mould 
 Nor time can make its colors fade. 
 
 A TURKISH LEGEND. 
 
 A CERTAIN Pasha, dead these thousand years, 
 Once from his harem fled in sudden tears, 
 
 And had this sentence 011 the city's gate 
 Deeply engraven, " Only God is great." 
 
 So those four words above the city's noise 
 Hung like the accents of an angel's voice, 
 
 And evermore, from the high barbacaii, 
 Saluted each returning caravan. 
 
 Lost is that city's glory. Every gust 
 
 Lifts, with crisp leaves, the unknown Pasha's dust. 
 
 And all is ruin save one wrinkled gate 
 Whereon is written, u Only God is great."
 
 AN ARAB WELCOME. 
 
 BECAUSE thou com'st, a weary guest, 
 Unto my tent, I bid thee rest. 
 This cruse of oil, this skin of wine, 
 These tamarinds and dates are thine; 
 And while thou eatest, Medjid, there, 
 Shall bathe the heated nostrils of thy mare. 
 
 Illah il' Allah! Even so 
 An Arab chieftain treats a foe, 
 Holds him as one without a faidt 
 Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt; 
 And, in fair battle, strikes him dead 
 With the same pleasure that he gives him bread!
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. 
 
 KIND was my friend who, in the Eastern land, 
 Remembered me with such a gracious hand, 
 And sent this Moorish Crescent which has been 
 Worn on the haughty bosom of a queen. 
 
 No more it sinks and rises in unrest 
 To the soft music of her heathen breast ; 
 No barbarous chief shall bow before it more, 
 No turbaned slave shall envy and adore. 
 
 I place beside this relic of the Sun 
 
 A Cross of Cedar brought from Lebanon, 
 
 Once borne, perchance, by some pale monk who trod 
 
 The desert to Jerusalem and his God. 
 
 Here do they lie, two symbols of two creeds, 
 Each meaning something to our human needs, 
 Both stained with blood, and sacred made by faith, 
 By tears, and prayers, and martyrdom, and death. 
 
 That for the Moslem is, but this for me ! 
 The waning Crescent lacks divinity : 
 It gives me dreams of battles, and the woes 
 Of women shut in dim seraglios.
 
 THE UNFORGIVEN. 21 
 
 But when this Cross of simple wood I see, 
 The Star of Bethlehem shines again for me, 
 And glorious visions break upon my gloom 
 The patient Christ, and Mary at the Tomb! 
 
 THE UNFORGIVEN. 
 
 NEAR my bed, there, hangs the picture jewels could 
 
 not buy from me : 
 'T is a Siren, a brown Siren, in her sea-weed dra- 
 
 Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a 
 
 In the east, the rose of morning seems as if 't would 
 
 blossom soon, 
 But it never, never blossoms, in this picture ; and the 
 
 moon 
 Never ceases to be crescent, and the June is always 
 
 June. 
 
 And the heavy-branched banana never yields its 
 
 creamy fruit ; 
 In the citron-trees are nightingales forever stricken 
 
 mute ; 
 And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of the 
 
 lute. 
 
 In the hushes of the midnight, when the heliotropes 
 grow strong
 
 22 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 With the dampness, I hear music hear a quiet, 
 plaintive song 
 
 A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immor- 
 tal wrong 
 
 Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that pleads 
 
 in vain, 
 Of a damned Soul repentant, that would fain be pure 
 
 again ! 
 And I lie awake and listen to the music of her pain. 
 
 And whence comes this mournful music? whence, 
 
 unless it chance to be 
 From the Siren, the brown Siren, in her sea-weed 
 
 drapery, 
 Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea.
 
 DRESSING THE BRIDE. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 So, after bath, the slave-girls brought 
 The broidered raiment for her wear, 
 The misty izar from Mosul, 
 The pearls and opals for her hair,
 
 24 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 The slippers for her supple feet, 
 (Two radiant crescent moons they were,) 
 And lavender, and spikenard sweet, 
 And attars, nedd, and richest musk. 
 When they had finished dressing her, 
 (The eye of morn, the heart's desire !) 
 Like one pale star against the dusk, 
 A single diamond on her brow 
 Trembled with its imprisoned fire ! 
 
 TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN. 
 
 i. 
 
 O CEASE, sweet music, let us rest! 
 Too soon the hateful light is born ; 
 Henceforth let day be counted night, 
 And midnight called the morn. 
 
 O cease, sweet music, let us rest ! 
 A tearful, languid spirit lies, 
 Like the dim scent in violets, 
 In beauty's gentle eyes. 
 
 There is a sadness in sweet sound 
 That quickens tears. O music, lest 
 We weep with thy strange sorrow, cease ! 
 Be still, and let us rest.
 
 TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN. 25 
 
 II. 
 
 Ah ! sad are they who know not love, 
 But, far from passion's tears and smiles, 
 Drift down a moonless sea, beyond 
 The silvery coasts of fairy isles. 
 
 And sadder they whose longing lips 
 Kiss empty air, and never touch 
 The dear warm mouth of those they love 
 Waiting, wasting, suffering much. 
 
 But clear as amber, fine as musk, 
 Is life to those who, pilgrim-wise, 
 Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk, 
 Each morning nearer Paradise. 
 
 O, not for them shall angels pray ! 
 They stand in everlasting light, 
 They walk in Allah's smile by day, 
 And nestle in his heart by night.
 
 TIGER-LILIES. 
 
 I LIKE not lady-slippers, 
 
 Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms, 
 
 Nor yet the flaky roses, 
 
 Red, or white as snow ; 
 I like the ehaliced lilies, 
 The heavy Eastern lilies, 
 The gorgeous tiger-lilies, 
 
 That in our garden grow ! 
 
 For they are tall and slender; 
 
 Their mouths are dashed with carmine 
 
 And when the wind sweeps by them, 
 
 On their emerald stalks 
 They bend so proud and graceful 
 They are Circassian women, 
 The favorites of the Sultan, 
 
 Adown our garden walks ! 
 
 And when the rain is falling, 
 
 I sit beside the window 
 
 And watch them glow and glisten, 
 
 How they burn and glow ! 
 O for the burning lilies, 
 The tender Eastern lilies, 
 The gorgeous tiger-lilies, 
 
 That in our garden grow!
 
 THE SULTANA. 
 
 IN the draperies' purple gloom, 
 
 In the gilded chamber she stands, 
 
 I catch a glimpse of her bosom's bloom, 
 
 And the white of her jewelled hands. 
 
 Each wandering wind that blows 
 
 By the lattice, seems to bear 
 
 From her parted lips the scent of the rose, 
 
 And the jasmine from her hair. 
 
 Her dark-browed odalisques lean 
 
 To the fountain's feathery rain, 
 
 And a paroquet, by the broidered screen, 
 
 Dangles its silvery chain. 
 
 But pallid, luminous, cold, 
 Like a phantom she fills the place, 
 Sick to the heart, in that cage of gold, 
 With her sumptuous disgrace !
 
 THE WORLD'S WAY. 
 
 AT Haroun's court it chanced, upon a time, 
 An Arab poet made this pleasant rhyme : 
 
 The new moon is a horseshoe, wrought of God, 
 Wherewith the Sultan's stallion shall be shod.'' 
 
 On hearing this, his highness smiled, and gave 
 The man a gold-piece. Sing again, O slave ! 
 
 Above his lute the happy singer bent, 
 And turned another gracious compliment. 
 
 And, as before, the smiling Sultan gave 
 The man a sekkah. Sing again, O slave ! 
 
 Again the verse came, fluent as a rill 
 That wanders, silver-footed, down a hill. 
 
 The Sultan, listening, nodded as before, 
 Still gave the gold, and still demanded more. 
 
 The nimble fancy that had climbed so high 
 Grew weary with its climbing by and by :
 
 LATAKIA. 29 
 
 Strange discords rose ; the sense went quite amiss ; 
 The singer's rhymes refused to meet and kiss : 
 
 Invention flagged, the lute had got unstrung, 
 And twice he sang the song already sung. 
 
 The Sultan, furious, called a mute, and said, 
 O Musta, straightway whip me off his head! 
 
 Poets ! not in Arabia alone 
 
 You get beheaded when your skill is gone. 
 
 LATAKIA. 
 
 WHEN all the panes are hung with frost, 
 Wild wizard- work of silver lace, 
 I draw my sofa on the rug- 
 Before the ancient chimney-place. 
 Upon the painted tiles are mosques 
 And minarets, and here and there 
 A blind muezzin lifts his hands 
 And calls the faithful unto prayer. 
 Folded in idle, twilight dreams, 
 I hear the hemlock chirp and sing 
 As if within its ruddy core 
 It held the happy heart of Spring. 
 Ferdousi never sang like that, 
 Nor Saadi grave, nor Hafiz gay :
 
 30 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 I lounge, and blow white rings of smoke, 
 And watch them rise and float away. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The curling wreaths like turbans seem 
 Of silent slaves that come and go 
 Or Viziers, packed with craft and crime, 
 Whom I behead from time to time, 
 With pipe-stem, at a single blow. 
 
 And now and then a lingering cloud 
 Takes gracious form at my desire, 
 And at my side my lady stands, 
 Unwinds her veil with snowy hands 
 A shadowy shape, a breath of fire ! 
 
 O Love, if you were only here 
 Beside me in this mellow light, 
 Though all the bitter winds should blow, 
 And all the ways be choked with snow, 
 T would be a true Arabian night !
 
 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN. 
 
 WHEN the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 Goes to the city Ispahan, 
 Even before he gets so far 
 
 As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, 
 At the last of the thirty palace-gates, 
 The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, 
 Orders a feast in his favorite room 
 Glittering squares of colored ice, 
 Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, 
 Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, 
 Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, 
 Limes, and citrons, and apricots, 
 And wines that are known to Eastern princes ; 
 And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots 
 Of spiced meats and costliest fish 
 And all that the curious palate could wish, 
 Pass in and out of the cedarn doors ; 
 Scattered over mosaic floors 
 Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, 
 And a musical fountain throws its jets 
 Of a hundred colors into the air. 
 The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, 
 And stains with the henna-plant the tips 
 Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
 
 34 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Till they bloom again ; but, alas, that rose 
 Not for the Sultan buds and blows ! 
 Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 When he goes to the city Ispahan. 
 
 Then at a wave of her sunny hand 
 The dancing-girls of Samarcand 
 Glide in like shapes from fairy-land, 
 Making a sudden mist in air 
 Of fleecy veils and floating hair 
 And white arms lifted. Orient blood 
 Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes. 
 And there, in this Eastern Paradise, 
 Filled with the breath of sandal-wood, 
 And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, 
 Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan, 
 Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ; 
 And her Arab lover sits with her. 
 That 's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 Goes to the city Ispahan. 
 
 Now, when I see an extra light, 
 Flaming, flickering on the night 
 From my neighbor's casement opposite, 
 I know as well as I know to pray, 
 I know as well as a tongue can say, 
 That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 Has gone to the city Ispahan.
 
 HASCHEESH. 
 
 STRICKEN with dreams, I wandered through the 
 
 night ; 
 
 The heavens leaned down to me with splendid fires 
 The south-wind breathing upon unseen lyres 
 Made music as I went; and to my sight 
 A Palace shaped itself against the skies : 
 Great sapphire-studded portals suddenly 
 Opened on vast Ionic galleries 
 Of gold and porphyry, and I could see, 
 Through half-drawn curtains that let in the day, 
 Dim tropic gardens stretching far away. 
 
 Ah ! what a wonder fell upon my soul, 
 When from that structure of the upper airs 
 I saw unfold a flight of crystal stairs 
 For my ascending. . . . Then I heard the roll 
 Of unseen oceans clashing at the Pole. . . . 
 A terror seized upon me ... a vague sense 
 Of near calamity. " O, lead me hence ! " 
 I shrieked, and lo ! from out a darkling hole 
 That opened at my feet, crawled after me, 
 Up the broad staircase, creatures of huge size,
 
 36 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Fanged, warty monsters, with their lips and eyes 
 Hung with slim leeches sucking hungrily. 
 Away, vile drug ! I will avoid thy spell, 
 Honey of Paradise, black dew of Hell ! 
 
 A PRELUDE. 
 
 HASSAN BEN ABDUL at the Ivory Gate 
 
 Of Bagdad sat and chattered in the sun, 
 
 Like any magpie chattered to himself 
 
 And four lank, swarthy Arab boys that stopt 
 
 A gambling game with peach-pits, and drew near. 
 
 Then Iinan Khan, the friend of thirsty souls, 
 
 The seller of pure water, ceased his cry, 
 
 And placed his water-skins against the gate 
 
 They looked so like him, with their sallow cheeks 
 
 Puffed out like I man's. Then a eunuch came 
 
 And swung a pack of sweetmeats from his head, 
 
 And stood a hideous pagan cut in jet. 
 
 And then a Jew, whose sandal-straps were red 
 
 With desert-dust, limped, cringing, to the crowd 
 
 He, too, would listen ; and close after him 
 
 A jeweller that glittered like his shop. 
 
 Then two blind mendicants, who wished to go 
 
 Six diverse ways at once, came stumbling by, 
 
 But hearing Hassan chatter, sat them down. 
 
 And if the Khaleef had been riding near, 
 
 He would have paused to listen like the rest, 
 
 For Hassan's fame was ripe in all the East. 
 
 From white-walled Cairo to far Ispahan,
 
 A PRELUDE. 37 
 
 From Mecca to Damascus, he was known, 
 Hassan, the Arab with the Singing Heart. 
 His songs were sung by boatmen on the Nile, 
 By Beddowee maidens, and in Tartar camps, 
 While all men loved him as they loved their eyes ; 
 And when he spake, the wisest, next to him, 
 Was he who listened. And thus Hassan sung. 
 And I, a stranger, lingering in Bagdad, 
 Half English and half Arab, by my beard ! 
 Caught at the gilded epic as it grew, 
 And for my Christian brothers wrote it down.
 
 II. 
 
 INTERLUDES.
 
 INTERLUDES. 
 
 BEFORE THE RAIN. 
 
 WE knew it would rain, for all the morn 
 A spirit on slender ropes of mist 
 
 Was lowering its golden buckets down 
 Into the vapory amethyst
 
 42 INTERLUDES. 
 
 Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens 
 Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers, 
 
 Dipping- the jewels out of the sea, 
 
 To sprinkle them over the land in showers. 
 
 We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed 
 The white of their leaves, the amber grain 
 
 Shrunk in the wind and the lightning now 
 Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain ! 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN. 
 
 THE rain has ceased, and in my room 
 The sunshine pours an airy flood ; 
 And on the church's dizzy vane 
 The ancient Cross is bathed in blood. 
 
 From out the dripping ivy-leaves, 
 Antiquely carven, gray and high, 
 A dormer, facing westward, looks 
 Upon the village like an eye : 
 
 And now it glimmers in the sun, 
 A square of gold, a disk, a speck : 
 And in the belfry sits a Dove 
 With purple ripples on her neck.
 
 HESPERIDES. 
 
 IF thy soul, Herriek, dwelt with me, 
 This is what my songs would be : 
 Hints of our sea-breezes, blent 
 With odors from the Orient; 
 Indian vessels deep with spice ; 
 Star-showers from the Norland ice ; 
 Wine-red jewels that seem to hold 
 Fire, but only burn with cold ; 
 Antique goblets, strangely wrought, 
 Filled with the wine of happy thought; 
 Bridal measures, vain regrets, 
 Laburnum buds and violets ; 
 Hopeful as the break of day ; 
 Clear as crystal ; new as May ; 
 Musical as brooks that run 
 O'er yellow shallows in the sun ; 
 Soft as the satin fringe that shades 
 The eyelids of thy fragrant maids ; 
 Brief as thy lyrics, Herriek, are, 
 And polished as the bosom of a star.
 
 CASTLES. 
 
 THERE is a picture in my brain 
 That only fades to come again 
 The sunlight, through a veil of rain 
 
 To leeward, gilding 
 A narrow stretch of brown sea-sand, 
 A lighthouse half a league from land, 
 And two young lovers, hand in hand, 
 
 A castle-building. 
 
 Upon the budded apple-trees 
 
 The robins sing by twos and threes. 
 
 And ever, at the faintest breeze, 
 
 Down drops a blossom ; 
 And ever would that lover be 
 The wind that robs the burgeoned tree, 
 And lifts the soft tress daintily 
 
 On Beauty's bosom. 
 
 Ah, graybeard, what a happy thing 
 It was, when life was in its spring, 
 To peep through love's betrothal ring 
 
 At fields Elysian, 
 
 To move and breathe in magic air, 
 To think that all that seems is fair 
 Ah, ripe young mouth and golden hair, 
 
 Thou pretty vision !
 
 INGRATITUDE. 45 
 
 Well, well, I think not on these two 
 But the old wound breaks out anew, 
 And the old dream, as if 'twere true, 
 
 In my heart nestles ; 
 Then tears come welling to my eyes, 
 For yonder, all in saintly guise, 
 As 'twere, a sweet dead woman lies 
 
 Upon the trestles. 
 
 INGRATITUDE. 
 
 FOUR bluish eggs all in the moss ! 
 
 Soft-lined home on the cherry-bough ! 
 Life is trouble, and love is loss 
 
 There 's only one robin now. 
 
 O robin up in the cherry-tree, 
 
 Singing your soul away, 
 Great is the grief befallen me, 
 
 And how can you be so gay ? 
 
 Long ago when you cried in the nest, 
 
 The last of the sickly brood, 
 Scarcely a pinfeather warming your breast, 
 
 Who was it brought you food? 
 
 Who said, " Music, come fill his throat, 
 
 Or ever the May be fled"? 
 Who was it loved the low sweet note 
 
 And the bosom's sea-shell red ?
 
 46 INTERLUDES. 
 
 Who said, "Cherries, grow ripe and big, 
 Black and ripe for this bird of mine"? 
 
 How little bright-bosom bends the twig, 
 Sipping the black-heart's wine! 
 
 Now that my days and nights are woe, 
 Now that I weep for love's dear sake 
 
 There you go singing away as though 
 Never a heart could break! 
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 ONLY the sea intoning, 
 Only the wainscot-mouse. 
 Only the wild wind moaning 
 Over the lonely house. 
 
 Darkest of all Decembers 
 Ever my life has known, 
 Sitting here by the embers, 
 Stunned and helpless, alone 
 
 Dreaming of two graves lying 
 Out in the damp and chill : 
 One where the buzzard, flying. 
 Pauses at Malvern Hill; 
 
 The other alas ! the pillows 
 Of that uneasy bed 
 Rise and fall with the billows 
 Over our sailor's head.
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 Theirs the heroic story 
 Died, by frigate and town ! 
 Theirs the Calm and the Glory, 
 Theirs the Cross and the Crown. 
 
 Mine to linger and languish 
 Here by the wintry sea. 
 Ah, faint heart ! in thy anguish, 
 What is there left to thee? 
 
 Only the sea intoning. 
 Only the wainscot-mouse, 
 Only the wild wind moaning 
 Over the lonely house. 
 
 47
 
 THE FADED VIOLET. 
 
 WHAT thought is folded in thy leaves ! 
 What tender thought, what speechless pain ! 
 I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
 Thou darling of the April rain ! 
 
 I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
 Though scent and azure tint are fled 
 
 dry, mute lips ! ye are the type 
 Of something in me cold and dead : 
 
 Of something wilted like thy leaves ; 
 Of fragrance flown, of beauty dim ; 
 Yet, for the love of those white hands 
 That found thee by a river's brim 
 
 That found thee when thy dewy mouth 
 Was purpled as with stains of wine 
 For love of her who love forgot, 
 
 1 hold thy faded lips to mine. 
 
 That thou shouldst live when I am dead, 
 When hate is dead, for me, and wrong, 
 For this, I use my subtlest art, 
 For this, I fold thee in my song.
 
 AMONTILLADO. 
 
 VINTAGE, 1820. 
 
 RAFTERS black with smoke, 
 White with sand the floor is, 
 Twenty whiskered Dons 
 Calling to Dolores 
 Tawny flower of Spain, 
 Wild-rose of Granada, 
 Keeper of the wines 
 In this old posada. 
 
 Hither, light-of-foot, 
 Dolores, Hebe, Circe ! 
 Pretty Spanish girl, 
 With not a bit of mercy ! 
 Here I 'm sad and sick, 
 Faint and thirsty very, 
 And she does not bring 
 The Amontillado Sherry! 
 
 Thank you. Breath of June ! 
 Xo\\ my heart beats free, ah ! 
 Kisses for your hand, 
 Amigita mia!
 
 50 INTERLUDES. 
 
 You shall live in song, 
 Ripe and warm and cheery, 
 Mellowing with years, 
 Like Amontillado Sherry. 
 
 Evil spirits, fly ! 
 
 Care, begone, blue dragon ! 
 
 Only shapes of joy 
 
 Are sculptured on the flagon : 
 
 Lyrics repartees 
 
 Kisses all that 's merry 
 
 Rise to touch the lip 
 
 In Amontillado Sherry ! 
 
 Here be worth and wealth, 
 And love, the arch enchanter ; 
 Here the golden blood 
 Of saints, in this decanter ! 
 When old Charon comes 
 To row me o'er his ferry, 
 I '11 bribe him with a case 
 Of Amontillado Sherry ! 
 
 While the earth spins round 
 And the stars lean over, 
 May this amber sprite 
 Never lack a lover. 
 Blesse'd be the man 
 Who lured her from the berry, 
 And blest the girl who brings 
 The Amontillado Sherry !
 
 . THE LUNCH. 51 
 
 What I the flagon "s dry ? 
 Hark, okl Time's confession 
 Both hands crost at XII., 
 Owning his transgression ! 
 Pray, old monk ! for all 
 Generous souls and merry, 
 May they have their fill 
 Of Amontillado Sherry ! 
 
 THE LUNCH. 
 
 A GOTHIC window, where a damask curtain 
 Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain : 
 A slab of agate on four eagle-talons 
 Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance : 
 A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cluster 
 Black grapes hung down, dead-ripe and without 
 
 lustre : 
 
 A melon cut in thin, delicious slices : 
 A cake that seemed mosaic-work in spices : 
 Two China cups with golden tulips sunny, 
 And rich inside with chocolate like honey : 
 And she and I the banquet-scene completing 
 With dreamy words and very pleasant eating !
 
 THE ONE WHITE ROSE. 
 
 A SORROWFUL woman said to me, 
 Come in and look on our child." 
 I saw an Angel at shut of day. 
 And it never spoke but smiled. 
 
 I think of it in the city's streets, 
 I dream of it when I rest 
 The violet eyes, the waxen hands. 
 And the one white rose on the breast! 
 
 NAMELESS PAIN. 
 
 IN my nostrils the summer wind 
 Blows the exquisite scent of the rose : 
 O for the golden, golden wind. 
 Breaking the buds as it goes ! 
 Breaking the buds and bending the grass, 
 And spilling the scent of the rose. 
 
 wind of the summer morn, 
 Tearing the petals in twain. 
 Wafting the fragrant soid 
 
 Of the rose through valley and plain, 
 
 1 would you could tear my heart to-day 
 And scatter its nameless pain!
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 GAUNT shadows stretch along the hill ; 
 Cold clouds drift slowly west; 
 Soft flocks of vagrant snow-flakes fill 
 The redwing's empty nest. 
 
 By sunken reefs the hoarse sea roars ; 
 Above the shelving sands, 
 Like skeletons the sycamores 
 Uplift their wasted hands. 
 
 The air is full of hints of grief, 
 Strange voices touched with pain 
 The pathos of the falling leaf 
 And rustling of the rain. 
 
 In yonder cottage shines a light, 
 Far-gleaming like a gem 
 Not fairer to the Rabbins' sight 
 Was star of Bethlehem !
 
 AT TWO-AND-TWENTY. 
 
 MARIAN, May, and Maud 
 
 Have not past me by 
 Arched foot, and rosy mouth, 
 
 And bronze-brown eye ! 
 
 When my hair is gray, 
 
 Then I shall be wise ; 
 Then, thank Heaven ! I shall not care 
 
 For bronze-brown eyes. 
 
 Then let Maud and May 
 
 And Marian pass me by : 
 So they do not scorn me now, 
 
 What care I ?
 
 GLAMOURIE, 
 
 UNDER the night, 
 
 In the white moonshine, 
 Sit thou with me, 
 By the graveyard tree, 
 Imogene. 
 
 The fire-flies swarm 
 
 In the white moonshine, 
 Each with its light 
 For our bridal night, 
 Imogene. 
 
 Blushing with love, 
 
 In the white moonshine, 
 Lie in my arms, 
 So, safe from alarms, 
 Imogene. 
 
 Paler art thou 
 
 Than the white moonshine. 
 Ho ! thou art lost 
 Thou lovest a Ghost, 
 Imogene !
 
 PALABRAS CARINOSAS. 
 (SPANISH AIR.) 
 
 GOOD-NIGHT ! I have to say good-night 
 To such a host of peerless things ! 
 Good-night unto that fragile hand 
 All queenly with its weight of rings ; 
 Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes. 
 Good-night to chestnut braids of hair, 
 Good-night unto the perfect mouth. 
 And all the sweetness nestled there 
 The snowy hand detains me, then 
 I "11 have to say Good-night again ! 
 
 But there will come a time, my love, 
 
 When, if I read our stars aright. 
 
 I shall not linger by this porch 
 
 "With my adieus. Till then, good-night ! 
 
 You wish the time were now ? And I. 
 
 You do not blush to wish it so ? 
 
 You would have blushed yourself to death 
 
 To own so much a year ago 
 
 What, both these snowy hands ! ah, then 
 I '11 have to say Good-night again !
 
 MAY. 
 
 HEBE 's here, May is here ! 
 The air is fresh and sunny ; 
 And the miser-bees are busy 
 Hoarding golden honey. 
 
 See the knots of buttercups, 
 And the purple pansies 
 Thick as these, within my brain, 
 Grow the .wildest fancies. 
 
 Let me write my songs to-day. 
 Rhymes with dulcet closes 
 Four-line epics one might hide 
 In the hearts of roses.
 
 THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE roses are a regal troop, 
 And modest folk the daisies ; 
 But, Bluebells of New England, 
 To you I give my praises 
 
 To you, fair phantoms in the sun, 
 Whom merry Spring discovers, 
 With bluebirds for your laureates, 
 And honey-bees for lovers. 
 
 The south-wind breathes, and lo ! you thron* 
 This rugged land of ours : 
 I think the pale blue clouds of May 
 Drop down, and turn to flowers ! 
 
 By cottage doors along the roads 
 You show your winsome faces, 
 And, like the spectre lady, haunt 
 The lonely woodland places. 
 
 All night your eyes are closed in sleep, 
 Kept fresh for day's adorning : 
 Such simple faith as yours can see 
 God's coming in the morning!
 
 WEDDED. 61 
 
 You lead me by your holiness 
 To pleasant ways of duty ; 
 You set my thoughts to melody, 
 You fill me with your beauty. 
 
 Long may the heavens give you rain, 
 The sunshine its caresses, 
 Long may the woman that I love 
 Entwine you in her tresses ! 
 
 WEDDED. 
 
 (PROVENCAL AIR.) 
 
 THE happy bells shall ring, 
 
 Marguerite ; 
 The summer birds shall sing, 
 
 Marguerite 
 
 You smile, but you shall wear 
 Orange-blossoms in your hair, 
 
 Marguerite. 
 
 Ah me ! the bells have rung, 
 
 Marguerite ; 
 The summer birds have sung, 
 
 Marguerite 
 But cypress leaf and rue 
 Make a sorry wreath for you, 
 
 Marguerite.
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 I HAVE placed a golden 
 Ring upon the hand 
 Of the blithest little 
 Lady in the land ! 
 
 When the early roses 
 Scent the sunny air, 
 She shall gather white ones 
 To tremble in her hair! 
 
 Hasten, happy roses, 
 Come to me by May 
 In your folded petals 
 Lies my wedding-day. 
 
 The chestnuts shine through the cloven rind. 
 
 And the woodland leaves are red, my dear : 
 The scarlet fuchsias burn in the wind 
 Funeral plumes for the Year! 
 
 The Year which has brought me so much woe 
 That if it were not for you, my dear,
 
 DESTINY. 
 
 I could wish the fuchsias' fire might glow 
 For me as well as the Year. 
 
 4 
 III. 
 
 Out from the depths of my heart 
 Had arisen this single cry, 
 Let me behold my beloved, 
 Let me behold her, and die. 
 
 At last, like a sinfid soul 
 At the portals of Heaven I lie, 
 Never to walk with the blest, 
 Ah, never! . . . onlv to die. 
 
 DESTINY. 
 
 THREE roses, wan as moonlight and weighed down 
 Each with its loveliness as with a crown, 
 Drooped in a florist's window in a town. 
 
 The first a lover bought. It lay at rest, 
 
 Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast. 
 
 The second rose, as virginal and fair, 
 Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair. 
 
 The third, a widow, with new grief made wild, 
 Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.
 
 UNSUNG. 
 
 As sweet as the breath that goes 
 From the lips of the white rose, 
 As weird as the elfin lights 
 That glimmer of frosty nights, 
 As wild as the winds that tear 
 The curled red leaf in the air, 
 Is the song I have never sung. 
 
 In slumber, a hundred times 
 
 I have said the mystic rhymes, 
 
 But ere I open my eyes 
 
 This ghost of a poem flies ; 
 
 Of the interfluent strains 
 
 Not even a note remains: 
 
 I know by my pulses' beat 
 
 It was something wild and sweet, 
 
 And my heart is strangely stirred 
 
 By an unremembered word ! 
 
 I strive, but I strive in vain, 
 To recall the lost refrain. 
 On some miraculous day 
 Perhaps it mil come and stay ; 
 In some unimagined Spring 
 I may find my voice, and sing 
 The song I have never sung.
 
 FROST-WORK. 
 
 THESE winter nights, against my window-pane 
 
 Nature with busy pencil draws designs 
 
 Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines, 
 
 Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines, 
 
 Which she will make when summer comes again 
 
 Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold, 
 
 Like curious Chinese etchings. . . . By and by, 
 
 Walking my leafy garden as of old, 
 
 These frosty fantasies shall charm my eye 
 
 In azure, damask, emerald, and gold.
 
 ROCOCO. 
 
 BY studying my lady's eyes 
 
 I've grown so learned day by day, 
 
 So Machiavelian in this wise, 
 
 That when I send her flowers, I say 
 
 To each small flower (no matter what, 
 Geranium, pink, or tuberose, 
 Syringa, or forget-me-not, 
 Or violet) before it goes : 
 
 Be not triumphant, little flower, 
 When on her haughty heart you lie, 
 But modestly enjoy your hour: 
 She '11 weary of you by and by.''
 
 HAUNTED. 
 
 A NOISOME mildewed vine 
 
 Crawls to the rotting eaves ; 
 
 The gate has dropped from the rusty hinge, 
 
 And the walks are stamped with leaves. 
 
 Close by the shattered fence 
 
 The red-clay road runs by 
 
 To a haunted wood, where the hemlocks groan 
 
 And the willows sob and sigh. 
 
 Among the dank lush flowers 
 
 The spiteful fire-fly glows, 
 
 And a woman steals by the stagnant pond 
 
 Wrapt in her burial clothes. 
 
 There's a dark blue scar on her throat, 
 And ever she makes a moan, 
 And the humid lizards gleam in the grass, 
 And the lichens weep on the stone; 
 
 And the Moon shrinks in a cloud. 
 And the traveller shakes with fear, 
 And an Owl on the skirts of the wood 
 Hoots, and says, Do you hear ?
 
 68 INTERLUDES. 
 
 Go not there at night, 
 
 For a spell hangs over all 
 
 The palsied elms, and the dismal road, 
 
 And the broken garden-wall. 
 
 O, go not there at night, 
 For a curse is on the place ; 
 Go not there, for fear you meet 
 The Murdered face to face ! 
 
 FABLE. 
 
 ROME, 1875. 
 
 A CERTAIN bird in a certain wood, 
 
 Feeling the spring-time warm and good, 
 
 Sang to it, in melodious mood. 
 
 On other .neighboring branches stood 
 
 Other birds who heard his song : 
 
 Loudly he sang, and clear and strong ; 
 
 Sweetly he sang, and it stirred their gall 
 
 There should be a voice so musical. 
 
 They said to themselves : " We must stop that 
 
 bird, 
 
 He 's the sweetest voice was ever heard. 
 That rich, deep chest-note, crystal-clear, 
 Is a mortifying thing to hear. 
 We have sharper beaks and hardier wings, 
 Yet we but croak : this fellow sings ! "
 
 IDENTITY. 71 
 
 So they planned and planned, and killed the bird 
 With the sweetest voice was ever heard. 
 
 Passing his grave one happy May, 
 I brought this English daisy away. 
 
 A SNOW-FLAKE. 
 
 ONCE he sang of summer, 
 Nothing but the summer ; 
 Now he sings of winter, 
 Of winter bleak and drear : 
 Just because there 's fallen 
 A snow-flake on his forehead, 
 He must go and fancy 
 'T is winter all the year ! 
 
 IDENTITY. 
 
 SOMEWHERE in desolate wind-swept space 
 
 In Twilight-land in No-man's-land 
 Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, 
 And bade each other stand. 
 
 And who are you ? " cried one, agape, 
 
 Shuddering in the gloaming light. 
 I know not," said the second Shape, 
 " I only died last night ! "
 
 ACROSS THE STREET. 
 
 WITH lash on cheek, she conies and goes ; 
 I watch her when she little knows : 
 
 I wonder if she dreams of it. 
 Sitting and working at my rhymes, 
 I weave into my verse at times 
 
 Her sunny hair, or gleams of it. 
 
 Upon her window-ledge is set 
 A box of flowering mignonette ; 
 
 Morning and eve she tends to them 
 The senseless flowers, that do not care 
 About that loosened strand of hair, 
 
 As prettily she bends to them. 
 
 If I could once contrive to get 
 Into that box of mignonette 
 
 Some morning when she tends to them 
 She comes! I see the rich blood rise 
 From throat to cheek ! down go the eyes, 
 
 Demurely, as she bends to them !
 
 NOCTURNE. 
 
 BELLAGGIO. 
 
 UP to her chamber window 
 A slight wire trellis goes, 
 And up this Romeo's ladder 
 Clambers a bold white rose. 
 
 I lounge in the ilex shadows, 
 I see the lady lean, 
 Unclasping her silken girdle, 
 The curtain's folds between. 
 
 She smiles on her white-rose lover, 
 She reaches out her hand 
 And helps him in at the window 
 I see it where I stand! 
 
 To her scarlet lip she holds him, 
 And kisses him many a time 
 All, me ! it was he that won her 
 Because he dared to climb !
 
 AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT. 
 
 I WONDER what day of the week 
 I wonder what month of the year 
 Will it be midnight, or morning, 
 And who will bend over my bier ? 
 
 What a hideous fancy to come 
 As I wait, at the foot of the stair, 
 While Lilian gives the last touch 
 To her robe, or the rose in her hair. 
 
 Do I like your new dress pompadour ? 
 And do I like you ? On my life, 
 You are eighteen, and not a day more, 
 And have not been six years my wife. 
 
 Those two rosy boys in the crib 
 Up-stairs are not ours, to be sure ! 
 You are just a sweet bride in her bloom, 
 All sunshine, and snowy, and pure. 
 
 As the carriage rolls down the dark street 
 The little wife laughs and makes cheer 
 But ... I wonder what day of the week, 
 I wonder what month of the year.
 
 RENCONTRE. 
 
 TOILING across the Mer de Glace, 
 I thought of, longed for thee ; 
 What miles between us stretched, alas ! 
 What miles of land and sea ! 
 
 My foe, undreamed of, at my side 
 Stood suddenly, like Fate. 
 For those who love, the world is wide, 
 But not for those who hate. 
 
 LOVE'S CALENDAR. 
 
 THE Summer comes and the Summer goes ; 
 Wild-flowers are fringing the dusty lanes, 
 The swallows go darting through fragrant rains, 
 
 Then, all of a sudden it snows. 
 
 Dear Heart, our lives so happily flow, 
 So lightly we heed the flying hours, 
 We only know Winter is gone by the flowers, 
 
 We only know Winter is come by the snow.
 
 A WINTER-PIECE. 
 
 Sous le voile qui vous protege, 
 Defiant les regards jaloux, 
 Si vous sortez par cette neige, 
 Kedoutez vos pieds andalous. 
 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 BENEATH the heavy veil you wear, 
 Shielded from jealous eyes you go ; 
 But of your pretty feet have care 
 If you should venture through the snow. 
 
 Howe'er you tread, a dainty mould 
 Betrays that light foot all the same ; 
 Upon this glistening, snowy fold 
 At every step it signs your name. 
 
 Thus guided, one might come too close 
 Upon the slyly-hidden nest 
 Where Psyche, with her cheek's cold rose, 
 On Love's warm bosom lies at rest.
 
 QUATRAINS. 
 
 1. 
 DAY AND NIGHT. 
 
 DAY is a snow-white Dove of heaven 
 That from the East glad message brings : 
 Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, 
 Wrapped to the eyes in his black wings. 
 
 2. 
 
 MAPLE LEAVES. 
 
 OCTOBER turned my maple's leaves to gold ; 
 The most are gone now ; here and there one lingers : 
 Soon these will slip from out the twigs' weak hold, 
 Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.
 
 78 INTERLUDES. 
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE. 
 
 A LITTLE mound with chipped headstone, 
 The grass, ah me I uncut about the sward, 
 
 Summer by summer left alone 
 With one white lily keeping watch and ward. 
 
 4. 
 
 PESSIMIST AND OPTIMIST. 
 
 THIS one sits shivering in Fortune's smile, 
 Taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath: 
 This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while 
 Laughs in the teeth of Death. 
 
 5. 
 GRACE AND STRENGTH. 
 
 MANOAH'S son, in his blind rage malign 
 Tumbling the temple down upon his foes, 
 Did no such feat as yonder delicate vine 
 That day by day un tired holds up a rose. 
 
 6. 
 AMONG THE PINES. 
 
 FAINT murmurs from the pine-tops reach my ear, 
 As if a harp-string touched in some far sphere 
 Vibrating in the lucid atmosphere, 
 Let the soft south wind waft its music here.
 
 QUATRAINS. 79 
 
 7. 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH. 
 
 To him that hath, we are told, 
 Shall be given. Yes, by the Cross! 
 To the rich man fate sends gold, 
 To the poor man loss on loss. 
 
 8. 
 MASKS. 
 
 BLACK Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise 
 And shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes ; 
 But when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, 
 'T is ten to one you find the girl in tears. 
 
 9. 
 COQUETTE. 
 
 OR light or dark, or short or tall, 
 She sets a springe to snare them all; 
 All 's one to her above her fan 
 She 'd make sweet eyes at Caliban. 
 
 10. 
 
 EPITAPHS. 
 
 Honest lago. When his breath was fled 
 Doubtless these words were carven at his head. 
 Such lying epitaphs are like a rose 
 That in unlovely earth takes root and grows.
 
 80 INTERLUDES. 
 
 11. 
 
 POPULARITY. 
 
 SUCH kings of shreds have wooed and won her, 
 
 Such crafty knaves her laurel owned, 
 It has become almost an honor 
 Not to be crowned. 
 
 12. 
 HUMAN IGNORANCE. 
 
 WHAT mortal knows 
 Whence come the tint and odor of the rose ? 
 
 What probing deep 
 Has ever solved the mystery of sleep? 
 
 1.3. 
 
 SPENDTHRIFT. 
 
 THE fault 's not mine, you understand : 
 God shaped my palm so I can hold 
 But little water in my hand 
 And riot much gold. 
 
 14. 
 THE IRON AGE. 
 
 THE wide-lipped Sphinx, with bent perplexed brow, 
 Crouches in desert sand, inert and pale, 
 Hearing the engine's raucous scream, that now 
 Sends Echo flying through the Memphian vale.

 
 QUATRAINS. 83 
 
 15. 
 ON READING . 
 
 GREAT thoughts in crude, inadequate verse set forth, 
 Lose half their preciousness, and ever must. 
 Unless the diamond with its own rich dust 
 Be cut and polished, it seems little worth. 
 
 16. 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 FIXED to her necklace, like another gem, 
 A rose she wore the flower June made for her ; 
 Fairer it looked than when upon the stem, 
 And must, indeed, have been much happier. 
 
 17. 
 
 MOONRISE AT SEA. 
 
 UP from the dark the moon begins to creep 
 And now a pallid, haggard face lifts she 
 Above the water-line : thus from the deep 
 A drowndd body rises solemnly. 
 
 18. 
 THE DIFFERENCE. 
 
 SOME weep because they part, 
 And languish broken-hearted, 
 And others O my heart ! 
 Because they never parted.
 
 84 INTERLUDES. 
 
 19. 
 
 FROM EASTERN SOURCES. 
 
 I. 
 
 IN youth my hair was black as night, 
 My life as white as driven snow: 
 As white as snow my hair is now, 
 And that is black which once was white. 
 
 II. 
 
 No wonder Sajib wrote such verses, when 
 He had the bill of nightingale for pen ; 
 Or that his lyrics were divine 
 Whose only ink was tears and wine. 
 
 in. 
 
 A poor dwarf's figure, looming through the dense 
 Mists of a mountain, seemed a shape immense, 
 On seeing which, a giant, in dismay, 
 
 Took to his heels and ran away. 
 
 20. 
 THE PARC^E. 
 
 IN their dark House of Cloud 
 The three weird sisters toil till time be sped : 
 One unwinds life ; one ever weaves the shroud ; 
 
 One waits to cut the thread.
 
 PALINODE. 
 
 i. 
 
 WHEN I was young and light of heart 
 I made sad songs with easy art: 
 Now I am sad, and no more young, 
 My sorrow cannot find a tongue. 
 
 Pray, Muses, since I may not sing 
 Of Death or any grievous thing, 
 Teach me some joyous strain, that I 
 May mock my youth's hypocrisy!
 
 III. 
 
 SPRING IK NEW ENGLAND 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS.
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE long years come and go, 
 
 And the Past, 
 
 The sorrowful, splendid Past, 
 With its glory and its woe, 
 
 Seems never to have been. 
 The bugle's taunting blast 
 Has died away by Southern ford and glen : 
 The mock-bird sings unf rightened in its dell ; 
 The ensanguined stream flows pure again ; 
 Where. once the hissing death-bolt fell, 
 And all along the artillery's level lines 
 
 Leapt flames of hell, 
 The farmer smiles upon the sprouting grain, 
 
 And tends his vines. 
 Seems never to have been? 
 
 O sombre days and grand, 
 
 How ye crowd back once more, 
 Seeing our heroes' graves are green 
 
 By the Potomac and the Cumberland, 
 And in the valley of the Shenandoah!
 
 90 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now while the pale arbutus in our woods 
 Wakes to faint life beneath the dead year's leaves, 
 And the bleak North lets loose its wailing broods 
 Of winds upon us, and the gray sea grieves 
 Along our coast ; while yet the Winter's hand 
 Heavily presses on New England's heart, 
 And Spring averts the sunshine of her eyes 
 Lest some vain cowslip should untimely start 
 While we are housed in this rude season's gloom, 
 
 In this rude land, 
 
 Bereft of warmth and bloom, 
 We know, far off beneath the Southern skies, 
 Where the flush blossoms mock our drifts of snow 
 And the lithe vine unfolds its emerald sheen 
 On many a sunny hillside there, we know 
 
 Our heroes' graves are green. 
 
 in. 
 The long years come, but they 
 
 Come not again ! 
 Through vapors dense and gray 
 
 Steals back the May, 
 But they come not again 
 
 Swept by the battle's fiery breath 
 Down unknown ways of death. 
 How can our fancies help but go 
 Out from this realm of mist and rain, 
 Out from this realm of sleet and snow, 
 When the first Southern violets blow?
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 93 
 
 IV. 
 
 While yet the year is young 
 Many a garland shall be hung 
 
 In our gardens of the dead ; 
 On obelisk and urn 
 Shall the lilac's purple burn, 
 
 And the wild-rose leaves be shed. 
 And afar in the woodland ways, 
 Through the rustic church-yard gate 
 Matrons and maidens shall pass, 
 Striplings and white-haired men, 
 And, spreading aside the grass, 
 Linger at name and date, 
 Remembering old, old days ! 
 And the lettering on each stone 
 Where the mould's green breath has blown 
 Tears shall wash clear again !. 
 
 v. 
 
 But far away to the South, in the sultry, stricken 
 land 
 
 On the banks of silvery streams gurgling among their 
 reeds, 
 
 By many a drear morass, where the long-necked peli- 
 can feeds, 
 
 By many a dark bayou, and blinding dune of sand, 
 
 By many a cypress swamp where the cayman seeks 
 its prey, 
 
 In many a moss-hung wood, the twilight's haunt by 
 day,
 
 94 SPUING IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 And down where the land's parched lip drinks at the 
 
 salt sea-waves, 
 And the ghostly sails glide by there are piteous 
 
 nameless graves. 
 
 Their names no tongue may tell, 
 Buried there where they fell, 
 The bravest of our braves ! 
 Never sweetheart, or friend, 
 Wan pale mother, or bride,
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 95 
 
 Over these mounds shall bend, 
 
 Tenderly putting aside 
 The unremembering grass ! 
 Never the votive wreath 
 For the unknown brows beneath, 
 Never a tear, alas ! 
 How can our fancies help but go 
 Out from this realm of mist and rain, 
 Out from this realm of sleet and snow, 
 When the first Southern violets blow? 
 How must our thought bend over them, 
 Blessing the flowers that cover them 
 Piteous, nameless graves ! 
 
 Ah, but the life they gave 
 Is not shut in the grave : 
 The valorous spirits freed 
 Live in the vital deed! 
 Marble shall crumble to dust, 
 Plinth of bronze and of stone, 
 Carved escutcheon and crest 
 Silently, one by one, 
 The sculptured lilies fall : 
 Softly the tooth of the rust 
 Gnaws through the brazen shield : 
 Broken, and covered with stains, 
 The crossed stone swords must yield: 
 Mined by the frost and the drouth, 
 Smitten by north and south, 
 Smitten by east and west, 
 Down comes column and all ! 
 But the great deed remains.
 
 % SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 VII. 
 
 When we remember how they died 
 In dark ravine and on the mountain-side,. 
 In leaguered fort and fire-encircled town,. 
 Upon the gun-boat's splintered deck, 
 And where the iron ships went down 
 How their dear lives were spent, 
 In the crushed and reddened wreck, 
 By lone lagoons and streams, 
 In the weary hospital-tent, 
 In the cockpit's crowded hive 
 How they languished and died 
 In the black stockades it seems 
 Ignoble to be alive ! 
 Tears will well to our eyes, 
 And the bitter doubt will rise 
 But hush ! for the strife is done, 
 Forgiven are wound and scar ; 
 The fight was fought and won 
 Long since, on sea and shore, 
 And every scattered star 
 Set in the blue once more : 
 We are one as before, 
 With the blot from our scutcheon gone ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So let our heroes rest 
 
 Upon your sunny breast : 
 
 Keep them, O South, our tender hearts and true, 
 Keep them, O South, and learn to hold them dear 
 From year to year !
 
 SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. 97 
 
 Never forget, 
 
 Dying for us, they died for you. 
 This hallowed dust should knit us closer yet. 
 
 Hark ! 't is the bluebird's venturous strain 
 High on the old fringed elm at the gate 
 
 Sweet-voiced, valiant on the swaying bough, 
 
 Alert, elate, 
 
 Dodging the fitful spits of snow, 
 New England's poet-laureate 
 Telling us Spring has come again !
 
 BABY BELL. 
 
 HAVE you not heard the poets tell 
 
 How came the dainty Baby Bell 
 
 Into this world of ours ? 
 The gates of heaven were left ajar : 
 With folded hands and dreamy eyes, 
 Wandering out of Paradise, 
 She saw this planet, like a star, 
 
 Hung in the glistening depths of even 
 Its bridges, running to and fro, 
 O'er which the white-winged Angels go, 
 
 Bearing the holy Dead to heaven. 
 She touched a bridge of flowers those feet, 
 So light they did not bend the bells 
 Of the celestial asphodels,
 
 BABY BELL. 99 
 
 They fell like dew upon the flowers : 
 Then all the air grew strangely sweet! 
 And thus came dainty Baby Bell 
 Into this world of ours. 
 
 She came and brought delicious May. 
 
 The swallows built beneath the eaves; 
 
 Like sunlight, in and out the leaves 
 The robins went, the livelong day ; 
 The lily swung its noiseless bell; 
 
 And o'er the porch the trembling vine 
 
 Seemed bursting with its veins of wine. 
 How sweetly, softly, twilight fell! 
 O, earth was full of singing-birds 
 And opening springtide flowers, 
 When the dainty Baby Bell 
 
 Came to this world of ours ! 
 
 O Baby, dainty Baby Bell, 
 How fair she grew from day to day ! 
 
 What woman-nature filled her eyes, 
 What poetry within them lay 
 Those deep and tender twilight eyes, 
 
 So full of meaning, pure and bright 
 
 As if she yet stood in the light 
 Of those oped gates of Paradise. 
 And so we loved her more and more : 
 
 Ah, never in our hearts before 
 
 Was love so lovely born ! 
 We felt we had a link between
 
 100 BABY BELL. 
 
 This real world and that unseen 
 
 The land beyond the morn ; 
 And for the love of those dear eyes, 
 For love of her whom God led forth, 
 (The mother's being ceased on earth 
 When Baby came from Paradise,) 
 For love of Him who smote our lives, 
 
 And woke the chords of joy and pain, 
 We said, Dear Christ ! our hearts bent down 
 
 Like violets after rain. 
 
 And now the orchards, which were white 
 And red with blossoms when she came, 
 Were rich in autumn's mellow prime : 
 The clustered apples burnt like flame, 
 The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell, 
 The folded chestnut burst its shell, 
 The grapes hung purpling in the grange : 
 And time wrought just as rich a change 
 
 In little Baby Bell. 
 Her lissome form more perfect grew. 
 And in her features we could trace, 
 In softened curves, her mothers face. 
 Her angel-nature ripened too : 
 We thought her lovely when she came, 
 But she was holy, saintly now . . . 
 Around her pale angelic brow 
 We saw a slender ring of flame !
 
 BABY BELL. 101 
 
 V. 
 
 God's hand had taken away the seal 
 That held the portals of her speech ; 
 
 And oft she said a few strange words 
 Whose meaning lay beyond our reach. 
 
 She never was a child to us, 
 
 We never held her being's key ; 
 
 We could not teach her holy things : 
 
 She was Christ's self in purity. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It came upon us by degrees, 
 We saw its shadow ere it fell 
 The knowledge that our God had sent 
 His messenger for Baby Bell. 
 We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, 
 And all our hopes were changed to fears, 
 And all our thoughts ran into tears 
 Like sunshine into rain. 
 We cried aloud in our belief, 
 ; O, smite us gently, gently, God! 
 Teach us to bend and kiss the rod, 
 And perfect grow through grief." 
 Ah! how we loved her, God can tell; 
 Her heart was folded deep in ours. 
 Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell! 
 
 At last he came, the messenger, 
 
 The messenger from unseen lands : 
 And what did dainty Baby Bell?
 
 102 BABY BELL. 
 
 She only crossed her little hands, 
 She only looked more meek and fair ! 
 We parted back her silken hair, 
 We wove the roses round her brow 
 White buds, the summer's drifted snow, 
 Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers . . 
 And thus went dainty Baby Bell 
 Out of this world of ours !
 
 PAMPINA. 
 
 LYING by the summer sea 
 I had a dream of Italy. 
 
 Chalky cliffs and miles of sand, 
 
 Mossy reefs and salty caves, 
 
 Then the sparkling emerald waves, 
 
 Faded; and I seemed to stand, 
 
 Myself a languid Florentine, 
 
 In the heart of that fair land. 
 
 And in a garden cool and green, 
 
 Boccaccio's own enchanted place, 
 
 I met Pampina face to face 
 
 A maid so lovely that to see 
 
 Her smile is to know Italy ! 
 
 Her hair was like a coronet 
 
 Upon her Grecian forehead set, 
 
 Where one gem glistened sunnily 
 
 Like Venice, when first seen at sea. 
 
 I saw within her violet eyes 
 
 The starlight of Italian skies, 
 
 And on her brow and breast and hand 
 
 The olive of her native land! 
 
 And, knowing how in other times 
 
 Her lips were ripe with Tuscan rhymes
 
 104 P AMPIN A. 
 
 Of love and wine and dance, I spread 
 My mantle by an almond-tree, 
 And " Here, beneath the rose," I said, 
 " I '11 hear thy Tuscan melody." 
 I heard a tale that was not told 
 In those ten dreamy days of old, 
 When Heaven, for some divine offence, 
 Smote Florence with the pestilence ; 
 And in that garden's odorous shade 
 The dames of the Decameron, 
 With each a loyal lover, strayed, 
 To laugh and sing, at sorest need, 
 To lie in the lilies in the sun 
 With glint of plume and silver brede. 
 And while she whispers in my ear, 
 The pleasant Arno murmurs near, 
 The dewy, slim chameleons run 
 Through twenty colors in the sun ; 
 The breezes blur the fountain's glass, 
 And wake .ZEolian melodies, 
 And scatter from the scented trees 
 The lemon-blossoms on the grass. 
 
 The tale ? I have forgot the tale 
 
 A Lady all for love forlorn, 
 
 A rosebud, and a nightingale 
 
 That bruised his bosom on the thorn ; 
 
 A jar of rubies buried deep, 
 
 A glen, a corpse, a child asleep, 
 
 A Monk, that was no monk at all, 
 
 In the moonlight by a castle-wall.
 
 PAMPINA. 105 
 
 Now while the large-eyed Tuscan wove 
 The gilded thread of her romance 
 Which I have lost by grievous chance 
 The one dear woman that I love, 
 Beside me in our seaside nook, 
 Closed a white finger in her book, 
 Half vext that she should read, and weep 
 For Petrarch, to a man asleep ! 
 And scorning me, so tame and cold, 
 She rose, and wandered down the shore, 
 Her wine-dark drapery, fold in fold, 
 Imprisoned by an ivory hand ; 
 And on a bowlder, half in sand, 
 She stood, and looked at Appledore. 
 
 And waking, I beheld her there 
 
 Sea-dreaming in the moted air, 
 
 A siren lithe and debonair, 
 
 With wristlets woven of scarlet weeds, 
 
 And oblong lucent amber beads 
 
 Of sea-kelp shining in her hair. 
 
 And as I thought of dreams, and how 
 
 The something in us never sleeps, 
 
 But laughs, or sings, or moans, or weeps, 
 
 She turned and on her breast and brow 
 
 I saw the tint that seemed not won 
 
 From kisses of New England sun ; 
 
 I saw on brow and breast and hand 
 
 The olive of a sunnier land ! 
 
 She turned and, lo ! within her eyes 
 
 There lay the starlight of Italian skies.
 
 106 LAMIA. 
 
 Most dreams are dark, beyond the range 
 
 Of reason ; oft we cannot tell 
 
 If they are born of heaven or hell: 
 
 But to my soul it seems not strange 
 
 That, lying by the summer sea, 
 
 With that dark woman watching me, 
 
 I slept and dreamed of Italy ! 
 
 LAMIA. 
 
 Go on your way, and let me pass. 
 You stop a wild despair. 
 I would that I were turned to brass 
 Like that chained lion there, 
 
 Which, couchant by the postern gate, 
 In weather foul or fair, 
 Looks down serenely desolate, 
 And nothing does but stare ! 
 
 Ah, what 's to me the burgeoned year, 
 The sad leaf or the gay? 
 Let Lamicelot and Queen Guinevere 
 Their falcons fly this day. 
 
 *T will be as royal sport, pardie, 
 As falconers have tried 
 At Astolat but let me be ! 
 I would that I had died.
 
 LAMIA. 107 
 
 I met a woman in the glade : 
 Her hair was soft and brown, 
 And long bent silken lashes weighed 
 Her ivory eyelids down. 
 
 I kissed her hand, I called her blest, 
 I held her leal and fair 
 She turned to shadow on my breast, 
 And melted into air ! 
 
 And, lo ! about me, fold on fold, 
 A writhing serpent hung 
 An eye of jet, a skin of gold, 
 A garnet for a tongue ! 
 
 O, let the petted falcons fly 
 Right merry in the sun ; 
 But let me be ! for I shall die 
 Before the year is done.
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 
 
 THERE is a rest for all things. On still nights 
 
 There is a folding of a million wings 
 The swarming honey-bees in unknown woods, 
 The speckled butterflies, and downy broods 
 
 In dizzy poplar heights : 
 Rest for innumerable nameless things, 
 Rest for the creatures underneath the Sea, 
 
 And in the Earth, and in the starry Air . . . 
 
 Why will it not unburden me of care ? 
 
 It comes to meaner things than my despair. 
 O weary, weary night, that brings no rest to me ! 
 
 Spirit of dreams and silvern memories. 
 
 Delicate Sleep ! 
 
 One who is sickening of his tiresome days 
 Brings thee a soid that he would have thee keep 
 A captive in thy mystical domain, 
 With Puck and Ariel, and the grotesque train 
 That people slumber. Give his sight 
 Immortal shapes, and bring to him again 
 His Psyche that went out into the night !
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 109 
 
 Thou who dost hold the priceless keys of rest, 
 Strew lotus-leaves and poppies on my breast, 
 
 And bear me to thy castle in the land 
 Touched with all colors like a burning west 
 The Castle of Vision, where the unchecked thought 
 Wanders at will upon enchanted ground, 
 Making no sound 
 In all the corridors . . . 
 
 The bell sleeps in the belfry from its tongue 
 A drowsy murmur floats into the air, 
 Like thistle-down. Slumber is everywhere. 
 The rook 's asleep, and, in its dreaming, caws ; 
 And silence mopes where nightingales have sung ; 
 The Sirens lie in grottos cool and deep, 
 
 The Naiads in the streams : 
 But I, in chilling twilight, stand and wait 
 At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, 
 Yearning to see the magic door of dreams 
 Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate Sleep !
 
 SEADRIFT. 
 
 SEE where she stands, 011 the wet sea-sands, 
 
 Looking- across the water: 
 Wild is the night, but wilder still 
 
 The face of the fisher's daughter ! 
 
 What does she there, in the lightning's glare, 
 
 What does she there, I wonder? 
 What dread demon drags her forth 
 
 In the night and wind and thunder ? 
 
 Is it the ghost that haunts this coast ? 
 
 The cruel waves mount higher, 
 And the beacon pierces the stormy dark 
 
 With its javelin of fire. 
 
 Beyond the light of the beacon bright 
 
 A merchantman is tacking ; 
 The hoarse wind whistling through the shrouds, 
 
 And the brittle topmasts cracking. 
 
 The sea it moans over dead men's bones, 
 
 The sea it foams in anger ; 
 The curlews swoop through the resonant air 
 
 With a warning cry of danger.
 
 SE ADRIFT. 113 
 
 The star-fish clings to the sea-weed's rings 
 
 In a vague, dumb sense of peril ; 
 And the spray, with its phantom-fingers, grasps 
 
 At the mullein dry and sterile. 
 
 O, who is she that stands by the sea, 
 In the lightning's glare, undaunted ? 
 
 Seems this now like the coast of hell 
 By one white spirit haunted ! 
 
 The night drags by; and the breakers die 
 
 Along the ragged ledges ; 
 The robin stirs in its drenched nest, 
 
 The hawthorn blooms on the hedges. 
 
 In shimmering lines, through the dripping pines, 
 
 The stealthy morn advances; 
 And the heavy sea-fog straggles back 
 
 Before those bristling lances ! 
 
 Still she stands on the wet sea-sands ; 
 
 The morning breaks above her, 
 And the corpse of a sailor gleams on the rocks 
 
 What if it were her lover?
 
 IN THE OLD CHURCH TOWER. 
 
 IN the old church tower 
 
 Hangs the bell ; 
 And above it on the vane, 
 In the sunshine and the rain, 
 Cut in gold, St. Peter stands, 
 With the keys in his claspt hands, 
 
 And all is well. 
 
 In the old church tower 
 
 Hangs the bell ; 
 
 You can hear its great heart beat, 
 Ah ! so loud, and wild, and sweet, 
 As the parson says a prayer 
 Over wedded lovers there, 
 
 And all is well. 
 
 In the old church tower 
 
 Hangs the bell ; 
 Deep and solemn, hark! again, 
 Ah, what passion and what pain ! 
 With her hands upon her breast. 
 Some poor Soul has gone to rest 
 
 Where all is well.
 
 PISCATAQUA RIVER. 115 
 
 In the old church tower 
 
 Hangs the bell 
 An old friend that seems to know 
 All our joy and all our woe ; 
 It is glad when we are wed, 
 It is sad when we are dead, 
 
 And all is weU! 
 
 PISCATAQUA RIVER. 
 
 THOU singest by the gleaming isles, 
 By woods, and fields of corn, 
 Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles 
 Upon my birthday morn. 
 
 But I within a city, I, 
 So full of vague unrest, 
 Would almost give my life to lie 
 An hour upon thy breast! 
 
 To let the wherry listless go, 
 And, wrapt in dreamy joy, 
 Dip, and surge idly to and fro, 
 Like the red harbor-buoy; 
 
 To sit in happy indolence, 
 
 To rest upon the oars, 
 
 And catch the heavy earthy scents 
 
 That blow from summer shores ;
 
 116 riSC AT AQUA RIVER. 
 
 To see the rounded sun go down, 
 And with its parting fires 
 Light up the windows of the town 
 And burn the tapering spires ; 
 
 And then to hear the muffled tolls 
 From steeples slim and white, 
 And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, 
 The Beacon's orange light. 
 
 O River ! flowing to the main 
 Through woods, and fields of corn, 
 Hear thou my longing and my pain 
 This sunny birthday morn ; 
 
 i
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS. 117 
 
 And take this song which sorrow shapes 
 To music like thine own, 
 And sing it to the cliffs and capes 
 And crags where I am known ! 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS. 
 
 A MAN should live in a garret aloof, 
 And have few friends, and go poorly clad, 
 With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, 
 To keep the Goddess constant and glad. 
 
 Of old, when I walked on a rugged way, 
 And gave much work for but little bread, 
 The Goddess dwelt with me night and day, 
 Sat at my table, haunted my bed. 
 
 The narrow, mean attic, I see it now ! 
 Its window o'eiiooking the city's tiles, 
 The sunset's fires, and the clouds of snow, 
 And the river wandering miles and miles. 
 
 Just one picture hung in the room. 
 The saddest story that Art can tell 
 Dante and Virgil in lurid gloom 
 Watching the Lovers float through Hell. 
 
 Wretched enough was I sometimes, 
 Pinched, and harassed with vain desires ; 
 But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes 
 As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires.
 
 118 THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS. 
 
 Midnight filled my slumbers with song ; 
 Music haunted my dreams by day 
 Now I listen and wait and long, 
 But the Delphian airs have died away. 
 
 I wonder and wonder how it befell : 
 Suddenly I had friends in crowds ; 
 I bade the house-tops a long farewell ; 
 "Good-by," I cried, "to the stars and clouds! 
 
 " But thou, rare soul, that hast dwelt with me, 
 Spirit of Poesy ! thou divine 
 Breath of the morning, thou shalt be, 
 Goddess ! for ever and ever mine." 
 
 And the woman I loved was now mv bride, 
 And the house I wanted was my own ; 
 I turned to the Goddess satisfied 
 But the Goddess had somehow flown ! 
 
 Flown, and I fear she will never return ; 
 I am much too sleek and happy for her, 
 Whose lovers must hunger, and waste, and burn, 
 Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir ! 
 
 I call but she does not stoop to my cry ; 
 I wait but she lingers, and ah ! so long ! 
 It was not so in the years gone by, 
 When she touched my lips with chrism of song. 
 
 I swear I will get me a garret again, 
 And adore, like a Parsee, the sunset's fires,
 
 O.V AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA. 119 
 
 And lure the Goddess, by vigil and pain, 
 Up with the sparrows among the spires. 
 
 For a man should live in a garret aloof, 
 And have few friends, and go poorly clad, 
 With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, 
 To keep the Goddess constant and glad. 
 
 ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA. 
 
 BENEATH the warrior's helm, behold 
 The flowing tresses of the woman ! 
 
 Minerva, Pallas, what you will 
 
 A winsome creature, Greek or Roman. 
 
 Minerva ? No ! 't is some sly minx 
 In cousin's helmet masquerading ; 
 
 If not then Wisdom was a dame 
 For sonnets and for serenading ! 
 
 I thought the goddess cold, austere, 
 
 Not made for love's despairs and blisses :
 
 120 ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA. 
 
 Did Pallas wear her hair like that ? 
 
 Was Wisdom's month so shaped for kisses ? 
 
 The Nightingale should be her bird, 
 
 And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn : 
 
 How very fresh she looks, and yet 
 
 She 's older far than Trajan's Column ! 
 
 The magic hand that carved this face, 
 And set this vine-work round it running, 
 
 Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought 
 Had lost its subtle skill and cunning. 
 
 Who was he? Was he glad or sad, 
 Who knew to carve in such a fashion? 
 
 Perchance he graved the dainty head 
 
 For some brown girl that scorned his passion. 
 
 Perchance, in some still garden-place, 
 Where neither fount nor tree to-day is, 
 
 He flung the jewel at the feet 
 
 Of Phryne, or perhaps 't was Lais. 
 
 But he is dust ; we may not know 
 
 His happy or unhappy story: 
 Nameless, and dead these centuries, 
 
 His work outlives him there 's his glory ! 
 
 Both man and jewel lay in earth 
 
 Beneath a lava-buried city; 
 The countless summers came and went 
 
 With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity.
 
 ^V OLD CASTLE. 121 
 
 Years blotted out the man, but left 
 The jewel fresh as any blossom, 
 
 Till some Visconti dug- it up 
 
 To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom! 
 
 O nameless brother ! see how Time 
 
 Your gracious handiwork has guarded : 
 
 See how your loving, patient art 
 Has come, at last, to be rewarded. 
 
 Who would not suffer slights of men, 
 And pangs of hopeless passion also, 
 
 To have his carven agate-stone 
 
 On such a bosom rise and fall so! 
 
 AN OLD CASTLE. 
 
 THE gray arch crumbles, 
 
 And totters, and tumbles ; 
 
 The bat has built in the banquet hall ; 
 
 In the donjon-keep 
 
 Sly mosses creep ; 
 
 The ivy has scaled the southern wall : 
 
 No man-at-arms 
 
 Sounds quick alarms 
 
 A-top of the cracked martello tower : 
 
 The drawbridge-chain 
 
 Is broken in twain 
 
 The bridge will neither rise nor lower.
 
 122 AN OLD CASTLE. 
 
 Not any manner 
 
 Of broidered banner 
 
 Flaunts at a blazoned herald's call. 
 
 Lilies float 
 
 In the stagnant moat ; 
 
 And fair they are, and tall. 
 
 Here, in the old 
 
 Forgotten springs, 
 
 Was wassail held by queens and kings ; 
 
 Here at the board 
 
 Sat clown and lord, 
 
 Maiden fair and lover bold, 
 
 Baron fat and minstrel lean, 
 
 The prince with his stars, 
 
 The knight with his scars, 
 
 The priest in his gabardine. 
 
 Where is she 
 
 Of the fleur-de-lys, 
 
 And that true knight who wore her gages ? 
 
 Where are the glances 
 
 That bred wild fancies 
 
 In curly heads of my lady's pages? 
 
 Where are those 
 
 Who, in steel or hose, 
 
 Held revel here, and made them gay ? 
 
 Where is the laughter 
 
 That shook the rafter 
 
 Where is the rafter, by the way '
 
 AN OLD CASTLE. 123 
 
 Gone is the roof, 
 
 And perched aloof 
 
 Is an owl, like a friar of Orders Gray. 
 
 (Perhaps ? t is the priest 
 
 Come back to feast 
 
 He had ever a tooth for capon, he ! 
 
 But the capon 's cold, 
 
 And the steward 's old, 
 
 And the butler's lost the larder-key!) 
 
 The doughty lords 
 
 Sleep the sleep of swords. 
 
 Dead are the dames and damozels. 
 
 The King in his crown 
 
 Hath laid him down, 
 
 And the Jester with his bells. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All is dead here : 
 
 Poppies are red here, 
 
 Vines in my lady's chamber grow 
 
 If 'twas her chamber 
 
 Where they clamber 
 
 Up from the poisonous weeds below. 
 
 All is dead here, 
 
 Joy is fled here ; 
 
 Let us hence. 'Tis the end of all 
 
 The gray arch crumbles, 
 
 And totters, and tumbles, 
 
 And Silence sits in the banquet hall.
 
 LOST AT SEA. 
 
 THE face that Carlo Dolci drew 
 Looks down from out its leafy hood 
 The holly berries, gleaming through 
 The pointed leaves, seem drops of blood. 
 
 Above the cornice, round the hearth. 
 Are evergreens and spruce-tree boughs ; 
 'T is Christmas morning : Christmas mirth 
 And joyous voices fill the house. 
 
 I pause, and know not what to do ; 
 I feel reproach that I am glad : 
 Until to-day, no thought of you, 
 O Comrade ! ever made me sad. 
 
 But now the thought of your blithe heart, 
 Your ringing laugh, can give me pain. 
 Knowing that we are worlds apart, 
 Not knowing we shall meet again. 
 
 For all is dark that lies in store : 
 Though they may preach, the brotherhood, 
 We know just this, and nothing more. 
 That we are dust, and God is good.
 
 LOST AT SEA. 125 
 
 What life begins when death makes end? 
 Sleek gownsmen, is 't so very clear? 
 How fares it with us ? O, my Friend, 
 I only know you are not here ! 
 
 That I am in a warm, light room, 
 With life and love to comfort me, 
 While you are drifting through the gloom, 
 Beneath the sea, beneath the sea! 
 
 wild green waves that lash the sands 
 Of Santiago and beyond, 
 
 Lift him, I pray, with gentle hands, 
 And bear him on true heart and fond ! 
 
 To some still grotto far below 
 The washings of the warm Gulf Stream 
 Bear him, and let the winds that blow 
 About the world not break his dream ! 
 
 I smooth my brow. Upon the stair 
 
 1 hear my children shout in glee, 
 With sparkling eyes and floating hair, 
 Bringing a Christmas wreath for me. 
 
 Their joy, like sunshine deep and broad, 
 Falls on my heart, and makes me glad : 
 I think the face of our dear Lord 
 Looks down on them, and seems not sad.
 
 IN AN ATELIER. 
 
 I PRAY you, do not turn your head ; 
 And let your hands lie folded, so. 
 It was a dress like this, wine-red, 
 That Dante liked so, long ago. 
 You don't know Dante ? Never mind. 
 He loved a lady wondrous fair 
 His model ? Something of the kind. 
 I wonder if she had your hair! 
 
 I wonder if she looked so meek, 
 And was not meek at all (my dear, 
 I want that side light on your cheek). 
 He loved her, it is very clear, 
 And painted her, as I paint you, 
 But rather better, on the whole 
 (Depress your chin ; yes, that will do) : 
 He was a painter of the soul ! 
 
 (And painted portraits, too, I think, 
 In the INFERNO devilish good ! 
 I 'd make some certain critics blink 
 If I 'd his method and his mood.) 
 Her name was (Fanny, let your glance 
 Rest there, by that majolica tray)
 
 7^V AN ATELIER. 127 
 
 Was Beatrice ; they met by chance 
 They met by chance, the usual way. 
 
 (As you and I met, months ago, 
 Do you remember? How your feet 
 Went crinkle-crinkle on the snow 
 Along the bleak gas-lighted street ! 
 An instant in the drug-store's glare 
 You stood as in a golden frame, 
 And then I swore it, then and there, 
 To hand your sweetness down to fame.) 
 
 They met, and loved, and never wed 
 (All this was long before our time), 
 And though they died, they are not dead 
 Such endless youth gives mortal rhyme ! 
 Still walks the earth, with haughty mien, 
 Great Dante, in his soul's distress; 
 And still the lovely Florentine 
 Goes lovely in her wine-red dress. 
 
 You do not understand at all? 
 
 He was a poet ; on his page 
 
 He drew her ; and, though kingdoms fall, 
 
 This lady lives from age to age : 
 
 A poet that means painter too, 
 
 For vtords are colors, rightly laid ; 
 
 And they outlast our brightest hue, 
 
 For varnish cracks and crimsons fade. 
 
 The poets they are lucky ones ! 
 When we are thrust upon the shelves,
 
 128 TN AN ATELIER. 
 
 Our works turn into skeletons 
 Almost as quickly as ourselves ; 
 For our poor canvas peels at length, 
 At length is prized when all is bare : 
 u What grace ! " the critics cry, " what strength ! v 
 When neither strength nor grace is there. 
 
 Ah, Fanny, I am sick at heart, 
 It is so little one can do ; 
 We talk our jargon live for Art ! 
 I 'd much prefer to live for you. 
 How dull and lifeless colors are ! 
 You smile, and all my picture lies : 
 I wish that I could crush a star 
 To make a pigment for your eyes. 
 
 Yes, child, I know I 'm out of time ; 
 The light is bad ; the sky is gray : 
 1 paint no more this afternoon, 
 So lay your royal gear awav. 
 Besides, you 're moody chin on hand 
 I know not what not in the vein 
 Not like Anne Bullen, sweet and bland : 
 You sit there smiling in disdain. 
 
 Not like Bluff Harry's radiant Queen, 
 
 Unconscious of the coming woe, 
 
 But rather as she might have been, 
 
 Preparing for the headsman's blow. 
 
 I see ! I 've put you in a miff 
 
 Sitting bolt-upright, wrist on wrist. 
 
 How should you look ? Why, dear, as if 
 
 Somehow as if you 'd just been kissed !
 
 THE QUEEN'S RIDE. 
 
 AN INVITATIOX. 
 
 'T is that fair time of year, 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 When stately Guinevere, 
 In her sea-green robe and hood, 
 Went a-riding through the wood, 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 And as the Queen did ride, 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 Sir Launcelot at her side 
 Laughed and chatted, bending over, 
 Half her friend and all her lover, 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 And as they rode along, 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 The throstle gave them song, 
 And the buds peeped through the grass 
 To see youth and beauty pass, 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 And on, through deathless time, 
 Lady mine,
 
 130 THE QUEEN'S RIDE. 
 
 These lovers in their prime, 
 (Two fairy ghosts together!) 
 Ride, with sea-green robe, and feather! 
 Lady mine. 
 
 And so we two will ride, 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 At your pleasure, side by side, 
 Laugh and chat : I bending over, 
 Half your friend and all your lover, 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 But if you like not this, 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 And take my love amiss, 
 Then I '11 ride unto the end, 
 Half your lover, all your friend. 
 
 Lady mine. 
 
 So, come which way you will. 
 
 Lady mine, 
 
 Vale, upland, plain, and hill 
 Wait your coming. For one day 
 Loose the bridle, and away ! 
 
 Lady mine.
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 LET us keep him warm, 
 Stir the dying fire : 
 Upon his tired arm 
 Slumbers young Desire. 
 
 Soon, ah, very soon 
 We too shall not know 
 Either sun or moon, 
 Either grass or snow. 
 
 Others in our place 
 Come to laugh and weep, 
 Win or lose the race, 
 And to fall asleep. 
 
 Let us keep him warm, 
 Stir the dying fire : 
 Upon his tired arm 
 Slumbers young Desire. 
 
 What does all avail 
 Love, or power, or gold? 
 Life is like a tale 
 Ended ere 'tis told.
 
 134 DIRGE. 
 
 Much is left unsaid, 
 Much is said in vain 
 Shall the broken thread 
 Be taken up again ? 
 
 Let us keep him warm, 
 Stir the dying fire : 
 Upon his tired arm 
 Slumbers young Desire. 
 
 Kisses one or two 
 On his eyelids set, 
 That, when all is through, 
 He may not forget. 
 
 He has far to go 
 Is it East or West? 
 Whither? Who may know! 
 Let him take his rest. 
 
 Wind, and snow, and sleet 
 So the long night dies. 
 Draw the winding-sheet, 
 Cover up his eyes. 
 
 Let us keep him warm, 
 Stir the dying fire : 
 Upon his tired arm 
 Slumbers young Desire.
 
 THE PIAZZA OF ST. MARK AT MIDNIGHT. 
 
 HUSHED is the music, hushed the hum of voices ; 
 Gone is the crowd of dusky promenaders 
 Slender-waisted, almond-eyed Venetians, 
 Princes and paupers. Not a single footfall 
 Sounds in the arches of the Procuratie. 
 One after one, like sparks in cindered paper, 
 Faded the lights out in the goldsmiths' windows. 
 Drenched with the moonlight lies the still Piazza. 
 
 Fair as the palace builded for Aladdin, 
 Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor 
 Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, 
 Color on color, column upon column, 
 Barbaric, wonderf id, a thing to kneel to ! 
 Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, 
 Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, 
 Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. 
 Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses ; 
 Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stone- 
 work. 
 
 High over all the slender Campanile 
 Quivers, and seems a falling shaft of silver! 
 
 Hushed is the music, hushed the hum of voices, 
 From coigne and cornice and fantastic gargoyle,
 
 136 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 At intervals the moan of dove or pigeon, 
 Fairly faint, floats off into the moonlight. 
 This, and the murmur of the Adriatic, 
 Lazily restless, lapping the mossed marble, 
 Staircase or buttress, scarcely break the stillness. 
 Deeper each moment seems to grow the silence, 
 Denser the moonlight in the still Piazza. 
 Hark ! on the Tower above the ancient gateway, 
 The twin bronze Vulcans, with their ponderous ham- 
 mers, 
 Hammer the midnight on their brazen bell there ! 
 
 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 ABOVE the petty passions of the crowd 
 
 I stand in frozen marble like a god, 
 
 Inviolate, and ancient as the moon. 
 
 The thing I am, and not the thing Man is, 
 
 Fills my deep dreaming. Let him moan and die ; 
 
 For he is dust that shall be laid again : 
 
 I know my own creation was divine. 
 
 Strewn on the breezy continents I see 
 
 The veine'd shells and burnished scales which once 
 
 Enclosed my being husks that had their use ; 
 
 I brood on all the shapes I must attain 
 
 Before I reach the Perfect, which is God, 
 
 And dream my dream, and let the rabble go ; 
 
 For I am of the mountains and the sea, 
 
 The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, 
 
 The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
 
 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 137 
 
 I was a spirit on the mountain-tops, 
 A perfume in the valleys, a simoom 
 On arid deserts, a nomadic wind 
 Roaming the universe, a tireless Voice. 
 I was ere Romulus and Remus were ; 
 I was ere Nineveh and Babylon ; 
 I was, and am, and evermore shall be, 
 Progressing-, never reaching to the end. 
 
 A hundred years I trembled in the grass, 
 The delicate trefoil that muffled warm 
 A slope on Ida ; for a hundred years 
 Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers 
 The Grecian women strew upon the dead. 
 Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt ; 
 Then in the veins and sinews of a pine 
 On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades, 
 A mighty wind, like a leviathan, 
 
 Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes 
 Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed, 
 Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds. 
 Suns came and went, and many a mystic moon, 
 Orbing and waning, and fierce meteors, 
 Leaving their lurid ghosts to haunt the night. 
 I heard loud voices by the sounding shore, 
 The stormy sea-gods, and from fluted conchs 
 Wild music, and strange shadows floated by, 
 Some moaning and some singing. So the years 
 Clustered about me, till the hand of God 
 Let down the lightning from a sultry sky, 
 Splintered the pine and split the iron rock ; 
 And from my odorous prison-house a bird, 
 I in its bosom, darted: so we flew,
 
 138 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 Turning- the brittle edge of one high wave, 
 Island and tree and sea-gods left behind! 
 
 Free as the air from zone to zone I flew, 
 Far from the tumult to the quiet gates 
 Of daybreak ; and beneath me I beheld 
 Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads 
 Han through the green and gold of pasture-lands, 
 And here and there a hamlet, a white rose, 
 And here and there a city, whose slim spires 
 And palace-roofs and swollen domes uprose 
 Like st'intillant stalagmites in the sun ; 
 I saw huge navies battling with a storm 
 By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts, 
 And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies, 
 Over the blue enamel of the sea 
 To India or the icy Labradors. 
 
 A century was as a single day. 
 What is a day to an immortal soul? 
 A breath, no more. And yet I hold one hour 
 Beyond all price that hour when from the sky 
 I circled near and nearer to the earth, 
 Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings 
 Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream, 
 That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals, 
 Fled through the briony. and with a shout 
 Leapt headlong down a precipice : and there, 
 (iathering wild-flowers in the cool ravine, 
 Wandered a woman more divinely shaped 
 Than any of the creatures of the air, 
 Or river-goddesses, or restless shades 
 
 & 
 
 Of noble matrons marvellous in their time 
 For beauty and great suffering : and I sung,
 
 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 139 
 
 I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams, and then 
 
 Down from the dewy atmosphere I stole 
 
 And nestled in her bosom. There I slept 
 
 From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought 
 
 Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn 
 
 A mystical forewarning! When the stream, 
 
 Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves, 
 
 Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut boughs 
 
 The fruit dropt noiseless through the autumn night, 
 
 I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do : 
 
 We weep when we are born, not when we die ! 
 
 So was it destined; and thus came I here, 
 
 To walk the earth and wear the form of Man, 
 
 To suffer bravely as becomes my state, 
 
 One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God. 
 
 And knowing these things, can I stoop to fret, 
 And lie, and haggle in the market-place, 
 Give dross for dross, or everything for naught ? 
 No! let me stand above the crowd, and sing, 
 Waiting with hope for that miraculous change 
 Which seems like sleep ; and though I waiting starve, 
 I cannot kiss the idols that are set 
 By every gate, in every street and park; 
 I cannot fawn, I cannot soil my soul ; 
 For I am of the mountains and the sea, 
 The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, 
 The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
 
 THORWALDSEN. 
 
 WE often fail by searching far and wide 
 For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn 
 We ask fair wind and favorable tide. 
 From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn 
 To make Occasion, not to be denied : 
 Against the sheer, precipitous mountain-side 
 Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne.
 
 IV. 
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL 
 BOOK, ETC.
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 THE Friar Jerome, for some slight sin, 
 Done in his youth, was struck with woe. 
 " When I am dead," quoth Friar Jerome, 
 u Surely, I think my soul will go 
 Shuddering through the darkened spheres, 
 Down to eternal fires below ! 
 I shall not dare from that dread place 
 To lift mine eyes to Jesus' face, 
 Nor Mary's, as she sits adored 
 At the feet of Christ the Lord. 
 Alas ! December 's all too brief 
 For me to hope to wipe away 
 The memory of my sinful May ! " 
 And Friar Jerome was full of grief 
 That April evening, as he lay 
 On the straw pallet in his cell. 
 He scarcely heard the curfew-bell 
 Calling the brotherhood to prayer; 
 But he arose, for 't was his care
 
 144 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 Nightly to feed the hungry poor 
 That crowded to the Convent door. 
 
 His choicest duty it had been : 
 But this one night it weighed him down. 
 What work for an immortal soul, 
 To feed and clothe some lazy clown? 
 Is there no action worth my mood, 
 No deed of daring, high and pure, 
 That shall, when I am dead, endure, 
 A well-spring of perpetual good?" 
 
 And straight he thought of those great tomes 
 With clamps of gold the Convent's boast 
 How they endured, while kings and realms 
 Past into darkness and were lost ; 
 How they had stood from age to age, 
 Clad in their yellow vellum-mail, 
 'Gainst which the Paynim's godless rage, 
 The Vandal's fire, coidd naught avail : 
 Though heathen sword-blows fell like hail. 
 Though cities ran with Christian blood, 
 Imperishable they had stood! 
 They did not seem like books to him, 
 But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints themselves 
 The things they told of, not mere books 
 Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves. 
 
 To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn. 
 He turned with measured steps and slow, 
 Trimming his lantern as he went ; 
 And there, among the shadows, bent
 
 FRIAR -JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 145 
 
 Above one ponderous folio, 
 With whose miraculous text were blent 
 Seraphic faces : Angels, crowned 
 With rings of melting amethyst ; 
 Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound 
 To blazing fagots; here and there, 
 Some bold, serene Evangelist, 
 Or Mary in her sunny hair ; 
 And here and there from out the words 
 A brilliant tropic bird took flight ; 
 And through the margins many a vine 
 Went wandering roses, red and white, 
 Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine 
 Blossomed. To his believing mind
 
 146 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 These things were real, and the wind, 
 Blown through the mullioned window, took 
 Scent from the lilies in the book. 
 
 " Santa Maria ! " cried Friar Jerome, 
 '" Whatever man illumined this, 
 Though he were steeped heart-deep in sin, 
 Was worthy of unending bliss, 
 And no doubt hath it ! Ah ! dear Lord, 
 Might I so beautify Thy Word! 
 What sacristan, the convents through, 
 Transcribes with such precision ? who 
 Does such initials as I do ? 
 Lo ! I will gird me to this work, 
 And save me, ere the one chance slips. 
 On smooth, clean parchment 1 11 engross 
 The Prophet's fell Apocalypse ; 
 And as I write from day to day, 
 Perchance my sins will pass away." 
 
 So Friar Jerome began his Book. 
 From break of dawn till curfew-chime 
 He bent above the lengthening page, 
 Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme. 
 He scarcely paused to tell his beads, 
 Except at night ; and then he lay 
 And tost, unrestful, on the straw, 
 Impatient for the coming day 
 Working like one who feels, perchance, 
 That, ere the longed-for goal be won, 
 Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast, 
 Black Death may pluck him from the sun.
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 147 
 
 At intervals the busy brook, 
 
 Turning the niill-wheel, caught his ear; 
 
 And through the grating of the cell 
 
 He saw the honeysuckles peer, 
 
 And knew 't was summer, that the sheep 
 
 In fragrant pastures lay asleep, 
 
 And felt, that, somehow, God was near. 
 
 In his green pulpit on the elm, 
 
 The robin, abbot of that wood, 
 
 Held forth by times ; and Friar Jerome 
 
 Listened, and smiled, and understood. 
 
 While summer wrapt the blissful land 
 What joy it was to labor so, 
 To see the long-tressed Angels grow 
 Beneath the cunning of his hand, 
 Vignette and tail-piece subtly wrought ! 
 And little recked he of the poor 
 That missed him at the Convent door; 
 Or, thinking of them, put the thought 
 Aside. "I feed the souls of men 
 Henceforth, and not their bodies!" yet 
 Their sharp, pinched features, now and then, 
 Stole in between him and his Book, 
 And filled him with a vague regret. 
 
 Now on that region fell a blight : 
 The corn grew cankered in its sheath ; 
 And from the verdurous uplands rolled 
 A sultry vapor fraught with death 
 A poisonous mist, that, like a pall, 
 Hung black and stagnant over all.
 
 148 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 Then came the sickness the malign, 
 Green-spotted terror called the Pest, 
 That took the light from loving eyes, 
 And made the young bride's gentle breast 
 A fatal pillow. Ah! the woe, 
 The crime, the madness that befell ! 
 In one short night that vale became 
 More foul than Dante's inmost hell. 
 Men curst their wives ; and mothers left 
 Their nursing babes alone to die, 
 And wantoned, singing, through the streets, 
 With shameless brow and frenzied eye ; 
 And senseless clowns, not fearing God 
 Such power the spotted fever had 
 Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill, 
 Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad. 
 And evermore that dreadful pall 
 Of mist hung stagnant over all : 
 By day, a sickly light broke through 
 The heated fog, on town and field ; 
 By night, the moon, in anger, turned 
 Against the earth its mottled shield. 
 
 Then from the Convent, two and two, 
 The Prior chanting at their head, 
 The monks went forth to shrive the sick, 
 And give the hungry grave its dead 
 Only Jerome, he went not forth. 
 But hiding in his dusty nook, 
 ki Let come what will, I must illume 
 The last ten pages of my Book ! '' 
 He drew his stool before the desk.
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 151 
 
 And sat him down, distraught and wan, 
 
 To paint his daring masterpiece, 
 
 The stately figure of Saint John. 
 
 He sketched the head with pious care, 
 
 Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace! 
 
 He found a grinning Death's-head there, 
 
 And not the grand Apostle's face ! 
 
 Then up he rose with one long cry : 
 
 'T is Satan's self does this," cried he, 
 
 Because I shut and barred my heart 
 When Thou didst loudest call to me ! 
 
 Lord, Thou know'st the thoughts of men, 
 Thou know'st that I did yearn to make 
 Thy Word more lovely to the eyes 
 
 Of sinful souls, for Christ his sake ! 
 Nathless, I leave the task undone : 
 
 1 give up all to follow Thee 
 Even like him who gave his nets 
 To winds and waves by Galilee ! " 
 
 Which said, he closed the precious Book 
 In silence, with a reverent hand ; 
 And drawing his cowl about his face 
 Went forth into the Stricken Land. 
 And there was joy in heaven that day 
 More joy o'er this forlorn old friar 
 Than over fifty sinless men 
 Who never struggled with desire ! 
 
 What deeds he did in that dark town. 
 What hearts he soothed with anguish toin,
 
 152 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 
 
 What weary ways of woe he trod, 
 Are written in the Book of God, 
 And shall be read at Judgment Morn. 
 The weeks crept on, when, one still day, 
 God's awful presence filled the sky, 
 And that black vapor floated by, 
 And lo ! the sickness past away. 
 With silvery clang, by thorpe and town, 
 The bells made merry in their spires : 
 O God ! to think the Pest is flown ! 
 Men kissed each other on the street, 
 And music piped to dancing feet 
 The livelong night, by roaring fires ! 
 
 Then Friar Jerome, a wasted shape 
 For he had taken the Plague at last 
 Rose up, and through the happy town, 
 And through the wintry woodlands, past 
 Into the Convent. What a gloom 
 Sat brooding in each desolate room ! 
 What silence in the corridor I 
 For of that long, innumerous train 
 Which issued forth a month before 
 Scarce twenty had come back again ! 
 
 Counting his rosary step by step, 
 With a forlorn and vacant air, 
 Like some unsh riven churchyard thing, 
 The Friar crawled up the mouldy stair 
 To his damp cell, that he might look 
 Once more on his belove'd Book.
 
 FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. 153 
 
 And there it lay upon the stand, 
 Open ! he had not left it so. 
 He grasped it, with a cry ; for, lo ! 
 He saw that some angelic hand, 
 While he was gone, had finished it ! 
 There 't was complete, as he had planned ; 
 There, at the end, stood Jims, writ 
 And gilded as no man could do 
 Not even that pious anchoret, 
 Bilfrid, the wonderful, nor yet 
 The miniatore Ethelwold, 
 Nor Durham's Bishop, who of old 
 (England still hoards the priceless leaves) 
 Did the Four Gospels all in gold. 
 And Friar Jerome nor spoke nor stirred, 
 But, with his eyes fixed on that word, 
 He passed from sin and want and scorn ; 
 And suddenly the chapel-bells 
 Rang in the holy Christmas-Morn ! 
 
 In those wild wars which racked the land 
 Since then, and kingdoms rent in twain, 
 The Friar's Beautiful Book was lost 
 That miracle of hand and brain : 
 Yet, though its leaves were torn and tost, 
 The volume was not writ in vain !
 
 MIANTOWONA. 
 
 LONG ere the Pale Face 
 
 Crossed the Great Water, 
 
 Miantowona 
 
 Passed, with her beauty, 
 
 Into a legend 
 
 Pure as a wild-flower 
 
 Found in a broken 
 
 Ledge by the seaside. 
 
 Let us revere them 
 These wildwood legends, 
 Born of the camp-fire. 
 Let them be handed 
 Down to our children 
 Richest of heirlooms. 
 No land may claim them : 
 They are ours only. 
 Like our grand rivers, 
 Like our vast prairies, 
 Like our dead heroes. 
 
 IN the pine-forest, 
 Guarded by shadows,
 
 MIANTO WONA, 155 
 
 Lieth the haunted 
 Pond of the Red Men. 
 Ringed by the emerald 
 Mountains, it lies there 
 Like an untarnished 
 Buckler of silver, 
 Dropped in that valley 
 By the Great Spirit! 
 Weird are the figures 
 Traced on its margins 
 Vine-work and leaf-work, 
 Down-drooping fuchsias, 
 Knots of sword-grasses, 
 Moonlight and starlight, 
 Clouds scudding northward. 
 Sometimes an eagle 
 Flutters across it ; 
 Sometimes a single 
 Star on its bosom 
 Nestles till morning. 
 
 Far in the ages, 
 
 Miantowona, 
 
 Rose of the Hurons, 
 
 Came to these waters. 
 
 Where the dank greensward 
 
 Slopes to the pebbles, 
 
 Miantowona 
 
 Sat in her anguish. 
 
 Ice to her maidens, 
 
 Ice to the chieftains, 
 
 Fire to her lover !
 
 156 MIANTO WONA. 
 
 Here he had won her, 
 Here they had parted, 
 Here coidd her tears flow. 
 With mi wet eyelash, 
 Miantowona 
 Nursed her old father, 
 Gray-eyed Tawaiida, 
 Oldest of Hurons, 
 Soothed his complaining's, 
 Smiled when he chid her 
 Vaguely for nothing- 
 He was so weak now, 
 Like a shrunk cedar 
 White with the hoar-frost. 
 Sometimes she gently 
 Linked arms with maidens, 
 Joined in their dances : 
 Not with her people. 
 Not in the wigwam. 
 Wept for her lover. 
 
 Ah ! who was like him ? 
 Fleet as an arrow, 
 Strong as a bison, 
 Lithe as a panther. 
 Soft as the south-wind, 
 Who was like Wawah ? 
 There is one other 
 Stronger and fleeter, 
 Bearing no wampum, 
 Wearing no war-paint. 
 Rider of councils,
 
 MIANTOWONA. 157 
 
 Chief of the war-path 
 Who can gainsay him, 
 Who can defy him? 
 His is the lightning, 
 His is the whirlwind, 
 Let us be humble, 
 We are but ashes 
 Tis the Great Spirit! 
 
 Ever at nightfall 
 
 Miantowona 
 
 Strayed from the lodges, 
 
 Passed through the shadows 
 
 Into the forest: 
 
 There by the pond-side 
 
 Spread her black tresses 
 
 Over her forehead. 
 
 Sad is the loon's cry 
 
 Heard in the twilight ; 
 
 Sad is the night-wind, 
 
 Moaning and moaning; 
 
 Sadder the stifled 
 
 Sob of a widow. 
 
 Low on the pebbles 
 Murmured the water : 
 Often she fancied 
 It was young Wawah 
 Playing the reed-flute. 
 Sometimes a dry branch 
 Snapped in the forest: 
 Then she rose, startled,
 
 158 MIANTO WONA. 
 
 Ruddy as sunrise, 
 
 Warm for his coming ! 
 
 But when he came not, 
 
 Back through the darkness, 
 
 Half broken-hearted, 
 
 Miantowona 
 
 Went to her people. 
 
 When an old oak dies, 
 First 't is the tree-tops, 
 Then the low branches, 
 Then the gaunt stem goes : 
 So fell Tawanda, 
 Oldest of Hurons, 
 Chief of the chieftains. 
 
 Miantowona 
 Wept not, but softly 
 Closed the sad eyelids ; 
 With her own fingers 
 Fastened the deer-skin 
 Over his shoulders ; 
 Then laid beside him 
 Ash-bow and arrows, 
 Pipe-bowl and wampum, 
 Dried corn and bear-meat 
 All that was needful 
 On the long journey. 
 Thus old Tawanda, 
 Went to the hunting 
 Grounds of the Red Man.
 
 MIANTOWONA. 159 
 
 Then, as the dirges 
 Rose from the village, 
 Miantowona 
 
 Stole from the mourners, 
 Stole through the cornfields, 
 Passed like a phantom 
 Into the shadows 
 Through the pine-forest. 
 
 One who had watched her 
 It was Nahoho, 
 Loving her vainly 
 Saw, as she passed him, 
 That in her features 
 Made his stout heart quail. 
 He could but follow. 
 Quick were her footsteps, 
 Light as a snow-flake, 
 Leaving no traces 
 On the white clover. 
 
 Like a trained runner, 
 Winner of prizes, 
 Into the woodlands 
 Plunged the young chieftain. 
 Once he abruptly 
 Halted, and listened : 
 Then he sped forward 
 Faster and faster 
 Toward the bright water. 
 Breathless he reached it. 
 Why did he crouch then,
 
 160 
 
 MIANTO WONA. 
 
 Stark as a statue ? 
 What did he see there 
 
 Could so appall him ? 
 Only a circle 
 Swiftly expanding, 
 Fading before him ; 
 But, as he watched it, 
 Up from the centre, 
 Slowly, superbly 
 Rose a Pond-Lily. 
 
 One cry of wonder, 
 Shrill as the loon's call, 
 Rang through the forest, 
 Startling the silence, 
 Startling 1 the mourners
 
 MIANTO WONA. 161 
 
 Chanting the death-song. 
 Forth from the village, 
 Flocking together 
 Came all the Hurons 
 Striplings and warriors, 
 Maidens and old men, 
 Squaws with pappooses. 
 No word was spoken : 
 There stood the Hurons 
 On the dank greensward, 
 With their swart faces 
 Bowed in the twilight. 
 What did they see there? 
 Only a Lily 
 Rocked on the azure 
 Breast of the water. 
 
 Then they turned sadly 
 
 Each to the other, 
 
 Tenderly murmuring, 
 1 Miantowona ! " 
 
 Soft as the dew falls 
 
 Down through the midnight. 
 
 Cleaving the starlight, 
 
 Echo repeated, 
 Miantowona ! "
 
 THE GUERDON. 
 
 Vedder, this legend if it had its due, 
 Would not be sung by me, but told by you 
 In colors such as Tintoretto knew. 
 
 SOOTHED by the fountain's drowsy murmuring 
 Or was it by the west-wind's indolent wing? 
 The grim court-poet fell asleep one day 
 In the lords' chamber, when chance brought that 
 
 way 
 
 The Princess Margaret with a merry train 
 Of damozels and ladies flippant, vain 
 Court-butterflies midst whom fair Margaret 
 Swayed like a rathe and slender lily set 
 In rustling leaves, for all her drapery 
 Was green and gold, and lovely as could be. 
 
 Midway in hall the fountain rose and fell, 
 Filling a listless Naiad's outstretched shell 
 And weaving rainbows in the shifting light. 
 Upon the carven friezes, left and right, 
 Was pictured Pan asleep beside his reed. 
 In this place all things seemed asleep, indeed 
 The hook-billed parrot 011 his pendent ring, 
 Sitting High-shouldered, half forgot to swing ; 
 The wind scarce stirred the hangings at the door,
 
 THE GUERDON. 163 
 
 And from the silken arras evermore 
 
 Yawned drowsy dwarfs with satyr's face and hoof. 
 
 A forest of gold pillars propped the roof, 
 And like one slim gold pillar overthrown, 
 The sunlight through a great stained window shone 
 And lay across the body of Alain. 
 You would have thought, perchance, the man was 
 
 slain : 
 
 As if the checkered column hi its fall 
 Had caught and crushed him, he lay dead to all. 
 The parrot's gray bead eye as good as said, 
 Unclosing viciously, " The clown is dead." 
 A dragon-fly in narrowing circles neared, 
 And lit, secure, upon the dead man's beard, 
 Then spread its iris vans in quick dismay, 
 And into the blue summer sped away ! 
 
 Little was his of outward grace to win 
 The eyes of maids, but white the soul within. 
 Misshaped, and hideous to look upon 
 Was this man, dreaming in the noontide sun, 
 With sunken eyes and winter-whitened hair, 
 And sallow cheeks deep seamed with thought and 
 
 care. 
 
 And so the laughing ladies of the court, 
 Coming upon him suddenly, stopped short, 
 And shrunk together with a nameless dread ; 
 Some, but fear held them, would have turned and 
 
 fled, 
 
 Seeing the uncouth figure lying there. 
 But Princess Margaret, with her heavy hair
 
 164 THE GUERDON. 
 
 From out its diamond fillet rippling down, 
 Slipped from the group, and plucking 1 back her 
 
 gown 
 
 With white left hand, stole softly to his side 
 The fair court gossips staring, curious-eyed, 
 Half mockingly. A little while she stood, 
 Finger on lip ; then, with the agile blood 
 Climbing her cheek, and silken lashes wet 
 She scarce knew what vague pity or regret 
 Wet them she stooped, and for a moment's space 
 Her golden tresses touched the sleeper's face. 
 Then she stood straight, as lily on its stem, 
 But hearing her ladies titter, turned on them 
 Her great queen's eyes, grown black with scornful 
 
 frown 
 
 Great eyes that looked the shallow women down. 
 " Nay, not for love " one rosy palm she laid 
 Softly against her bosom " as I 'm a maid ! 
 Full well I know what cruel things you say 
 Of this and that, but hold your peace to-day. 
 I pray you think no evil thing of this. 
 Nay, not for love's sake did I give the kiss. 
 Not for his beauty who 's nor fair nor young, 
 But for the songs which those mute lips have sung ! ' 
 
 That was a right brave princess, one, I hold, 
 Worthy to wear a crown of beaten gold.
 
 TITA'S TEARS. 
 
 A FANTASY. 
 
 A CERTAIN man of Ischia it is thus 
 The story runs one Lydus Claudius, 
 After a life of threescore years and ten, 
 Passed suddenly from out the world of men 
 Into the world of shadows. 
 
 In a vale 
 
 Where shoals of spirits against the moonlight pale 
 Surged ever upward, in a wan-lit place 
 Near heaven, he met a Presence face to face 
 A figure like a carving on a spire, 
 Shrouded in wings and with a fillet of fire 
 About the brows who stayed him there, and said : 
 " This the gods grant to thee, O newly dead ! 
 Whatever thing on earth thou boldest dear 
 Shall, at thy bidding, be transported here, 
 Save wife or child, or any living thing." 
 Then straightway Claudius fell to wondering 
 What he should wish for. Having heaven at hand, 
 His wants were few, as you can understand. 
 Riches and titles, matters dear to us. 
 To him, of course, were now superfluous : 
 But Tita, small brown Tita, his young wife, 
 A two weeks' bride when he took leave of life,
 
 166 TITA'S TEARS. 
 
 What would become of her without his care? 
 
 Tita, so rich, so thoughtless, and so fair ! 
 
 At present crushed with sorrow, to be sure 
 
 But by and by ? What earthly griefs endure ? 
 
 They pass like joys. A year, three years at most, 
 
 And would she mourn her lord, so quickly lost ? 
 
 With fine, prophetic ear, he heard afar 
 
 The tinkling of some horrible guitar 
 
 Under her balcony. " Such thing could be," 
 
 Sighed Claudius ; "I would she were with me, 
 
 Safe from all harm." But as that wish was vain, 
 
 lie let it drift from out his troubled brain 
 
 (His highly trained austerity was such 
 
 That self-denial never cost him much), 
 
 And strove to think what object he might name 
 
 Most closely linked with the bereaved dame. 
 
 Her wedding ring ? 't would be too small to wear ; 
 
 Perhaps a ringlet of her raven hair? 
 
 If not, her portrait, done in cameo, 
 
 Or on a background of pale gold? But no, 
 
 Such trifles jarred with his severity. 
 
 At length he thought : " The thing most meet for 
 
 me 
 
 Would be that antique flask wherein my bride 
 Let fall her heavy tears the night I died." 
 (It was a custom of that simple day 
 To have one's tears sealed up and laid away, 
 As everlasting tokens of regret 
 They find the bottles in Greek ruins yet.) 
 For this he wished, then. 
 
 Swifter than a thought 
 The Presence vanished, and the flask was brought
 
 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE. 167 
 
 Slender, bell-mouthed, and painted all around 
 With jet-black tulips on a saffron ground; 
 A tiny jar, of porcelain if you will, 
 Which twenty tears would rather more than fill. 
 With careful fingers Claudius broke the seal 
 When, suddenly, a well-known merry peal 
 Of laughter leapt from out the vial's throat, 
 And died, as dies the wood-bird's distant note. 
 Claudius stared; then, struck with strangest fears, 
 Reversed the flask 
 
 Alas, for Tita's tears! 
 
 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE. 
 
 A. D. 1700. 
 1. 
 
 BRETAGXE had not her peer. In the Province far 
 or near 
 
 There were never such brown tresses, such a fault- 
 less hand ; 
 
 She had youth, and she had gold, she had jewels all 
 untold, 
 
 And many a lover bold wooed the Lady of the 
 Land. 
 
 2. 
 
 But she, with queenliest grace, bent low her pallid 
 face, 
 
 And "Woo me not, for Jesus' sake, fair gentle- 
 men,'* she said.
 
 168 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE. 
 
 If they woo'd, then with a frown she would strike 
 
 their passion down : 
 She might have wed a crown to the ringlets on her 
 
 head. 
 
 3. 
 
 From the dizzy castle-tips, hour by hour she watched 
 the ships, 
 
 Like sheeted phantoms coming and going evermore, 
 
 While the twilight settled down on the sleepy sea- 
 port town, 
 
 On the gables peaked and brown, that had sheltered 
 kings of yore. 
 
 4. 
 
 Dusky belts of cedar-wood partly claspt the widen- 
 ing flood ; 
 
 Like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill ; 
 
 In the hostelry below sparks of light would come 
 and go, 
 
 And faint voices, strangely low, from the garrulous 
 old mill. 
 
 5. 
 
 Here the land in grassy swells gently broke ; there 
 
 sunk in dells 
 With mosses green and purple, and prongs of rock 
 
 and peat ; 
 Here, in statue-like repose, an old wrinkled mountain 
 
 rose, 
 W^ith its hoary head in snows, and wild-roses at its 
 
 feet.
 
 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE. 169 
 
 6. 
 
 And so oft she sat alone in the turret of gray stone, 
 And looked across the moorland, so woful, to the 
 
 sea, 
 That there grew a village-cry, how her cheek did 
 
 lose its dye, 
 As a ship, once, sailing by, faded on the sapphire 
 
 lea. 
 
 7. 
 
 Her few walks led all one way, and all ended at the 
 
 gray 
 And ragged, jagged rocks that fringe the lonely beach ;
 
 170 THE LADY OF CASTELNORE. 
 
 There she would stand, the Sweet ! with the white 
 
 surf at her feet, 
 While above her wheeled the fleet sparrow-hawk with 
 
 startling screech. 
 
 And she ever loved the sea, with its haunting mys- 
 tery, 
 
 Its whispering weird voices, its never-ceasing roar: 
 
 And 't was well that, when she died, they made her 
 a grave beside 
 
 The blue pulses of the tide, by the towers of Castel- 
 nore. 
 
 Now, one chill November morn, many russet autumns 
 
 gone, 
 A strange ship with folded wings lay dozing off the 
 
 lea; 
 It had lain throughout the night with its wings of 
 
 murky white 
 Folded, after weary flight the worn nursling of 
 
 the sea. 
 
 10. 
 
 Crowds of peasants flocked the sands ; there were 
 
 tears and clasping hands ; 
 And a sailor from the ship stalked through the 
 
 church-yard gate. 
 Then amid the grass that crept, fading, over her 
 
 who slept, 
 How he hid his face and wept, crying. Late, alas ! 
 
 too late !
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 171 
 
 11. 
 
 And they called her cold. God knows . . . Under- 
 neath the winter snows 
 
 The invisible hearts of flowers grow ripe for blossom- 
 ing ! 
 
 And the lives that look so cold, if their stories could 
 be told, 
 
 Would seem cast in gentler mould, would seem full 
 of love and spring. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS. 
 
 La Dame aux Camillas 
 
 I think that was the play ; 
 The house was packed from pit to dome 
 
 With the gallant and the gay, 
 Who had come to see the Tragedy, 
 
 And while the hours away. 
 
 There was the ruined Spendthrift, 
 
 And Beauty in her prime ; 
 There was the grave Historian, 
 
 And there the man of Rhyme, 
 And the surly Critic, front to front, 
 
 To see the play of crime. 
 
 And there was pompous Ignorance, 
 And Vice in flowers and lace;
 
 172 THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Sir Croesus and Sir Pandarus 
 
 And the music played apace. 
 But of all that crowd I only saw 
 
 A single, single face ! 
 
 That of a girl whom I had known 
 
 In the summers long ago, 
 When her breath was like the new-mown hay, 
 
 Or the sweetest flowers that grow ; 
 When her heart was light, and her soul was white 
 
 As the winter's driven snow. 
 
 And there she sat with her great brown eyes, 
 
 They wore a troubled look ; 
 And I read the history of her life 
 
 As it were an open book ; 
 And saw her Soul, like a slimy thing 
 
 In the bottom of a brook. 
 
 There she sat in her rustling silk, 
 
 With diamonds on her wrist, 
 And on her brow a gleaming thread 
 
 Of pearl and amethyst. 
 " A cheat, a gilded grief ! " I said, 
 
 And my eyes were filled with mist. 
 
 I could not see the players play : 
 
 I heard the music moan ; 
 It moaned like a dismal autumn wind. 
 
 That dies in the woods alone ; 
 And when it stopped I heard it still 
 
 The mournful monotone !
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 173 
 
 What if the Count were true or false? 
 
 I did not care, not I ; 
 What if Camille for Armand died? 
 
 I did not see her die. 
 There sat a woman opposite 
 
 With piteous lip and eye! 
 
 The great green curtain fell on all, 
 
 On laugh, and wine, and woe, 
 Just as death some day will fall 
 
 'Twixt us and life, I know ! 
 The play was done, the bitter play, 
 
 And the people turned to go. 
 
 And did they see the Tragedy? 
 
 They saw the painted scene ; 
 They saw Armand, the jealous fool, 
 
 And the sick Parisian queen : 
 But they did not see the Tragedy 
 
 The one I saw, I mean ! 
 
 They did not see that cold-cut face, 
 
 That furtive look of care ; 
 Or, seeing her jewels, only said, 
 
 " The lady 's rich and fair." 
 But I tell you, 't was the Play of Life, 
 
 And that woman played Despair!
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELI. 
 
 LOOKING at Fra Gervasio, 
 Wrinkled and withered and old and gray, 
 A dry Franciscan from crown to toe, 
 You would never imagine, by any chance, 
 That, in the convent garden one day, 
 He spun this thread of golden romance. 
 
 Romance to me, but to him, indeed, 
 
 'T was a matter that did not hold a doubt ; 
 
 A miracle, nothing more nor less. 
 
 Did I think it strange that, in our need, 
 
 Leaning from Heaven to our distress, 
 
 The Virgin brought such things about 
 
 Gave mute things speech, made dead things move ? 
 
 Mother of Mercy, Lady of Love ! 
 
 Besides, I might, if I wished, behold 
 
 The Bambino's self in his cloth of gold 
 
 And silver tissue, lying in state 
 
 In the Sacristy. Would the signer wait ? 
 
 Whoever will go to Rome may see, 
 
 In the chapel of the Sacristy 
 
 Of Ara-Cosli, the Sainted Child
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 175 
 
 Garnished from throat to foot with rings 
 
 And brooches and precious offerings, 
 
 And its little nose kissed quite away 
 
 By dying lips. At Epiphany, 
 
 If the holy winter day prove mild, 
 
 It is shown to the wondering, gaping crowd 
 
 On the church's steps held high aloft 
 
 While every sinful head is bowed, 
 
 And the music plays, and the censers' soft 
 
 White breath ascends like silent prayer. 
 
 Many a beggar kneeling there, 
 Tattered and hungry, without a home, 
 Would not envy the Pope of Rome, 
 If he, the beggar, had half the care 
 Bestowed on Mm. that falls to the share 
 Of yonder Image for you must know 
 It has its minions to come and go, 
 Its perfumed chamber, remote and still,
 
 176 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELI. 
 
 Its silken couch, and its jewelled throne, 
 
 And a special carriage of its own 
 
 To take the air in, when it will ; 
 
 And though it may neither drink nor eat, 
 
 By a nod to its ghostly seneschal 
 
 It could have of the choicest wine and meat. 
 
 Often some princess, brown and tall, 
 
 Comes, and unclasping from her arm 
 
 The glittering bracelet, leaves it, warm 
 
 With her throbbing pulse, at the Baby's feet. 
 
 Ah, he is loved by high and low, 
 
 Adored alike by simple and wise. 
 
 The people kneel to him in the street. 
 
 What a felicitous lot is his 
 
 To lie in the light of ladies' eyes, 
 
 Petted and pampered, and never to know 
 
 The want of a dozen soldi or so ! 
 
 And what does he do for all of this ? 
 
 What does the little Bambino do ? 
 
 It cures the sick, and, in fact, 't is said 
 
 Can almost bring life back to the dead. 
 
 Who doubts it ? Not Fra Gervasio. 
 
 When one falls ill, it is left alone 
 
 For a while with one and the fever 's gone \ 
 
 At least, 't was once so ; but to-day 
 It is never permitted, unattended 
 By monk or priest, to work its lure 
 At sick folks' beds all that was ended 
 By one poor soul whose feeble clay 
 Satan tempted and made secure.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 177 
 
 It was touching this very point the friar 
 
 Told me the legend, that afternoon, 
 
 In the cloisteral garden all on fire 
 
 With scarlet poppies and golden stalks. 
 
 Here and there on the sunny walks, 
 
 Startled by some slight sound we made, 
 
 A lizard, awaking from its swoon, 
 
 Shot like an arrow into the shade. 
 
 I can hear the fountain's languorous tune, 
 
 (How it comes back, that hour in June 
 
 When just to exist was joy enough!) 
 
 I can see the olives, silvery-gray, 
 
 The carven masonry rich with stains, 
 
 The gothic windows with lead-set panes, 
 
 The flag-paved cortile, the convent grates, 
 
 And Fra Gervasio holding his snuff 
 
 In a squirrel-like meditative way 
 
 'Twixt finger and thumb. But the Legend waits. 
 
 n. 
 
 It was long ago (so long ago 
 
 That Fra Gervasio did not know 
 
 What year of our Lord), there came to Rome 
 
 Across the Campagna's flaming red, 
 
 A certain Filippo and his wife 
 
 Peasants, and very newly wed. 
 
 In the happy spring and blossom of life, 
 
 When the light heart chirrups to lovers' calls, 
 
 These two, like a pair of birds, had come 
 
 And built their nest 'gainst the city's walls.
 
 178 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CWLI. 
 
 He, with his scanty garden-plots, 
 
 Raised flowers and fruit for the market-place, 
 
 Where she, with her pensile, flower-like face 
 
 Own sister to her forget-me-nots 
 
 Played merchant: and so they thrived apace, 
 
 In humble content, with humble cares 
 
 And modest longings, till, unawares, 
 
 Sorrow crept on them ; for to their nest 
 
 Had come no little ones, and at last, 
 
 When six or seven summers had past, 
 
 Seeing no baby at her breast, 
 
 The husband brooded, and then grew cold ; 
 
 Scolded and fretted over this 
 
 Who would tend them when they were old, 
 
 And palsied, maybe, sitting alone, 
 
 Hungry, beside the cold hearth-stone? 
 
 Not to have children, like the rest ! 
 
 It cankered the very heart of bliss. 
 
 Then he fell into indolent ways, 
 
 Neglecting the garden for days and days, 
 
 Playing at mora, drinking wine, 
 
 With this and that one letting the vine 
 
 Run riot and die for want of care, 
 
 And the choke-weeds gather ; for it was spring, 
 
 When everything needed nurturing. 
 
 But he would drowse for hours in the sun, 
 
 Or sit on the broken step by the shed, 
 
 Like a man whose honest toil is done, 
 
 Sullen, with never a word to spare, 
 
 Or a word that were better all unsaid.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELI. 179 
 
 And Nina, so light of thought before, 
 
 Singing about the cottage door 
 
 In her mountain dialect sang no more ; 
 
 But came and went, sad-faced and shy, 
 
 Wishing, at times, that she might die, 
 
 Brooding and fretting in her turn. 
 
 Often, in passing along the street, 
 
 Her basket of flowers poised, peasant-wise, 
 
 On a lustrous braided coil of her hair, 
 
 She would halt, and her dusky cheek would burn 
 
 Like a poppy, beholding at her feet 
 
 Some stray little urchin, dirty and bare. 
 
 And sudden tears would spring to her eyes 
 
 That the tiny waif was not her own, 
 
 To fondle, and kiss, and teach to pray. 
 
 Then she passed onward, making moan. 
 
 Sometimes she would stand in the sunny square, 
 
 Like a slim bronze statue of Despair, 
 
 Watching the children at their play. 
 
 In the broad piazza was a shrine, 
 
 With Our Lady holding on her knee 
 
 A small nude waxen effigy. 
 
 Nina passed by it every day, 
 
 And morn and even, in rain or shine, 
 
 Repeated an ave there. "Divine 
 
 Mother," she 'd cry, as she turned away, 
 
 Sitting in paradise, undefiled, 
 
 O, have pity on my distress ! " 
 
 Then glancing back at the rosy Child, 
 
 She would cry to it, in her helplessness, 
 
 Pray her to send the like to me ! "
 
 180 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELL 
 
 Now once as she knelt before the saint, 
 
 Lifting her hands in silent pain, 
 
 She paled, and her heavy heart grew faint 
 
 At a thought which flashed across her brain 
 
 The blinding thought that, perhaps if she 
 
 Had lived in the world's miraculous morn, 
 
 God might have chosen her to be 
 
 The mother O heavenly ecstasy ! 
 
 Of the little babe in the manger born ! 
 
 She, too, was a peasant girl, like her, 
 
 The wif e of the lowly carpenter ! 
 
 Like Joseph's wife, a peasant girl ! 
 
 Her strange little head was in a whirl 
 
 As she rose from her knees to wander home, 
 
 Leaving her basket at the shrine ; 
 
 So dazed was she, she scarcely knew 
 
 The old familiar streets of Koine, 
 
 Nor whither she wished to go, in fine ; 
 
 But wandered on, now crept, now flew, 
 
 In the gathering twilight, till she came 
 
 Breathless, bereft of sense and sight, 
 
 To the gloomy Arch of Constantine, 
 
 And there they found her, late that night, 
 
 With her cheeks like snow and her lips like flame ! 
 
 Many a time from day to day, 
 
 She heard, as if in a troubled dream, 
 
 Footsteps around her, and some one saying 
 
 Was it Filippo? "Is she dead?" 
 
 Then it was some one near her praying, 
 
 And she was drifting drifting away
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 181 
 
 From saints and martyrs in endless glory I 
 She seemed to be floating down a stream, 
 Yet knew she was lying in her bed. 
 The fancy held her that she had died, 
 And this was her soul in purgatory, 
 Until, one morning, two holy men 
 From the convent came, and laid at her side 
 The Bambino. Blessed Virgin ! then 
 Nina looked up, and laughed, and wept, 
 And folded it close to her heart, and slept. 
 
 Slept such a soft, refreshing sleep, 
 
 That when she awoke her eyes had taken 
 
 The hyaline lustre, dewy, deep, 
 
 Of violets when they first awaken ; 
 
 And the half-unravelled, fragile thread 
 
 Of life was knitted together again. 
 
 But she shrunk with sudden, strange new pain, 
 
 And seemed to droop like a flower, the day 
 
 The Capuchins came, with solemn tread, 
 
 To carry the Miracle Child away ! 
 
 Ere spring in the heart of pansies burned, 
 Or the buttercup had loosed its gold, 
 Nina was busy as ever of old 
 With fireside cares ; but was not the same, 
 For from the hour when she had turned 
 To clasp the Image the fathers brought 
 To her dying-bed, a single thought 
 Had taken possession of her brain : 
 A purpose, as steady as the flame
 
 182 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELl. 
 
 Of a lamp in some cathedral crypt, 
 
 Had lighted her on her bed of pain ; 
 
 The thirst and the fever, they had slipt 
 
 Away like visions, but this had stayed 
 
 To have the Bambino brought again, 
 
 To have it, and keep it for her own ! 
 
 That was the secret dream which made 
 
 Life for her now in the streets, alone, 
 
 At night, and morning, and when she prayed. 
 
 How should she wrest it from the hand 
 
 Of the jealous Church? How keep the Child? 
 
 Flee with it into some distant land 
 
 Like mother Mary from Herod's ire ? 
 
 Ah, well, she knew not ; she only knew 
 
 It was written down in the Book of Fate 
 
 That she should have her heart's desire, 
 
 And very soon now, for of late, 
 
 In a dream, the little thing had smiled 
 
 Up in her face, with one eye's blue 
 
 Peering from underneath her breast, 
 
 Which the baby fingers had softly prest 
 
 Aside, to look at her ! Holy one ! 
 
 But that should happen ere all was done. 
 
 Lying dark in the woman's mind 
 Unknown, like a seed in fallow ground 
 "NVas the germ of a plan, confused and blind 
 At first, but which, as the weeks rolled round. 
 Reached light, and flowered, a subtile flower, 
 Deadly as nightshade. In that same hour 
 She sought the husband and said to him,
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 183 
 
 With crafty tenderness in her eyes 
 And treacherous archings of her brows, 
 Filippo, mio, thou lov'st me well? 
 Truly ? Then get thee to the house 
 Of the long-haired Jew Ben Raphaim 
 Seller of curious tapestries, 
 (Ah, he hath everything to sell !) 
 The cunning carver of images 
 And bid him to carve thee to the life 
 A bambinetto like that they gave 
 In my arms, to hold me from the grave 
 When the fever pierced me like a knife. 
 Perhaps, if we set the image there 
 By the Cross, the saints would hear the prayer 
 Which in all these years they have not heard." 
 Then the husband went, without a word, 
 To the crowded Ghetto ; for since the days 
 Of Nina's illness, the man had been 
 A tender husband with lover's ways 
 Striving, as best he might, to wean 
 The wife from her sadness, and to bring 
 Back to the home whence it had fled 
 The happiness of that laughing spring 
 When they, like a pair of birds, had wed. 
 
 The image ! It was a woman's whim 
 
 They were fvdl of whims. But what to him 
 
 Were a dozen pieces of silver spent, 
 
 If it made her happy? And so he went 
 
 To the house of the Jew Ben Raphaim. 
 
 And the carver heard, and bowed, and smiled, 
 
 And fell to work as if he had known
 
 184 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 
 
 The thought that lay in the woman's brain, 
 And somehow taken it for his own : 
 For even before the month was flown 
 He had carved a figure so like the Child 
 Of Ara-Cceli, you 'd not have told, 
 Had both been decked with jewel and chain 
 And dressed alike in a dress of gold, 
 Which was the true one of the twain. 
 
 When Nina beheld it first, her heart 
 
 Stood still with wonder. The skilful Jew 
 
 Had given the eyes the tender blue, 
 
 And the cheeks the delicate olive hue, 
 
 And the form almost the curve and line 
 
 Of the Image the good Apostle made 
 
 Immortal with his miraculous art, 
 
 What time the sculptor 1 dreamed in the shade 
 
 Under the skies of Palestine. 
 
 The bright new coins that clinked in the palm 
 
 Of the carver in wood were blurred and dim 
 
 Compared with the eyes that looked at him 
 
 From the low sweet brows, so seeming calm ; 
 
 Then he went his way, and her joy broke free, 
 
 And Filippo smiled to hear Nina sing 
 
 In the old, old fashioned carolling 
 
 Like a very thrush, with many a trill 
 
 And long-drawn, flute-like, honeyed note, 
 
 Till the birds in the farthest mulberry, 
 
 1 According to the monastic legend, the Santissimo Bambino was 
 carved by a pilgrim, out of a tree which grew on the Mount of 
 Olives, and painted by St. Luke while the pilgrim was sleeping over 
 his work.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELI. 185 
 
 Each outstretching its amber bill, 
 Answered her with melodious throat. 
 
 Thus sped two days ; but on the third 
 Her singing ceased, and there came a change 
 As of death on Nina ; her talk grew strange, 
 Then she sunk in a trance, nor spoke nor stirred 
 And the husband, wringing his hands, dismayed, 
 Watched by the bed; but she breathed no word 
 That night, nor until the morning broke, 
 When she roused from the spell, and feebly laid 
 Her hand on Filippo's arm, and spoke : 
 ' Quickly, Filippo ! get thee gone 
 To the holy fathers, and beg them send 
 The Bambino hither " her cheeks were wan 
 And her eyes like coals " O, go, my friend, 
 Or all is said ! " Through the morning's gray 
 Filippo hurried, like one distraught, 
 To the monks, and told his tale ; and they, 
 Straight after matins, came and brought 
 The Miracle Child, and went their way. 
 
 Once more in her arms was the Infant laid, 
 After these weary months, once more! 
 Yet the woman seemed like a thing of stone 
 While the dark-robed fathers knelt and prayed ; 
 But the instant the holy friars were gone 
 She arose, and took the broidered gown 
 From the Baby Christ, and the yellow crown 
 And the votive brooches and rings it wore, 
 Till the little figure, so gay before 
 In its princely apparel, stood as bare
 
 186 THE LEGEND OF ARA-CCELL 
 
 As your ungloved hand. With tenderest care, 
 At her feet, 'twixt blanket and counterpane, 
 She hid the Babe ; and then, reaching down 
 To the coffer wherein the thing had lain, 
 Drew forth Ben Raphaim's manikin 
 In haste, and dressed it in robe and crown, 
 With lace and bawble and diamond-pin. 
 This finished, she turned to stone again, 
 And lay as one would have thought quite dead, 
 If it had not been for a spot of red 
 Upon either cheek. At the close of day 
 The Capuchins came, with solemn tread, 
 And carried the false bambino away ! 
 
 Over the vast Campagna's plain, 
 
 At sunset, a wind began to blow 
 
 (From the Apennines it came, they say), 
 
 Softly at first, and then to grow 
 
 As the twilight gathered and hurried by 
 
 To a gale, with sudden tumultuous rain 
 
 And thunder muttering far away. 
 
 When the night was come, from the blackened sky 
 
 The spear-tongued lightning slipped like a snake, 
 
 And the great clouds clashed, and seemed to shake 
 
 The earth to its centre. Then swept down 
 
 Such a storm as was never seen in Rome 
 
 By any one living in that day. 
 
 Not a soid dared venture from his home, 
 
 Not a soul in all the crowded town. 
 
 Dumb beasts dropped dead, with terror, in stall ; 
 
 Great chimney-stacks were overthrown, 
 
 And about the streets the tiles were blown
 
 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELl. 189 
 
 Like leaves in autumn. A fearful night, 
 With ominous voices in the air ! 
 Indeed, it seemed like the end of all. 
 In the convent, the monks for very fright 
 Went not to bed, but each in his cell 
 Counted his beads by the taper's light, 
 Quaking to hear the dreadful sounds, 
 And shrivelling in the lightning's glare. 
 It appeared as if the rivers of Hell 
 Had risen, and overleaped their bounds. 
 
 In the midst of this, at the convent door, 
 
 Above the tempest's raving and roar 
 
 Came a sudden knocking ! Mother of Grace, 
 
 What desperate wretch was forced to face 
 
 Such a night as that was out-of-doors ? 
 
 Across the echoless, stony floors 
 
 Into the windy corridors 
 
 The monks came flocking, and down the stair, 
 
 Silently, glancing each at each, 
 
 As if they had lost the power of speech. 
 
 Yes it was some one knocking there ! 
 
 And then strange thing ! untouched by a soul 
 
 The bell of the convent 'gan to toll! 
 
 It curdled the blood beneath their hair. 
 
 Reaching the court, the brothers stood 
 
 Huddled together, pallid and mute, 
 
 By the massive door of iron-clamped wood, 
 
 Till one old monk, more resolute 
 
 Than the others a man of pious will 
 
 Stepped forth, and letting his lantern rest
 
 190 THE LEGEND OF ARA-C(ELI. 
 
 On the pavement, crouched upon his breast 
 
 And peeped through a chink there was between 
 
 The cedar door and the sunken sill. 
 
 At the instant a flash of lightning came. 
 
 Seeming to wrap the world in flame. 
 
 He gave but a glance, and straight arose 
 
 With his face like a corpse's. What had he seen ? 
 
 Two dripping, little pink-white toes ! 
 
 Then, like a man gone suddenly wild, 
 
 He tugged at the bolts, flung down the chain, 
 
 And there, in the night and wind and rain 
 
 Shivering, piteous, and forlorn, 
 
 And naked as ever it was born 
 
 On the threshold stood the SAINTED CHILD ! 
 
 " Since then," said Fra Gervasio, 
 " We have never let the Bambino go 
 
 Unwatched no, not by a prince's bed. 
 
 Ah, signer, it made a dreadful stir." 
 " And the woman Nina what of her ? 
 . Had she no story?" He bowed his head, 
 
 And knitting his meagre fingers, so 
 "In that night of wind and wrath," said he, 
 " There was wrought in Rome a mystery. 
 
 What know I, signer? They found her dead!"
 
 JUDITH. 
 
 JUDITH IN THE TOWER. 
 
 Now Holofernes with his barbarous hordes 
 Crost the Euphrates, laying waste the land 
 To Esdraelon, and, falling on the town 
 Of Bethulia, stormed it night and day 
 Incessant, till within the leaguered walls 
 The boldest captains faltered; for at length 
 The wells gave out, and then the barley failed, 
 And Famine, like a murderer masked and cloaked, 
 Stole in among the garrison. The air 
 Was filled with lamentation, women's moans 
 And cries of children ; and at night there came 
 A fever, parching as a fierce simoom. 
 Yet Holofernes could not batter down 
 The brazen gates, nor make a single breach 
 With beam or catapult in those tough walls : 
 And white with rage among the tents he strode, 
 Among the squalid Tartar tents he strode, 
 And curst the gods that gave him not his will, 
 And curst his captains, curst himself, and all ; 
 Then, seeing in what strait the city was, 
 Withdrew his men hard by the fated town
 
 192 JUDITH. 
 
 Amid the hills, and with a grim-set smile 
 Waited, aloof, until the place should fall. 
 All day the house-top lay in sweltering heat, 
 All night the watch-fires flared upon the towers; 
 And day and night with Israelitish spears 
 The ramparts bristled. 
 
 In a tall square Tower, 
 Full-fronting on the vile Assyrian camp, 
 Sat Judith, pallid as the cloudy moon 
 That hung half -faded in the dreary sky; 
 And ever and anon she turned her eyes 
 To where, between two vapor-haunted hills, 
 The dreadful army like a caldron seethed. 
 She heard, far off, the camels' gurgling groan, 
 The clank of arms, the stir and buzz of camps ; 
 Beheld the camp-fires, flaming fiends of night 
 That leapt, and with red hands clutched at the 
 
 dark ; 
 
 And now and then, as some mailed warrior stalked 
 Athwart the fires, she saw his armor gleam. 
 Beneath her stretched the temples and the tombs, 
 The city sickening of its own thick breath, 
 And over all the sleepless Pleiades. 
 
 A star-like face, with floating clouds of hair 
 Merari's daughter, dead Manasses' wife, 
 Who (since the barley-harvest when he died), 
 By holy charities, and prayers, and fasts, 
 Walked with the angels in her widow's weeds, 
 And kept her pure in honor of the dead. 
 But dearer to her bosom than the dead
 
 JUDITH. 1 95 
 
 Was Israel, its Prophets and its God: 
 And that dread midnight in the Tower alone, 
 Believing He would hear her from afar, 
 She lifted up the voices of her soul 
 Above the wrangling voices of the world : 
 
 "Oh, are we not Thy children who of old 
 Trod the Chaldean idols in the dust, 
 And built our altars only unto Thee ? 
 
 Didst Thou not lead us unto Canaan 
 For love of us, because we spurned the gods ? 
 Didst Thou not bless us that we worshipped Thee? 
 
 And when a famine covered all the land, 
 And drove us unto Egypt, where the King 
 Did persecute Thy chosen to the death 
 
 Didst Thou not smite the swart Egyptians then, 
 And guide us through the bowels of the deep 
 That swallowed up their horsemen and their King? 
 
 For saw we not, as in a wondrous dream, 
 The up-tost javelins, the plunging steeds, 
 The chariots sinking in the wild Red Sea? 
 
 O Lord, Thou hast been with us in our woe, 
 And from Thy bosom Thou hast cast us forth, 
 And to Thy bosom taken us again : 
 
 For we have built our temples in the hills 
 By Sinai, and on Jordan's flowery banks, 
 And in Jerusalem we worship Thee. 
 
 O Lord, look down and help us. Stretch Thy 
 
 hand 
 
 And free Thy people. Make us pure in faith, 
 And draw us nearer, nearer unto Thee."
 
 196 JUDITH. 
 
 As when a harp-string trembles at a touch, 
 And music runs through all its quivering length, 
 And does not die, but seems to float away, 
 A silvery mist uprising from the string 
 So Judith's prayer rose tremulous in the night, 
 And floated upward unto other spheres ; 
 And Judith loosed the hair about her brows, 
 And bent her head, and wept for Israel. 
 
 Now while she wept, bowed like a lotus-flower 
 That watches its own shadow in the Nile, 
 A stillness seemed to fall upon the land, 
 As if from out the calyx of a cloud, 
 That blossomed suddenly 'twixt the earth and moon. 
 It fell and presently there came a sound 
 Of many pinions rustling in the dark, 
 And voices mingling, far and near, and strange 
 As sea-sounds on some melancholy coast 
 When first the equinox unchains the Storm. 
 And Judith started, and with one quick hand 
 Brushed back the plenteous tresses from a cheek 
 That whitened like a lily, and so stood, 
 Nor breathed, nor moved, but listened with her 
 
 soul ; 
 
 And at her side, invisible, there leaned 
 An Angel mantled in his folded wings 
 To her invisible, but other eyes 
 Beheld the saintly countenance ; for, lo ! 
 Great clouds of spirits swoopt about the Tower 
 And drifted in the eddies of the wind. 
 The Angel stoopt, and from his radiant brow, 
 And from the gleaming amaranth in his hair,
 
 JUDITH. 197 
 
 A splendor fell on Judith, and she grew, 
 From her black tresses to her arche'd feet, 
 Fairer than morning in Arabia. 
 Then silently the Presence spread his vans, 
 And rose a luminous shadow in the air 
 And through the zodiac, a white star, shot. 
 
 As one that wakens from a trance, she turned, 
 And heard the twilight twitterings of birds, 
 The wind in the turret, and from far below 
 Camp-sounds of pawing hoof and clinking steel ; 
 And in the East she saw the early dawn 
 Breaking the night's enchantment ; saw the Moon, 
 Like some wan sorceress, vanish in mid-heaven, 
 Leaving a moth-like glimmer where she died. 
 
 And Judith rose, and down the spiral stairs 
 Descended to the garden of the Tower, 
 Where, at the gate, lounged Achior, lately fled 
 From Holofernes ; as she past she spoke : 
 " The Lord be with thee, Achior, all thy days." 
 And Achior saw the Spirit of the Lord 
 Had been with her, and, in a single night, 
 Worked such a miracle of form and face 
 As left her lovelier than all womankind 
 Who was before the fairest in Judaea. 
 But she, unconscious of God's miracle, 
 Moved swiftly on among a frozen group 
 Of statues that with empty, slim-necked urns 
 Taunted the thirsty Seneschal, until 
 She came to where, beneath the spreading palms, 
 Sat Chabris with Ozias and his friend 
 Charmis, governors of the leaguered town.
 
 198 JUDITH. 
 
 They saw a glory shining on her face 
 
 Like daybreak, and they marvelled as she stood 
 
 Bending- before them with humility. 
 
 And wrinkled Charmis murmured through his beard 
 
 " This woman walketh in the smile of God." 
 
 u So walk we all," spoke Judith. " Evermore 
 His light envelops us, and only those 
 Who turn aside their faces droop and die 
 In utter midnight. If we faint we die. 
 O, is it true, Ozias, thou hast sworn 
 To yield our people to their enemies 
 After five days, unless the Lord shall stoop 
 From heaven to help us ? " 
 
 And Ozias said : 
 
 " Our young men die upon the battlements ; 
 Our wives and children by the empty tanks 
 Lie down and perish." 
 
 u If we faint we die. 
 
 The weak heart builds its palace on the sand, 
 The flood-tide eats the palace of a fool : 
 But whoso trusts in God, as Ja<?ob did, 
 Though suffering greatly even to the end, 
 Dwells in a citadel upon a rock 
 That wind nor wave nor fire shall topple down." 
 
 " Our young men die upon the battlements," 
 Answered Ozias ; ' k by the dusty wells 
 Our wives and children."
 
 JUDITH. 199 
 
 " They shall go and dwell 
 With Seers and Prophets in eternal joy ! 
 Is there no God ? " 
 
 kk One only," Chabris spoke, 
 " But now His face is darkened in a cloud. 
 He sees not Israel." 
 
 " Is His mercy less 
 
 Than Holofernes'? Shall we place our faith 
 In this fierce bull of Assur? are we mad 
 That we so tear our throats with our own hands?" 
 And Judith's eyes flashed battle on the three, 
 Though all the woman quivered at her lip 
 Struggling with tears. 
 
 "In God we place our trust," 
 Said old Ozias, " yet for five days more." 
 
 " Ah ! His time is not man's time," Judith cried, 
 " And why should we, the dust about His feet, 
 Decide the hour of our deliverance, 
 Saying to Him, Thus shaft Thou do, and so ? " 
 
 Then gray Ozias bowed his head, abashed 
 That eighty winters had not made him wise, 
 For all the drifted snow of his long beard : 
 kk This woman speaketh wisely. We were wrong 
 That in our anguish mocked the Lord our God, 
 The staff, the scrip, the stream whereat we drink." 
 And then to Judith : " Child, what wouldst thou 
 have ? "
 
 200 JUDITH. 
 
 " I know and know not. Something I know not 
 Makes music in my bosom ; as I move 
 A presence goes before me, and I hear 
 New voices mingling in the upper air ; 
 Within my hand there seems another hand 
 Close-prest, that leads me to yon dreadful camp ; 
 While in my brain the fragments of a dream 
 Lie like a broken string of diamonds. 
 The choicest missing. Ask no more. I know 
 
 And know not See ! the very air is white 
 
 With fingers pointing. Where they point I go." 
 
 She spoke and paused : the three old men looked 
 
 up 
 
 And saw a sudden motion in the air 
 Of white hands waving ; and they dared not speak, 
 But muffled their thin faces in their robes, 
 And sat like those grim statues which the wind 
 Near some unpeopled city in the East 
 From foot to forehead wraps in desert dust. 
 
 kt Ere thrice the shadow of the temple slants 
 Across the fountain, I shall come again." 
 Thus Judith softly: then a gleam of light 
 Played through the silken lashes of her eyes, 
 As lightning through the purple of a cloud 
 On some still tropic evening, when the breeze 
 Lifts not a single blossom from the bough : 
 "What lies in that unfolded flower of time 
 No man may know. The thing I can I will. 
 Leaning on God, remembering how He loved 
 Jacob in Syria when he fed the flocks
 
 JUDITH. 201 
 
 Of Laban, and what miracles He did 
 For Abraham and for Isaac at their need. 
 Wait thou the end ; and, till I come, keep thou 
 The sanctuaries." And Ozias swore 
 By those weird fingers pointing in the air, 
 And by the soul of Abraham gone to rest, 
 To keep the sanctuaries, though she came 
 And found the bat sole tenant of the Tower, 
 And all the people bleaching on the walls, 
 And no voice left. Then Judith moved away, 
 Her head bowed on her bosom, like to one 
 That moulds some subtle purpose in a dream, 
 And in his passion rises up and walks 
 Through labyrinths of slumber to the dawn. 
 
 When she had gained her chamber she threw off 
 The livery of sorrow for her lord, 
 The cruel sackcloth that begirt her limbs, 
 And from those ashen colors issuing forth, 
 Seemed like a golden butterfly new-slipt 
 From its dull chrysalis. Then, after bath, 
 She braided in the darkness of her hair 
 A thread of opals ; on her rounded breast 
 Spilt precious ointment ; and put on the robes 
 Whose rustling made her pause, half-garmented, 
 To dream a moment of her bridal morn. 
 Of snow-white silk stuff were the robes, and rich 
 With delicate branch-work, silver-frosted star. 
 And many a broidered lily-of-the-vale. 
 These things became her as the scent the rose, 
 For fairest things are beauty's natural dower. 
 The sun that through the jealous casement stole
 
 202 
 
 JUDITH. 
 
 Fawned on the Hebrew woman as she stood. 
 
 Toyed with the oval pendant at her ear, 
 
 And, like a lover, stealing to her lips 
 
 Taught them a deeper crimson ; then slipt down 
 
 The tremulous lilies to the sandal straps 
 
 That bound her snowy ankles.
 
 JUDITH. 203 
 
 Forth she went, 
 
 A glittering wonder, through the crowded streets, 
 Her handmaid, like a shadow, following on. 
 And as in summer when the beaded wheat 
 Leans all one way, and with a longing look 
 Marks the quick convolutions of the wind, 
 So all eyes went with Judith as she moved, 
 All hearts leaned to her with a weight of love. 
 A starving woman lifted ghostly hands 
 And blest her for old charities ; a child 
 Smiled on her through its tears ; and one gaunt chief 
 Threw down his battle-axe and doffed his helm, 
 As if some bright Immortal swept him by. 
 
 So forth she fared, the only thing of light 
 In that dark city, thridding tortuous ways 
 By gloomy arch and frowning barbacan, 
 Until she reached a gate of triple brass 
 That opened at her coming, and swung to 
 With horrid clangor and a ring of bolts. 
 And there, outside the city of her love, 
 The warm blood at her pidses, Judith paused 
 And drank the morning ; then with silent prayers 
 Moved on through flakes of sunlight, through the 
 
 wood 
 To Holofernes and his barbarous hordes.
 
 II. 
 
 THE CAMP OF ASSUR. 
 
 As on the house-tops of a seaport town, 
 After a storm has lashed the dangerous coast, 
 The people crowd to watch some hopeless ship 
 Tearing its heart upon the unseen reef, 
 And strain their sight to catch the tattered sail 
 That comes and goes, and glimmers, till at last 
 No eye can find it, and a sudden awe 
 Falls on the people, and no soul may speak : 
 So, from the windy parapets and roofs 
 Of the embattled city, anxious groups 
 Watched the faint flutter of a woman's dress 
 Judith, who, toiling up a distant hill, 
 Seemed but a speck against the sunny green ; 
 Yet ever as the wind drew back her robes, 
 They saw her from the towers, until she reached 
 The crest, and past into the azure sky. 
 Then, each one gazing on his neighbor's face, 
 Speechless, descended to the level world. 
 
 Before his tent, stretched on a leopard-skin, 
 Lay Holofernes, ringed by his dark lords 
 Himself the prince of darkness. At his side 
 His iron helmet poured upon the grass 
 Its plume of horsehair : on his ponderous spear, 
 The flinty barb thrust half its length in earth.
 
 JUDITH. 205 
 
 As if some giant had flung it, hung his shield, 
 And on the burnished circuit of the shield 
 A sinewy dragon, rampant, silver-fanged, 
 Glared horrible with sea-green emerald eyes ; 
 And, as the sunshine struck across it, writhed, 
 And seemed a type of those impatient lords 
 Who, in the loud war-council here convened, 
 Gave voice for battle, and with fiery words 
 Opposed the cautious wisdom of their peers. 
 So seemed the restless dragon on the shield. 
 
 Baleful and sullen as a sulphurous cloud 
 Packed with the lightning, Holofernes lay, 
 Brooding upon the diverse arguments, 
 Himself not arguing, but listening most 
 To the curt phrases of the gray-haired chiefs. 
 And some said : " Take the city by assaidt, 
 And grind it into atoms at a blow." 
 And some said : " Wait. There 's that within the 
 
 walls 
 
 Shall gnaw its heart out hunger. Let us wait." 
 To which the younger chieftains : " If we wait, 
 Ourselves shall starve. Like locusts we have fed 
 Upon the land till there is nothing left, 
 Nor grass, nor grain, nor any living thing. 
 And if at last we take a famished town 
 With fifty thousand ragged skeletons, 
 What boots it ? We shall hunger all the same. 
 Now, by great Baal, we 'd rather die at once 
 Than languish, scorching, on these sun-baked hills ! '* 
 At which the others called them "fretful girls," 
 And scoffed at them : " Ye should have stayed at 
 
 home,
 
 206 JUDITH. 
 
 And decked your hair with sunny butterflies, 
 
 Like King Arphaxad's harlots. Know ye not 
 
 Patience and valor are the head and heart 
 
 Of warriors ? Who lacks in either, fails. 
 
 Have we not hammered with our catapults 
 
 Those stubborn gates? Have we not hurled our 
 
 men 
 
 Against the angry torrent of their spears ? 
 Mark how those birds that wheel above yon wood, 
 In clanging columns, settle greedily down 
 Upon the unearthed bodies of our dead. 
 See where they rise, red-beaked and surfeited ! 
 Has it availed ? Let us be patient, then, 
 And bide the sovran pleasure of the gods." 
 " And when," quoth one, " our stores of meat are 
 
 gone, 
 
 We '11 even feed upon the tender flesh 
 Of these tame girls, who, though they dress in steel. 
 Like more the dulcet tremors of a lute 
 Than the shrill whistle of an arrow-head." 
 
 At this a score of falchions leapt in air, 
 And hot-breathed words took flight from bearded 
 
 lips, 
 
 And they had slain each other in their heat, 
 These savage captains, quick with bow and spear, 
 But that dark Holofernes started up 
 To his full height, and, speaking not a word, 
 With anger-knitted forehead glared at them. 
 As they shrunk back, their passion and their shame 
 Gave place to wonder, finding in their midst 
 A woman whose exceeding radiance
 
 JUDITH. 207 
 
 Of brow and bosom made her garments seem 
 Threadbare and lustreless, yet whose attire 
 Outshone the purples of a Persian queen. 
 
 For Judith, who knew all the mountain paths 
 As one may know the delicate azure veins, 
 Each crossing each, on his beloved's wrist, 
 Had stolen between the archers in the wood 
 And gained the straggling outskirts of the camp, 
 And seeing the haughty gestures of the chiefs, 
 Halted, with fear, and knew not where to turn ; 
 Then taking heart, had silently approached, 
 And stood among them, until then unseen. 
 And in the air, like numerous swarms of bees, 
 Arose the wondering murmurs of her throng, 
 Which checking, Holofernes turned and cried, 
 " Who breaks upon our councils ? " angrily, 
 But drinking then the beauty of her eyes, 
 And seeing the rosy magic of her mouth, 
 And all the fragrant summer of her hair 
 Blown sweetly round her forehead, stood amazed; 
 And in the light of her pure modesty 
 His voice took gentler accent unawares: 
 " Whence come ye ? " 
 
 " From yon city." 
 
 "By our life, 
 
 We thought the phantom of some murdered queen 
 Had risen from dead summers at our feet ! 
 If these Judaean women are so shaped, 
 Daughters of goddesses, let none be slain. 
 What seek ye, woman, in the hostile camps 
 Of Assur?"
 
 208 JUDITH. 
 
 " Holofernes." 
 
 This is he." 
 
 "' O good my lord," cried Judith, " if indeed 
 Thou art that Holofernes whom I seek, 
 And seeking dread to find, low at thy feet 
 Behold thy handmaid, who in fear has flown 
 From a doomed people." 
 
 " Wherein thou wert wise 
 Beyond the usual measure of thy sex, 
 And shalt have such observance as a king 
 Gives to his mistress, though our enemy. 
 As for thy people, they shall rue the hour 
 That brought not tribute to the lord of all, 
 Nabuchodonosor. But thou shalt live." 
 
 " O good my lord," spoke Judith, " as thou wilt, 
 So would thy handmaid ; and I pray thee now 
 Let those that listen stand awhile aloof, 
 For I have that for thine especial ear 
 Most precious to thee." Then the crowd fell back, 
 Muttering, and half reluctantly, because 
 Her beauty drew them as the moon the sea 
 Fell back and lingered, leaning on their shields 
 Under the trees, some couchant in the grass, 
 Broad-throated, large-lunged Titans overthrown, 
 Eying the Hebrew woman, whose sweet looks 
 Brought them a sudden vision of their wives 
 And longings for them : and her presence there 
 Was as a spring that, in Sahara's wastes, 
 Taking the thirsty traveller by surprise, 
 Loosens its silver music at his feet. 
 Then Judith, modest, with down-drooping eyes :
 
 JUDITH. 209 
 
 "My lord, if yet thou holdest in thy thought 
 The words which Achior the Ammonite 
 Once spake to thee concerning Israel, 
 O treasure them, for in them was no guile. 
 True is it, master, that our people kneel 
 To an unseen but not an unknown God : 
 By day and night He watches over us, 
 And while we worship Him we cannot die, 
 Our tabernacles shall be unprofaned. 
 Our spears invincible ; but if we sin, 
 If we transgress the law by which we live, 
 Our temples shall be desecrate, our tribes 
 Thrust forth into the howling wilderness. 
 Scourged and accursed. Therefore, O my lord, 
 Seeing this nation wander from the faith 
 Taught of the Prophets, I have fled dismayed. 
 For fear the towers might crush me as they fall. 
 Heed, Holofernes, what I speak this day, 
 And if the thing I tell thee prove not true 
 Ere thrice the sun goes down beyond those peaks, 
 Then straightway plunge thy falchion in my breast, 
 For 't were not meet that thy handmaid should live, 
 Having deceived the crown and flower of men." 
 
 She spoke and paused : and sweeter on his ear 
 Were Judith's words than ever seemed to him 
 The wanton laughter of the Assyrian girls 
 In the bazaars ; and listening he heard not 
 The never-ceasing murmurs of the camp. 
 The neighing of the awful battle-steeds, 
 Nor the vain wind among the drowsy palms. 
 The tents that straggled up the hot hillsides,
 
 210 JUDITH. 
 
 The warriors lying in the tangled grass, 
 The fanes and turrets of the distant town, 
 And all that was, dissolved and past away, 
 Save this one woman with her twilight eyes 
 And the miraculous cadence of her voice. 
 
 Then Judith, catching at the broken thread 
 Of her discourse, resumed, to closer draw 
 The silken net about the foolish prince ; 
 And as she spoke, from time to time her gaze 
 Dwelt on his massive stature, and she saw 
 That he was shapely, knitted like a god, 
 A tower beside the men of her own land. 
 
 u Heed, Holofernes, what I speak this day. 
 And thou shalt rule not only Bethulia, 
 Rich with its hundred altars' crusted gold, 
 But Cades-Barne, Jerusalem, and all 
 The vast hill-country even to the sea : 
 For I am come to give unto thy hands 
 The key of Israel, Israel now no more, 
 Since she disowns her Prophets and her God. 
 Know then, O lord, it is our yearly use 
 To lay aside the first fruit of the grain, 
 And so much oil, so manv skins of wine, 
 Which, being sanctified, are kept intact 
 For the High Priests who serve before our God 
 In the great temple at Jerusalem. 
 This holy food which even to touch is death 
 The riders, sliding from their ancient faith, 
 Would fain lay hands on, being wellnigh starved ; 
 And they have sent a runner to the Priests
 
 JUDITH. 211 
 
 (The Jew Ben Raphaim, who, at dead of night, 
 Shot like a javelin between thy guards), 
 Bearing a parchment begging that the Church 
 Yield them permit to eat the sacred corn. 
 But 't is not lawful they should do this thing, 
 Yet will they do it. Then shalt thou behold 
 The archers tumbling headlong from the walls, 
 Their strength gone from them ; thou shalt see the 
 
 spears 
 
 Splitting like reeds within the spearmen's hands, 
 And the pale captains tottering like old men 
 Stricken with palsy. Then, O glorious prince, 
 Then with thy trumpets blaring doleful dooms, 
 And thy silk banners flapping in the wind, 
 With squares of men and eager clouds of horse 
 Thou shalt swoop down on them, and strike them 
 
 dead! 
 
 But now, my lord, before this come to pass, 
 Three days must wane, for they touch not the food 
 Until the Jew Ben Raphaim shall return 
 With the Priests' message. Here among thy hosts, 
 O Holofernes, will I dwell the while, 
 Asking but this, that I and my handmaid 
 Each night, at the twelfth hour, may egress have 
 Unto the valley, there to weep and pray 
 That God forsake this nation in its sin. 
 And as my prophecy prove true or false, 
 So be it with me." 
 
 Judith ceased, and stood, 
 Her hands across her bosom, as in prayer ; 
 And Holofernes answered : " Be it so. 
 And if, O pearl of women, the event
 
 212 JUDITH. 
 
 Prove not a dwarf beside the prophecy, 
 Then there 's no woman like thee no, not one. 
 Thy name shall be renowned through the world, 
 Music shall wait on thee, thou shalt have crowns, 
 And jewel-chests of costly camphor-wood, 
 And robes as glossy as the ring-dove's neck, 
 And milk-white mares, and chariots, and slaves : 
 And thou shalt dwell with me in Nineveh, 
 In Nineveh, the City of the Gods ! " 
 
 At which the Jewish woman bowed her head 
 Humbly, that Holofernes might not see 
 How blanched her cheek grew. " Even as thou 
 
 wilt, 
 
 So would thy servant." At a word the slaves 
 Brought meat and wine, and placed them in a 
 
 tent, 
 
 A silk pavilion, wrought with arabesques, 
 That stood apart, for Judith and her maid. 
 But Judith ate not, saying : " Master, no. 
 It is not lawful that we taste of these ; 
 My maid has brought a pouch of parche'd corn, 
 And bread, and figs, and wine of our own land, 
 Which shall not fail us." Holofernes said, 
 " So let it be," and lifting up the screen 
 Past out, and left them sitting in the tent. 
 
 That day he mixt not with the warriors 
 As was his wont, nor watched them at their games 
 In the wide shadow of the terebinth-trees ; 
 But up and down within a lonely grove 
 Paced slowly, brooding on her perfect face,
 
 JUDITH. 213 
 
 Saying her smooth words over to himself, 
 Heedless of time, till he looked up and saw 
 The spectre of the Twilight on the hills. 
 
 The fame of Judith's loveliness had flown 
 From lip to lip throughout the canvas town, 
 And as the evening deepened, many came 
 From neighboring camps, with frivolous excuse, 
 To pass the green pavilion long-haired chiefs 
 That dwelt by the Hydaspe, and the sons 
 Of the Elymeans, and slim Tartar youths ; 
 But saw not her, who, shut from common air, 
 Basked in the twilight of the tapestries-. 
 
 But when night came, and all the camp was still, 
 And nothing moved beneath the icy stars 
 In their blue bourns, except some stealthy guard, 
 A shadow among shadows, Judith rose, 
 Calling her servant, and the sentinel 
 Drew back, and let her pass beyond the lines 
 Into the valley. And her heart was full, 
 Seeing the watch-fires burning on the towers 
 Of her own city: and she knelt and prayed 
 For it and them that dwelt within its walls, 
 And was refreshed such balm there lies in prayer 
 For those who know God listens. Straightway then 
 The two returned, and all the camp was still. 
 
 One cresset twinkled dimly in the tent 
 Of Holofernes, and Bagoas, his slave, 
 Lay prone across the matting at the door, 
 Drunk with the wine of slumber ; but his lord
 
 214 JUDITH. 
 
 Slept not, or, sleeping, rested not for thought 
 Of Judith's beauty. Two large lucent eyes, 
 Tender and full as moons, dawned on his sleep ; 
 And when he woke, they filled the vacant dusk 
 With an unearthly splendor. All night long 
 A stately figure glided through his dream ; 
 Sometimes a queenly diadem weighed down 
 Its braided tresses, and sometimes it came 
 Draped only in a misty cloud of veils, 
 Like the King's dancing-girls at Nineveh. 
 And once it bent above him in the gloom, 
 And touched his forehead with most hungry lips. 
 Then Holofernes turned upon his couch, 
 And, yearning for the daybreak, slept no more.
 
 THE FLIGHT. 
 
 Ix the far east, as viewless tides of time 
 
 Drew on the drifting shallop of the Dawn, 
 
 A fringe of gold went rippling up the gray, 
 
 And breaking rosily on cliff and spur, 
 
 Still left the vale in shadow. While the fog 
 
 Folded the camp of Assur, and the dew 
 
 Yet shook in clusters on the new green leaf, 
 
 And not a bird had dipt a wing in air, 
 
 The restless captain, haggard with no sleep, 
 
 Stept over the curved body of his slave, 
 
 And thridding moodily the dingy tents, 
 
 Hives packed with sleepers, stood within the grove, 
 
 And in the cool, gray twilight gave his thought 
 
 Wings ; but however wide his fancies flew, 
 
 They circled still the figure of his dream. 
 
 He sat: before him rose the fluted domes 
 Of Nineveh, his city, and he heard 
 The clatter of the merchants in the booths 
 Selling their merchandise : and now he breathed 
 The airs of a great river, sweeping down 
 Past carven pillars, under tamarisk boughs, 
 To where the broad sea sparkled : then he groped 
 In a damp catacomb, he knew not where, 
 By torchlight, hunting for his own grim name
 
 216 JUDITH. 
 
 On some sarcophagus : and as he mused, 
 
 From out the ruined kingdom of the Past 
 
 Glided the myriad women he had wronged, 
 
 The half -forgotten passions of his youth; 
 
 Dark-browed were some, with haughty, sultry eyes, 
 
 Imperious and most ferocious loves ; 
 
 And some, meek blondes with lengths of flaxen hair 
 
 Daughters of Sunrise, shaped of fire and snow, 
 
 And Holofernes smiled a bitter smile 
 
 Seeing these spectres in his revery, 
 
 When suddenly one face among the train 
 
 Turned full upon him such a piteous face, 
 
 Blanched with such anguish, looking such reproach. 
 
 So sunken-eyed and awful in its woe, 
 
 His heart shook in his bosom, and he rose 
 
 As if to smite it, and before him stood 
 
 Bagoas, the bondsman, bearing in his arms 
 
 A jar of water, while the morning broke 
 
 In dewy splendor all about the grove. 
 
 Then Holofernes, vext that he was cowed 
 By his own fantasy, strode back to camp, 
 Bagoas following, sullen, like a hound 
 That takes the color of his master's mood. 
 And with the troubled captain went the shapes 
 Which even the daylight could not exorcise. 
 
 " Go, fetch me wine, and let my soid make cheer, 
 For I am sick with visions of the night. 
 Some strangest malady of breast and brain 
 Hath so unnerved me that a rustling leaf 
 Sets my pidse leaping. 'T is a family flaw,
 
 JUDITH. 217 
 
 A flaw in men else flawless, this dark spell: 
 I do remember when my grandsire died, 
 He thought a lying Ethiop he had slain 
 Was strangling him ; and, later, my own sire 
 Went mad with dreams the day before his death. 
 And I, too ? Slave ! go fetch me seas of wine, 
 That I may drown these fantasies no, stay ! 
 Ransack the camps for choicest flesh and fruit, 
 And spread a feast within my tent this night, 
 And hang the place with garlands of new flowers ; 
 Then bid the Hebrew woman, yea or nay, 
 To banquet with us. As thou lov'st the light, 
 Bring her ; and if indeed the gods have called, 
 The gods shall find me sitting at my feast 
 Consorting with a daughter of the gods ! " 
 
 Thus Holofernes, turning on his heel 
 Impatiently ; and straight Bagoas went 
 And spoiled the camps of viands for the feast, 
 And hung the place with flowers, as he was bid ; 
 And seeing Judith's servant at the well, 
 Gave his lord's message, to which answer came : 
 " O what am I that should gainsay my lord ? " 
 And Holofernes smiled within, and thought: 
 " Or life or death, if I should have her not 
 In spite of all, my mighty name would be 
 A word for laughter among womankind." 
 
 " So soon ! " thought Judith. " Flying pulse, be 
 
 still! 
 
 O Thou who lovest Israel, give me strength 
 And cunning such as never woman had.
 
 218 JUDITH. 
 
 That my deceit may be his stripe and scar, 
 My kisses his destruction. This for thee, 
 My city, Bethulia, this for thee ! " 
 
 And thrice that day she prayed within her heart, 
 Bowed down among the cushions of the tent 
 In shame and wretchedness ; and thus she prayed : 
 "O save me from him, Lord! but save me most 
 From mine own sinful self : for, lo ! this man, 
 Though viler than the vilest thing that walks, 
 A worshipper of fire and senseless stone, 
 Slayer of children, enemy of God 
 He, even he, O Lord, forgive my sin, 
 Hath by his heathen beauty moved me more 
 Than should a daughter of Judsea be moved, 
 Save by the noblest. Clothe me with Thy love, 
 And rescue me, and let me trample down 
 All evil thought, and from my baser self 
 Climb up to Thee, that aftertimes may say : 
 She tore the yiiilty ^>ssicw from her .so?//, 
 Judith the pure, the faithful unto death" 
 
 Half seen behind the forehead of a crag 
 The evening-star grew sharp against the dusk, 
 As Judith lingered by the curtained door 
 Of her pavilion, waiting for Bagoas : 
 Erewhile he came, and led her to the tent 
 Of Holofernes; and she entered in, 
 And knelt before him in the cresset's glare 
 Demurely, like a slave-girl at the feet 
 Of her new master, while the modest blood 
 Makes protest to the eyelids ; and he leaned
 
 JUDITH. 221 
 
 Graciously over her, and bade her rise 
 
 And sit beside him on the leopard-skins. 
 
 But Judith would not, yet with gentlest grace 
 
 Would not ; and partly to conceal her blush, 
 
 Partly to quell the riot in her breast, 
 
 She turned, and wrapt her in her fleecy scarf, 
 
 And stood aloof, nor looked as one that breathed, 
 
 But rather like some jewelled deity 
 
 Taken by a conqueror from its sacred niche, 
 
 And placed among the trappings of his tent 
 
 So pure was Judith. 
 
 For a moment's space 
 
 She stood, then stealing softly to his side, 
 Knelt down by him, and with uplifted face, 
 Whereon the red rose blossomed with the white : 
 " This night, my lord, no other slave than I 
 Shall wait on thee with fruits and flowers and wine. 
 So subtle am I, I shall know thy wish 
 Ere thou canst speak it. Let Bagoas go 
 Among his people : let me wait and .serve, 
 More happy as thy handmaid than thy guest." 
 
 Thereat he laughed, and, humoring her mood, 
 Gave the black bondsman freedom for the night. 
 Then Judith moved, obsequious, and placed 
 The meats before him, and poured out the wine, 
 Holding the golden goblet while he ate, 
 Nor ever past it empty ; and the wine 
 Seemed richer to him for those slender hands. 
 So Judith served, and Holofernes drank, 
 Until the lamps that glimmered round the tent 
 In mad processions danced before his gaze.
 
 222 JUDITH. 
 
 Without, the moon dropt down behind the sky ; 
 Within, the odors of the heavy flowers, 
 And the aromas of the mist that curled 
 From swinging cressets, stole into the air ; 
 And through the mist he saw her come and go, 
 Now showing a faultless arm against the light, 
 And now a dainty sandal set with gems. 
 At last he knew not in what place he was. 
 For as a man who, softly held by sleep. 
 Knows that he dreams, yet knows not true from 
 
 false, 
 
 Perplext between the margins of two worlds, 
 So Holofernes. flushed with the red wine. 
 
 Like a bride's eyes, the eyes of Judith shone, 
 As ever bending over him with smiles 
 She filled the generous chalice to the edge ; 
 And half he shrunk from her, and knew not why, 
 Then wholly loved her for her loveliness. 
 And drew her close to him, and breathed her 
 
 breath : 
 
 And once he thought the Hebrew woman sang 
 A wine-song, touching on a certain king 
 Who, dying of strange sickness, drank, and past 
 Beyond the touch of mortal agony 
 A vague tradition of the cunning sprite 
 That dwells within the circle of the grape. 
 And thus he heard, or fancied that he heard : 
 
 The small green grapes in countless clusters grew, 
 Feeding on mystic moonlight and white dew 
 And mellow sunshine, the long summer through :
 
 JUDITH. 223 
 
 Till, with faint tremor in her veins, the Vine 
 Felt the delicious pulses of the wine ; 
 And the grapes ripened in the year's decline. 
 
 And day by day the Virgins watched their charge ; 
 And when, at last, beyond the horizon's marge, 
 The harvest-moon droopt beautiful and large, 
 
 The subtle spirit in the grape was caught, 
 And to the slowly dying Monarch brought, 
 In a great cup fantastically wrought, 
 
 Whereof he drank ; then straightway from his brain 
 Went the weird malady, and once again 
 He walked the Palace, free of scar or pain 
 
 But strangely changed, for somehow he had lost 
 Body and voice : the courtiers, as he crost 
 The royal chambers, whispered The King's Ghost! 
 
 "A potent medicine for kings and men," 
 Thus Holofernes ; " he was wise to drink. 
 Be thou as wise, fair Judith." As he spoke, 
 He stoopt to kiss the treacherous soft hand 
 That rested like a snow-flake on his arm, 
 But stooping reeled, and from the place he sat 
 Toppled, and fell among the leopard-skins : 
 There lay, nor stirred; and ere ten beats of heart, 
 The tawny giant slumbered. 
 
 Judith knelt 
 And gazed upon him, and her thoughts were dark ;
 
 224 JUDITH. 
 
 For half she longed to bid her purpose die 
 To stay, to weep, to fold him in her arms, 
 To let her long hair loose upon his face, 
 As on a mountain-top some amorous cloud 
 Lets down its sombre tresses of fine rain. 
 For one wild instant in her burning arms 
 She held him sleeping ; then grew wan as death, 
 Relaxed her hold, and starting from his side 
 As if an asp had stung her to the quick, 
 Listened ; and listening, she heard the moans 
 Of little children moaning in the streets 
 Of Bethulia, saw famished women pass, 
 Wringing their hands, and on the broken walls 
 The flower of Israel dying. 
 
 With quick breath 
 
 Judith blew out the tapers, all save one, 
 And from his twisted girdle loosed the sword, 
 And grasping the huge hilt with her two hands, 
 Thrice smote the Prince of Assur as he lay. 
 Thrice on his neck she smote him as he lay, 
 And from the brawny shoulders rolled the head 
 Winking and ghastly in the cresset's light ; 
 Which done, she fled into the yawning dark, 
 There met her maid, who, stealing to the tent, 
 Pulled down the crimson arras on the corse, 
 And in her mantle wrapt the brazen head. 
 And brought it with her ; and a great gong boomed 
 Twelve, as the women glided past the guard 
 With measured footstep : but outside the camp, 
 Terror seized on them, and they fled like wraiths 
 Through the hushed midnight into the black woods,
 
 JUDITH. 225 
 
 Where, from gnarled roots and ancient, palsied trees, 
 
 Dread shapes, upstarting, clutched at them ; and once 
 
 A nameless bird in branches overhead 
 
 Screeched, and the blood grew cold about their hearts. 
 
 By mouldy caves, the hooded viper's haunt, 
 
 Down perilous steeps, and through the desolate gorge, 
 
 Onward they flew, with madly streaming hair. 
 
 Bearing their hideous burden, till at last, 
 
 Wild with the pregnant horrors of the night, 
 
 They dashed themselves against the City's gate. 
 
 The hours dragged by, and in the Assur camp 
 The pulse of life was throbbing languidly, 
 When from the outer waste an Arab scout 
 Rushed pale and breathless on the morning watch, 
 With a strange story of a Head that hung 
 High in the air above the City's wall 
 A livid Head, with knotted, snake-like curls 
 And how the face was like a face he knew, 
 And how it turned and twisted in the wind, 
 And how it stared upon him with fixt orbs, 
 Till it was not in mortal man to stay ; 
 And how he fled, and how he thought the Thing 
 Came bowling through the wheat-fields after him. 
 And some that listened were appalled, and some 
 Derided him ; but not the less they threw 
 A furtive glance toward the shadowy wood. 
 
 Bagoas, among the idlers, heard the man. 
 And quick to bear the tidings to his lord. 
 Ran to the tent, and called, " My lord, awake ! 
 Awake, my lord ! " and lingered for reply. 
 
 15
 
 226 JUDITH. 
 
 But answer came there none. Again he called, 
 And all was still. Then, laughing in his heart 
 To think how deeply Holofernes slept 
 Wrapt in soft arms, he lifted up the screen. 
 And marvelled, finding no one in the tent 
 Save Holofernes, buried to the waist, 
 Head foremost in the canopies. He stoopt, 
 And drawing back the damask folds beheld 
 His master, the grim giant, lying dead. 
 
 As in some breathless wilderness at night 
 A leopard, pinioned by a falling tree. 
 Shrieks, and the echoes, mimicking the cry, 
 Repeat it in a thousand different keys 
 By lonely heights and unimagined caves, 
 So shrieked Bagoas, and so his cry was caught 
 And voiced along the vast Assyrian lines, 
 And buffeted among the hundred hills. 
 Then ceased the tumult sudden as it rose, 
 And a great silence fell upon the camps. 
 And all the people stood like blocks of stone 
 In some deserted quarry ; then a voice 
 Blown through a trumpet clamored : He is dead ! 
 The Prince is dead ! The Hebrew witch hath slain 
 Prince Holofernes! Fly, A ssyrians, JJy ! 
 
 As from its lair the mad tornado leaps. 
 And, seizing on the yellow desert sands, 
 Hurls them in swirling masses, cloud on cloud, 
 So, at the sounding of that baleful voice, 
 A panic seized the mighty Assur hosts, 
 And flung them from their places.
 
 JUDITH. 227 
 
 With wild shouts 
 
 Across the hills in pale dismay they fled, 
 Trampling the sick and wounded under foot, 
 Leaving- their tents, their camels, and their arms, 
 Their horses, and their gilded chariots. 
 Then with a dull metallic clang- the gates 
 Of Bethulia opened, and from each 
 A sea of spears surged down the arid hills 
 And broke remorseless on the flying foe 
 Now hemmed them in upon a river's bank, 
 Now drove them shrieking down a precipice, 
 Now in the mountain-passes slaughtered them, 
 Until the land, for many a weary league, 
 Was red, as in the sunset, with their blood. 
 And other cities, when they saw the rout 
 Of Holof ernes, burst their gates, and joined 
 With trump and banner in the mad pursuit. 
 Three days before those unrelenting spears 
 The cohorts fled, but on the fourth they past 
 Beyond Damascus into their own land. 
 
 So, by God's grace and this one woman's hand, 
 The tombs and temples of the Just were saved ; 
 And evermore throughout fair Israel 
 The name of Judith meant all noblest things 
 In thought and deed; and Judith's life was rich 
 With that content the world takes not away. 
 And far-off kings, enamoured of her fame, 
 Bluff princes, dwellers by the salt sea-sands, 
 Sent caskets most laboriously carved 
 Of ivory, and papyrus scrolls, whereon 
 Was writ their passion ; then themselves did come
 
 228 JUDITH. 
 
 With spicy caravans, in purple state, 
 To seek regard from her imperial eyes. 
 But she remained unwed, and to the end 
 Walked with the angels in her widow's weeds.
 
 V. 
 SOOTTETS.
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 SICK of myself and all that keeps the light 
 
 Of the blue skies away from me and mine, 
 
 I climb this ledge, and by this wind-swept pine 
 
 Lingering, watch the coming of the night. 
 
 'Tis ever a new wonder to my sight. 
 
 Men look to God for some mysterious sign, 
 
 For other stars than those that nightly shine. 
 
 For some unnatural symbol of His might : 
 
 Wouldst see a miracle as grand as those 
 
 The prophets wrought of old in Palestine? 
 
 Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows 
 
 In yonder West ; the fair, frail palaces, 
 
 The fading alps and archipelagoes, 
 
 And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
 
 II. 
 
 FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 THE increasing moonlight drifts across my bed, 
 And on the churchyard by the road, I know 
 It falls as white and noiselessly as snow. . . . 
 'T was such a night two weary summers fled : 
 The stars, as now, were waning overhead. 
 Listen I Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow 
 Where the swift currents of the river flow 
 Past Fredericksburg ( : far off the heavens are red 
 With sudden conflagration; on yon height, 
 Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath : 
 A signal-rocket pierces the dense night, 
 Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath : 
 Hark ! the artillery massing on the right, 
 Hark ! the black squadrons wheeling down to 
 Death !
 
 III. 
 PURSUIT AND POSSESSION. 
 
 WHEN I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, 
 What life, what glorious eagerness it is ; 
 Then mark how full Possession falls from this, 
 How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit 
 I am perplext, and often stricken mute 
 Wondering which attained the higher bliss, 
 The winged insect, or the chrysalis 
 It thrust aside with unreluctant foot. 
 Spirit of verse, that still elud'st my art, 
 Thou airy phantom that dost ever haunt me, 
 O never, never rest upon my heart, 
 If when I have thee I shall little want thee ! 
 Still flit away in moonlight, rain, and dew, 
 Will-of-the-wisp, that I may still pursue !
 
 IV. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 FANTASTIC Sleep is busy with my eyes: 
 
 I seem in some waste solitude to stand 
 
 Once ruled of Cheops: upon either hand 
 
 A dark illimitable desert lies, 
 
 Sultry and still a realm of mysteries ; 
 
 A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand, 
 
 With orbless sockets stares across the land, 
 
 The woefulest thing beneath these brooding skies, 
 
 Where all is woeful, weird-lit vacancy. 
 
 'Tis neither midnight, twilight, nor moonrise. 
 
 Lo ! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea 
 
 The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn, 
 
 And one bleared star, faint-glimmering like a bee, 
 
 Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.
 
 V. 
 EUTERPE. 
 
 Now if Euterpe held me not in scorn, 
 
 I 'd shape a lyric, perfect, fair, and round 
 
 As that thin band of gold wherewith I bound 
 
 Your slender finger our betrothal morn. 
 
 Not of Desire alone is music born, 
 
 Not till the Muse wills is our passion crowned : 
 
 Unsought she comes, if sought but seldom found. 
 
 Hence is it Poets often are forlorn, 
 
 Taciturn, shy, self-immolated, pale, 
 
 Taking no healthy pleasure in their kind 
 
 Wrapt in their dream as in a coat-of-mail. 
 
 Hence is it I, the least, a very hind, 
 
 Have stolen away into this leafy vale 
 
 Drawn by the flutings of the silvery wind.
 
 VI. 
 
 AT BAY RIDGE, LONG ISLAND. 
 
 PLEASANT it is to lie amid the grass 
 Under these shady locusts, half the day, 
 Watching the ships reflected on the Bay, 
 Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard's glass : 
 To see the happy-hearted martins pass, 
 Brushing the dew-drops from the lilac spray : 
 Or else to hang enamoured o'er some lay 
 Of fairy regions : or to muse, alas ! 
 On Dante, exiled, journeying outworn ; 
 On patient Milton's sorrowfulest eyes 
 Shut from the splendors of the Night and Morn 
 To think that now, beneath the Italian skies, 
 In such clear air as this, by Tiber's wave, 
 Daisies are trembling over Keats's grave.
 
 VII. 
 
 BY THE POTOMAC. 
 
 THE soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves 
 By the Potomac ; and the crisp ground-flower 
 Lifts its blue cup to catch the passing shower ; 
 The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves 
 Its tangled gonfalons above our braves. 
 Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower ! 
 The Southern nightingale that, hour by hour, 
 In its melodious summer madness raves. 
 Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand, 
 "With what sweet voices, Nature seeks to screen 
 The awful Crime of this distracted land 
 Sets her birds singing, while she spreads her green 
 Mantle of velvet where the Murdered lie, 
 As if to hide the horror from God's eye.
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 ENAMORED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME. 
 
 ENAMORED architect of airy rhyme, 
 
 Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says. 
 
 Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways, 
 
 Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time ; 
 
 Others, beholding how thy turrets climb 
 
 'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all their 
 
 days ; 
 
 But most beware of those who come to praise. 
 O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime 
 And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all ; 
 Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame, 
 Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given : 
 Then, if at last the airy structure fall, 
 Dissolve, and vanish take thyself no shame. 
 They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.
 
 II. 
 THREE FLOWERS. 
 
 TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 HEREWITH I send you three pressed withered flowers : 
 
 This one was white, with golden star; this, blue 
 
 As Capri's cave ; that, purple and shot through 
 
 With sunset-orange. Where the Duomo towers 
 
 In diamond air, and under hanging bowers 
 
 The Arno glides, this faded violet grew 
 
 On Landor's grave ; from Lander's heart it drew 
 
 Its magic azure in the long spring hours. 
 
 Within the shadow of the Pyramid 
 
 Of Caius Cestius was the daisy found, 
 
 White as the soul of Keats in Paradise. 
 
 The pansy there were hundreds of them, hid 
 
 In the thick grass that folded Shelley's mound, 
 
 Guarding his ashes with most lovely eyes. 
 
 16
 
 III. 
 AN ALPINE PICTURE. 
 
 STAND here and look, and softly hold your breath 
 
 Lest the vast avalanche come crashing down ! 
 
 How many miles away is yonder town 
 
 Set flower-wise in the valley ? Far beneath 
 
 A scimitar half drawn from out its sheath 
 
 The river curves through meadows newly mown ; 
 
 The ancient water-courses are all strown 
 
 With drifts of snow, fantastic wreath on wreath ; 
 
 And peak on peak against the turquoise-blue 
 
 The Alps like towering campanili stand, 
 
 Wondrous, with pinnacles of frozen rain, 
 
 Silvery, crystal, like the prism in hue. 
 
 O tell me, Love, if this be Switzerland 
 
 Or is it but the frost-work on the pane?
 
 IV. 
 
 TO L. T. IN FLORENCE. 
 
 You by the Arno shape your marble dream, 
 Under the cypress and the olive trees, 
 While I, this side the wild, wind-beaten seas, 
 Unrestful by the Charles's placid stream, 
 Long once again to catch the golden gleam 
 Of Brunelleschi's dome, and lounge at ease 
 In those pleached gardens and fair galleries. 
 And yet, perhaps, you envy me, and deem 
 My star the happier, since it holds me here. 
 Even so, one time, beneath the cypresses 
 My heart turned longingly across the sea, 
 Aching with love for thee, New England dear 
 And I 'd have given all Titian's goddesses 
 For one poor cowslip or anemone.
 
 V. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 WHILE men pay reverence to mighty things, 
 They must revere thee, them blue-cinctured isle 
 Of England not to-day, but this long while 
 In the front of nations, Mother of great kings, 
 Soldiers, and poets. Round thee the Sea flings 
 His steel-bright arm, and shields thee from the guile 
 And hurt of France. Secure, with august smile, 
 Thou sittest, and the East its tribute brings. 
 Some say thy old-time power is on the wane, 
 Thy moon of grandeur filled, contracts at length 
 They see it darkening down from less to less. 
 Let but a hostile hand make threat again, 
 And they shall see thee in thy ancient strength, 
 Each iron sinew quivering, lioness!
 
 m 
 

 
 VI. 
 
 THE LORELEI. 
 
 YONDER we see it from the steamer's deck, 
 The haunted Mountain of the Lorelei 
 The o'erhanging crags sharp-cut against a sky 
 Clear as a sapphire without flaw or fleck. 
 'T was here the Siren lay in wait to wreck 
 The fisher-lad. At dusk, as he passed by, 
 Perchance he'd hear her tender amorous sigh, 
 And, seeing the wondrous whiteness of her neck, 
 Perchance would halt, and lean towards the shore ; 
 Then she by that soft magic which she had 
 Would lure him, and in gossamers of her hair, 
 Gold upon gold, would wrap him o'er and o'er, 
 Wrap him, and sing to him, and set him mad, 
 Then drag him down to no man knoweth where.
 
 VII. 
 
 BARBERRIES. 
 
 IN scarlet clusters o'er the gray stone-wall 
 The barberries lean in thin autumnal air : 
 Just when the fields and garden-plots are bare, 
 And ere the green leaf takes the tint of fall, 
 They come, to make the eye a festival ! 
 Along the road, for miles, their torches flare. 
 Ah, if your deep-sea coral were but rare 
 (The damask rose might envy it withal), 
 What bards had sung your praises long ago, 
 Called you fine names in honey-worded books 
 The rosy tramps of turnpike and of lane, 
 September's blushes, Ceres' lips aglow, 
 Little Red-Ridinghoods, for your sweet looks ! 
 But your plebeian beauty is in vain.
 
 VIII. 
 
 HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL. 
 
 THEY never crowned him, never knew his worth, 
 
 But let him go unlaurelled to the grave : 
 
 Hereafter there are guerdons for the brave, 
 
 Roses for martyrs who wear thorns on earth, 
 
 Balms for bruised hearts that languish in the dearth 
 
 Of human love. So let the lilies wave 
 
 Above him, nameless. Little did he crave 
 
 Men's praises. Modestly, with kindly mirth, 
 
 Not sad nor bitter, he accepted fate 
 
 Drank deep of life, knew books, and hearts of men, 
 
 Cities and camps, and war's immortal woe, 
 
 Yet 'bore through all (such virtue in him sate 
 
 His Spirit is not whiter now than then !) 
 
 A ^simple, loyal nature, pure as snow.
 
 IX. 
 
 "EVEN THIS WILL PASS AWAY." 
 
 TOUCHED with the delicate green of early May, 
 
 Or later, when the rose unveils her face, 
 
 The world hangs glittering in star-strown space, 
 
 Fresh as a jewel found but yesterday. 
 
 And yet 't is very old ; what tongue may say 
 
 How ( old it is ? Race follows upon race, 
 
 Forgetting and forgotten ; in their place 
 
 Sink tower and temple ; nothing long may stay. 
 
 We build on tombs, and live our day, and die ; 
 
 From out our dust new towers and temples start : 
 
 Our very name becomes a mystery. 
 
 What cities no man ever heard of lie 
 
 Under the glacier, in the mountain's heart, 
 
 In violet glooms beneath the moaning sea !
 
 X. 
 
 AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. 
 
 TO EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 THUS spake his dust (so seemed it as I read 
 The words) : Good frend, for Jesvs' sake forbeare 
 (Poor ghost !) To digg the dvst enclosed heare 
 Then came the malediction on the head 
 Of whoso dare disturb the sacred dead. 
 Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear, 
 And, touched with the sweet glamour of the year, 
 The winding Avon murmured in its bed. 
 But in the solemn Stratford church the air 
 Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb 
 The evening shadows deepened momently : 
 Then a great awe crept on me, standing there, 
 As if some speechless Presence in the gloom 
 Was hovering, and fain would speak with me.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE RARITY OF GENIUS. 
 
 WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath, 
 
 Too young to feel the utmost of their spell 
 
 I saw Medea and Phaedra in Kachel: 
 
 Later I saw the great Elizabeth. 
 
 Rachel, Ristori we shall taste of death 
 
 Ere we meet spirits like these : in one age dwell 
 
 Not many such ; a century may tell 
 
 Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath 
 
 For two so queenly foreheads. If it take 
 
 to form a diamond, grain on grain, 
 
 to crystallize its fire and dew 
 By what slow processes must Nature make 
 Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels ? Great the gain 
 If she spoil thousands making one or two.
 
 XII. 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 to soft Sleep we give ourselves away, 
 And in a dream as in a fairy bark 
 Drift on and on through the enchanted dark 
 To purple daybreak little thought we pay 
 To that sweet bitter world we know by day. 
 We are clean quit of it, as is a lark 
 So high in heaven no human eye can mark 
 The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray. 
 Till we awake ill fate can do no ill, 
 The resting heart shall not take up again 
 The heavy load that yet must make it bleed ; 
 For this brief space the loud world's voice is still, 
 No faintest echo of it brings us pain. 
 How will it be when we shall sleep indeed ?
 
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