^ r6
 
 ALDRICH'S POEMS.
 
 L^^ 
 
 Y 
 
 J
 
 I> O E M S 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CAELETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY. 
 
 LONDON: 8. LOW, EON & CO. 
 • M DCCC LXIII.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S62, by 
 
 T. B. ALDEICH, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
 States for the Sonthem District of New York. 
 
 B. CBAIOITEAD, 
 
 Printer, Siereotyper, and KloctrotTper, 
 
 CCaitort J3uirt)ing, 
 
 8t, 83, ond 85 Ctntre Srnet, N. Y.
 
 LAVNCELOT THOMPSON, 
 
 SCULPTOR, 
 
 20415G1
 
 \
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 
 CLOTH OP GOLD .... 
 
 13 
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS . 
 
 14 
 
 THE sheik's welcome 
 
 16 
 
 THE UNFORGIVEN .... 
 
 17 
 
 DRESSING THE BRIDE .... 
 
 19 
 
 TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN . 
 
 20 
 
 TIGER-LILIES 
 
 22 
 
 THE SULTANA 
 
 24 
 
 IT WAS A KNIGHT OP ARAGON . 
 
 25 
 
 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN . 
 
 27 
 
 HASCHEESH 
 
 30 
 
 A PRELUDE 
 
 32 
 
 A TURKISH LEGEND .... 
 
 . 34 
 
 IL 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 GHOSTS 37 
 
 THE FADED VIOLET 38
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PA6B 
 
 DEAD 40 
 
 THE LUNCH 41 
 
 BEFORE THE RAIN 42 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN 43 
 
 WEDDED 44 
 
 THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND . . 45 
 
 THE MOORLAND 47 
 
 NORA Mccarty 48 
 
 NAMELESS PAIN 60 
 
 THE GIRLS 51 
 
 MURDER DONE 52 
 
 MIRACLES 54 
 
 MAY . . 55 
 
 PALABRAS CARISOSAS 56 
 
 LITTLE MAUD 58 
 
 SONGS 60 
 
 HESPERIDES 63 
 
 THE POET 65 
 
 THE ROBIN 66 
 
 III. 
 BALLAD OF BABIE BELL AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL . . .69 
 PISOATAQUA RIVER 75
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 IX 
 
 PAGK 
 
 PYTHAGORAS 
 
 
 . 77 
 
 A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET 
 
 
 
 . 82 
 
 THE TRAGEDY . 
 
 
 
 . 85 
 
 HAUNTED . 
 
 
 
 . 92 
 
 PAMPINEA . 
 
 
 
 . 94 
 
 A GREAT MAN'S DEATH 
 
 
 
 . 99 
 
 KATHIE MORRIS . 
 
 
 
 . 100 
 
 LAMIA 
 
 
 
 . 107 
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 
 
 
 
 . 109 
 
 SEADRIPT . 
 
 
 
 . 112 
 
 INFELICISSIMUS . 
 
 
 
 . 115 
 
 THE queen's RIDE . 
 
 
 
 . 118 
 
 LANDER . 
 
 
 
 . 121 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE 
 BARBARA . 
 
 125 
 154 
 
 NOTES 159
 
 I. 
 
 CLOTH OF OOLD
 
 CLOTH OF aOLD 
 
 I. 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 You ask us if by rule or no 
 
 Our many-colored songs are 'wrought ? 
 
 Upon the cunnmg loom of thought, 
 We weave our fancies, so and so. 
 
 The busy shuttle comes and goes 
 
 Across the rhymes, and deftly %Yeaves 
 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 : 
 When v^-oven so, nor moth nor mould 
 
 Nor time, can make its colors fade.
 
 14 CLOTU OF GOLD. 
 
 II. 
 THE CEESCENT AND THE CEOSS. 
 
 Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land, 
 Eemembered me with such a gracious hand. 
 And sent this Moorish Crescent which has been 
 Worn on the tawny 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 turban'd 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 !
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 15 
 
 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 Avaning Crescent lacks divinity : 
 It gives me dreams of battles, and the woes 
 Of women shut in hushed seraglios. 
 
 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 !
 
 16 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 III. 
 THE SHEIK'S 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 I Even f;o 
 An Arab chieftain treats a foe, 
 Holds him as one without a fault 
 Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt ; 
 And, in fair battle, strikes him dead 
 With the same pleasure that he gives him 
 bread !
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. IT 
 
 IV. 
 THE TJNFOEGIYEX. 
 
 Near my bed, there, hangs the picture, jewels 
 
 could not buy from me : 
 'Tis a Sh-en, a brown Sh-en, in her sea-weed 
 
 drapery. 
 Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a 
 
 sea. 
 
 In the east, the rose of morning seems as if 
 
 'twould 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 for ever 
 
 stricken mute ; 
 
 And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of 
 
 the lute ! 
 
 2*
 
 18 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 In the hushes of the midnight, when the 
 
 hehotropes grow strong 
 With the dampness, I hear music — hear a quiet, 
 
 plaintive song — 
 A. most sad, melodious utterance, as of some 
 
 immortal wrong — 
 
 Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that 
 
 pleads in vain, 
 Of a damned Soul repentant, that cannot be 
 
 pure again ! — 
 A-nd I lie awake and listen to the music of her 
 
 pain ! 
 
 0. the mystical, wild music ! how it melts into 
 
 the white 
 or the moon that turns the sombre, brooding 
 
 shadows into light ! 
 How it sobs itself to slumber in the quiets of 
 
 the night ! 
 
 And whence comes this mournful music ? — 
 
 whence, unless it chance to be 
 From the Siren, the sad Siren, in her sea-weed 
 
 drapery. 
 Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a 
 
 sea!
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Y. 
 DRESSING THE BEIDE. 
 A Fragmennt. 
 
 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, 
 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 !
 
 20 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 TI. 
 TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN. 
 
 0, CEASE, sweet music, let us rest: 
 
 The morning comes, the hateful dawn ! 
 Henceforth let day be counted night. 
 And midnip^ht called the morn. 
 
 0, 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. music, lest 
 We weep with thy strange sorrow, cease ! 
 Be still, and let us rest. 
 
 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 !
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 21 
 
 And sadder they whose longing hps 
 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. 
 
 0, 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.
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 TIL 
 TIGER-LILIES. 
 
 I LIKE not lady-slippers, 
 
 Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms, 
 
 Nor yet the flaky roses, 
 
 Eed, or white as snow ; 
 I like the chaliced 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 p-arden walks !
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 And when tlie rain is falling, 
 
 I sit beside the window 
 
 And watch them glow and glisten, 
 
 How they burn and glow ! 
 for the burning lilies, 
 The tender Eastern lilies, 
 The gorgeous tiger-lilies, 
 
 That in our garden stow I
 
 24 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 VIIL 
 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 I 
 
 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 parroquet, by the broidered screen, 
 Dangles its silvery chain. 
 
 But pallid, star-sweet, and cold, 
 Like a phantom she fills the place, 
 
 Sick to the heart, in that cage of gold, 
 With her sumptuous disgrace 1
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 25 
 
 IX. 
 IT WAS A KNIGHT OF AEAGON. 
 
 " Fuerte qnal azero entre armas, 
 Y quul cera entre lus damas." 
 
 It was a Kniglit of Aragon, 
 
 And he was brave to see, 
 His helmet and his hauberk, 
 
 And the greaves upon his knee 
 His escuderos rode in front. 
 
 His cavahers behind, 
 With stain-cd plumes and gonfalons, 
 
 And music in the wind 1 
 
 It was the maid Prudencia, 
 
 The hly of Madrid, 
 "Who watched him from her balcony, 
 
 Among the jasmines hid. 
 3
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 ' Virgin Mother ! ' quoth the Knight, 
 ' Is that the daybreak there ? ' 
 
 It was the saintly Hght that shone 
 Above the maiden's hair 1 
 
 3. 
 
 Then he who crossed the Pyrenees 
 
 To fight the dogs of France, 
 Grew pale with love for her whose look 
 
 Had pierced him like a lance ; 
 And they will wed the morrow morn : 
 
 Beat softly, watchful stars ! — 
 And mind you, gallant cavaliers, 
 
 How Venus conquers Mars. 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN. 
 
 When the Sultan Shali-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 pet 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, Otlmaanee 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
 
 28 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 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 pearly nails, and bites her lips 
 Till they bloom again — but, alas, that rose 
 Not for the Sultan buds and blows I 
 Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 When he goes to the city Ispahan I 
 
 Then at a wave of her sunny hand, 
 The dancing-girls of Samarcand 
 Float in like mists from Fairy-land ! 
 And to the low voluptuous swoons 
 Of music rise and fall the moons 
 Of their full brown bosoms. Orient blood 
 Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes : 
 And there, in this Eastern Paradise, 
 Filled with the fumes of sandal-wood. 
 And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 29 
 
 Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk cliYaii. 
 Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ; 
 And her Arab lover sits with her. 
 Thafs when the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
 Goes to the city I^palian ! 
 
 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 Saltan Shah-Zaman 
 Has gone to the city Ispahan ! 
 
 3*
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 XI. 
 HASCIIEESH. 
 
 Stricken with tliouglit, I staggered through 
 
 the night ; 
 The heavens leaned down to me with splendid 
 
 fires ; 
 The seven Pleiads, changed to magic lyres. 
 Made music as I went; and to my sight 
 A Palace shaped itself against the skies : 
 Great sapphire-studded portals suddenly 
 Opened upon vast Gothic galleries 
 Of gold and porphyry, and I could see, 
 Through half-drawn curtains that let in the 
 
 day, 
 Dim tropic gardens stretching far away 1 
 
 Ah ! what a wonder seized upon my soul, 
 When from that structure of the upper airs
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 81 
 
 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 fell upon me .... a vague sense 
 Of near calamity. 0, lead me hence ! 
 I shrieked, and lo ! from out a darkhng hole 
 That opened at my feet, crawled after me, 
 Up the broad staircase, creatures of huge size, 
 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!
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 XII. 
 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 Iman 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 hke him, with their sallow 
 
 cheeks 
 Puffed out like Iraan's I 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 — 
 lie, too would listen ; and close after him
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD. 38 
 
 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 hsten like the rest, 
 For Hassan's fame w^as ripe in all the East! 
 From spicy Cairo to far Ispahan, 
 From Mecca to Damascus, he was known, 
 Hassan, the Arab with the Singing Heart. 
 His songs were sung by boatmen on the Nile, 
 By BeddoAvee maidens, and in Tartar camps, 
 "While all men loved him as they love their eyes 
 And w^ien 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 I 
 Caught at the gilded epic as it grew, 
 And for my Christian brothers wrote it down.
 
 84 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 xiir. 
 
 A TUEKISH LEGEND. 
 
 A CERTAIN Pasha, dead five thousand years, 
 Once from his harem fled in sudden tears, 
 
 And had this sentence on the city's gate 
 Deeply engraven, " Only God is great." 
 
 So these four words above the city's noise 
 Hung like the accents of an angel's voice ; 
 
 And evermore, from the high barbacan, 
 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 
 AVhereon is written, "Only God is great!"
 
 II. 
 
 SWALLOW -FLIGHTS
 
 S W A L L O W - F 1. 1 G H T S . 
 
 I. 
 
 GHOSTS. 
 
 Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange 
 
 hghta 
 That flash on clank morasses, the quick wind 
 That smites us by the roadside — are the Night's 
 Innumerable children. Unconfined 
 By shroud or coflin, disembodied souls, 
 Uneas}^ spirits, steal into the air 
 From ancient graveyards when the curfew tolls 
 At the day's death. Pestilence and despair 
 Fly with the sightless bats at set of sun. 
 And wheresoever murders have been done, 
 In crowded palaces or lonesome woods. 
 Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost 
 Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods 
 Some sad, invisible, accursed Ghost !
 
 38 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 n. 
 
 THE FADED VIOLET. 
 
 What thought is folded in thy leares! 
 AVhat tender thought, what speechless pain 1 
 I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
 Thou darling of the April rain 1 
 
 I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
 Though f^cent and azure tint arc fled — 
 (3 dry, mute lips ! ye are the typo 
 Of something in me cold and dead : 
 
 Of something wilted hke thy leaves ; 
 Of fragrance flown, of beauty gone ; 
 Yet, for the love of those white hands 
 That found thee, April's earliest-born —
 
 SWALLOW-JLIGHTS. 39 
 
 That found thee when thy dewy mouth 
 Was purpled as with stains of wine — 
 For love of her who love forgot, 
 I hold thy faded Kps to mine 1 
 
 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.
 
 40 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 III. 
 DEAD. 
 
 A SORROWFUL -svoman 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 wlien I rest — 
 The violet eyes, the waxen hands. 
 And the one white rose on the breast !
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LUNCH. 
 
 A Gothic window, where a damask curtain 
 Made the blank dayhght sliadowy and uncer- 
 tain : 
 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 
 Plump grapes hung dowm, dead-ripe and with- 
 out 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! 
 
 4*
 
 42 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 V. 
 BEFOKE THE RAIN. 
 
 We knew it would rain, for all the morn, 
 
 A spirit on slender ropes of mist 
 Was low^ering its golden buckets down 
 
 Into the vapory amethyst 
 
 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 ! 
 
 I
 
 SW.4LL0W-FLIGnTS. 43 
 
 VI. 
 AFTEE 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 globe of gold, a disc, a speck : 
 And in the belfry sits a Dove 
 With purple ripples on her neck.
 
 44 SWALLOW-FLTGHTS. 
 
 Til. 
 WEDDED. 
 
 [Proven C(il Air.] 
 
 1. 
 
 The happy bells shall ring, 
 
 Marguerite ; 
 The summer birds shall sing, 
 
 Ifargucr'de — 
 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 !
 
 BTVALLOW-FLTGHTS. 
 
 YIIT. 
 THE BLUE-BELLS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The roses are a regal troop, 
 
 And humble folks the daisies ; 
 Bat, Blue-bells of Xew-England, 
 
 To you I give my praises — 
 To you, fair phantoms in the sun, 
 
 Whom merry Spring discovers, 
 With blue-birds for your laureates, 
 
 And honey-bees for lovers. 
 
 The south-wind breathes, and lo ! ye throng 
 
 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.
 
 46 SWALLOW-FLIGETS. 
 
 All night your eyes are closed in sleep, 
 
 But open at the dawning ; 
 Such simple faith as yours can see 
 
 God's coming in the morning ! 
 You lead me by your holiness, 
 
 To pleasant ways of duty : 
 You set my thoughts to melody, 
 
 You fill me with your beauty. 
 
 And you are like the eyes I love. 
 
 So modest and so tender, 
 Just touched with daybreak's glorious light, 
 
 And evening's quiet splendor. 
 Long may the heavens give you rain, 
 
 The sunshine its caresses, 
 Long may the woman that I love 
 
 Entwine you in her tresses.
 
 SWALLOYr-FLIGDTS. 47 
 
 IX. 
 NOPwA McC.\J{TT. 
 
 [Irish Air.] 
 
 1. 
 
 Z^ToRA is pretty, 
 Xora is witty, 
 
 Witty and pretty as pretty can be ! 
 She's the completest 
 Of giiis, and the neatest, 
 The brightest and sweetest : 
 
 But she's not for me. 
 
 Mavourneen I 
 
 2. 
 
 Nora, be still, you ! 
 Nora, why will you 
 
 Be witty and pretty as pretty can be. 
 So strong and so slender. 
 So haughty and tender. 
 So sweet in your splendor — 
 
 And yet not for me ? 
 
 },[avourneen !
 
 *3 SWALLOVr-FLlGHTS. 
 
 X. 
 THE MOOHLAND. 
 
 The moorland lies a dreary waste ; 
 
 The night is dark with drizzling rain : 
 In yonder yawning cave of cloud 
 
 The snaky lightning writhes with pain. 
 And the Wind, is ivaiUng hittcrhj. 
 
 sobbing rain, outside my door, 
 
 wailing phantoms, make your moan ! 
 
 Go through the night in blind despair — 
 Your shadowy lips have touched my own 
 And the Wind is wailing hitterhj. 
 
 No more the robin breaks its heart 
 Of music in the pathless woods ! 
 
 The ravens croak for such as I, 
 
 The plovers screech above their broods. 
 And the Wind is woiling hiiicrly.
 
 SAVALLOW-FLIGniS. 
 
 All mournful things are friends of mine, 
 (That weary sound of falling leaves!) 
 
 Ah, there is not a kindred soul 
 
 For me on earth, but moans and grieves. 
 And the Wind is ivailing hitterly. 
 
 T cannot sleep this lonesome night ; 
 
 The ghostly rain goes by in haste, 
 And, further than the eye can reach, 
 
 The moorland lies a dreary waste ! 
 And the Wind is luailing hitterly.
 
 50 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 XL 
 i^AMELESS PAIN. 
 
 In my nostrils the summer wind 
 
 Blows the exquisite scent of the rose ! 
 
 for the golden, golden Avind, 
 Breaking tne 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 soul 
 
 Of the rose through valley and plain, 
 
 1 would you could tear my heart to-day, 
 
 And scatter its nameless pain.
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 XIL 
 THE GIELS. 
 
 Marian, May, and Maud 
 Have not passed me by — 
 
 Arched foot, and mobile 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 
 Aiid Marian pass me by ; 
 
 So they do not scorn me now 
 What care I ?
 
 fi2 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 xin. 
 MURDER DONE. 
 
 Invisible fingers of air 
 
 Just lifted the curtain's fold, 
 
 Just rippled the calm of her golden hair, 
 
 Beautiful treacherous gold ! 
 
 And she stood like the thought of a sculptor, 
 
 carved 
 In marble, snowy and cold ; 
 But her pure, sweet look was as foul a lie 
 As ever a woman told ! 
 
 A statue lay stark at my feet. 
 
 Dead to the finger-tips ! 
 
 A darkness hung in the lengths of her hair, 
 
 And shadowed her perjured lips.
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 53 
 
 I stra.ngled her voice, but, heaven ! 
 
 I could not strangle one moan 
 
 That followed me out in the silent streets 
 
 As I fled through the midnight alone. 
 
 — This in a dream. Now I ask, 
 
 Am I guilty as if I were caught 
 
 With my hands at her throat ? Is it murder 
 
 done? — 
 I murdered her in my thought I 
 
 5*
 
 W SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 xir. 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 Sick of myself and all that keeps the hght 
 Of heaven away from me and mine, I seek 
 This bare, bleak hill, and on its highest peak, 
 Lingering, watch the coming of the night. 
 'Tis ever a new miracle to me. 
 Men look to God for some mysterious sign. 
 For marriage-feasts with water turned to wine, 
 For Christ to \valk upon the troubled sea ; 
 As if He did not to our sense unfold 
 His meanings as miraculous as of old ! 
 Come watch with me the shaft of fire that 
 
 glows 
 In yonder West : the fair, frail palaces, 
 The fading Alps and archipelagoes, 
 And pfreat cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 MAY. 
 
 Hebe's here, May is here I 
 The air is fresh and sunny ; 
 And the miser-bees are busy 
 Hoarding golden honey ! 
 
 See the knots of butter-cups, 
 And the double pansies — 
 Thick as these, within my brain, 
 Grow the quaintest fancies ! 
 
 Let me write my songs to-day, 
 Rhymes with dulcet closes — 
 Four-hne epics one might hide 
 In the hearts of roses.
 
 56 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 PALABKAS CAEINOSAS. 
 
 ISpanUh 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, up-lifted 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'll have to say Good-night again! 
 
 But there w^ill 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 ?
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 67 
 
 You would have blushed yourself to death 
 
 To own so much a year ago — 
 
 What, both these snowy hands ! ah, then, 
 I'll have to say Good-night again I
 
 SW ALLO W-FLIGH'IS. 
 
 XVII. 
 LITTLE MAUD. 
 
 WHERE is our dainty, our darling, 
 
 The daintiest darling of all? 
 where is the voice on the stairway, 
 
 where is the voice in the hall ? 
 The little short steps in the entry, 
 
 The silvery laugh in the hall ? 
 where is our dainty, our darling. 
 
 The daintiest darling of all, 
 Little Maud ? 
 
 The peaches are ripe in the orchard, 
 
 The apricots ready to fall ; 
 And the grapes reach up to the sunshine 
 
 Over the garden-wall — 
 But where are the lips, full and melting, 
 
 That looked up so pouting and red. 
 When we dangled the sun-purpled bunches 
 
 Of Isabells over her head ?
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGnXS. 
 
 rosebud of Avomen ! where are you ? 
 
 (She never repHes to our call !) 
 where is our dainty, our darhng, 
 
 The daintiest darhng of all, 
 Little Maud ?
 
 00 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 xvin 
 
 BONGS. 
 
 I HAVE placed a golden 
 Ring upon the hand 
 Of the bhthest Uttle 
 Lady in the land I 
 
 When the early roses 
 Scent the sunny air, 
 She shall gather white ones 
 To tremble in her hair 1 
 
 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!
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGUTS, 
 
 The Year which has brought me so much \^oq. 
 
 That if it were not for you, my dear, 
 
 I could wish the fuchsias' fire might glow 
 
 For me as well as the Year. 
 
 The blackbird sings in the hazel-brake, 
 And the squirrel sits on the tree ; 
 
 And Blanche she walks in the merry green- 
 wood, 
 Down by the summer sea. 
 
 The blackbird lies when he sings of love, 
 And the squirrel, a rogue is he ; 
 
 And Blanche is an arrant flint, I swear, 
 And Hofht as ho:ht can be. 
 
 blackbird, die in the hazel-brake ! 
 And, squirrel, starve on the tree ! 
 And Blanche — you may walk in the merry 
 greenwood. 
 You are nothing more to me ! 
 6
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 IV. 
 
 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 sinful soul 
 At the portals of Heaven I lie, 
 Never to walk with the blest, 
 Ah, never 1 . . . only to die.
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 xrx, 
 HESPEKIDE3. 
 
 If thy soul, Herrick, 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 j 
 Musical as brooks that run 
 O'er yellow shallows in the sun ;
 
 64 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 
 
 Soft as the satin fringe that shades 
 The eyehds of thy fragrant maids ; 
 Brief as thy lyrics, Herrick, are, 
 And pohshed as the bosom of a star.
 
 SWALLOW-FLIGHTS. 65 
 
 XX. 
 THE POET. 
 
 He wasted precious gifts of Grod. 
 But here's the hmit of his woes, 
 Sleep rest him ! See, above him grows 
 
 The very grass whereon he trod. 
 
 He walked with demons, ghosts, and things 
 Unsightly . . . terrors and despairs. 
 And ever in the blackened airs 
 
 A dismal raven flapped its wings. 
 
 Behold ! within this narrow grave 
 
 Is shut the baser part of him. 
 
 Behold ! he could not wholly dim 
 The genius gracious heaven gave — 
 
 Weird murmurings, vague prophetic tones, 
 Are blown across the silent zones 
 Forever in the midnight air. 
 6*
 
 fifi S\VALL0W-FLIGHT3. 
 
 XXT. 
 THE EOBIN. 
 
 From out the blossomed cherry-tops 
 Sing, bHthesome Robin, chant and sing; 
 With chirp, and trill, and magic-stops 
 Win thou the listening ear of Spring ! 
 
 For while thou lingerest in d-elight, 
 An idle poet, with thy rhyme. 
 The summer hours will take their flight 
 And leave thee in a barren clime. 
 
 Not all the Autumn's brittle gold. 
 Nor sun, nor moon, nor star shall bring 
 The jocund spirit which of old 
 Made it an easy joy to sing ! 
 
 So said a poet — having lost 
 The precious time when he was young — 
 Now wandering by the wintry coast 
 With empty heart and silent tongue.
 
 III. 
 
 THE B,^T,LAD OF BABIE BELL 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS.
 
 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL, 
 
 Have you not heard the poets tell 
 How came the dainty Babie 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 hght they did not bend the bells 
 Of the celestial asphodels !
 
 70 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. 
 
 They fell like clew upon the flowers, 
 Then all the air grew strangely sweet ! 
 And thus came dainty Babie Bell 
 Into this world of ours. 
 
 II. 
 
 She came and brought delicious May. 
 
 The swallows built beneath the eaves ; 
 
 Like sunlight in and out the leaves, 
 The robins went, the live-long 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 ! 
 0, earth was full of singing-birds, 
 And opening spring- tide flowers, 
 When the dainty Babie Bell 
 
 Came to this world of ours ! 
 
 Babie, dainty Babie Bell, 
 IIow Mv she grew from day to day ! 
 
 "What woman-nature fllled her eyes, 
 What poetry within them lay !
 
 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. T 
 
 Those deep and tender twilight eyes, 
 So fall 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 
 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 Babie 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. 
 
 IT. 
 
 And now the orchards, which were white 
 And red with blossoms when she came, 
 Were rich in autumn's mellow prime :
 
 72 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. 
 
 The clustered apples burnt like flame, 
 The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell, 
 The ivory chestnut burst its shell, 
 The grapes hung purpling in the grange : 
 And time wrought just as rich a change 
 
 In little Babie Bell. 
 Her lissome form more perfect grew, 
 And in her features we could trace. 
 In softened curves, her mother's 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 ! 
 
 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.
 
 TUE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. T3 
 
 It came upon us by degrees : 
 
 We saw its shadow ere it fell, 
 
 The knowledge that our God had sent 
 
 His messenger for Babie 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, 
 
 ' 0, 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, Babie Bell ! 
 
 The messenger from unseen lands : 
 And what did dainty Babie Bell ? 
 She only crossed her little hands. 
 She only looked more meek and fair I 
 We parted back her silken hair : 
 7
 
 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL, 
 
 We wove the roses round her brow, 
 White buds, the summer's drifted snow — 
 Wrapped her from head to foot in flowers I 
 And thus went dainty Babie Bell 
 Out of this world of ours I
 
 PISCATAQUA RIV£R. T5 
 
 PISCATAQUA PwIVEK. 
 1S60. 
 
 Thou singest by the gleaming isles, 
 By woods and fields of corn, 
 
 Thou singest, and the heaven 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, wrapped in dreamy joy, 
 
 Dip, and surge idly to and fro, 
 Like the red harbor-buoy !
 
 76 PISCATAQUA RIVER. 
 
 To sit in happy indolence, 
 
 To rest upon the oars, 
 And catch the heavy earthy scents 
 
 That blow from summer shores : 
 
 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. 
 
 River ! flowing to the main 
 
 Through woods and fields of corn, 
 
 Hear thou my longing and my pain 
 This sunny birthday morn : 
 
 And take this song which sorrow shapes 
 
 To music like thine own. 
 And sing it to the cliffs and capes 
 
 And crap's where I am known !
 
 PYTHAGORAS. 77 
 
 PYTHAGOEAS. 
 
 Above the petty passions of the crowd 
 I stand in frozen marble hke 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 veined shells and burnished scales which 
 
 once 
 Enwrapped 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.
 
 78 PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 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 m 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 thowe 
 
 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 h(!ard loud voices by the sounding shore,
 
 PYTHAGORAS. 79 
 
 The stormy sea-gods, and from fluted conclis 
 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 spht the iron rock ; 
 And from my odorous prison-house a bii d, 
 I in its bosom, darted : so we fled, 
 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 
 Ean 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 scintillant 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,
 
 80 PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 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 
 Leaped headlong down a precipice ; and there, 
 Gathering 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, 
 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,
 
 PYTnAGORAS. 81 
 
 Breaking through leafless brambles and dead 
 
 leaves, 
 Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut boughs 
 The fruit dropped noiseless through the autumn 
 
 night, 
 I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do : 
 We vreep 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 ? 
 Xo ! let me sit 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 fras-ments of old worlds.
 
 A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET. 
 
 A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET. 
 
 * Where go you, pretty !Maggie, 
 Where go you in the rain ? 
 I go to ask the sailors 
 Wlio sailed the Spanish main, 
 
 ' If they have seen my Willie, 
 If he'll come back to me — 
 It is so sad to have him 
 A-sailing on the sea !' 
 
 ' Maggie, pretty Maggie, 
 Turn back to yonder town ; 
 Your Willie's in the ocean, 
 A hundred fathoms down 1
 
 A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET. 
 
 His hair is turned to sea-kelp, 
 His eyes are changed to stones, 
 And twice two years have knitted 
 The coral round his bones ! 
 
 ' The blossoms and the clover 
 Shall bloom and bloom again, 
 But never shall your lover 
 Come o'er the Spanish main I' 
 
 But Maggie never heeded, 
 For mournfully said she : 
 ' It is so sad to have him 
 A-sailing on the sea !' 
 
 She left me in the darkness : 
 I heard the sea-gulls screech, 
 And burly winds were growling 
 With breakers on the beach ! 
 
 The bells of old Nantucket, 
 What touching things they said, 
 When Maggie lay a-sleeping 
 With hhes round her head I
 
 8i 
 
 A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET. 
 
 The parson preached a sermon, 
 And prayed and preached again — 
 But she had gone to WilUe 
 Across the Spanish main !
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 85 
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 LA DAME AVX CAMELIA8. 
 
 The ^^ Dame with the Camelias" — 
 
 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 oily Exquisite, 
 With gloves and glass sublime ; 
 
 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 Honiton lace ;
 
 86 THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Sir Crcesus 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. 
 
 'Twas in our own New England 
 
 She breathed the morning air ; 
 'Twas the sunshine of New England 
 
 That blended with her hair ; 
 And modesty and purity 
 
 Walked with her everywhere ! 
 
 All day like a ray of light she played 
 
 About old Harvey's mill ; 
 And her grandsire held her on his knee 
 
 In the evenings long and still. 
 And told her tales of Lexington, 
 
 And the trench at Bunker's Hill —
 
 THE TRAGEDY, 
 
 And of the painted Wamponsags, 
 
 The Indians who of yore 
 Builded their wigwams out of bark 
 
 In the woods of Sagamore ; 
 And how the godly Puritans 
 
 Burnt witches by the score ! 
 
 Or, touching on his sailor-life, 
 
 He told how, years ago, 
 In the dark of a cruel winter night. 
 
 In the rain and sleet and snow, 
 The good bark Martha Jane went down 
 
 On the rocks off Holmes' Ho' ! 
 
 The years jflew by, and the maiden grew 
 
 Like a harebell in the glade ; 
 The chestnut shadows crept in her eyes — 
 
 Sweet eyes that were not afraid 
 To look to heaven at morn or even. 
 
 Or any time she prayed ! 
 
 She walked with him to the village church. 
 And his eyes would fill with pride 
 
 To see her walk with the man she loved — 
 To see them side by side !
 
 8^ THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Dear Heaven ! she were an angel now 
 If she had only died. 
 
 If she had only died ? Alas ! 
 
 How keen must be the woe 
 That makes it better one should lie 
 
 Where the sunshine cannot go, 
 Than to live in this sunny world of ours, 
 
 Where the happy blossoms blow ! 
 
 Would she had wed some country clown 
 
 Before the luckless day 
 When her cousin came to that lowly home- 
 
 Her cousin Richard May, 
 With his city airs and handsome eyes. 
 
 To lead her soul astray ! 
 
 One night they left the cottage — 
 One night in the mist and rain ; 
 
 And the old man never saw his child 
 Nor Richard May again ; 
 
 Never saw his pet in the clover patch, 
 In the meadow, nor the lane. 
 
 Ah ! never was a heart so torn 
 Since this wild world began,
 
 THE TRAGEDY. f9 
 
 As day by day he looked for her, 
 
 This pitiful old man. 
 " Where is Miriam gone ?" he said, 
 
 This pitiful old man. 
 
 Many a dreary winter came, 
 
 And he had passed away ; 
 And we never heard of her who fled 
 
 In the night with Richard May ; 
 Never knew if she were alive or dead — 
 
 Till I met her at the play ! 
 
 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 burning thread 
 
 Of pearl and amethyst. 
 " A cheat, a gilded grief!" I said, 
 
 And my eyes were filled with mist. 
 S*
 
 90 THE TRAGEDY. 
 
 I could not see the players play, 
 
 I heard the music moan ; 
 It moaned hke a dismal autumn wind, 
 
 That dies in the woods alone ; 
 And when it stopped I heard it still, 
 
 The mournful monotone ! 
 
 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 
 
 Who held me with her 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 quean ;
 
 THE TRAGEDY. 91 
 
 But they did not see the Tragedy — 
 The one I saw, I mean ! 
 
 They did not see that cold-cut face, 
 
 Those braids of golden hair ; 
 Or, seeing her jewels, only said, 
 
 '• The lady's rich and fair." 
 But I tell you, 'twas the Play of Life, 
 
 And that woman played Despair I
 
 92 HAUNTED. 
 
 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 firefly glows, 
 
 And a woman steals by the stagnant pond 
 
 Wrapped in her burial clothes.
 
 93 
 
 There's a dark blue scar on her throat, 
 And ever she makes a moan, 
 And the humid hzards shine in the grass, 
 And the Hchens 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 ? 
 
 Go not there at night, 
 
 For a spell hangs over all — 
 
 The palsied elms, and the dismal road, 
 
 And the broken garden-wall. 
 
 0, go not there at night. 
 For a curse is on the place ; 
 Go not there, for fear you meet 
 The Murdered face to face !
 
 94 PAMPINEA. 
 
 PAMPIKEA. 
 
 AN IDYL. 
 
 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 Mr land. 
 And in a garden cool and green, 
 Boccaccio's own enchanted place, 
 I met Pampinea face to face — 
 A maid so lovely that to see 
 Her smile is to know Italy !
 
 PAMPINEA. 
 
 Her hair was like a coronet 
 Upon tier Grecian forehead set, 
 Where one gem gUstened 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 
 Of love and wine and dance, I spread 
 My mantle by an almond-tree, 
 "And here, beneath the rose," I said, 
 "I'll 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 
 W^ith glint of plume and golden brede I
 
 96 PAMPINEA. 
 
 And while she whispered in my ear, 
 
 The pleasant Arno murmured near. 
 
 The dewy, slim chameleons run 
 
 Through twenty colors in the sun ; 
 
 The breezes broke the fountain's glass, 
 
 And woke fcolian melodies. 
 
 And shook from out the scented trees 
 
 The bleached lemon-blossoms on the grass. 
 
 The tale ? I have forgot the tale — 
 
 A Lady all for love forlorn, 
 
 A rose-bud, and a nightingale 
 
 That bruised his bosom on the thorn ; 
 
 A pot 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. 
 
 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 sea-side nook, 
 Closed a white finger in her book. 
 Half vexed that she should read, and weep 
 For Petrarch, to a man asleep !
 
 PAMPIXEA. 97 
 
 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 ledge of oohte, 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 sa^t 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 ! 
 Most dreams are dark, beyond the range 
 Of reason; oft we cannot tell 
 9
 
 98 TAMPIXEA. 
 
 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 !
 
 A GREAT MAN S DEATH. 
 
 A GEEAT MAN'S DEATH. 
 
 To-day a god died. Never any more 
 Shall man look on him. Never any more, 
 In hall or senate, shall his eloquent voice 
 Give hope to a sick nation. In his prime 
 Not all the world could daunt him ; yet a ghost 
 A poor mute ghost, a something we call Death, 
 Has silenced him for ever. Let the land 
 Look for his peer : he has not yet been found. 
 
 A callow bird, of not so many days 
 As there are leaves upon the wildling rose, 
 Chirps from yon sycamore ; this violet 
 Sprung up an hour since from the fibrous earth : 
 At noon the rain fell, and to-night the sun 
 "Will sink with its old splendor in the sea, — 
 And yet to-day a god died. . . . Nature smiles 
 On our mortality. A sparrow's death, 
 Or the unnoticed falling of a leaf. 
 Is more to her than when a ereat man dies !
 
 100 KATHIE MORRIS. 
 
 KATHIE MORRIS. 
 
 AN OLD man's poem. 
 1.1 
 
 Ah ! fine it was that April time, when gentle 
 
 winds were blowing, 
 To hunt for pale arbutus-blooms that hide 
 
 beneath the leaves. 
 To hear the slanting rain come down, and see 
 
 the clover growing, 
 And watch the airy swallows as they darted 
 
 round the eaves ! 
 
 You wonder why I dream to-niglit of clover 
 
 that was growing 
 So many years ago, my wife, when we were in 
 
 our prime ;
 
 KATHIE MORRIS. ''^1 
 
 For, hark ! the wind is in the flue, and Johnny 
 
 says 'tis snowing, 
 And through the storm the clanging bells ring 
 
 in the Christmas time. 
 
 I cannot tell, but something sweet about my 
 
 heart is clinging. 
 A vision and a memory — 'tis little that I mind 
 The weary wintry weather, for I hear the 
 
 robins singing. 
 And the petals of the apple-blooms are ruffled 
 
 in the wind ! 
 
 It was a sunny morn in May, and in the fra- 
 grant meadow 
 I lay, and dreamed of one fair face, as fair and 
 
 fresh as spring : 
 Would Kathie Morris love me? then in sun- 
 shine and in shadow 
 I built up lofty castles on a golden wedding- 
 ring ! 
 
 9*
 
 102 KATHIE MORRIS. 
 
 5. 
 
 0, sweet it was to dream of lier, the soldier's 
 
 only daughter, 
 The pretty pious Puritan, that flirted so with 
 
 Will ; 
 The music of her winsome mouth was like the 
 
 laughing water 
 That broke in silvery syllables by Farmer 
 
 Philip's mill. 
 
 6. 
 
 And Will had gone away to sea; he did not 
 
 leave her grieving ; 
 Her bonny heart was not for him, so reckless 
 
 and so vain ; 
 And Will turned out a buccaneer, and hanged 
 
 was he for thieving 
 And scuttling helpless ships that sailed across 
 
 the Spanish Main. 
 
 And I had come to grief for her, the scornful 
 
 village beauty, 
 For, oh I she had a witty tongue could cut you 
 
 like a knife :
 
 KATHIB MORRIS. 1?3 
 
 She scorned me with her haughty eyes, and I, 
 
 in bounden duty, 
 Did love her — loved her more for that, and 
 
 Tvearied of my life ! 
 
 And yet 'twas sweet to dream of her, to think 
 her wavy tresses 
 
 Might rest some happy, happy day, like sun- 
 shine, on my cheek ; 
 
 The idle winds that fanned my brow I dreamed 
 were her caresses, 
 
 And in the robin's twitterings I heard my 
 sweetheart speak. 
 
 And as I lay and thought of her, her fairy face 
 adorning 
 
 With lover's fancies, treasuring the slightest 
 word she'd said, 
 
 'Twas Kathie broke upon me like a blushing 
 summer morning, 
 
 And a half-blown rosy clover reddened under- 
 neath her tread !
 
 104 KATIIIE MORRIS. 
 
 10. 
 
 Then I glanced up at Kathie, and her eyes were 
 full of laughter: 
 
 ' 0, Kathie, Kathie Morris, I am lying at your 
 feet; 
 
 Bend above me, say you love me, that you'll 
 love me ever after, 
 
 Or let me lie and die here, in the fragrant mea- 
 dow-sweet !' 
 
 And then I turned my face away, and trembled 
 
 at my daring. 
 For wildly, wildly had I spoke, with flashing 
 
 cheek and eye ; 
 And there was silence; I looked up, all pallid 
 
 and despairing, 
 For fear she'd take me at my word, and leave 
 
 me there to die. 
 
 12. 
 
 The modest lashes of her eyes upon her cheeks 
 
 were drooping. 
 Her merciless white fmgers tore a blushing bud 
 
 apart;
 
 KATHIE MORRIS. 105 
 
 Then, quick as lightning, Kathie came, and 
 
 kneeUng half and stooping. 
 She hid her bonny, bonny face against my 
 
 beating heart. 
 
 13. 
 
 0, nestle, nestle, nestle there ! the heart would 
 
 give thee greeting ; 
 Lie thou there, all trustfully, in trouble and in 
 
 pain ; 
 This breast shall shield thee from the storm 
 
 and bear its bitter beating, 
 These arms shall hold thee tenderly in sunshine 
 
 and in rain ! 
 
 14. 
 
 Old sexton! set your chimes in tune, and let 
 there be no snarling, 
 
 Ring out a joyous wedding-hymn to all the 
 listening air ; 
 
 And, girls, strew roses as she comes, the scorn- 
 ful, brown-eyed darling — 
 
 A princess, by the wavy gold and glistening 
 of her hair !
 
 106 KATHIE MORRIS. 
 
 15. 
 
 Hark ! hear the bells. The Christmas bells ? 0, 
 
 no ; who set them ringing ? 
 I think I hear our bridal-bells, and I with joy 
 
 am blind ; 
 I smell the clover in the fields, I hear the robins 
 
 singing. 
 And the j^etals of the apple-blooms are ruffled 
 
 in the wind ! 
 
 16. 
 
 Ah ! Kathie, you've been true to me in fair and 
 
 cloudy weather ; 
 Our Father has been good to us when we've 
 
 been sorely tried : 
 I pray to Him, when we must die, that wc may 
 
 die together. 
 And slumber softly underneath the clover, side 
 
 by side.
 
 107 
 
 LAMIA. 
 
 * Go on your "way, and let me pass. 
 
 You stop a wild despair, 
 I would that I were turned to brass 
 Like that grim dragon there, 
 
 ' Which, coucliant 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 A'ear, 
 
 The sad leaf or the gay ? 
 Let Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 
 Their falcons fly this day.
 
 108 
 
 ' Twill be as ro_yal sport, pardie, 
 
 As falconers have tried 
 
 At Astolat — but let me be ! 
 
 I would that I had died, 
 
 ' 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 in the 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 ! 
 
 ' 0, 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 BLEEP. 109 
 
 INYOCATION TO SLEEP. 
 
 There is a rest for all things. On still niglits 
 
 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. 
 weary, weary night, that brings no rest to 
 me I 
 
 10
 
 110 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 
 
 Spirit of dreams and silvern memories, 
 
 Delicate Sleep ! 
 One who is sickening of his tiresome days, 
 Brings thee a soul that he would have thee 
 
 keep 
 A captive in thy mystical domain, 
 With Puck and Ariel, and the grotesque train 
 That do inhabit slumber. Give his sight 
 Immortal shapes, and bring to him again 
 His Psyche that went out into the night ! 
 
 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 feet of thought 
 Wander 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,
 
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. l.U 
 
 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 
 On the portcullis, at thy castle gate, 
 Yearning to see the golden door of dreams 
 Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate Sleep !
 
 112 SEADRIFT. 
 
 8EADEIFT. 
 
 See where she stands, on 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 !
 
 SEADRIFT. 113 
 
 Beyond the light of the beacon bright 
 
 A merchantman is tacking 
 The hoarse wind whisthng 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 0, 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. 
 10*
 
 114 SEADRIFT. 
 
 In shimmering lines, through the sullen 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 ?
 
 INFELICISSIMUS. 115 
 
 INFELICISSIMUS. 
 I. 
 
 I "WALKED witli him one melancholy night 
 Down by the sea, along the lonely strands, 
 While in the dreary heaven the Northern Light 
 Beckoned with flaming hands — 
 
 II. 
 
 Beckoned and vanished, like a woeful ghost 
 That fain would lure us to some dismal wood, 
 And tell us tales of ships that have been lost. 
 Of violence and blood. 
 
 ni. 
 
 And where yon rock o'erhangs the angry froth, 
 We sat together as the night went by. 
 Watching the great star-bear that in the North 
 Guarded the midnight sky.
 
 116 INFELICISSIMUS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And while the moonhght wrought its miracles, 
 Drenching the world with silent silver rain, 
 He spoke of life and its tumultuous ills ; 
 He told me of his pain. 
 
 V. 
 
 He said his soul was like the troubled sea 
 With autumn brooding over it : and then 
 Spoke of his hopes, of what he yearned to be. 
 And what he might have been. 
 
 VI, 
 
 ' I hope,' he said, ' I hope for peace at last, 
 I only ask for peace I My god is Ease ! 
 Day after day some rude Iconoclast 
 Breaks all my images. 
 
 VII. 
 
 * There is a better life than I have known — 
 A surer, purer, larger life than this : 
 There is another, a celestial zone, 
 Where I shall know of bliss.'
 
 INFELICISSIMUS. IIT 
 
 Ylir. 
 
 So, close his eyes, and cross bis helpless hands, 
 And lay the year's last flowers upon his breast ; 
 For time and death have stayed the golden 
 
 sands 
 That ran with such unrest ! 
 
 You weep : I smile : I know that he is dead, 
 So is his passion, and 'tis better so ! 
 Take him, Earth, and round his lovely head 
 Let countless roses blow !
 
 118 THE QUEENS RIDE. 
 
 THE QUEEN'S EIDE. 
 An Invitation, 
 
 'Tis 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 1 
 
 Lady mine.
 
 THE QUEEN S RIDE. 11.9 
 
 And as they rode along, 
 
 Lady mine, 
 The throstle gave them song. 
 And the buds peeped through the grassi 
 To see youth and beauty pass ! 
 
 Lady mme. 
 
 And on, through deathless time. 
 
 Lady mine, 
 These lovers in their prime, 
 (Two fairy ghosts together !) 
 Ride, Tvith 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,
 
 120 THE QUEENS RIDE. 
 
 And take my love amiss, 
 Then I'll 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.
 
 121 
 
 LANDER. 
 
 Close his bleak eyes — they shall no more 
 
 Flash victory where the cannon roar ; 
 
 And lay the battered sabre at his side, 
 
 (His to the last, for so he would have died !) 
 
 Though he no more may pluck from out its 
 
 sheath 
 The sinewy hghtning that dealt traitors death. 
 Lead the worn war-horse by the plumed bier — 
 Even his horse, now he is dead, is dear ! 
 
 Take him, New England, now his work is done. 
 
 He fought the Good Fight vahantly — and won. 
 
 11
 
 122 LANDER. 
 
 Speak of his daring. This man held his blood 
 Cheaper than water for the Nation's good. 
 Rich Mountain, Fairfax, Romney — he was 
 
 there. 
 Speak of him gently, of his mien, his air ; 
 How true he was, how his strong heart could 
 
 bend 
 With sorrow, hke a woman's, for a friend : 
 Intolerant of every mean desire ; 
 Ice where he liked not ; where he loved, all 
 fire. 
 
 in. 
 
 Take him. New England, gently. Other days, 
 Peaceful and prosperous, shall give him praise. 
 How will our children's children breathe his 
 
 name. 
 Bright on the shadowy muster-roll of fame I 
 Take him. New England, gently ; you can fold 
 No purer patriot in your soft brown mould. 
 
 So, on New England's bosom, let him he. 
 Sleeping awhile — as if the Good could die I
 
 i-v. 
 THK SET OF TURQUOISE.
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 A DEAMATIC SKETCH. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Count of Lara, A poor nohkman. 
 Beatrice, . . . His loife. 
 Miriam, 
 Jacii 
 
 A Page, for the occasion. 
 The scene is laid in the vicinity of Mantua. 
 
 ' >• . . Her dressing-maids. 
 
 [NTA, j 
 
 Scene I, — Count of Lara's villa. A balcony 
 overlooking the garden. Moonlight. Lara 
 and Beatrice. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 The third moon of our marriage, Beatrice ! 
 11* 
 
 It hangs in the still twilight, large and full, 
 Like a ripe orange.
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Like an orange ? yes, 
 
 But not so red, Count. Then it has no stem, 
 
 And ripened out of nothing. 
 
 Critical ! 
 
 Make thou a neater poesy for the moon. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 ISTow, as 't is hidden by those drifts of cloud, 
 With one thin edge just glimmering thi'ough 
 
 the dark, 
 'Tis like some strange, rich jewel of the east, 
 In the cleft side of a mountain. 
 
 Not unlike 1 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 And that reminds me — speaking of jewels — 
 
 love. 
 There is a set of turquoise at Malan's,
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 127 
 
 Ear-drops and bracelets and a necklace — ah ! 
 It" they were mine ! 
 
 LARA, 
 
 And so they should be, dear, 
 Were I Aladdin, and had slaves o' the lamp 
 To fetch me ingots. Why, then, Beatrice, 
 All Persia's turquoise-quarries should be yours. 
 Although your hand is heavy now with gems 
 That tear my Hps when I would kiss its white- 
 ness. 
 Oh ! so you pout ! Why make that full-blown 
 
 rose 
 Into a bud again ? 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 You love me not. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 A coquette's song. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 I sing it. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 A poor song.
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 You love me not, or love me over-much, 
 Which makes you jealous of the gems I wear I 
 You do not deck me as becomes our state, 
 For fear my grandeur should besiege the eyes 
 Of Monte, Clari, Marcus, and the rest — 
 A precious set ! You're jealous, Sir ! 
 
 Not I. 
 
 I love you. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Why, that is as easy said 
 
 As any three short words ; takes no more 
 
 breath 
 To say, ^ I hate you.' What, Sir, have I lived 
 Three times four weeks your wedded loyal 
 
 wife, 
 And do not know your follies ? I will wager 
 (If I could trap his countship into this !) [Aside.] 
 The rarest kisses I know how to give 
 Against the turquoise, that within a month 
 You'll grow so jealous — and without a cause,
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 120 
 
 Or with a reason thin as window-glass — 
 That you will ache to kill me ! 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Will you so ? 
 
 And I — let us clasp haads and kiss on it. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Clasp hands, Sir Trustful ; but not kiss — nay, 
 
 nay! 
 I will not pay my forfeit till I lose. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 And I'll not lose the forfeit. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 We shall see. 
 
 BEATRICE enters the house singing : 
 
 TJiere was an old earl and he lued a young wife, 
 
 Heigh ho, the bonny. 
 And he luas as jealous as Death is of Life, 
 
 Heigh ho, the nonny !
 
 ISO THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Kings saw her, and sighed ; 
 
 And wan lovet^s died. 
 But no one could win the bright honey 
 That lay on the lips of the bonny 
 
 Young bride, 
 Until Cupid, the rover, a-hearting luoidd go, 
 
 Then — heigh ho ! [Exit.] 
 
 She has as many fancies as the wind 
 
 Which now, Hke slumber, hes 'mong spicy 
 
 isles, 
 Then suddenly blows white furrows in the sea ! 
 Lovely and dangerous is my leopardess. 
 To-day, low-lying at my feet; to-morrow, 
 AVith great eyes flashing, threatening doleful 
 
 death — 
 With strokes like velvet ! She's no common 
 
 clay. 
 But fire and dew and marble. I'll not throAv 
 So rare a wonder in the lap o' the world ! 
 Jealous ? I am not jealous — though they say 
 Some sorts of love breed jealousy. And yet, 
 I would I had not wagered ; it implies
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. V-A 
 
 Doubt. If I doubted? Pshaw! I'll walk 
 
 awhile 
 And let the cool air fan me. [Paces ike balcony.] 
 'Twas not wise. 
 
 'Tis only Folly with its cap and bells 
 Can jest with sad things. She seemed earnest, 
 
 too. 
 What if, to pique me, she should over-step 
 The pale of modesty, and give bold eyes 
 (I could not bear that, nay, not even that !) 
 To Marc or Claudiau ? Why, such things have 
 
 been 
 And no sin dreamed of. I will watch her 
 
 close. 
 There, now, I wrong her. She is wild enough, 
 Playing the empress in her honeymoons : 
 But untamed falcons will not wear the hood 
 Nor sit on the wrist, at bidding. Yet if she, 
 To win the turquoise of me, if she should — 
 0! cursed jewels! would that they were 
 
 hung 
 About the ghstening neck of some mer- 
 
 maiden 
 A thousand fathoms underneath the sea !
 
 182 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Scene II. — A garden: the villa seen in the bacJi- 
 ground. LaPwA stretched on the grass ivith a 
 copy of Boccaccio's ''Decameron^ in his hand. 
 Sunset. 
 
 LARA. [Closing the book.] 
 
 A book for sunset — if for any time. 
 
 Most spicy tongues and riant wit had they, 
 
 The merry Ladies of Boccaccio ! 
 
 What tales they told of love-in-idleness, 
 
 (Love old as earth, and yet forever new,) 
 
 Of monks who worshipped Venus — not in 
 
 vain; 
 Of unsuspecting husbands, and gay dames 
 Who held their vows but lightly — by my 
 
 faith, 
 Too much of the latter! 'Tis a sweet, bad 
 
 book, 
 I would not have my sister or my wife 
 Caught by its cunning. In its mellow words 
 Sin is so draped with beauty, speaks so fair, 
 That naught seems wrong but Virtue I Yet. for 
 
 all.
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 133 
 
 It is a sprightly volume, and kills care. 
 I need such sweet physicians. I have grown 
 Sick in the mind — at swords' points with my- 
 self. 
 I am mine own worst enemy. 
 And wherefore ? wherefore ? Beatrice is kind, 
 Less fanciful, and loves me, I would swear. 
 Albeit she will not kiss me till the month 
 Which ends our foolish wager shall have 
 
 passed, 
 A hundred years, and not a single kiss 
 To spice the time with! What a freakish 
 dame ! 
 
 A Page crosses the garden. 
 
 That page again! 'Tis twice within the week 
 The supple-waisted, pretty-ankled knave 
 Has crossed my garden at this self-same hour, 
 Trolling a canzonetta with an air 
 As if he owned the villa. Why, the fop ! 
 He might have doffed his bonnet as he passed. 
 I'll teach him better if he comes again. 
 What does he at the villa ? ! perchance 
 He comes in the evening when his master's 
 out, 
 
 12
 
 184 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 To lisp soft romance in the ready ear 
 Of Beatrice's dressing-maid; but then 
 She has one lover. Now I think she's two : 
 This gaudy popinjay would make the third, 
 And that's too many for an honest girl ! 
 If he's not Miriam's, he's Jacinta's, then ? 
 I'll ask the Countess — no, I'll not do that ; 
 She'd laugh at me, and vow by the Madonna 
 This varlet was some noble in disguise, 
 Seeking he?^ favor. Then I'd let the light 
 Of heaven through his doublet — I would — yes, 
 That is, I would, were I a jealous man : 
 But then I'm not. So he may come and go 
 To Miriam — or the devil ! I'll not care. 
 I would not build around my lemon-trees, 
 (Though every lemon were a sphere of gold,) 
 A lattice-fence, for fear the very birds 
 Should sing, You^re jealous, you are Jealous, 
 Sir I
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 135 
 
 Scene III. — A wooded road near the villa. The 
 r/arden-gafe seen on the left. Lara leaning 
 against a tree. Evening. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Sorrow itself is not so hard to bear 
 As the thought of sorrow coming. Airy ghosts, 
 That work no mischief, terrify us more 
 Than men in steel with bloody purposes. 
 Death is not dreadful; 'tis the dread of 
 
 death — 
 We die whene'er we think of it ! 
 
 I'll not 
 Be cozened longer. When the page comes out 
 I'll stop him, question him, and know the 
 
 truth. 
 I cannot sit in the garden of a night 
 But he glides by me in his jaunty dress. 
 Like a fantastic phantom ! — never looks 
 To the right nor left, but passes gayly on, 
 As if I were a statue. Soft, he comes, 
 I'll make him speak, or kill him; then, in- 
 deed.
 
 186 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 It were unreasonable to ask it. Soh ! 
 
 I'll speak him gently at the first, and then — 
 
 The Page enters hy a gate in the villa-garden^ and 
 tuallcs carelesdij past the Count. 
 
 Ho ! pretty page, who owns you ? 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 No one now. 
 
 Once Signer Juan, but I am his no more. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 What, then, you stole from him ? 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 0! no, Sir, no. 
 
 He had so many intrigues on his hands. 
 There was no sleep for me nor night nor day. 
 Such carrying of love-favors and pink notes ! 
 He's gone abroad now, to break other hearts 
 And so I left him. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 A frank knave.
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 187 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 To-night 
 
 I've done his latest bidding — 
 
 LARA, 
 
 As you should — 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 A duty wed with pleasure — 'twas to take 
 A message to a countess all forlorn, 
 In yonder villa. 
 
 LARA, [Aside.] 
 
 Why, the devil ! that's mine ! 
 
 A message to a countess all forlorn ? 
 
 [To the Paje.] In yonder villa ? 
 
 Ay, Sir. You can see 
 
 The portico among the mulberries, 
 
 Just to the left, there. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Ay, I see, I see. 
 
 A pretty villa. And the lady's name ? 
 12*
 
 133 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The lady's name, sir ? 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Ay, the lady's name. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ! that's a secret which I cannot tell. 
 
 LARA. [CatcJiing him hy the throat.] 
 
 No? but you shall, though, or I'll strangle 
 
 you! 
 In my strong hands your slender neck would 
 
 snap 
 Like a fragile pipe-stem. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 You are choking me ! 
 ! loose your grasp, Sir ! 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Then the name I the name 1
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 18S 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Countess of Lara. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Xot her dressing-maid ? 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 No, no, I said the mistress, not the maid. 
 
 And then you Hed. I never saw two eyes 
 So wide and frank, but they'd a phant tongue 
 To shape a he for them. Say you are false ! 
 Tell me you lie, and I will make you rich, 
 I'll stuff your cap with ducats twice a year. 
 
 [Smilmg.] 
 
 Well, then— I lie. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Ay, now you lie, indeed ! 
 
 I see it in the cunning of your eyes ; 
 
 "Nio-ht cannot hide the Satan leering there.
 
 140 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Only a little lingering fear of heaven 
 Holds me from dirking you between the ribs ! 
 [Hides his face in his hands.] 
 
 PAGE. [Aside.] 
 
 Faith, then, I would I were well out of this. 
 
 LARA. [Abstractedly.] 
 Such thin divinity 1 So foul, so fair ! 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 What would you have? I will say nothing, 
 then. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Say everything, and end it ! Here is gold. 
 You brought a billet to the Countess — well ? 
 What said the billet ? 
 
 Take away your hand, 
 And, by St. Mary, I will toll you all. 
 There, now, I breathe. You will not harm me, 
 Sir?
 
 TilK SET OF TURQUOISE. 141 
 
 Stand six yards off, or I will not a word. 
 
 It seems the Countess promised Signor Juau 
 
 A set of turquoise — 
 
 LARA. {Startim 
 
 Turquoise ? Ha ! that's well. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Just so — wherewith my master was to pay 
 Some gaming debts ; but yester-night the cards 
 Tumbled a golden mountain at his feet ; 
 And ere he sailed, this morning, Signor Juan 
 Grave me a perfumed, amber-tinted note, 
 For Countess Lara, which, with some adieus, 
 Craved her remembrance morning, noon, and 
 
 night; 
 Her prayers while gone, her smiles when he 
 
 returned ; 
 Then told his sudden fortune with the cards, 
 And bade her keep the jewels. That is all. 
 
 All ? Is that all ? 'T has only cracked my heart I 
 A heart, I know, of little, little worth —
 
 142 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 An ill-cut ruby, scarred and scratched before, 
 But now quite broken ! I have no heart, then : 
 Men should not have, when they are "wronged 
 
 like this. 
 Out of my sight, thou demon of bad news! 
 
 sip thy wine complacently to-night, 
 Lie with thy mistress in a pleasant sleep, 
 
 For thou hast done thy master (that's the 
 
 Devil !) 
 This day a goodly service : thou hast sown 
 The seeds of lightning that shall scathe and 
 
 kill! [Exit'] 
 
 PAGE. [Loonhig after him.'] 
 
 1 did not think 't would work on him like that. 
 How pale he grew ! Alack ! I fear some ill 
 Will come of this. I'll to the Countess now. 
 And warn her of his madness. Faith, lie 
 
 foamed 
 I' the mouth like Guido whom they hung last 
 
 week 
 (God rest him !) in the jail at Mantua, 
 For killing poor Battista. Crime for crime, 
 
 [Exit]
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Scene IV. — Beatrice's chamher. A Venetian 
 screen on the right. As the scene opens, Ja- 
 ciNTA places lamp)S on a standish, and retires 
 to the hack of the stage. Beatrice sits on a 
 fauteuil in the attitude of listening. 
 
 BEATRICE, 
 
 Hist ! that's his step. Jacinta, place the hghts 
 Farther away from me, and get thee gone. 
 
 [Exit Jacinta.] 
 And Miriam, child, keep you behind the screen, 
 Breathing no louder than a lily does ; 
 For if you stir or laugh 't will ruin all. 
 
 MIRIAM. [Behind the screen.'] 
 Laugh ! I am faint with terror. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Then be stiU. 
 
 Move not for worlds until I touch the bell, 
 Then do the thing I told you. Hush ! his step 
 Sounds in the corridor, and I'm asleep ! '
 
 144 TnE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Lara enters with his dress in disorder. lie ap- 
 proaches tuithin a few yards of Beatrice, 
 pauses^ and looks at her. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Asleep ! — and Guilt can slumber ! Guilt can lie 
 Down-lidded and soft-breathed, like Inno- 
 cence ! 
 Hath dreams as sweet as childhood's — who can 
 
 tell?— 
 And paradisal prophecies in sleep, 
 Its foul heart keeping measure, as it were, 
 To the silver music of a mandoline ! 
 Were I an artist, and did wish to paint 
 A devil to perfection, I'd not limn 
 A horned monster, with a leprous skin, 
 Eed-hot from Pandemonium — not I. 
 But with my dclicatest tints, I'd paint 
 A Woman in the glamour of her youth, 
 All garmented with loveliness and mystery! 
 She should be sleeping in a room like this. 
 With Angelos and Titians on the walls, 
 The grand old masters staring grandly down, 
 Draped round with folds of damask ; in the al- 
 coves,
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 145 
 
 Statues of Bacchus and Endymion, 
 And Venus's blind love-child: a globed lamp 
 Gilding the heavy darkness, while the odors 
 Of myriad hyacinths should seem to break 
 Upon her ivory bosom as she slept ; 
 And by her side, (as I by Beatrice.) 
 Her injured lord should stand and look at her ! 
 
 [Pauses.'] 
 
 How fair she is ! Her beauty glides between 
 Me and my purpose, like a pleading angel. 
 Beauty — alack I 'tis that which wrecks us all ; 
 'Tis that we live for, die for, and are damned. 
 A pretty ankle and a laughing lip — 
 They cost us Eden when the world was new, 
 They cheat us out of heaven every day ! 
 To-night they win another Soul for you, 
 Master of Darkness ! . . [Beatrice sigJis.] 
 
 Her dream's broke, like a bubble, in a sigh. 
 
 She'll waken soon, and that — that must not be ! 
 
 I could not kill her if she looked at me. 
 
 I loved her, loved her, by the Saints, I did — 
 
 I trust she prayed before she fell asleep I 
 
 [ Unsheathes a dagger. 
 13
 
 146 TUE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Beatrice. [Springhij up.] 
 
 So> you are come — your dagger in your hand ? 
 Your lips compressed and blanched, and your 
 
 hair 
 Tumbled wildly all about your eyes, 
 Like a river-god's ? ! love, you frighten rae ! 
 And you are trembling. Tell me what this 
 
 means. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Oh ! nothing, nothing — I did think to write 
 A note to Juan, to Signor Juan, my friend, 
 (Your cousin and my honorable friend ;) 
 But finding neither ink nor paper here, 
 I thought to scratch it with my dagger's point 
 Upon your bosom. Madam ! That is all. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 You've lost your senses! 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Madam, no: I've found 'em!
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 147 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Then lose them quickly, and be what you were. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 I was a fool, a dupe — a happy dupe. 
 
 You should have kept me in my ignorance ; 
 
 For wisdom makes us wretched, king and 
 
 clown. 
 Countess of Lara, you are false to me ! 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Now, by the Saints — 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Now, by the Saints, you are ! 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Upon my honor — 
 
 On your honor ? fye ! 
 
 Swear by the ocean's feathery froth, for that 
 
 Is not so light a substance.
 
 148 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Hear me, love ! 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Lie to that marble lo ! I am sick 
 To the heart with lying. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 You've the ear-ache, Sir, 
 Got with too much believing. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Beatrice, 
 
 I came to kill you. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Kiss me, Count, you mean ! 
 
 LARA. {^Approaching /jcr.j 
 If killing you be kissing you, why yes. 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Ho I come not near me with such threatening 
 looks,
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 149 
 
 Or I'll call Miriam and Jacinta, Sir, 
 
 And rouse the villa : 't were a pretty, play 
 
 To act before our servants ! 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Call your maids ! 
 
 I'll kill them, too, and claim from Royalty 
 
 A golden medal and a new escutcheon. 
 
 For slaying three she-dragons — but you first ! 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Stand back there, if you love me, or have 
 loved I 
 
 As Lara advances, Beatrice retreats to the table 
 and nngs a small hand-bell. Miriam, in the 
 dress of a page, enters from behind the screen^ 
 and steps between them. 
 
 MIRIAM. 
 
 What would my master, Signer Juan, say — 
 
 LARA. [Starting hack.] 
 
 The Page ? now, curse him ! — What ? no I Mi- 
 riam? 
 
 13*
 
 150 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 Hold ! 'twas at twilight, in tlie villa-garden, 
 At dusk, too, on the road to Mantua ; 
 But here the light falls on you, man or maid ! 
 Stop now ; my brain's bewildered. Stand you 
 
 there. 
 And let me touch you with incredulous 
 
 hands ! 
 Wait till I come, nor vanish like a ghost. 
 If this be Juan's page, why, where is Miriam ? 
 If this be Miriam, where's — by all the Saints, 
 I have been tricked ! 
 
 MIRIAM. [Laughing.] 
 By two Saints, with your leave ! 
 
 LARA, 
 
 The happiest fool in Italy, for my age 1 
 And all the damning tales you fed me with, 
 You Sprite of Twilight, Imp of the old 
 Moon I — 
 
 -♦ 
 
 MiiuAM. [Bovnng.] 
 
 Were arrant lies as ever woman told;
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 151 
 
 And though not mine, I claim the price for 
 
 them — 
 This cap stuffed full of ducats twice a year I 
 
 A trap I a trap that only caught a fool ! 
 
 So thin a plot, I might have seen through it. 
 
 I've lost my reason ! 
 
 And your ducats ! 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 And 
 
 A certain set of turquoise at Malan's I 
 
 LARA. [ Catching Beatrice in his arms.] 
 
 I care not, child, so that I have not lost 
 The love I held so jealously. And you — 
 You do forgive me ? Say it with your eyes. 
 Right kindly said ! Now, mark me, Beatrice : 
 If ever man or woman, ghoul or fairy, 
 Breathes aught against your worthiness — 
 
 although 
 The very angels from the clouds drop down
 
 152 THE SET OF TURQUOISE. 
 
 To sign the charge of perfidy — I swear, 
 Upon my honor — 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 Nay, be careful there ! 
 
 Swear by the ocean's feathery froth — 
 
 LARA. 
 
 I swear, 
 
 By heaven and all the Seraphim — 
 
 BEATRICE. [Placing her hand on his mouth,'\ 
 I pray you I 
 
 LARA. 
 
 I swear — if ever I catch Miriam 
 
 In pointed doublet and silk hose again, 
 
 I'U— 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 What? 
 
 LARA. 
 
 Make love to her, by all that's true I
 
 THE SET OF TURQUOISE, 153 
 
 BEATRICE. 
 
 wisdom, wisdom ! just two hours too late I 
 You should have thought of that before, my 
 love. 
 
 LARA. 
 
 It 's not too late ! 
 
 BEATRICE. [To MiRIAM.] 
 
 To bed, you dangerous page ! 
 
 The Count shall pay the ducats. [Mcit Miriam.] 
 
 LARA. 
 
 And to-morrow 
 
 I'll clasp a manacle of blue and gold 
 
 On those white wrists. Now, Beatrice, come 
 
 here, 
 And let me kiss both eyes for you !
 
 164 BARBARA. 
 
 BAEBARA. 
 
 [The Duke speaks.} 
 
 I. 
 
 Barbara has a falcon's eye, 
 
 And a soft white hand has Barbara ; 
 Beware — for to make you wish to die, 
 To make you as pale as the moon or I, 
 
 Is a pet trick with Barbara ! 
 
 Merrily bloweth the summer wind, 
 
 But cold and cruel is Barbara ! 
 And I, a Duke, stand here like a hind. 
 Too happy, i' faith, if I am struck blind 
 By the sharp look of Barbara ! 
 
 Ay, Sweetmou', you are haughty now ; 
 
 Time was, time was, my Barbara, 
 When I covered your lips and brow 
 And bosom with kisses— faith, 'tis snow 
 
 That was all fire then, Barbara!
 
 lOT 
 
 I will speak no bitter words : 
 Too much passion made me blind. 
 You were subtle. Let it go, 
 For the sake of woman-kind I 
 I will speak no bitter words. 
 
 But, Madam, as you pass us by, 
 Dreaming of your loves and wine, 
 Do not brush your rich brocade 
 Against this Httle maid of mine, 
 Madam, as you pass us by. 
 
 14
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 m. 
 
 Here is where they bring the dead, 
 When they rise from the river's bed, 
 Sinful women who have thrown 
 Away the Hfe they would not own — 
 Life despised and trampled down ! 
 
 Sad enough. Now, you who write 
 
 Plays that give the world delight, 
 
 Tell me if in this there be 
 
 Naught for your new tragedy ? 
 
 Ha ! you start, you turn from me 
 
 A face brimful of misery ! 
 
 Do you knew that woman there, 
 
 That icy image of Despair ? 
 
 Have you heard her softly speak? 
 
 Have you kissed her, lip and cheek ? 
 
 Faith 1 you do not kiss her now ! 
 
 Poor young mouth, and pale young brow, 
 
 Drenched hair, and glassy eye — 
 
 Go, put that in your tragedy I
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 1, page 95. 
 
 WJiert Heaven^ for some divine ofence^ 
 Smote Florence with the pestUeTice. 
 
 "In the year then of our Lord 1348, there hap- 
 pened at Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most 
 terrible plague ; which, whether owing to the influ- 
 ence of the planates, or that it was sent from God 
 as a just punishment for our sins, had broken out 
 some years before in the Levant, and after passing 
 from place to place, and making incredible havoc all 
 the way, bad now reached the west." — Boccaccio. 
 
 Note 2, page 97. 
 
 APPLEDORE. 
 
 Appledore is one of a cluster of nine islands, off 
 the coast of New Hampshire, known as the Isles of 
 Shoals.
 
 160 NOTES. 
 
 Note 3, page 107. 
 
 LAMIA. 
 
 " Philostratus, in his fourth book de Vita ApoJr 
 hnii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which 
 I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young 
 man twenty-five years of age, that, going betwixt 
 Cenchreas and Corintli, met such a phantasm in the 
 habit of a fair gentlewoman, which, taking him by 
 the hand, carried him home to her house, in the sub- 
 urbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician 
 by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should 
 hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never 
 any drank, and no man should molest him ; but she, 
 being fair and lovely, would die with him, that was 
 fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philo- 
 sopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to mode- 
 rate his passions, though not this of love, tarried 
 with her awhile, to his great content, and at last 
 married her, to whoso wedding, among other guests, 
 came Apolloniua ; who, by some probable conjectures, 
 found her out to be a serpent, a lamia ; and that all 
 her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, described by 
 Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she 
 saw herself descried, she wept, and desired ApoUo- 
 nius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and 
 thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it,
 
 NOTES. Ifil 
 
 vanished in au instant ; many thousands took notice 
 of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece." 
 — Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 Note 4, page 121. 
 
 LADDER. 
 
 Gen. Fred. "W. Lander died at Paw Paw, Virginia, 
 March the 2d, 1862, of wounds received at Edward's 
 Ferry, October 2 2d, 1861.