/ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 THE WORKS OF 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES 
 
 IMITED TO ONE THOUSAND 
 REGISTERED SETS, jOF WHICH 
 THIS IS NUMBER.
 
 THE WORK: 
 
 OPHILi 
 
 I i 
 
 BV 
 
 OR F. C. 
 
 Dft a* 4 Vniff 
 
 THE PROCESSION OF THE SACRED BULL " Apis-OsiRis " 
 
 A photogravure from a painting by F. A. Bridgman 
 
 C 
 
 D OT1 
 
 
 
 By my granite shape of yore 
 
 Passed the priests, with stately pschent, 
 And the mystic boat upbore, 
 
 THE 
 
 PRINTED FOR MEMBERS ONLY 
 MCMVf
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 VOLUME TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 
 
 PROFESSOR F. C. DE SUMICHRAST 
 
 Department of French, Harvard University 
 
 ENAMELS AND 
 CAMEOS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 TRANSLATED ST AGNES LEE 
 
 THE JENSON SOCIETY 
 
 PRINTED FOR MEMBERS ONLY 
 
 MCMVI
 
 Copyright, 'rgoj, by 
 GEORGE D. SPROUL 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON < .CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
 
 Contents 
 
 JJbrary 
 
 PQ 
 
 INTRODUCTION P&ge 3 
 
 THE GOD AND THE OPAL To THOPHILE GAUTIER ' 33 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 PREFACE 37 
 
 AFFINITY A PANTHEISTIC MADRIGAL .... " 38 
 
 THE POEM OF WOMAN MARBLE OF PAROS . " 42 
 A STUDY OF HANDS : 
 
 I IMPERIA " 46 
 
 II LACENAIRE ' 49 
 
 VARIATIONS ON THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE : 
 
 I ON THE STREET " 52 
 
 II ON THE LAGOONS " 54 
 
 III CARNIVAL " 56 
 
 IV MOONLIGHT " 58 
 
 SYMPHONY IN WHITE MAJOR " 60 
 
 COQUETRY IN DEATH " 64 
 
 HEART'S DIAMOND " 66 
 
 SPRING'S FIRST SMILE 68 
 
 CONTRALTO " 70 
 
 EYES OF BLUE " 74 
 
 THE TOREADOR'S SERENADE *' 77 
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS : 
 
 I THE OBELISK IN PARIS " 80 
 
 II THE OBELISK IN LUXOR * 84 
 
 vii 
 
 1569267
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VETERANS OF THE OLD GUARD, DECEMBER 15 . Page 88 
 
 SEA-GLOOM ............ " 94 
 
 To A ROSE-COLOURED GOWN ....... 97 
 
 THE WORLD 's MALICIOUS ....... 99 
 
 INES DE LAS SIERRAS To PETRA CAMARA ... ' 101 
 
 ODELET, AFTER ANACREON ....... "105 
 
 SMOKE ............. " 106 
 
 APOLLONIA ............ " 107 
 
 THE BUND MAN ..... ..... " 108 
 
 SONG .............. "no 
 
 WINTER FANTASIES .......... " 1 1 1 
 
 THE BROOK ............ 116 
 
 TOMBS AND FUNERAL PYRES ....... " 118 
 
 BJORN'S BANQUET .......... "124 
 
 THE WATCH ........... "130 
 
 THE MERMAIDS ........ .. "132 
 
 Two LOVE-LOCKS .......... " 135 
 
 THE TEA-ROSE ........... "136 
 
 CARMEN ............. "138 
 
 WHAT THE SWALLOWS SAY AN AUTUMN SONG . "140 
 
 CHRISTMAS ............ "144 
 
 THE DEAD CHILD'S PLAYTHINGS ...... " 145 
 
 AFTER WRITING MY DRAMATIC REVIEW . . . 147 
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE ...... "149 
 
 CAMELLIA AND MEADOW DAISY ...... " 160 
 
 THE FELLAH A WATER-COLOUR BY PRINCESS 
 
 MATHILDE ........... * 162 
 
 THE GARRET ........... 163 
 
 THE CLOUD . " 166 
 
 Vlll
 
 ************************ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD Page 168 
 
 THE FLOWER THAT MAKES THE SPRINGTIME ... " 1 70 
 
 A LAST WISH 173 
 
 THE DOVE * . " 174 
 
 A PLEASANT EVENING "176 
 
 ART 180 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES "185 
 
 THE CAPTIVE BIRD "187 
 
 ON A THOUGHT OF WORDSWORTH'S "189 
 
 CARYATIDES " 190 
 
 THE CHIMERA 191 
 
 THE ENCOUNTER "192 
 
 VERSAILLES " 193 
 
 BARCAROLLE "194 
 
 THE PORTAL 196 
 
 THE ESCORIAL 203 
 
 A KING'S SOLITUDE 204 
 
 THE LAUREL IN THE GENERALIFE GARDEN ... 206 
 
 FAREWELL TO POETRY " 207 
 
 THE TULIP " 208 
 
 TOUCH NOT THE MARBLE " 209 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN . "215 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH "283 
 
 IX
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 The Procession of the Sacred Bull, "Apis- 
 
 Osiris" ......... Frontispiece 
 
 Scene in a Smyrna Coffee House . . . Page 142
 
 Introduction
 
 ENAMELS and CAMEOS 
 and THE R POEMS 
 ************************ 
 
 Introduction 
 
 1 
 
 divine gift of verse having been denied 
 to the translator and editor of this English 
 edition of Theophile Gautier's works, he 
 has secured the collaboration, for this part 
 of his task, of Mrs. Agnes Lee, who has undertaken 
 and carried it out with care and skill. 
 
 To translate any author satisfactorily, that is, in 
 such a manner that his literary quality shall become 
 apparent to the reader, is, in all conscience, a sufficiently 
 difficult matter when prose alone is in question. But 
 when to the obstacles to be overcome are added the 
 peculiarly characteristic features of verse, the difficulty 
 becomes wellnigh insurmountable. 
 
 In the case of French verse in general it may be 
 possible occasionally to render, with fair approach to 
 accuracy combined with retention of the poetic form, 
 the meaning of the author, and with it the more strik-
 
 ************************ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 ing features of the style. It never can be an easy 
 task, or one that when accomplished satisfies fully the 
 exacting demands of the cultured reader, more partic- 
 ularly of the translator, if the latter, as is at times the 
 case, is endowed with a literary and artistic conscience. 
 The very character of French verse presents in itself 
 an obstacle that can but rarely be overcome. The 
 total lack of accent, as generally understood, and the 
 consequent dependence upon rime, increase the ardu- 
 ousness of the task. 
 
 Then, with all poetry, it is impossible to retain in 
 a version, however skilful and loving, that flower, that 
 essence, subtle, delicate, magical, which, like the down 
 on butterfly's wing, vanishes the instant it is touched. 
 It is impossible, or wellnigh so, to reproduce in one 
 tongue the mysterious and deep harmony, the sweet, 
 elusive melody of another. It is impossible to preserve 
 that peculiar warmth of colour, that flushing of hue 
 which charm in the original, and the loss of which, 
 while it may not be noted by the reader unacquainted 
 with the language in which the original is written, 
 nevertheless so far disfigures the translation and makes 
 it perforce unfaithful. With the best intentions in 
 the world, with the liveliest desire to reproduce in
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 English the characteristics of the French, with the 
 most thorough knowledge of the idioms and turns of 
 the one and the other tongue, the artist who seeks to 
 transpose from the one language into the other must 
 fain confess that it is after all but a paraphrase 
 however excellent, however accurate that has been 
 produced. 
 
 More especially must this be true of Theophile 
 Gautier's work in verse. An artist himself in the most 
 precise sense of the word, he was a believer in and an 
 apostle of form. Words were not mere aggregations 
 of letters or syllables, having each and all a definite 
 meaning attached to them and nothing more. They 
 were not simply a means, when assembled, of com- 
 municating ideas. They had qualities and properties 
 of their own intimately, essentially their own which 
 gave them a value wholly apart from any usefulness 
 they might possess as replacing the primitive language 
 of signs. They were full of colour, they were colour ; 
 they were full of music, they were music's self; they 
 were sculpture and they were architecture ; they were 
 metal, and they were stuffs of richest loom, silk and 
 satin, gauze and lawn, velvet and brocade ; they were 
 gems and stones of purest ray serene ; they blazed with
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 internal fires ; they were refulgent with inward glow ; 
 they burned with dull flame and shone with scintillation 
 resplendent. No precious metal, no pearl of finest 
 orient but was to be found among them. Every shade 
 and hue of colour, every sound and note of music was 
 given out by them. They had properties of their own 
 that naught could destroy, and the poet's business it 
 was to discover these, to turn them to use. Baude- 
 laire, whose talent Gautier so thoroughly understood 
 and so well described, said in his poem entitled 
 " Correspondences " : 
 
 " Like long-drawn echoes that in the distance mingle in dark, 
 abysmal harmony, vast as night's self and vast as the light, per- 
 fumes and colours and sounds correspond." 
 
 Gautier did not go so far ; he was not a Symbolist, 
 though he did believe in " correspondences," without 
 the feeling for and gift of which, he maintained, no 
 man could be a true poet. Words did possess a music 
 of their own, in his belief, and he has many a time 
 proved the fact in his own verse ; they also possessed 
 a colour of their own, and painter as he was he utilised 
 this property over and over again ; they had a sono- 
 rousness of their own, and like Hugo, he knew how to 
 avail himself of it. But it cannot be said of him that
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 he used words in the way in which the Symbolists and 
 Decadents used them ; he did not force them to the 
 same extent, and was content to bring out that which 
 was plainly or subtly visible or audible in them to the 
 artistic eye and ear. It was the sense of vision which 
 he especially cultivated, never having forgotten his early 
 training in that line when he studied painting. He 
 beheld particularly the exterior world, and no one has 
 surpassed him in his descriptions of it. Here again it 
 it was his painter sense that stood him in such good 
 stead. He had learned to look, and having seen to 
 reproduce. His poems are full of admirable examples 
 of vivid descriptions of scenery and landscape ; of vast 
 prospects and of " bits." He has what Brunetiere 
 called " intense impressions of art j " he paints in 
 words to a degree and with a power and skill un- 
 surpassed in any other works of the period. One has 
 to come down to Leconte de Lisle, one of his own dis- 
 ciples, to meet with any word paintings equalling his 
 in perfection and strength and vividness. 
 
 Now these very qualities make the translation of his 
 poems into any other tongue an exceedingly difficult 
 and arduous task. It is not possible, simply, to say in 
 another language just what he says in his rich, ample,
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 varied French. It is not possible to reproduce the 
 effects he sought and attained, for English is so dif- 
 ferent from Gautier's mother-tongue that not the 
 greatest poet could render in it just the effects that he 
 obtained, and obtained by most diligent labour and con- 
 tinual polishing and repolishing of the form in which he 
 cast his thought. 
 
 "Form is everything," he says in an article on one 
 of Hugo's dramas, " no matter what may have been 
 prated on the subject." And to the cult of form he 
 applied himself with singular diligence and perseverance, 
 attaining effects so remarkable as to be the delight of 
 the ear attuned to the melody and beauteousness of 
 French verse. It is always beauty he is in search 
 of, for he holds it superior to all else on earth and 
 possibly in heaven. He admires Baudelaire largely 
 because that poet is a worshipper of the beautiful and 
 succeeds in finding it even in the horrible and the 
 repulsive. He holds that beauty is an end in itself, 
 and he repels the proposition that every piece of literary 
 or artistic work should have a practical or at least a 
 moral purpose. 
 
 Poetry, to him, was not meant to be used as a 
 vehicle for instruction in morals, in science, in aught 
 
 8
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 that was positive, utilitarian, workaday, commonplace. 
 It was a divine tongue in which beauteous things 
 were to be said ; a tongue which the vulgar could not 
 and need not understand, but which was comprehended 
 of all in whom burned, however faintly, the sacred fire. 
 He was at one with Alfred de Musset when the latter 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "It is verse I love above all the language immortal. 
 Perchance 't is blasphemy, so let me whisper it low : I love 
 it to madness. It has this great advantage, that never were 
 fools able to appreciate it ; that it comes to us from God, 
 that it is limpid and beauteous ; that the world hears it, but 
 speaks it not." 
 
 He thoroughly endorsed every word in the following 
 passage from Baudelaire, who looked upon him as his 
 master : 
 
 "If a man will only take the trouble to examine himself, 
 ... he will perceive that poetry can have no other end 
 than itself; it cannot have any other, and no poem can be so 
 great, so noble, so truly worthy of being called a poem, as 
 that which has been written solely for the pleasure of writing 
 a poem. 
 
 " I do not mean to imply that poetry does not ennoble 
 manners, I desire to be correctly understood, or that its 
 final result is not the elevation of man above sordid interests :
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 that would be plainly absurd. What I say is that if the poet 
 has sought to attain a moral end, he has lessened his poetic 
 force, and it is not imprudent to wager that his work will be 
 poor. Poetry cannot assimilate itself to science or morals, 
 under pain of death or forfeiture. Itself, not truth, is its end. 
 * The principle of poetry is strictly and simply human 
 aspiration to a higher beauty, and the principle manifests itself 
 in enthusiasm, in rapture of the soul, an enthusiasm which 
 is wholly independent of passion, the intoxication of the heart, 
 and of truth, the food of reason. For passion is a natural 
 thing, too natural indeed not to introduce an unpleasant, a dis- 
 cordant tone into the domain of pure beauty ; too familiar 
 and too violent not to scandalise the pure desires, the gracious 
 melancholy, and the noble despair that inhabit the supernatural 
 regions of poetry." 
 
 Poems of passion are not to be met with in Gautier's 
 work. He has none that recall the cries of despair 
 and ardour that burst forth from de Musset, the tender 
 regrets and lamentations of Lamartine. He has writ- 
 ten some love poems ; he has indulged, as young 
 Romanticists all did, in addresses to fair female forms, 
 often as not purely ideal ; he has talked love, but it has 
 never swayed and tossed him about on the ocean of 
 passion. For him no Graziella, no Elvira, no Julia 
 appears to have existed ; in his heart there was little 
 
 10
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 room for aught else than the worship of beauty under 
 its various forms ; women appealed to him in so far 
 as they were partial incarnations of that divine prin- 
 ciple, but they do not appear to have affected him as 
 much as the beauty of statues or paintings, the glory 
 of landscapes, or the majesty of architecture. Music 
 moved him, but the artist herself was of secondary 
 importance. Dancing delighted him, but the dancer 
 was subordinate to the performance itself. 
 
 So he never sang woman as woman ; he has written 
 that incomparable poem : " The Poem of Woman," 
 but he makes clear his inmost thought in the sub-title : 
 " Marble of Paros." He preferred, we know, the 
 statue to the living form ; the statue was more perfect, 
 approached more nearly to the ideal of beauty, it was 
 more idealised, and therefore, in his view, truer to the 
 fact. This he dwells on in his account of Baudelaire : 
 
 " Baudelaire . . . believed art should be absolutely auton- 
 omous, and refused to admit that poetry had any end other 
 than itself, or any mission to fulfil other than that of exciting in 
 the reader's mind the sensation of the Beautiful, in the strict- 
 est meaning of the word. . . . He banished from poetry, 
 to the utmost of his power, eloquence, passion, and the too 
 accurate representation of truth. Just as one must not use in 
 
 II
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 sculpture parts cast directly from the living model, so he insisted 
 that before being admitted into the sphere of art every object 
 should undergo a metamorphosis that should fit it for that 
 subtle realm, by idealising it and removing it from trivial truth." 
 
 That is his own creed, put into practice by an 
 admirer and a follower. It is the cult of Art for 
 Art's own sake, without utilitarian or moral motive. It 
 is the worship of pure beauty, and it is the thought 
 that inspired Leconte de Lisle, the impeccable poet, 
 equally with Gautier, when he sang the wondrous song 
 of u Hypatia " : 
 
 "Sleep, O fair victim, within our souls' closed depths, 
 Wrapped in thy virgin shroud and with lotus crowned. 
 Sleep! For hideous ugliness of the world is queen, 
 And no longer we know the road that to Paros leads. 
 
 " The gods are turned to dust ; the earth is mute ; 
 
 No sound from thy deserted heav'n shall e'er be heard. 
 Sleep! But, living within him, sing to the poet's heart 
 Of sacred Beauty the melodious hymn. 
 
 " For it alone survives, unchanged, eternal. 
 Scattered by Death the quaking worlds may be 
 But forth doth Beauty flame, and all in her revives ; 
 Under her white feet still the worlds revolve." 
 
 This conception, this purpose Gautier faithfully ad- 
 hered to throughout his career, and in face of the reproach, 
 
 12
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 addressed to him even during his lifetime, that he lost 
 sight of great moral notions. He disclaimed being 
 a moralist, a student of manners, an inquirer into the 
 possibilities of elevating the human race by spreading 
 the principles of philosophy, total abstinence, religion, 
 or anything akin thereto, and desired simply to be an 
 artist, to sing melodiously of beauty, and to reproduce 
 it as fully as he might in all his works. 
 
 Poetry was a thing apart ; the gift of writing verse 
 was not merely, in his opinion, the power of expressing 
 admirably and feelingly, of imparting the sense of 
 colour and melody, of communicating rhythm and 
 number to the phrase, or, on the other hand, the 
 mere power of riming, a gift possessed, as he has truly 
 remarked, by very mediocre people. It is not enough 
 to align words, to make the final letters of each line 
 repeat a given sound. There is more than this in real 
 poetry, and it was real poetry alone that he cared for 
 or wrote. It involved, not necessarily ideas com- 
 monplace or original but the bringing out of the 
 subject the fullest measure of perfection of form of 
 which it was susceptible. Form is indispensable, in his 
 theory of poetry. It is the very touchstone of merit ; 
 the very test of existence. The careful working out 
 
 '3
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 of the form, at least the producing of perfect form 
 with or without labour, alone marked out the man 
 as a poet. Without form he was only a poetaster ; 
 with it, a true singer. 
 
 This view gives, apparently, over-importance to verse. 
 Whether it do so or not, it is unquestionably the view 
 held by Gautier. " It is the commonest thing in the 
 world, at the present time," he says, " to assume that 
 what is poetical is poetry. The two have nothing 
 in common. Fenelon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ber- 
 nardin de Saint-Pierre, Chateaubriand, George Sand are 
 poetical, but they are not poets ; that is to say, they 
 are incapable of writing verse, even mediocre verse, 
 a special gift possessed by people greatly inferior in 
 merit to these illustrious masters. To attempt to sepa- 
 rate verse from poetry is a modern piece of folly that 
 tends to nothing less than the destruction of art itself." 
 
 It is curious that Gautier, once the contemner of 
 Boileau, had become, by the time he penned these 
 words, almost a champion of the critic's or at least 
 a defender and advocate of one of the principles upon 
 which Boileau laid most stress : the absolute necessity 
 of improving the form until perfection has been attained. 
 Not every kind of verse satisfied his exacting taste ; 
 
 14
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 it had to be the very best, wrought out with infinite 
 care, for it is not given to every one to produce 
 superb, perfect lines without an effort, as was the case 
 with Victor Hugo, who uttered them as naturally and 
 as easily as he breathed. Gautier held to the need of 
 improving the work, and the first cast of the form was 
 not necessarily the best. So the poet must work over 
 his verse until he attained perfection. This meant 
 verse of a higher quality than the average verse of 
 Lamartine and Alfred de Musset, neither of whom 
 troubled much about the minutiae upon which Gautier 
 lays stress. " When a poet is in question," he says 
 again, " the manner in which his verse is wrought is 
 a matter of considerable importance and worth study- 
 ing, for it constitutes in great part the intrinsic value 
 of his verse. It is the stamp with which he mints his 
 gold, his silver or copper." That amounts to saying 
 that, while the value of the poem, outside its form, 
 must necessarily vary with the variation in the talent, 
 genius, and inspiration of the writer, in no case can 
 the writer dispense with seeking excellence of form, 
 which is to constitute a great part of the worth of his 
 work. " No doubt," he continues, " these minutiae 
 will seem very frivolous to utilitarians, progressive and 
 
 15
 
 sb db 4? 4? tfc db d? 4? 4r 4? 4? dbtb tfc ts: 4? :fc x 4? x a: sb ?b a? 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 practical, or simply clever men, who think with Stend- 
 hal, that verse is a childish form that was good enough 
 for the primitive ages, but who insist that poetry should 
 be written in prose, as beseems an age of common- 
 sense. Yet it is precisely these minutiae that cause 
 verse to be good or bad, and that distinguish the true 
 poet from the sham." 
 
 The instrument of verse, words, with their infinite 
 capabilities, was therefore a matter of importance to 
 him, and on the study of words and the resources they 
 offer to the poet he bestowed infinite time and thought. 
 Gifted with a vivid sense of colour, with an intense 
 sense of form, with a delicate appreciation of sound, 
 he naturally enough sought to turn to account every 
 word that could be made to yield an effect in any one of 
 these ways. It was herein he differed from Boileau, 
 to whom the separation of the nobler from the more 
 common words was a matter of moment. To Gautier 
 all words were good, if only they rendered his thought. 
 He wished to attain accuracy in expression ; to 
 produce just the effect he sought, and not another, 
 or one merely analogous to it. Hence his vocabulary 
 was enriched with many terms drawn from the most 
 varied sources. There are numberless examples of 
 
 16
 
 xxx xx xxxxxtfrxtfcdpdbdbdbdbdbxdb xvx 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 this in u Enamels and Cameos," though the reader un- 
 acquainted with the correct, restrained, stilted mode of 
 speech of the pseudo-classicists may not notice them. 
 And indeed in English these words would not attract 
 attention. 
 
 In one of his conversations, reported by mile 
 Bergerat, " Theophile Gautier : Entretiens, Souve- 
 nirs et Correspondance," Gautier discussed the 
 nature and value of his work in enriching the language 
 of French poetry, and claimed the u modest praise of 
 being a philologist." He believed he had fashioned, for 
 the poets who were coming after him, a remarkable 
 instrument capable of rendering every shade of feeling, 
 every gradation of hue and colour, every sound of music 
 and melody. He dilated on the importance, on the 
 necessity which exists for thought to be possessed of 
 a garment of words suited to itself: 
 
 " So soon as it finds in words a garment fitted to it, it 
 straightway goes along easily ; and if the words be elegant of 
 cut and rich in colour, it grows bolder and triumphant, for 
 when beauteous and fitly attired, it feels that it is more wel- 
 come and is received into better society. Then if so be 
 a poet fastens to its feet the two sonorous wings of rime, it 
 takes its flight and soars on high." 
 
 2 17
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 This view recalls that set forth by Victor Hugo in 
 the interesting and highly personal poem entitled 
 " Reply to an Indictment," in which he relates the 
 part he played in the linguistic revolution : 
 
 " Then, a brigand I, I came ; I shouted : Why should 
 these ever go before and those behind ever be ? Then, upon 
 the Academy, the old beldame, spreading her skirts to shelter 
 the terrified tropes, and upon the battalions of alexandrines 
 in squares, I blew a blast of revolt. The old dictionary I 
 crowned with Liberty's red cap. ... I stormed and de- 
 molished the Bastile of rimes. I did more : I smashed every 
 iron fetter that bound the common words, and I drew forth from 
 hell the old ones, long damned, legions of the nether depths. 
 I pulled down the spirals of periphrases, and mingled, con- 
 founded, laid flat under heaven's vault, the alphabet, that sombre 
 tower which uprose out of Babel ; for well I knew that the 
 wrathful hand that sets the words free, to thought restores its 
 liberty." 
 
 Gautier had this in mind when he said further, in 
 that same conversation : " My share in that literary 
 revolution was plainly indicated. I was the painter of 
 the company. I hurried forth to conquer adjectives ; I 
 dug up lovely, even admirable ones, that henceforth 
 man cannot do without. I foraged on all hands in the 
 sixteenth century, to the horror of the subscribers to 
 
 18
 
 ************************ 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the Theatre-Francais, of members of the French 
 Academy, of Touquet-snuff-boxes and wan-faced bour- 
 geois, as Petrus hath it. I returned with my basket 
 full, with sheaves and splendours. I put upon the 
 palette of style every hue of dawn and every tint of 
 sunset ; I have given you back red, dishonoured by 
 political wire-pullers ; I have written poems in white 
 major, and when I saw that the result was good, 
 that the writers of my kith and kin were hastening 
 after me and that the professors were yowling in their 
 chairs, I formulated my famous axiom : l He whom 
 a thought, even the most complex, a vision, were it 
 the most apocalyptical, surprises unprovided with words 
 to render it, is not a writer.' And the goats were 
 separated from the sheep, and the minions of Scribe 
 from the disciples of Hugo, in whom all genius re- 
 sides. Such was my part in the conquest." 
 
 Never was Gautier surprised without a word. 
 Never did he lack just the right expression to pro- 
 duce the effect he sought, whether of colour, of sound, 
 or of form. Two poems, among others, in this vol- 
 ume, may be cited as examples of his marvellous 
 command of language, his keen discernment of the 
 exact value of each word, and his intensity of vision. 
 
 19
 
 ************************ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 They are the " Symphony in White Major " and 
 " The Obelisk in Luxor." These may also serve as 
 instances of the absolute impossibility of rendering 
 into any other language the exquisite impression made 
 by the originals and the perfection of form which 
 marks them. The exigencies of English verse are 
 not compatible with the beauties of the French, and 
 the utmost artistic effort must fail to reproduce exactly 
 the infinitely strong yet delicate fashioning of the 
 stanzas, the wondrous variety of whiteness in the one, 
 the glow of intensest colour and light in the other. 
 The rhythm is perfect, so also the rime, and the music 
 of each poem is marvellous. Take these stanzas from 
 "The Obelisk in Luxor" : 
 
 " Je veille, unique sentinelle 
 De ce grand palais devaste, 
 Dans la solitude eternelle, 
 En face de 1'immensite. 
 
 " A T horizon que rien ne borne, 
 Sterile, muet, infini, 
 Le desert sous le soleil morne, 
 Deroule son linceul jauni. 
 
 " Au-dessus de la terre nue, 
 Le ciel, autre desert d'azur, 
 Ou jamais ne flotte une nue, 
 S'etale implacablement pur. 
 
 2O
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " Le Nil, dont 1'eau morte s'etame 
 D'une pellicule de plomb, 
 Luit, ride par 1' hippopotame, 
 Sous un jour mat tombant d* aplomb j 
 
 " Et les crocodiles rapaces, 
 Sur le sable en feu des Hots, 
 Demi-cuits dans leurs carapaces, 
 Se pament avec des sanglots. 
 
 "Immobile sur son pied grele, 
 L'ibis, le bee dans son jabot, 
 Dechiffre au bout de quelque stele 
 Le cartouche sacre de Thot." 
 
 How is it possible to reproduce by a translation into 
 any other European tongue just the effect attained here ? 
 Undoubtedly the meaning, the general idea, the im- 
 pression of tremendous loneliness and suffocating heat 
 may be, is conveyed, but the form escapes the most 
 skilful treatment and vanishes as the morning mist 
 before the hot sun of summer. 
 
 It is plain that the effort to translate a poet into 
 another tongue than his own is to court defeat at the 
 outset, yet it was impossible to present an edition of 
 Gautier to the public without including in it some part, 
 at least, of his verse. 
 
 One advantage the translation possesses: it proves 
 
 21
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 that Gautier was not so wholly devoid of ideas as 
 hostile critics, mayhap deaf to the singular charm of 
 his verse, have maintained. The poems in their Eng- 
 lish dress interest ; Gautier has delightful comparisons, 
 novel views of things, unexpected contrasts, and these 
 are not lost. Further, it is interesting to note how 
 subjects that would never strike the average mind as 
 susceptible of being turned into a vehicle for beautiful 
 verse are after all susceptible of poetic treatment if only 
 a thorough artist takes hold of them. " The Watch," 
 " Love Locks," " After Writing my Dramatic Review," 
 and " A Pleasant Evening," do not appear to be poeti- 
 cal subjects, yet, in French at least, there is an un- 
 deniable charm about every one of these poems, and 
 each is a splendid instance of difficulties surmounted, 
 apparently, with the greatest ease. 
 
 Gautier' s production in verse is comparatively limited. 
 His " Farewell to Poetry " gives us the reason. The 
 incessant demands of the newspaper upon his time and 
 talent, the need of turning out a daily supply of copy 
 that increased instead of lessening, left him no leisure 
 for the worship of the Muse. Ere he entered upon 
 his career as a journalist, he had written more than one 
 graceful and even striking poem. These earlier pro- 
 
 22
 
 ************++*******++* 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ductions were necessarily in the purest Romanticist 
 taste, and the characteristics of that school are markedly 
 evident in this part of his work. Yet, already the 
 great artist that he was manifested himself, and there 
 are numerous passages of infinite beauty, wrought out 
 with utmost care. The subjects are drawn from the 
 plethoric storehouse of the new school landscapes, 
 reminiscences of the beloved Middle Ages, so much in 
 fashion just then, dreams and reveries, sentimental 
 recollections, sunsets and picturesque effects, shudders 
 and orgies, ghastly contemplations of skeletons and 
 death's-heads, paeans in honour of comrades or masters, 
 in a word, all the stock in trade with which any 
 reader of the literature of that period is familiar. 
 
 The Preface is interesting, and deserves to be tran- 
 scribed in part, for already, in 1832, he holds to the 
 theory of Art for Art's sake, and maintains the useful- 
 ness of Beauty : 
 
 " To the utilitarians, utopists, economists, Saint-Simonists 
 and others who may ask him what is the use of it all, he will 
 answer : What is the use of it ? It is beautiful. Is not that 
 sufficient ? It is beautiful, like flowers, and scents, and birds ; 
 like everything man has been unable to divert to his own use 
 and to deprave. 
 
 2 3
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 " As a general rule, the moment a thing becomes useful, it 
 ceases to be beautiful. It becomes merged in positive life ; 
 it turns to prose from poetry; having been free, it becomes a 
 slave, that is art, all art really. Art is liberty, luxury, 
 efflorescence ; it is the blossoming out of the soul in idleness. 
 Painting, sculpture, and music subserve no useful purpose what- 
 ever. Gems carefully cut, unique trifles, uncommon orna- 
 ments are mere superfluities. Yet who would deliberately do 
 without them ? Happiness does not consist in the possession 
 of the indispensable ; enjoyment does not mean not suffering, 
 and the things one least needs are those that charm one most. 
 There are and there always will be artistic souls to whom the 
 paintings of Ingres and Delacroix, and the water-colours of 
 Boulanger and Decamps will appear more useful than railways 
 and steamships." 
 
 He described the contents himself, and in so pic- 
 turesque, so attractive a manner that the reader of the 
 present day is fain to read every one of the poems thus 
 announced : 
 
 " There are, to begin with, little home scenes, sweet and 
 peaceful effects, small landscapes after the manner of the 
 Flemish, quiet in touch, somewhat subdued in tone, without 
 mighty mountains, boundless horizons, torrents, or cataracts. 
 Level plains, with cobalt blue distances ; lowly hills up which 
 winds a path ; the smoke from a cot ; a brook babbling under 
 the water-lilies ; a bush covered with red berries ; an ox-eye 
 
 24
 
 ************************ 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 daisy quivering dew-laden ; a passing cloud casting a wave of 
 shadow over the wheat ; a stork settling on roof of Gothic 
 donjon. That is all ; then, by way of imparting life to the 
 scene, a frog leaping through the reeds, a dragon-fly disport- 
 ing itself in a sunbeam, a lizard toasting itself in the sunshine, 
 a lark upspringing from the furrow, a thrush singing in the 
 hedgerow, a bee buzzing and garnering, the remembrances 
 of six months spent in a lovely country district. Here and 
 there, as it were a dawning of budding youth, a longing, a 
 tear, a few words of love, a chaste sketch of a girl's profile ; 
 a purely childlike poetry, plump and dimpled, on which the 
 muscles do not as yet show." 
 
 The poems themselves are already very well written 
 verse, with the feeling for colour, picturesqueness, 
 sonority, which is to become characteristic of Theo- 
 phile Gautier. The opening piece, " Meditation," 
 is full of youthful freshness and of the sentiment, still 
 immature, of the brief life of all things on earth. 
 " The Middle Ages " reveals the strong hold which 
 that period had taken upon the imagination of the 
 writer and his contemporaries. " A Landscape " is 
 marked by the qualities of vividness and accurate de- 
 scription which are to be still more evident in the 
 Spanish poems. In " Wishes," the sensation of colour 
 is almost overpowering, and Hugo himself had not 
 
 25
 
 xdb x tfc x tfc a? x x; tfc xxxtfcdbdbxxxxx x xx 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 then anything more brilliant and powerful in this line. 
 " The Nightmare " is interesting as an example of the 
 literature of putridity which had adepts and admirers, 
 but which did not long detain the poet, who has made 
 great fun of it in his " Daniel Jovard," in which he 
 used by way of epigraph, the last four lines of this 
 composition. " Sunset " may well have inspired 
 Zola's superb descriptions of the sunsets in Paris, in 
 "PCEuvre;" and "The View," together with other 
 poems in the same order, is an admirable bit of descrip- 
 tive poetry well worthy of the writer who was to de- 
 pict so truly and strikingly scenes in many lands. 
 " Debauch " is peculiar, but very Romanticist. It 
 should be taken in conjunction with the tale entitled 
 " The Bowl of Punch," of which it is a sort of justifi- 
 cation, while the last lines expressly declare Gautier's 
 reasons for what may shock many people: 
 
 " It is poetry at least, a palette on which glow innumerable 
 different hues ; something clear, unmistakable ; something in 
 itself complete. It is colour, song, and verse ! " 
 
 In later years, in the fulness of his talent and in the 
 deliberate proclamation of his views and beliefs, he will 
 repeat : " I am quite ready at times to have what is 
 
 26
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 rare at the cost of its being shocking, fantastic, and 
 exaggerated." 
 
 The most important of his earlier poetical works is 
 the " semi-diabolical, semi-fashionable legend " entitled 
 " Albertus, or The Soul and Sin ; a Theological 
 Legend," written in 1831 and published the following 
 year. It is a strange, weird, and at the close, repulsive 
 story, purely imaginative, and in the same line of 
 thought as the famous " Vampire," which has appeared 
 in this edition. An old hag, a sorceress, a compounder 
 of philters and poisons, a caster of spells, a servant of 
 the devil, Veronica by name, dwells within a wood- 
 covered, ruinous hut, in the neighbourhood of a town 
 admirably painted in verse by Gautier. The descrip- 
 tion of the beldame's den is superb. Within this den 
 she rubs herself all over, at the witching hour of mid- 
 night, with an unguent that removes wrinkles and every 
 mark of senility, and restores to her the bloom and 
 loveliness of youth. Thus transformed, she repairs to 
 Leyden, and there leads the life of the splendid courte- 
 sans of the Renaissance, which Gautier always de- 
 lighted in portraying and referring to. She falls in 
 love with a genuinely Romanticist hero, Albertus, 
 whose portrait is thus limned for the reader : 
 
 27
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 *' Foreign suns had shone upon his brow and gilded with a 
 layer of sunburn his naturally pale Italian skin. His hair, 
 rumpled by his fingers, fell on either side a forehead which 
 Gall would have ecstatically felt for six months, and on which 
 he would have written no less than a dozen treatises. It was 
 an imperial brow, an artist's, a poet's, and of itself made up 
 half the head ; 't was broad and ample, borne down by inspi- 
 ration, which, in every wrinkle furrowed not by age, conceals 
 some superhuman hope, some mighty thought, and it plainly 
 bore these words inscribed upon it : Force and Conviction. 
 The rest of the features corresponded with this grand brow. 
 Yet was there somewhat unpleasant about them, and though 
 faultless, one could have wished them different. Irony and 
 sarcasm rather than genius gleamed from them, and the lower 
 part of the face seemed to mock the upper. This combination 
 produced the strangest effect ; one would have said a demon 
 writhing under an angel's tread ; hell beneath the heavens. 
 Although he had fine eyes, long dark eyebrows growing finer 
 towards the temples, over the skin gliding as crawls a snake, a 
 fringe of quivering silky lashes, the lion-like glance, the fiery 
 flash that shot forth at times from the depths of those orbs, 
 made one involuntarily shudder and turn pale. The boldest 
 would have looked down when meeting the petrifying Medusa 
 glance he sought to make gentle. Over his stern lip, shadowed 
 at each end with a small mustache daintily waxed, a mocking 
 smile at times flitted ; but his customary expression was one of 
 deep disdain." 
 
 28
 
 *************+*+++*++*** 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is with this darksome dandy that Veronica falls 
 desperately in love, and though at first he proves re- 
 calcitrant, she manages to attract him to her house. 
 He yields to her desires, but as midnight strikes, the 
 glorious beauty resumes her hag shape and carries him 
 off on a broomstick to the witches' sabbath, where the 
 most monstrous diversions are indulged in under the 
 presidency of Satan in person. The Devil sneezes. 
 u God bless you," unconsciously utters Albertus. And 
 straightway devil, witches, demons, sorcerers vanish 
 into thin air, and on the Appian Way peasants repair- 
 ing to Rome in the early morn find the dead body of a 
 man, his back broken, his neck twisted. It is all that 
 is left of Albertus, and the poem ends with a mocking 
 reference to the morality which is not clearly discern- 
 ible. But the poet has had his fun at the reader's 
 expense; he has startled and possibly shocked him 
 he has certainly tried to do so he has introduced ex- 
 quisite descriptions, he has indulged in witty moralising 
 that recalls Mussel's in " Namouna," he has written 
 much beautiful verse and he is satisfied. If the 
 reader is not no matter. The object of poetry is 
 not to satisfy the wan-faced, smooth-shaven bourgeois, 
 the stupid Philistine. 
 
 29
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 "The Comedy of Death" appeared in 1838, but 
 parts of it had been composed as early as 1831. 
 There was prefixed to it the piece entitled " The 
 Portal," and the poem itself is divided into two parts, 
 " Life in Death," and " Death in Life." The poet 
 has wandered into a graveyard on All Saints' Day, and 
 hears a conversation between a dead woman and the 
 worm that has started to devour her flesh. Returning 
 home, Raphael Sanzio appears to him, and bewails the 
 disappearance of art from the world. Gautier then 
 proceeds into the depths, and Faust tells him that 
 science ends in nothingness, and that naught is worth 
 having on earth save love. There then appears 
 Don Juan, who has known all the joys that love and 
 voluptuousness can bestow upon man, and his conclu- 
 sion is that love is deadly, and that man should rather 
 seek knowledge if he desires to enjoy real life. Thus 
 the poet is left in uncertainty. 
 
 Here again are fine passages, and admirable examples 
 of Gautier's powers as a writer of verse. The subject 
 itself is not new, nor is the mode of treatment particu- 
 larly striking. The main preoccupation of the author 
 is already to turn out beautiful lines, and in this he 
 succeeds. 
 
 30
 
 ft*********************** 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Spanish poems contain many superb pieces, 
 and here one may revel in the perfection of the descrip- 
 tions, in the glow and splendour of colour, in the 
 sharpness and accuracy of line and contour, in the 
 faithful and intense reproduction of effects. They are 
 followed by a number of poems written at different 
 intervals and bearing upon a variety of subjects ; every 
 one of them a model of prosody. And finally come 
 the " Enamels and Cameos." 
 
 This is the typical collection of Gautier's verse. It 
 first appeared in 1852, and subsequently passed through 
 several editions. It is the author's most characteristic 
 work ; that on which he has bestowed most pains, 
 fashioning each poem with infinite care, until he had 
 wrought out a perfect form. In his account of the 
 "Progress of French Poetry since 1830," he thus 
 states the end he sought to attain : 
 
 "The title, ' Enamels and Cameos,' indicates my intention 
 to treat slight subjects within a restricted space, sometimes with 
 the brilliant colours of enamel upon a plate of gold or copper, 
 sometimes by using the cutter's wheel upon gems such as agate, 
 cornelian, or onyx. Every poem was to be a medallion fit to 
 be set in the cover of a casket, or a seal to be worn on the 
 finger something recalling the copies of antique medals one 
 
 3 1
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 sees in the studios of painters or sculptors. But I did not 
 intend to deny myself the pleasure of carving on the whitish 
 or reddish layers of the gems a clean modern profile, or of 
 dressing the hair of Parisian Greek women seen at a recent 
 ball after the fashions of Syracusan medals. The Alexandrine 
 verse being too mighty for such modest ambition, I re-used 
 the octosyllabic verse only, which I made over, polished and 
 chiselled with all possible care. This form, by no means a 
 new one, but renewed by the rhythm, the richness of the 
 rimes, and the accuracy to which any workman may attain 
 when he patiently and leisurely works out some small task, 
 was rather well received, and octosyllabic verse in quatrains 
 became for a time a favourite subject for practice by young 
 poets." 
 
 It has been found impossible to preserve in the 
 translation the form itself, for the reasons enunciated in 
 another part of this introduction. Nor was it possible 
 to reproduce the delicacy of the work in French so 
 that the reader might judge for himself of the merit 
 of Gautier as an artist. Mrs. Lee, indeed, considers 
 her work simply a free translation, and it is in this 
 light that it should be judged. 
 
 F. C. DE SUMICHRAST.
 
 THE GOD AND THE OPAL 
 
 TO THEOPHILE GAUIIER 
 
 GRAY caught he from the cloud, and green from earth, 
 
 And from a human breast the fire he drew, 
 
 And life and death were blended in one dew. 
 
 A sunbeam golden with the mornings mirth, 
 
 A wan, salt phantom from the sea, a girth 
 
 Of silver from the moon, shot colour through 
 
 The soul invisible, until it grew 
 
 To fulness, and the Opal Song had birth. 
 
 And then the god became the artisan. 
 With rarest skill he made his gem to glow, 
 Carving and shaping it to beauty such 
 That down the cycles it shall gleam to man, 
 And evermore man's wonderment shall know 
 The perfect finish, the immortal touch. 
 
 Agnes Lee.
 
 Enamels and Cameos 
 
 and Other Poems
 
 ENAMELS and CAMEOS 
 and THE R P E MS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 WHEN empires lay riven apart, 
 
 Fared Goethe at battle time's thunder 
 
 To fragrant oases of art, 
 
 To weave his Divan into wonder. 
 
 Leaving Shakespeare, he pondered the note 
 Of Nisami, and heard in his leisure 
 
 The hoopoe's weird monody float, 
 And set it to soft Orient measure. 
 
 As Goethe at Weimar delayed 
 
 And dreamed in the fair garden closes, 
 
 And, questing in sun or in shade, 
 
 With Hafiz plucked redolent roses, 
 
 I, closed from the tempest that shook 
 My window with fury impassioned, 
 
 Sat dreaming, and, safe in my nook, 
 Enamels and Cameos fashioned. 
 
 37
 
 ************************ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 AFFINITY 
 
 A PANTHEISTIC MADRIGAL 
 
 ON an ancient temple gleaming, 
 Two great blocks of marble high 
 
 Thrice a thousand years lay dreaming 
 Dreams against an Attic sky. 
 
 Set within one silver whiteness, 
 Two wave-tears for Venus shed, 
 
 Two fair pearls of orient brightness, 
 Through the waste of water sped. 
 
 In the Generalife's fresh closes, 
 By a Moorish light illumed, 
 
 Two delicious, tender roses 
 
 By a fountain met and bloomed. 
 
 In the balm of May's bright weather, 
 Where the domes of Venice rise, 
 
 Lighted on Love's nest together 
 Two pale doves from azure skies. 
 
 IF
 
 AFFINITY 
 
 All things vanish into wonder, 
 Marble, pearl, dove, rose on tree, 
 
 Pearl shall melt and marble sunder, 
 Flower shall fade and bird shall flee ! 
 
 Not a smallest part but lowly 
 Through the crucible must pass, 
 
 Where all shapes are molten slowly 
 In the universal mass. 
 
 Then as gradual Time discloses 
 Marbles melt to whitest skin, 
 
 Roses red to lips of roses, 
 And anew the lives begin. 
 
 And again the doves are plighted 
 In the hearts of lovers, while 
 
 Ocean pearls are reunited, 
 Set within a coral smile. 
 
 Thus affinity comes welling ; 
 
 By its beauty everywhere 
 Soul a sister-soul foretelling, 
 
 All awakened and aware. 
 
 39
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Quickened by a zephyr sunny, 
 
 Or a perfume, subtlewise, 
 As the bee unto the honey, 
 
 Atom unto atom flies. 
 
 And remembered are the hours 
 In the temple, down the blue, 
 
 And the talks amid the flowers, 
 Near the fount of crystal dew, 
 
 Kisses warm, and on the royal 
 
 Golden domes the wings that beat ; 
 
 For the atoms all are loyal, 
 
 And again must love and greet. 
 
 Love forgotten wakes imperious, 
 For the past is never dead, 
 
 And the rose with joy delirious 
 Breathes again from lips of red. 
 
 Marble on the flesh of maiden 
 
 Feels its own white bloom, and faint 
 
 Knows the dove a murmur laden 
 With the echo of its plaint, 
 
 40
 
 AFFINITY 
 
 Till resistance giveth over, 
 And the barriers fall undone, 
 
 And the stranger is the lover, 
 And affinity hath won ! 
 
 You before whose face I tremble, 
 Say what past we know not of 
 
 Called our fates to reassemble, 
 Pearl or marble, rose or dove ?
 
 *************+*+****++** 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE POEM OF WOMAN 
 
 MARBLE OF PAROS 
 
 UNTO the dreamer once whose heart she had, 
 As she was showing forth her treasures rare, 
 Minded she was to read a poem fair, 
 
 The poem of her form with beauty glad. 
 
 First stately and superb she swept before 
 His gazing eyes, with high, Infanta mien, 
 Trailing behind her all the splendid sheen 
 
 Of nacarat floods of velvet that she wore. 
 
 Thus at the opera had he watched her bend 
 From out her box, her body one bright flame, 
 When all the air was ringing with her name, 
 
 And every song made her fair praise ascend. 
 
 Then had her art another way, for look ! 
 
 The weighty velvet dropped, and in its place 
 A pale and cloudy fabric proved the grace 
 
 Of every line her glowing body took ; 
 
 42
 
 THE POEM OF WOMAN 
 
 Till softly from her shoulder marble-sweet 
 The veil diaphanous fell, the folds whereof 
 Came fluttering downward like a snowy dove, 
 
 To nestle in the wonder of her feet. 
 
 She posed as for Apelles pridefully, 
 
 A lovely flesh and marble womanhood : 
 Anadyomene, she upright stood 
 
 Naked upon the margent of the sea. 
 
 Fairer than any foam-drops crystalline, 
 
 Great pearls of Venice lay upon her breast, 
 Jewels of milky wonder lightly pressed 
 
 Upon the cool, fresh satin of her skin. 
 
 Exhaustless as the waves that kiss the brim, 
 Under the gleaming moon of many moods, 
 Were all the strophes of her attitudes. 
 
 What fascination sang her beauty's hymn ! 
 
 But soon, grown weary of an art antique, 
 Of Phidias and of Venus, lo ! again 
 Within another new and plastic strain 
 
 She grouped her charms unveiled and unique. 
 
 43
 
 ************************ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Upon a cashmere opulently spread, 
 Sultana of Seraglio then she lay, 
 Laughing unto her little mirror gay, 
 
 That laughed again with lips of coral red ; 
 
 The indolent, soft Georgian, posturing 
 With her long, supple narghile at lip, 
 Showing the glorious fashion of her hip, 
 
 One foot upon the other languishing. 
 
 And, like to Ingres' Odalisque, supine, 
 Defying prurient modesty turned she, 
 Displaying in her beauty candidly 
 
 Wonder of curve and purity of line. 
 
 But hence, thou idle Odalisque ! for life 
 Hath now its own fair picture to display 
 The diamond in its rare effulgent ray, 
 
 Beauty in Love hath reached its blossom rife. 
 
 She sways her body, bendeth back her head. 
 
 Her breathing comes more subtle and more fast. 
 
 Rocked in her dream's alluring arms, at last 
 Down hath she fallen upon her costly bed. 
 
 44
 
 THE POEM OF WOMAN 
 
 Her eyelids beat like fluttering pinions lit 
 Upon the darkened silver of her eyes. 
 Her bright, voluptuous glances upward rise 
 
 Into the vague and nacreous infinite. 
 
 Deck her with sweet, lush violets, instead 
 
 Of death-flowers with their every pearl a tear ; 
 Scatter their purple clusters on her bier, 
 
 Who of her being's ecstasy lies dead. 
 
 And bear her very gently to her tomb 
 Her bed of white. There let the poet stay, 
 Long hours upon his bended knees to pray, 
 
 When night shall close around the funeral room. 
 
 45
 
 *********+**+*******+++* 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 A STUDY OF HANDS 
 
 I 
 
 IMPERIA 
 
 A SCULPTOR showed to me one day 
 
 A hand, a Cleopatra's lure, 
 Or an Aspasia's, cast in clay, 
 
 Of master work a fragment pure. 
 
 Seized in a snowy kiss, and fair 
 
 As lily in the argent rise 
 Of dawn, like whitest poem there 
 
 Its beauty lay before mine eyes, 
 
 Bright in its pallor lustreless, 
 
 Reposing on a velvet bed, 
 Its fingers, weighted with their dress 
 
 Of jewels, delicately spread. 
 
 A little parted lay the thumb, 
 Showing the undulating line, 
 
 Beautiful, graceful, subtlesome, 
 Of its proud contour Florentine. 
 
 46
 
 ************************ 
 
 A STUDY OF HANDS 
 
 Strange hand ! I wonder if it toyed 
 
 In silken locks of Don Juan, 
 Or on a gem-bright caftan joyed 
 
 To stroke the beard of some soldan ; 
 
 Whether, as courtesan or queen, 
 Within its fingers fair and slight 
 
 Was pleasure's gilded sceptre seen, 
 Or sceptre of a royal might ! 
 
 But sweet and firm it must have lain 
 Full oft its touch of power rare 
 
 Upon the curling lion-mane 
 Of some chimera caught in air. 
 
 Imperial, idle fantasy, 
 
 And love of soft, luxurious things, 
 Frenzies of passion, wondrous, free, 
 
 Impossible dream-flutterings ! 
 
 Romances wild, and poesy 
 
 Of hasheech and of wine, vain speeds 
 Beneath Bohemia's brilliant sky 
 
 On unrestrained and maddened steeds ! 
 
 47
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 All these were in the lines of it, 
 
 Of that white book with magic scrolled, 
 
 Where ciphers stood, by Venus writ, 
 That Love had trembled to behold. 
 
 48
 
 *************+**+****** 
 
 A STUDY OF HANDS 
 
 II 
 
 LACENAIRE 
 
 Strange contrast was the severed hand 
 Of Lacenaire, the murderer dead, 
 
 Soaked in a powerful essence, and 
 Near by upon a cushion spread. 
 
 Letting a morbid fancy win, 
 
 I touched, despite my loathing sane, 
 
 The cold, hair-covered, slimy skin, 
 Not yet washed clean of deathly stain. 
 
 Yellow, uncanny, mummified, 
 Like to a Pharaoh's hand it lay, 
 
 And stretched its faun-shaped fingers wide, 
 Crisp with temptation's awful play ; 
 
 As though an itch for flesh and gold 
 Lured them to horrors yet to be, 
 
 Twisting them roughly as of old, 
 Teasing their immobility. 
 
 4 49
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 There every vice and passion's whim 
 Had seamed the flesh abundantly 
 
 With hideous hieroglyphs and grim, 
 That headsmen read with fluency. 
 
 There plainly writ in furrows feU, 
 I saw the deeds of sin and soil, 
 
 Scorchings from every fiery hell 
 
 Wherein corruptions seethe and boil. 
 
 There was a track of Capri's vice, 
 Of lupanars and gaming-scores, 
 
 Fretted with wine and blood and dice, 
 Like ennui of old emperors. 
 
 Supple and fierce, it had some dower 
 Of grace unto the searching eye, 
 
 Some brutal fascination's power, 
 A gladiator's mastery. 
 
 Cold aristocracy of crime ! 
 
 No plane inured, no hammer spent 
 The hand whose task for every time 
 
 Had but the knife for implement. 
 
 50
 
 ************************ 
 
 A STUDY OF HANDS 
 
 The hand of Lacenaire ! No clue 
 Therein to labour's honest pride ! 
 
 False poet, and assassin true, 
 The Manfred of the gutter died !
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 ON THE STREET 
 
 THERE is a popular old air 
 
 That every fiddler loves to scrape. 
 
 *T is wrung from organs everywhere, 
 To barking dog with wrath agape. 
 
 The music-box has registered 
 Its phrases garbled and reviled. 
 
 'T is classic to the household bird ; 
 Grandmother learned it as a child. 
 
 The trumpet and the clarinet, 
 In dusty gardens of the dance, 
 
 Blow it to clerk and gay grisette, 
 In shrill, unlovely resonance. 
 
 And of a Sunday swarm the folk 
 Under the honeysuckle vine, 
 
 Quaffing, the while they talk and smoke, 
 The sun, the melody, the wine. 
 
 52
 
 ************************ 
 
 VARIATIONS, CARNIVAL OF VENICE 
 
 It lurks within the wry bassoon 
 
 The blind man plays, the porch beneath. 
 
 His poodle whimpers low the tune, 
 And holds the cup between its teeth. 
 
 The players of the light guitar, 
 
 Decked with their flimsy tartans, pale, 
 
 With voices sad, where feasters are, 
 Through coffee-houses fling its wail. 
 
 Great Pagan in i at a sign, 
 
 One night, as with a needle's gleam, 
 Picked up with end of bow divine 
 
 The little antiquated theme, 
 
 And, threading it with fingers deft, 
 He broidered it with colours bright, 
 
 Till up and down the faded weft 
 Ran golden arabesques of light. 
 
 53
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 II 
 
 ON THE LAGOONS 
 
 Tra la, tra la, la, la, la, who 
 Knows not the theme's soft spell ? 
 
 Or sad or light or mock or true, 
 Our mothers loved it well. 
 
 The Carnival of Venice ! Long 
 
 Adown canals it came, 
 Till, wafted on a zephyr's song, 
 
 The ballet kept its fame. 
 
 I seem, whene'er its phrase I hear, 
 
 A gondola to view, 
 With prow voluted, black and clear, 
 
 Slip o'er the water blue ; 
 
 To see, her bosom covered o'er 
 With pearls, her body suave, 
 
 The Adriatic Venus soar 
 On sound's chromatic wave. 
 
 54
 
 VARIATIONS, CARNIVAL OF VENICE 
 
 The domes that on the water dwell 
 
 Pursue the melody 
 In clear-drawn cadences, and swell 
 
 Like breasts of love that sigh. 
 
 My chains around a pillar cast, 
 
 I land before a fair 
 And rosy-pale facade at last, 
 
 Upon a marble stair. 
 
 Oh ! all dear Venice with her towers, 
 
 Her boats, her masquers boon, 
 Her sweet chagrins, her mad, gay hours, 
 
 Throbs in that ancient tune. 
 
 The tenuous, vibrant chords that smite, 
 
 Rebuild in subtle way 
 The city joyous, free and light 
 
 Of Canaletto's day ! 
 
 55
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 III 
 
 CARNIVAL 
 
 Venice robes her for the ball ; 
 
 Decked with spangles bright, 
 Multi-coloured Carnival 
 
 Teems with laughter light. 
 
 Harlequin with negro mask, 
 
 Tights of serpent hue, 
 Beateth with a note fantasque 
 
 His Cassander true. 
 
 Flapping loose his long, white sleeve, 
 
 Like a penguin spread, 
 Through a subtle semibreve 
 
 Pierrot thrusts his head. 
 
 Sleek Bologna's doctor goes 
 
 Maundering on a bass. 
 Punchinello finds for nose 
 
 Quaver on his face.
 
 VARIATIONS. CARNIVAL OF VENICE 
 
 Hurtling Trivellino fine, 
 
 On a trill intent, 
 Scaramouch to Columbine 
 
 Gives the fan she lent. 
 
 Gliding to the tune, I mark 
 One veiled figure rise, 
 
 While through satin lashes dark 
 Luring gleam her eyes. 
 
 Tender little edge of lace, 
 Heaving with her breath ! 
 
 " Under is her own dear face ! " 
 An arpeggio saith. 
 
 And beneath the mask I know 
 
 Bloom of rosy lips, 
 And the patch on chin of snow, 
 
 As she by me trips ! 
 
 57
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 IV 
 
 MOONLIGHT 
 
 Amid the chatter gay and mad 
 Saint Mark to Lido wafts, a tune 
 
 Like as a rocket riseth glad 
 
 As fountain riseth to the moon. 
 
 But in that air with laughter stirred, 
 That shakes its bells far out to sea, 
 
 Regret, a little stifled bird, 
 Mingles its frail sob audibly. 
 
 And in a mist of memory clad, 
 
 Like dream well-nigh effaced, I view 
 
 The sweet Beloved, fair and sad, 
 
 Of dear, long-vanished days I knew. 
 
 Ah, pale she is ! My soul in tears 
 An April day remembers yet : 
 
 We sought the violets by the meres, 
 And in the grass our fingers met. . .
 
 VARIATIONS, CARNIVAL OF VENICE 
 
 The vibrant note of violin 
 
 Is the child voice that struck my heart, 
 Exquisite, plaintive, argentine, 
 
 With all the anguish of its dart. 
 
 So sweetly, falsely, doth it steal, 
 
 So cruel, yet so tender, too, 
 So cold, so burning, that I feel 
 
 A deadly pleasure pierce me through ; 
 
 Until my heart, an archway deep 
 
 Whose waters feed the fountain's lip, 
 
 Lets tears of blood in silence weep 
 Into my bosom drip by drip. 
 
 O Carnival of Venice ! theme 
 So chilling sad, yet ever warm ! 
 
 Where laughter toucheth tears supreme, 
 How hast thou hurt me with thy charm ! 
 
 59
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 IN the Northern tales of eld, 
 
 From the Rhine's escarpments high 
 
 Swan-women radiant were beheld, 
 Singing and floating by, 
 
 Or, leaving their plumage bright 
 On a bough that was bending low, 
 
 Displaying skin more gleaming white 
 Than the white of their down of snow. 
 
 At times one comes our way, 
 
 Of all she is pallidest, 
 White as the moonbeam's shivering ray 
 
 On a glacier's icy crest. 
 
 Her boreal bloom doth win 
 
 Our eyes to feasting rare 
 On rich delight of nacreous skin, 
 
 And a wealth of whiteness fair. 
 
 60
 
 Her rounded breasts, pale globes 
 Of snow, wage insolent war 
 
 With her camellias and her robes 
 Of whiteness nebular. 
 
 In such white wars supreme 
 She wins, and weft and flower 
 
 Leave their revenge's right, and seem 
 Yellowed with envy's hour. 
 
 On the white of her shoulder bare, 
 Whose marble Paros lends, 
 
 As through the Polar twilight fair, 
 Invisible frost descends. 
 
 What beaming virgin snow, 
 
 What pith a reed within, 
 What Host, what taper, did bestow 
 
 The white of her matchless skin ? 
 
 Was she made of a milky drop 
 On the blue of a winter heaven ? 
 
 The lily-blow on the stem's green top ? 
 The foam of the sea at even ? 
 
 61
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Of the marble still and cold, 
 Wherein the great gods dwell ? 
 
 Of creamy opal gems that hold 
 Faint fires of mystic spell ? 
 
 Or the organ's ivory keys ? 
 
 Her winged fingers oft 
 Like butterflies flit over these, 
 
 With kisses pending soft. 
 
 Of the ermine's stainless fold, 
 Whose white, warm touches fall 
 
 On shivering shoulders and on bold, 
 Bright shields armorial ? 
 
 Of the phantom flowers of frost 
 Enscrolled on the window clear ? 
 
 Of the fountain drop in the chill air lost, 
 An Undine's frozen tear ? 
 
 Of May bent low with the sweets 
 Of her bountiful white-thorn bloom ? 
 
 Of alabaster that repeats 
 
 The pallor of grief and gloom ? 
 
 62
 
 SYMPHONY IN WHITE MAJOR 
 
 Of the feathers of doves that slip 
 
 And snow on the gable steep ? 
 Of slow stalactite's tear-white drip 
 
 In cavernous places deep ? 
 
 Came she from Greenland floes 
 
 With Seraphita forth ? 
 Is she Madonna of the Snows ? 
 
 A sphinx of the icy North, 
 
 Sphinx buried by avalanche, 
 
 The glacier's guardian ghost, 
 Whose frozen secrets hide and blanch 
 
 In her white heart innermost ? 
 
 What magic of what far name 
 
 Shall this pale soul ignite ? 
 Ah ! who shall flush with rose's flame 
 
 This cold, implacable white ?
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 COQUETRY IN DEATH 
 
 I BEG ye grant, when low I lie, 
 Before ye close my coffin-bed, 
 
 A little black beneath mine eye, 
 And on my cheek a touch of red ! 
 
 Ah, make me beautiful as now ! 
 
 For I would be upon my bier, 
 As on the night of his avow 
 
 Charming and bloom ful, gay and dear. 
 
 For me no linen winding-sheet ! 
 
 But gown me very grand and bright. 
 Bring forth my frock of muslin sweet, 
 
 With many ruffles soft and white. 
 
 My favourite frock ! I wore it well, 
 Who wore it at love's flowering. 
 
 And since his look upon it fell, 
 I 've kept it as a sacred thing. 
 
 For me no funeral coronet, 
 
 No tear-embroidered cushion place ; 
 But o 'er my fair lace pillow let 
 
 My hair droop free about my face.
 
 ************************ 
 
 COQUETRY IN DEATH 
 
 Dear pillow ! Often did it mark, 
 In mad, sweet nights our brows unlit, 
 
 And, all within the gondola dark, 
 Did count our kisses infinite. 
 
 About my waxen hands supine, 
 
 Folded in prayer at life's deep gloam, 
 
 My rosary of opals twine, 
 
 Blessed by His Holiness at Rome. 
 
 I '11 finger it, when bedded cold 
 
 Where never one shall rise. How oft 
 
 His lips upon my lips have told 
 A Pater and an Ave soft !
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 HEART'S DIAMOND 
 
 EVERY lover deep hath set 
 In a sacred nook apart 
 Some dear token for the heart 
 
 In its hope or its regret. 
 
 One hath nested safe away 
 Blackest ringlet ever seen, 
 Over which an azure sheen 
 
 Lieth, as on wing of jay. 
 
 One from shoulder pale as milk 
 Took a tress more golden-fine 
 Than the threads that softly shine 
 
 In the silk-worm's wonder-silk. 
 
 In its hiding mystical, 
 
 Memory's reliquary sweet, 
 
 Glances of another greet 
 Gloves with fingers white and small. 
 
 And another yet may list 
 To inhale a faint perfume 
 Of the violets from her room, 
 
 Freshly given faded, kissed. 
 
 66
 
 HEART'S DIAMOND 
 
 Here a slipper's curving grace 
 One with sighing treasureth. 
 There another guards a breath 
 
 In a mask's light edge of lace. 
 
 I Ve no slipper to revere, 
 
 Neither glove nor tress nor flower; 
 
 But I cherish for love's dower 
 A divine, adored tear, 
 
 Fallen from the blue above, 
 
 Clearest dew, heaven's drop for me, 
 
 Pearl dissolved secretly 
 In the chalice of my love. 
 
 To mine eyes the dim-worn dew 
 Beams, a gem of Orient worth, 
 Standing from the parchment forth, 
 
 Diamond of a sapphire blue, 
 
 Steadfast, lustreful and deep ! 
 
 Tear that fell unhoped, unsought, 
 On a song my soul once wrought, 
 
 From an eye unused to weep.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 SPRING'S FIRST SMILE 
 
 WHILE up and down the earth men pant and plod, 
 March, laughing at the showers and days unsteady, 
 And whispering secret orders to the sod, 
 For Spring makes ready. 
 
 And slyly when the world is sleeping yet, 
 He smooths out collars for the Easter daisies, 
 And fashions golden buttercups to set 
 In woodland mazes. 
 
 Coif-maker fine, he worketh well his plan. 
 Orchard and vineyard for his touch are prouder. 
 From a white swan he hath a down to fan 
 The trees with powder. 
 
 While Nature still upon her couch doth lean, 
 Stealthily hies he to the garden closes, 
 And laces in their bodices of green 
 Pale buds of roses. 
 
 Composing his solfeggios in the shade, 
 He whistles them to blackbirds as he treadeth, 
 And violets in the wood, and in the glade 
 Snowdrops, he spreadeth. 
 
 68
 
 ***********+*+**+**++*** 
 
 SPRING'S FIRST SMILE 
 
 Where for the restless stag the fountain wells, 
 His hidden hand glides soft amid the cresses, 
 And scatters lily-of-the-valley bells, 
 In silver dresses. 
 
 He sinks the sweet, vermilion strawberries 
 Deep in the grasses for thy roving fingers, 
 And garlands leaflets for thy forehead's ease, 
 When sunshine lingers. 
 
 When, labour done, he must away, turns he 
 On April's threshold from his fair creating, 
 And calleth unto Spring : " Come, Spring for see, 
 The woods are waiting ! " 
 
 69
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 CONTRALTO 
 
 THERE lies within a great museum's hall, 
 Upon a snowy bed of carven stone, 
 
 A statue ever strange and mystical, 
 
 With some fair fascination all its own. 
 
 And is it youth or is it maiden sweet, 
 
 A goddess or a god come down to sway ? 
 
 Love fearful, hesitating, turns his feet, 
 Nor any word's avowal will betray. 
 
 Sideways it lieth, with averted face, 
 
 Stretching its lovely limbs, half mischievous, 
 
 Unto the curious crowd, an idle grace 
 Lighting its marble form luxurious. 
 
 For fashioning of its evil beauty brought 
 The sexes twain each one its magic dower. 
 
 Man whispers " Aphrodite ! " in his thought, 
 And woman " Eros ! " wondering at its power. 
 
 Uncertain sex and certain grace, that seem 
 To melt forever in a fountain's kiss, 
 
 Waters that whelm the body as they gleam 
 And merge, and it is one with Salmacis. 
 
 70
 
 CONTRALTO 
 
 Ardent chimera, effort venturesome 
 
 Of Art and Pleasure figure fanciful ! 
 
 Into thy presence with delight I come, 
 Loving thy beauty strange and multiple. 
 
 Though I may never close to thee draw nigh, 
 How often have my glances pierced the taut, 
 
 Straight fold of thine austerest drapery, 
 Fast at the end about thine ankle caught ! 
 
 O dream of poet passing every bound ! 
 
 My thought hath built a fancy of thy form, 
 Till it is molten into silver sound, 
 
 And boy and girl are one in cadence warm. 
 
 O tone divine, O richest tone of earth, 
 The beautiful, bright statue's counterpart ! 
 
 Contralto, thou fantastical of birth, 
 
 The voice's own Hermaphrodite thou art ! 
 
 Thou art the plaintive dove, the linnet rare, 
 Perched on one rose tree, mellow in one note. 
 
 Thou art fair Juliet and Romeo fair, 
 
 Singing across the night with one warm throat. 
 
 7 1
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Thou art the young wife of the castellan, 
 
 Chaffing an amorous page below her bower, 
 
 Upon her balcony the lady wan, 
 
 The lover at the base of her high tower. 
 
 Thou art the yellow butterfly that swings, 
 
 Pursuing soft a butterfly of snow, 
 In spiral flights and subtle traversings, 
 
 One winging high, the other winging low j 
 
 The angel flitting up and down the gold 
 
 Of the bright stair's aerial extent, 
 The bell in whose alloy of mighty mould 
 
 Are voice of bronze and voice of silver blent 
 
 Yea, melody and harmony art thou, 
 
 Song with its true accompaniment, and grace 
 
 Matched unto force, the woman plighting vow 
 To her Beloved with a close embrace ; 
 
 Or thou art Cinderella doomed to spend 
 Her night before the embers of the fire, 
 
 Deep in a conversation with her friend, 
 The cricket, as the latter hours expire ; 
 
 72
 
 ************************ 
 
 CONTRALTO 
 
 Or Arsaces, the great and valorous, 
 
 Waging his righteous battle for a realm, 
 
 Or Tancred with his breastplate luminous, 
 
 Cuirassed and splendid with his sword and helm ; 
 
 Or Desdemona with her willow song, 
 
 Zerlina laughing at Mazetto, or 
 Malcolm, his plaid upon his shoulder strong. 
 
 Thee, O thou dear Contralto, I adore ! 
 
 For these thou art, thou dearest charm of each, 
 O fair Contralto, double-throated dove ! 
 
 The Kaled of a Lara, for thy speech, 
 
 Thou mightest, like the lost Gulnare, prove, 
 
 In whose heart-stirring, passionate caress 
 
 In one wild, tremulous note there blend and mount 
 
 A woman's sigh of plaintive tenderness, 
 And virile accents from a firmer fount. 
 
 73
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 EYES OF BLUE 
 
 A WOMAN, mystic, sweet, 
 
 Whose beauty draws my soul, 
 
 Stands silent where the fleet 
 And singing waters roll. 
 
 Her eyes, the mirrored note 
 
 Of heaven, merge heaven's blue 
 
 Bestarred of lights remote, 
 With the sea's glaucous hue. 
 
 Within their languor set, 
 
 Smiles sadness infinite. 
 Tears make the sparkles wet, 
 
 And tender grows the light. 
 
 Like sea-gulls from aloft 
 That graze the ocean free, 
 
 Her lashes flutter soft 
 Upon an azure sea. 
 
 As slumbering treasures drowned 
 
 Send shimmers lightly up, 
 Gleams through the tide profound 
 
 The King of Thule's cup. 
 
 74
 
 ***********+++++****+*** 
 
 EYES OF BLUE 
 
 Athwart the weedy swirl 
 
 Brilliant, the waves upon, 
 Shine Cleopatra's pearl, 
 
 And ring of Solomon. 
 
 The crown to ocean cast, 
 
 That Schiller showed to us, 
 Still under sea caught fast, 
 
 Beams clear and luminous. 
 
 A magic in that gaze 
 
 Draws me, mad venturer ! 
 Thus mermaid's magic ways 
 
 Drew Harold Haarfager. 
 
 And all my soul unquelled 
 
 Adown the gulf betrayed 
 Dives, to the quest impelled 
 
 Of some elusive shade. 
 
 The siren fitfully 
 
 Displays her body's gleam, 
 Her breast and arms that ply 
 
 Through waves of amorous dream. 
 
 75
 
 xdb tic sir 4? db db 4? 4r sb :t ^bdbtfcdbdbdbxdb wtfc db a? SB 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 The water heaves and falls, 
 
 Like breasts with passion's breath. 
 
 The breeze insistent calls 
 To me, and murmureth : 
 
 Come to my pearly bed f 
 
 My ocean arms shall slip 
 About thee : salt shall spread 
 
 To honey on thy lip ! 
 
 Ohj let the billows link 
 
 Above us ! Thou shalt, warm, 
 
 From cup of kisses drink 
 Oblivion of the storm ! " 
 
 Thus sighs the glance that sweeps 
 From out those sea-blue gates, 
 
 Till heart down treacherous deeps 
 The hymen consummates.
 
 THE TOREADOR'S SERENADE 
 THE TOREADOR'S SERENADE 
 
 RONDALLA 
 
 CHILD with airs imperial, 
 
 Dove with falcon's eyes for me 
 
 Whom thou hatest, come I shall 
 Underneath thy balcony ! 
 
 There, my foot upon the stone, 
 
 I shall twang my chords with grace, 
 
 Till thy window-pane hath shone 
 With thy lamplight and thy face. 
 
 Let no lad with his guitar 
 
 Strum adown the bordering ways. 
 
 Mine the road to watch and bar, 
 Mine alone to sing thy praise. 
 
 Let the first my courage brave. 
 
 He shall lose his ears, egad ! 
 Who shall howl his love and rave 
 
 In a couplet good or bad. 
 
 77
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Restless doth my dagger lie. 
 
 Come ! who'll venture its rebuff? 
 Who would wear for every sigh 
 
 Blood's red flower upon his ruff? 
 
 Blood grows weary of its veins ; 
 
 For it yearns to be displayed. 
 Night is ominous with rains. 
 
 Haste, ye cowards, back to shade I 
 
 On, thou braggart, else aroint ! 
 
 Well thy forearm cover thou. 
 On ! and with my dagger's point 
 
 Let me write upon thy brow. 
 
 Let them come, alone, in mass : 
 Firm of foot I bide my place. 
 
 For thy glory, as they pass, 
 Would I slit each paltry face. 
 
 O'er the gutter ere thy clear, 
 Snowy feet shall be defiled, 
 
 By the Rood ! a bridge I '11 rear 
 With the bones of gallants wild.
 
 THE TOREADOR'S SERENADE 
 
 I would slay, thy love to wear, 
 
 Any foe, yea, even proud 
 Satan's very self to dare, 
 
 So thy sheets became my shroud. 
 
 Sightless window, deafened door ! 
 
 Wilt thou never heed my sounds? 
 Like a wounded bull I roar, 
 
 Maddening the baying hounds. 
 
 Drive at least a poor nail then, 
 Where my heart may hang inert. 
 
 For I want it not again, 
 
 With its madness and its hurt ! 
 
 79
 
 . fcdtdb :fc :fc db tt 4: 4: 4: 4r^b4rdb*4? tfctfc dbtHr ir sb?fc 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS 
 
 THE OBELISK IN PARIS 
 
 DISTANT from my native land, 
 
 Ever dull with ennui's pain, 
 Lonely monolith I stand, 
 
 In the snow and frost and rain. 
 
 And my shaft, once burnt to red 
 
 In a flaming heaven's glare, 
 Taketh on a pallor dead 
 
 In this never azure air. 
 
 Oh, to stand again before 
 
 Luxor's pylons, and the dear, 
 
 Grim Colossi ! be once more 
 My vermilion brother near ! 
 
 Oh, to pierce the changeless blue, 
 Where of old my peak up won, 
 
 With my shadow sharp and true 
 Trace the footsteps of the sun ! 
 
 80
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS 
 
 Once, O Rameses ! my tall mass 
 
 Not the ages could destroy. 
 But it fell cut down like grass. 
 
 Paris took it for a toy. 
 
 NoW my granite form behold : 
 
 Sentinel the livelong day 
 Twixt a spurious temple old, 
 
 And the Chambre des Deputes! 
 
 On the spot where Louis Seize 
 Died, they set me, meaningless, 
 
 With my secret which outweighs 
 Cycles of forgetfulness. 
 
 Sparrows lean defile my head, 
 Where the ibis used to light, 
 
 And the fierce gypaetus spread 
 Talons gold and plumage white. 
 
 And the Seine, the drip of street, 
 Unclean river, crime's abyss, 
 
 Now befouls mine ancient feet, 
 Which the Nile was wont to kiss : 
 
 6 81
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Hoary Nile that, crowned and stern, 
 
 To its lotus-laden shores 
 From its ever bended urn 
 
 Crocodiles for gudgeon pours ! 
 
 Golden chariots gem-belit 
 
 Of the Pharaohs' pageanting 
 Grazed my side the cab-wheels hit, 
 
 Bearing out the last poor king. 
 
 By my granite shape of yore 
 
 Passed the priests, with stately pschent, 
 And the mystic boat upbore, 
 
 Emblemed and magnificent. 
 
 But to-day, profane and wan, 
 
 Camped between two fountains wide, 
 
 I behold the courtesan 
 
 In her carriage lounge with pride. 
 
 From the first of year to last 
 I must see the vulgar show 
 
 Solons to the Council passed, 
 Lovers to the woods that go ! 
 
 82
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS 
 
 Oh, what skeletons abhorred, 
 
 Hence, an hundred years, this race ! 
 
 Couched, unbandaged, on a board, 
 In a nailed coffin's place. 
 
 Never hypogeum kind, 
 
 Safe from foul corruption's fear; 
 
 Never hall where century-lined 
 Generations disappear ! 
 
 Sacred soil of hieroglyph, 
 
 And of sacerdotal laws, 
 Where the Sphinx is waiting stiff, 
 
 Sharpening on the stone its claws, 
 
 Soil of crypt where echoes part, 
 Where the vulture swoopeth free, 
 
 All my being, all my heart, 
 O mine Egypt, weeps for thec !
 
 I************************ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE OBELISK IN LUXOR 
 
 Where the wasted columns brood, 
 
 Lonely sentinel stand I, 
 In eternal solitude 
 
 Facing all infinity. 
 
 Dumb, with beauty unendowed, 
 
 To the horizon limitless 
 Spreads earth's desert like a shroud 
 
 Stained by yellow suns that press. 
 
 While above it, blue and clean, 
 
 Is another desert cast 
 Sky where cloud is never seen, 
 
 Pure, implacable, and vast. 
 
 And the Nile's great water-course 
 
 Glazed with leaden pellicle 
 Wrinkled by the river-horse 
 
 Gleameth dead, unlustreful 
 
 All about the flaming isles, 
 
 By a turbid water spanned, 
 Hot, rapacious crocodiles 
 
 Swoon and sob upon the sand.
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS 
 
 Perching motionless, alone, 
 
 Ibis, bird of classic fame, 
 From a carven slab of stone 
 
 Reads the moon-god's sacred name. 
 
 Jackals howl, hyenas grin, 
 
 Famished hawks descend and cry. 
 
 Down the heavy air they spin, 
 Commas black against the sky. 
 
 These the sounds of solitude, 
 
 Where the sphinxes yawn and doze, 
 
 Dull and passionless of mood, 
 Weary of their endless pose. 
 
 Child of sand's reflected shine, 
 And of sun-rays fiercely bent, 
 
 Is there ennui like to thine, 
 Spleen of luminous Orient ? 
 
 Thou it was cried " Halt ! " of yore 
 
 To satiety of kings. 
 Thou hast crushed me more and more 
 
 With thine awful weight of wings.
 
 ****************+*++**++ 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Here no zephyr of the sea 
 
 Wipes the tears from skies that fill. 
 
 Time himself leans wearily 
 On the palaces long still. 
 
 Naught shall touch the features terse 
 
 Of this dull, eternal spot. 
 In this changing universe, 
 
 Only Egypt changeth not ! 
 
 When the ennui never ends, 
 And I yearn a friend to hold, 
 
 I 've the fellahs, mummies, friends, 
 Of the dynasties of old. 
 
 I behold a pillar pale, 
 
 Or a chipped Colossus note, 
 Watch a distant, gleaming sail 
 
 Up and down the Nile afloat. 
 
 Oh, to seek my brother's side, 
 
 In a Paris wondrous, grand, 
 With his stately form to bide, 
 
 In the public place to stand ! 
 
 86
 
 ************************ 
 
 NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS 
 
 For he looks on living men, 
 
 And they scan his pictures wrought 
 
 By an hieratic pen, 
 
 To be read by vision-thought. 
 
 Fountains fair as amethyst 
 
 On his granite lightly pour 
 All their irisated rnist. 
 
 He is growing young once more. 
 
 Ah ! yet he and I had birth 
 
 From Syene's veins of red. 
 But I keep my spot of earth. 
 
 He is living. I am dead.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 VETERANS OF THE OLD 
 GUARD 
 
 (DECEMBER 15) 
 
 DRIVEN by ennui from my room, 
 
 I walked along the Boulevard. 
 'T was in December's mist and gloom. 
 
 A bitter wind was blowing hard. 
 
 And there I saw strange thing to see ! 
 
 In drizzle and in daylight drear, 
 From out their dark abodes let free, 
 
 Dim, spectral shadow-shapes appear. 
 
 Yet 't is by night's uncanny hours, 
 By pallid German moonbeams cast 
 
 On old dilapidated towers, 
 
 That ghosts are wont to wander past. 
 
 ft is by night's effulgent star 
 
 In dripping robes that elves intrigue 
 
 To bear beneath the nenuphar 
 Their dancer dead of his fatigue. 
 
 88
 
 VETERANS OF THE OLD GUARD 
 
 At night's mysterious tide hath been 
 The great review of ballad writs 
 
 Wherein the Emperor, dimly seen, 
 Numbered the shades of Austerlitz. 
 
 But phantoms near the Gymnase? yea, 
 And wet and miry phantoms, too, 
 
 And close to the Vari'et'es, 
 
 And not a shroud to trick the view ! 
 
 With yellow teeth and stained dress, 
 And mossy skull and pierced shoon, 
 
 Paris Montmartre behold it press, 
 Death in the very light of noon ! 
 
 Ah, 't is a picture to be seen ! 
 
 Three veteran ghosts in uniform 
 Of the Old Guard, and, spare and lean, 
 
 Two ghost-hussars in daylight's storm. 
 
 The lithograph, you would surmise, 
 Wherein one ray shines down upon 
 
 The dead, that Raffet deifies, 
 
 That pass and shout " Napoleon ! "
 
 ***** *******+******++**! 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 No dead are these, whom nightly drum 
 May rouse to battle fires that burn, 
 
 But stragglers of the Old Guard, come 
 To celebrate the grand return ! 
 
 Since fighting in the fight supreme, 
 One has grown thin, another stout ; 
 
 The coats that fitted once now seem 
 Too small, too loose, or draggled out. 
 
 O epic rags! O tatters light, 
 
 Starred with a cross ! Heroic things 
 
 Of ridicule, ye gleam more bright, 
 More beautiful than robes of kings ! 
 
 Limp feathers fluttering adorn 
 
 The tawny colbacks worn and grim. 
 
 The bullet and the moth have torn 
 And riddled well the dolmans dim. 
 
 Their leathern breeches loosely hang 
 In furrows on their lank thigh-bones, 
 
 Their rusty sabres drag and clang, 
 As heavily they scrape the stones. 
 
 90
 
 ft*********************** 
 
 VETERANS OF THE OLD GUARD 
 
 Or some round belly firm and fat, 
 
 Squeezed tight in tether labour-donned, 
 
 Makes mirth and jest to chuckle at 
 Old hero quaint and cheveroned ! 
 
 But do not mock and jeer, my lad. 
 
 Salute him, rather, and, believe, 
 Achilles he, of Iliad 
 
 That Homer's self could not conceive. 
 
 Respect these men with battle signs 
 
 That twenty skies have painted brown ; 
 
 Their scars that lengthen out the lines 
 Of wrinkles age has written down ; 
 
 Their skin whose colour deep and dun, 
 Bared to the fronts of many foes, 
 
 Tells us of Egypt's burning sun ; 
 
 Their locks that tell of Russia's snows. 
 
 And if they shake, no longer strong ? 
 
 Ah ! Beresina's wind was cold. 
 And if they limp ? The way was long, 
 
 From Cairo unto Vilna told.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 If they be stiff? They 'd but a flag 
 For sheet to hold their bodies warm. 
 
 And if a sleeve be loose, poor rag ? 
 'T is that a bullet tore an arm. 
 
 Mock not these veteran shapes bizarre, 
 At whom the urchin laughs and gapes. 
 
 They were the day, of which we are 
 
 The evening, and the night, perhaps, 
 
 Remembering if we forget 
 Red lancer, grenadier in blue, 
 
 With faces to the Column set, 
 As to their only altar true. 
 
 There, proud of pain each scar denotes, 
 And of long miseries gone by, 
 
 They feel beneath their shabby coats 
 The heart of France beat mightily. 
 
 And so our smiles are steeped in tears, 
 
 Seeing this holy carnival, 
 This picture wan that reappears, 
 
 Like morning after midnight's ball. 
 
 92
 
 VETERANS OF THE OLD GUARD 
 
 And, cleaving heaven its own to claim, 
 Wide the Grand Army's eagle spreads 
 
 Its golden wings, like glory's flame, 
 Above their dear and hallowed heads. 
 
 93
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 SEA-GLOOM 
 
 THE sea-gulls restless gleam and glance, 
 The mad white coursers cleave the length 
 
 Of ocean as they rear and prance 
 
 And toss their manes in stormy strength. 
 
 The day is ending. Raindrops choke 
 The sunset furnaces. The gloom 
 
 Brings the great steamboat spitting smoke, 
 And beating down its long black plume. 
 
 And I, more wan than heaven wide, 
 For land of soot and fog am bound, 
 
 For land of smoke and suicide 
 
 And right good weather have I found ! 
 
 How eagerly I now would pierce 
 
 The gulf that groweth wild and hoar ! 
 
 The vessel rocks. The waves are fierce. 
 The salt wind freshens more and more. 
 
 Ah ! bitter is my soul's unrest. 
 
 The very ocean sighing heaves 
 In pity its unhopeful breast, 
 
 Like some good friend that knows and grieves. 
 
 94
 
 SEA-GLOOM 
 
 Let be lost love's despair supreme ! 
 
 Let be illusions fair that rose 
 And fell from pedestals of dream ! 
 
 One leap ! The dark wet ridges close. 
 
 Away ! ye sufferings gone by, 
 That evermore returning brood, 
 
 And press the wounds that sleeping lie, 
 To make them weep afresh their blood. 
 
 Away ! regret, whose crimson heart 
 
 Hath seven swords. Yea, One, maybe, 
 
 Doth know the anguish and the smart 
 Mother of Seven Sorrows, She ! 
 
 Each ghostly grief sinks down the vast, 
 And struggles with the waves that throb 
 
 To close about it, and at last 
 Drown it forever with a sob. 
 
 Soul's ballast, treasures of life's hand, 
 Sink ! and we '11 wreck together down. 
 
 Pale on the pillow of the sand 
 
 I '11 rest me well at evening brown. 
 
 95
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 But, now, a woman, as I gaze, 
 Sits in the bridge's darker nook, 
 
 A woman, who doth sweetly raise 
 Her eyes to mine in one long look. 
 
 T is Sympathy with outstretched arms, 
 Who smileth to me through the gray 
 
 Of dusk with all her thousand charms. 
 Hail, azure eyes ! Green sea, away ! 
 
 The sea-gulls restless gleam and glance. 
 
 The mad white coursers cleave the length 
 Of Ocean as they rear and prance 
 
 And toss their manes in stormy strength. 
 
 96
 
 ************************ 
 
 TO A ROSE-COLOURED GOWN 
 
 TO A ROSE-COLOURED GOWN 
 
 How I love you in the robes 
 
 That disrobe so well your charms ! 
 
 Your dear breasts, twin ivory globes, 
 And your bare sweet pagan arms. 
 
 Frail as frailest wing of bee, 
 
 Fresher than the heart of rose, 
 All the fabric delicate, free, 
 
 Round your body gleams and glows, 
 
 Till from skin to silken thread, 
 
 Silver shivers lightly win, 
 And the rosy gown have shed 
 
 Roses on the creamy skin. 
 
 Whence have you the mystic thing, 
 
 Made of very flesh of you, 
 Living mesh to mix and cling 
 
 With your glorious body's hue ? 
 
 Did you take it from the rud 
 
 Of the dawn ? From Venus' shell ? 
 
 From a breast-flower nigh to bud ? 
 From a rose about to swell ? 
 
 7 97
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Doth the texture have its dye 
 
 From some blushing bashfulness ? 
 
 No your portraits do not lie 
 Beauty beauty's form shall guess ! 
 
 Down you cast your garment fair, 
 
 Art-dreamed, sweet Reality, 
 Like Borghese's princess, rare 
 
 For Canova's mastery ! 
 
 Ah ! the folds are lips of fire 
 
 Sweeping round your lovely form 
 
 In a folly of desire, 
 
 With a weft of kisses warm ! 
 
 98
 
 THE WORLD'S MALICIOUS 
 
 THE WORLD'S MALICIOUS 
 
 AH, little one, the world 's malicious ! 
 
 With mocking smiles thy beauty greeting. 
 It says that in thy breast capricious 
 
 A watch, and not a heart, is beating. 
 
 Yet like the sea thy breast is swelling 
 With all the wild, tumultuous power 
 
 A tide of blood sends pulsing, welling, 
 Beneath thy flesh in life's young hour. 
 
 Ah, little one, the world is spiteful ! 
 
 It says thy vivid eyes are fooling, 
 And that they have their charm delightful 
 
 From faithful, diplomatic schooling. 
 
 Yet on thy lashes' shifting curtain 
 
 An iridescent tear-drop trembles, 
 Like dew unbidden and uncertain, 
 
 That no well-water's gleam resembles. 
 
 Ah, little one, the world reviles thee ! 
 It says thou hast no spirit's favour, 
 That verse, which seemingly beguiles thee, 
 Hath unto thee a Sanskrit savour. 
 
 99
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Yet to thy crimson lips inviting, 
 
 Intelligence's bee of laughter, 
 At every flash of wit alighting, 
 
 Allures and gleams, and lingers after. 
 
 Ah, little one, I know the trouble ! 
 
 Thou lovest me. The world, it guesses. 
 Leave me, and hear its praises bubble : 
 
 " What heart, what spirit, she possesses I " 
 
 100
 
 INES DE LAS SIERRAS 
 INES DE LAS SIERRAS 
 
 To PETRA CAMARA 
 
 IN Spain, as Nodier's pen has told, 
 Three officers in night's mid hours 
 
 Came on a castle dark and old, 
 
 With sunken eaves and mouldering towers, 
 
 A true Anne Radcliffe type it was, 
 
 With ruined halls and crumbling rooms 
 
 And windows graven by the claws 
 
 Of Goya's bats that ranged the glooms. 
 
 Now while they feasted, gazed upon 
 By ancient portraits standing guard 
 
 In their ancestral frames, anon 
 A sudden cry rang thitherward. 
 
 Forth from a distant corridor 
 
 That many a moonbeam's pallid hue 
 
 Fretted fantastically o'er, 
 
 A wondrous phantom sped in view. 
 
 IOI
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 With bodice high and hair comb-tipped, 
 A woman, running, dancing, hied. 
 
 Adown the dappled gloom she dipped, 
 An iridescent form descried. 
 
 A languid, dead, voluptuous mood 
 Filled every act's abandon brief, 
 
 Till at the door she stopped, and stood 
 Sinister, lovely past belief. 
 
 Her raiment crumpled in the tomb 
 
 Showed here and there a spangle's foil. 
 
 At every start a faded bloom 
 
 Dropped petals in her hair's black coil. 
 
 A dull scar crossed her bloodless throat, 
 As of a knife. Like rattle chill 
 
 Of teeth, her castanets she smote 
 Full in their faces awed and still. 
 
 Ah, poor bacchante, sad of grace ! 
 
 So wild the sweetness of her spell, 
 The curved lips in her white face 
 
 Had lured a saint from heaven to hell !] 
 
 102
 
 INES DE LAS SIERRAS 
 
 Like darkling birds her eyelashes 
 Upon her cheek lay fluttering light. 
 
 Her kirtle's swinging cadences 
 
 Displayed her limbs of lustrous white. 
 
 She bowed amid a mist of gyres, 
 
 And with her hand, as dancers may, 
 
 Like flowers she gathered up desires, 
 And grouped them in a bright bouquet. 
 
 Was it a wraith or woman seen, 
 
 A thing of dreams, or blood and flesh, 
 
 The flame that burst from out the sheen 
 Of beauty's undulating mesh ? 
 
 It was a phantom of the past, 
 It was the Spain of olden keep, 
 
 Who, at the sound of cheer at last, 
 Upbounded from her icy sleep, 
 
 In one bolero mad, supreme, 
 Rough-resurrected, powerful, 
 
 Showing beneath her kirtle's gleam 
 The ribbon wrested from the bull. 
 
 103
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 About her throat the scar of red 
 The deathblow was, dealt silently 
 
 Unto a generation dead 
 
 By every new-born century. 
 
 I saw this self-same phantom fleet, 
 All Paris ringing with her praise, 
 
 When soft, diaphanous, mystic, sweet, 
 La Petra Camara held its gaze, 
 
 Closing her eyes with languor rare, 
 
 Impassive, passionate of art, 
 And, like the murdered Ines fair, 
 
 Dancing, a dagger in her heart. 
 
 104
 
 ************************ 
 
 ODELET 
 
 ODELET 
 
 AFTER ANACREON 
 
 POET of her face divine, 
 Curb this over-zeal of thine ! 
 Doves wing frighted from the ground 
 At a step's too sudden sound, 
 And her passion is a dove, 
 Frighted by too bold a love. 
 Mute as marble Hermes wait 
 By the blooming hawthorn-gate. 
 Thou shalt see her wings expand, 
 She shall flutter to thy hand. 
 On thy forehead thou shalt know 
 Something like a breath of snow, 
 Or of pinions pure that beat 
 In a whirl of whiteness sweet. 
 And the dove, grown venturesome, 
 Shall upon thy shoulder come, 
 And its rosy beak shall sip 
 From the nectar of thy lip. 
 
 105
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 SMOKE 
 
 BENEATH yon tree sits humble 
 A squalid, hunchbacked house, 
 With roof precipitous, 
 
 And mossy walls that crumble. 
 
 Bolted and barred the shanty. 
 But from its must and mould, 
 Like breath of lips in cold, 
 
 Comes respiration scanty. 
 
 A vapour upward welling, 
 A slender, silver streak, 
 To God bears tidings meek 
 
 Of the soul in the little dwelling. 
 
 1 06
 
 APOLLONIA 
 
 APOLLONI A 
 
 FAIR Apollonia, name august, 
 
 Greek echo of the sacred vale, 
 Great name whose harmonies robust 
 
 Thee as Apollo's sister hail ! 
 
 Struck with the plectrum on the lyre, 
 
 And in melodious beauty sung, 
 Brighter than love's and glory's fire, 
 
 It resonant rings upon the tongue. 
 
 At such a classic sound as this, 
 
 The elves plunge down their German lake. 
 Alone the Delphian worthy is 
 
 So lustreful a name to take, 
 
 Pythia ! when in her flowing dress 
 
 She mounts her place with feet unshod, 
 
 And, priestess white and prophetess, 
 Wistful awaits the tardy god. 
 
 107
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE BLIND MAN 
 
 A BLIND man walks without the gate, 
 Wild-staring as an owl by day, 
 
 Fumbling his flute betimes and late, 
 Along the way. 
 
 He pipeth, weary wretch and worn, 
 
 A roundel shrill and obsolete. 
 The spectre of a dog forlorn 
 
 Attends his feet. 
 
 For him the days go lustreless. 
 
 Invisible life with beat and roar 
 He heareth like a torrent press 
 
 Around, before. 
 
 What strange chimeras haunt his head ? 
 
 And on his mind's bedarkened space, * 
 What characters unheard, unread, 
 
 Doth fancy trace ? 
 
 Thus down Venetian leads of doom, 
 
 Wan prisoners ensepulchred 
 In palpable, undying gloom 
 
 Have graven their word. 
 
 108
 
 THE BLIND MAN 
 
 And yet perchance when life's last spark 
 Death speeds unto eternal night, 
 
 The tomb-bred soul, within the dark, 
 Shall see the light. 
 
 109
 
 xxxxx db xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 SONG 
 
 IN April earth is white and rose 
 
 Like youth and love, now tendering 
 
 Her smiles, now fearful to disclose 
 Her virgin heart unto the Spring. 
 
 In June, a little pale and worn, 
 And full at heart of vague desire, 
 
 She hideth in the yellow corn, 
 
 With sunburned Summer to respire. 
 
 In August, wild Bacchante, she 
 
 Her bosom bares to Autumn shapes, 
 
 And on the tiger-skin flung free, 
 
 Draws forth the purple blood of grapes. 
 
 And in December, shrivelled, old, 
 Bepowdered white from foot to head, 
 
 In dream she wakens Winter cold, 
 That sleeps beside her in her bed. 
 
 no
 
 WINTER FANTASIES 
 
 WINTER FANTASIES 
 
 I 
 
 RED of nose and white of face, 
 Bent his desk of ice before, 
 
 Winter doth his theme retrace 
 In the season's quatuor, 
 
 Beating measure and the ground 
 With a frozen foot for us, 
 
 Singing with uncertain sound 
 Olden tunes and tremulous. 
 
 And as Hacndel's wig sublime 
 Trembling shook its powder, oft 
 
 Flutter as he taps his time 
 Snow-flakes in a flurry soft. 
 
 in
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 II 
 
 In the Tuileries fount the swan 
 Meets the ice, and all the trees, 
 
 As in land of fairies wan, 
 Are bedecked with filigrees. 
 
 Flowers of frost in vases low 
 
 Stand unquickened and unstirred, 
 
 And we trace upon the snow 
 Starred footsteps of a bird. 
 
 Where with lightest raiment spanned, 
 Venus was with Phocion met, 
 
 Now has Winter's hoary hand 
 Clodion's " Chilly Maiden "*set. 
 
 112
 
 *************++*****+*+* 
 
 WINTER FANTASIES 
 
 III 
 
 Women pass in ermine dress, 
 
 Sable, too, and miniver, 
 And the shivering goddesses 
 
 Haste to don the fashion's fur. 
 
 Venus of the Brine comes forth, 
 In her hooded mantle's fluff. 
 
 Flora, blown by breezes North, 
 Hides her fingers in her muff. 
 
 And the shepherdesses round 
 Of Coustou and Coysevox, 
 
 Finding scarves too light have wound 
 Furs about their throats of snow.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 IV 
 
 Heavy doth the North bedrape 
 Paris mode from foot to top, 
 
 As o'er fair Athenian shape 
 
 Scythian should a bearskin drop. 
 
 Over winter's garments meet, 
 Everywhere we see the fur, 
 
 Flung with Russian pomp, and sweet 
 With the fragrant vetiver. 
 
 Pleasure's laughing glances feast 
 Far amid the statues, where 
 
 From the bristles of a beast 
 Bursts a Venus torso fair ! 
 
 114
 
 ************************ 
 
 WINTER FANTASIES 
 
 If you venture hitherward, 
 With a tender veil to cheat 
 
 Glances over-daring, guard 
 Well your Andalusian feet ! 
 
 Snow shall fashion like a frame 
 On your foot's impression rare, 
 
 Signing with each step your name 
 On the carpet soft and vair. 
 
 Thus were surly master led 
 To the hidden trysting-place, 
 
 Where his Psyche, faintly red, 
 Were beheld in Love's embrace.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE BROOK 
 
 NEAR a great water's waste 
 A brook mid rock and spar 
 
 Came bubbling up in haste, 
 As though to travel far. 
 
 It sang : " What joy to rise ! 
 
 'T was dismal under ground. 
 I mirror now the skies. 
 
 My banks with green abound. 
 
 " Forget-me-nots how fair ! 
 
 Beseech me from the grass ; 
 Wings frolic in theliir, 
 
 And graze me as they pass. 
 
 " I yet shall be who knows ? 
 
 A river winding down, 
 And greeting as it flows 
 
 Valley and cliff and town. 
 
 " I '11 broider with my spray 
 Stone bridge and granite quay, 
 
 And bear great ships away 
 Unto the long wide sea." 
 
 116
 
 THE BROOK 
 
 So planned it, babbling by, 
 
 As water boiling fast 
 Within a basin high, 
 
 To top its brim at last. 
 
 Cradle by tomb is crossed. 
 
 Giants are early dead. 
 Scarce born, the brook was lost 
 
 Within a lake's deep bed. 
 
 117
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 TOMBS AND FUNERAL 
 PYRES 
 
 No grim cadaver set its flaw 
 
 In happy days of pagan an, 
 And man, content with what he saw, 
 
 Stripped not the veil from beauty's heart. 
 
 No form once loved that buried lay, 
 
 A hideous spectre to appal, 
 Dropped bit by bit its flesh away, 
 
 As one by one our garments fall ; 
 
 Or, when the days had drifted by 
 
 And sundered shrank the vaulted stones, 
 
 Showed naked to the daring eye 
 A motley heap of rattling bones. 
 
 But, rescued from the funeral pyre, 
 
 Life's ashen, light residuum 
 Lay soft, and, spent the cleansing fire, 
 
 The urn held sweet the body's sum, 
 
 118
 
 4: db 4e db db db ie db 4? & rfet!? tlr tktl? dbdb tfcdbtfc tfc slrdb 
 
 TOMBS AND FUNERAL PYRES 
 
 The sum of all that earth may claim 
 Of the soul's butterfly, soul passed, 
 
 All that is left of spended flame 
 Upon the tripod at the last. 
 
 Between acanthus leaves and flowers 
 
 In the white marble gaily went 
 Loves and bacchantes all the hours, 
 
 Dancing about the monument. 
 
 At most, a little Genius wild 
 
 Trampled a flame out in the gloom, 
 
 And art's harmonious flowering smiled 
 Upon the sadness of the tomb. 
 
 The tomb was then a pleasant place. 
 
 As bed of child that slumbereth, 
 With many a fair and laughing grace 
 
 The joy of life surrounded death. 
 
 Then death concealed its visage gaunt, 
 Whose sockets deep, and sunken nose, 
 
 And railing mouth our spirits haunt, 
 Past any dream that horror shows. 
 
 119
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 The monster in flesh raiment clad 
 Hid deep its spectral form uncouth, 
 
 And virgin glances, beauty-glad, 
 Sped frankly to the naked youth. 
 
 Twas only at Trimalchio's board 
 
 A little skeleton made sign, 
 An ivory plaything unabhorred, 
 To bid the feasters to the wine. 
 
 Gods, whom Art ever must avow, 
 Ruled the marmoreal sky's demesne. 
 
 Olympus yields to Calvary, now ; 
 Jupiter to the Nazarene ! 
 
 Voices are calling, " Pan is dead ! 
 
 Dusk deepeneth within, without. 
 On the black sheet of sorrow spread, 
 
 The whitened skeleton gleams out. 
 
 It glideth to the headstone bare, 
 And signs it with a paraph wild, 
 
 And hangs a wreath of bones to glare 
 Upon the charnel death-defiled. 
 
 1 20
 
 TOMBS AND FUNERAL PYRES 
 
 It lifts the coffin-lid and quaffs 
 The musty air, and peers within, 
 
 Displays a ring of ribs, and laughs 
 Forever with its awful grin. 
 
 It urges unto Death's fleet dance 
 The Emperor, the Pope, the King, 
 
 And makes the pallid steed to prance, 
 And low the doughty warrior fling ; 
 
 Behind the courtesan steals up, 
 And makes wry faces in her glass ; 
 
 Drinks from the sick man's trembling cup ; 
 Delves in the miser's golden mass. 
 
 Above the team it whirls the thong, 
 With bone for goad to hurry h, 
 
 Follows the plowman's way along, 
 And guides the furrows to a pit. 
 
 It comes, the uninvited guest, 
 
 And lurks beneath the banquet chair, 
 
 Unseen from the pale bride to wrest 
 Her little silken garter fair. 
 
 121
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 The number swells : the young give hand 
 
 Unto the old, and none may flee. 
 The irresistible saraband 
 
 Com pellet h all humanity. 
 
 Forth speeds the tall, ungainly fright, 
 Playing the rebeck, dancing mad, 
 
 Against the dark a frame of white, 
 As Holbein drew it horror-sad j 
 
 Or if the times be frivolous, 
 
 Trusses the shroud about its hips: 
 
 Then like a Cupid mischievous, 
 Across the ballet-room it skips, 
 
 And unto carven tombs it flies, 
 Where marchionesses rest demure, 
 
 Weary of love, in exquisite guise, 
 In chapels dim and pompadour. 
 
 But hide thy hideous form at last, 
 Worm-eaten actor ! Long enough 
 
 In death's wan melodrama cast, 
 
 Thou 'st played thy part without rebuff. 
 
 122
 
 TOMBS AND FUNERAL PYRES 
 
 Come back, come back, O ancient Art ! 
 
 And cover with thy marble's gleam 
 This Gothic skeleton ! Each part 
 
 Consume, ye flames of fire supreme ! 
 
 If man be then a creature made 
 In God's own image, to aspire, 
 
 When shattered must the image fade, 
 Let the lone fragments feed the fire ! 
 
 Immortal form ! Rise them in flame 
 Again to beauty's fount of bloom 
 
 Let not thy clay endure the shame, 
 The degradation of the tomb ! 
 
 123
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 BJORN'S BANQUET 
 
 BJORN, odd and lonely cenobite, 
 High on a barren rock's plateau, 
 
 Far out of time's and the world's sight, 
 Dwells in a castle none may know. 
 
 No modern thought may violate 
 
 His darkened and secluded hall. 
 Bjorn bolts with care his postern-gate, 
 
 And barricades his castle wall. 
 
 * 
 
 When others wait the rising sun, 
 He from his mouldering parapet 
 
 Still contemplates the valley dun, 
 Where he beheld the red sun set. 
 
 Securely doth the past enlock 
 
 His retrospective spirit lone. 
 The pendulum within his clock 
 
 Was broken centuries agone. 
 
 Waking the echoes wanders he 
 Beneath his feudal arches drear, 
 
 His ringing footsteps seemingly 
 Followed by other footsteps clear. 
 
 124
 
 BJORN'S BANQUET 
 
 Nor priests nor friends with him make bold, 
 Nor burghers plain nor gentlemen ; 
 
 But his ancestral portraits hold 
 A parley with him now and then. 
 
 And of a midnight, sparing him 
 
 The ennui of a lonely cup, 
 Bjorn, harbouring a gloomy whim, 
 
 Invites his ancestors to sup. 
 
 Forth stepping at the hour's grim stroke, 
 Come phantoms armed from foot to head. 
 
 Bjorn, quaking, to the solemn folk 
 Proffers with state the goblet red. 
 
 To seat itself each panoply 
 
 With joints that grumble in revolt 
 
 Maketh an angle with its knee, 
 That creaketh like a rusty bolt } 
 
 Till all at once the suit of mail, 
 
 Rude coffin of an absent bulk, 
 Cleaving the silence with a wail, 
 
 Falls in its chair, a clanking hulk. 
 
 125
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Landgraves and burgraves, spare and stout, 
 Come down from heaven or up from hell, 
 
 The iron guests of many a bout, 
 
 Are bound within the midnight spell. 
 
 Their blow-indented helmets bear 
 Heraldic beasts that bay and grin, 
 
 Athwart the shades the red lights glare 
 On crest and ancient lambrequin. 
 
 Each empty, open casque now seems 
 
 Like to the helms of heraldries, 
 Save for two strange and livid gleams 
 
 That issue forth in threatening wise. 
 
 Seated is each old combatant 
 
 In the vast hall, at Bjorn's behest, 
 
 And the uncertain shadows grant 
 A swarthy page to every guest. 
 
 The liquors in the candle-shine 
 Take on suspicious purples. All 
 
 The viands in their gravy's wine 
 Grow lurid and fantastical. 
 
 126
 
 ************************ 
 
 BJORN'S BANQUET 
 
 Sometimes a breastplate glitters bright, 
 A morion speeds its flashes wroth, 
 
 A rondelle from a hand of might 
 Drops heavily upon the cloth. 
 
 Heard are the softly flapping wings 
 Of unseen bats. The shimmer flicks 
 
 Upon the carven panellings 
 The banners of the heretics. 
 
 The stiffly bended gauntlets play 
 
 In the dull glow incarnadine, 
 And, creaking, to the helmets gray 
 
 Pour bumpers full of Rhenish wine; 
 
 Or with their daggers keen of blade 
 Carve boars upon the plates of gold. 
 
 The corridor's uncanny shade 
 
 Hath clamours vague and manifold. 
 
 The orgy waxes riotsome 
 
 One could not hear God's voice for it 
 For when a phantom sups from home, 
 
 What wrong if he carouse a bit ? 
 
 127
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Now every ghostly care they drown 
 With jokes and jeers and loud guffaws. 
 
 A wine-cascade is running down 
 Each rusty helmet's iron jaws. 
 
 The full and rounded hauberks bulge, 
 And to the neck the river mounts. 
 
 Their eyes with liquid fire effulge. 
 
 They 're howling drunk, these valiant counts ! 
 
 One through the salad idly wields 
 
 A foot ; another scolds the sick. 
 Some like the lions on their shields 
 
 With gaping mouths the fancy trick. 
 
 In voice still hoarse from silence long 
 In the tomb's dampness and restraint, 
 
 Max playfully intones a song 
 
 Of thirteen hundred, crude and quaint. 
 
 Albrecht, of quarrelsome repute, 
 
 Stirs right and left a war intense, 
 And drubs about with fist and foot, 
 
 As once he drubbed the Saracens. 
 
 128
 
 BJORN'S BANQUET 
 
 And heated Fritz his helmet doffs, 
 Not deeming he 's a headless trunk. 
 
 Then down pell-mell mid roars and scoffs 
 Together roll the phantoms drunk. 
 
 Ah ! 'T is a hideous battle-ground, 
 
 Where pots and weapons bang and scud, 
 
 Where every dead man through some wound 
 Doth vomit victuals up for blood. 
 
 And Bjorn observes them, sad of eye, 
 And haggard, while athwart the panes 
 
 The dawn comes creeping stealthily, 
 
 With blue, thin lights, and darkness wanes. 
 
 The prostrate mass of rusty brown 
 Pales like a torch in daylight's room, 
 
 Until the drunkest pours him down 
 At last the stirrup-cup of doom. 
 
 The cock crows loud. And with the day 
 Once more with haughty mien and bold, 
 
 Their revel-weary heads they lay 
 Upon their marble pillows cold. 
 
 129
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE WATCH 
 
 Now twice my watch have I taken, 
 And twice as I Ve gazing sat, 
 
 The hand has pointed unshaken 
 To one and it 's long past that ! 
 
 The clock's light cadences linger. 
 
 The sun-dial laughs from the lawn, 
 And points with a long, gaunt finger 
 
 The path that its shade has drawn. 
 
 A steeple ironically 
 
 Calls the true time to me. 
 The belfry bell makes tally 
 
 And taunts me with accents free. 
 
 Ah, dead is the wretch ! I sought not, 
 Last night, to my reverie sold, 
 
 Its ruby circle ! I thought not 
 Of glimmering key of gold ! 
 
 No longer I see with pleasure 
 The spring of the balance-wheel 
 
 Flit hither and there at measure, 
 Like a butterfly form of steel. 
 
 '30
 
 ************++******++** 
 
 THE WATCH 
 
 When HippogrifF bears me, yearning, 
 Through skies of another sphere, 
 
 My soul-reft body goes turning 
 Wherever the steed may veer. 
 
 Eternity still is giving 
 
 Its gaze to the lifeless face. 
 Time seeketh the heart once living, 
 
 His ear at the old watch-case, 
 
 That heart whose regular motion 
 Was followed within my breast 
 
 By wave-beats of life's full ocean ! 
 Ah well ! the watch is at rest. 
 
 But its brother is beating ever, 
 
 Steadfast and sturdy kept 
 By One Who forgetteth never, 
 
 Who wound it the while I slept.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 TH E MERMAIDS 
 
 THERE'S a sketch you may discover 
 
 By an artist of degree 
 Rime and metre quarrel over 
 
 Theophile Kniatowski. 
 
 On the snowy foam that fringes 
 
 All the mantle of the brine, 
 Radiant with the sunlight's tinges, 
 
 Three mermaidens softly shine. 
 
 Like the drowned lilies dancing 
 Turn they, as the spiral wave 
 
 Buoys their bodies hiding, glancing, 
 As they sink and rise and lave. 
 
 In their golden hair for dowers 
 
 They have twined with beauteous hands 
 Shells for diadems, and flowers 
 
 From the deep wild under sands. 
 
 Oysters pour a pearly hoarding 
 Their enrapturing throats to gem, 
 
 And the wave, its wealth according, 
 Tosses other pearls to them. 
 
 132
 
 THE MERMAIDS 
 
 Borne above the crest of ocean 
 By a Triton hand and strong, 
 
 Twine they, beautiful of motion, 
 Under gleaming tresses long. 
 
 And the crystal water under, 
 Down the blue the glories pale 
 
 Of each lovely form of wonder, 
 Tapered to a shimmering tail. 
 
 Ah ! But who the scaly swimmers 
 Would behold in modern day 
 
 When a bust of ivory glimmers, 
 Cool from kisses of the spray ? 
 
 Look ! Oh, mingled truth and fable ! 
 
 O'er the horizon steady plied, 
 Comes a vessel proud and stable, 
 
 Toward the mermaids terrified ! 
 
 Tricoloured its frag is flaunted, 
 
 And it vomits vapour red, 
 And it beats the billows daunted, 
 
 Till the nymphs dive low for dread. 
 
 '33
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Fearlessly they did beleaguer 
 
 Triremes immemorial, 
 And the dolphins arched and eager 
 
 Waited for Arion's call. 
 
 This of old. But now the steamer 
 Vulcan hurtling Venus' charms, 
 
 Would destroy the siren gleamer, 
 With her fair, nude tail and arms. 
 
 Farewell myth ! The boat that passes 
 
 Thinks to see on silver bar, 
 Where the widening billow glasses, 
 
 Porpoises that plunge afar. 
 
 134
 
 TWO LOVE-LOCKS 
 
 TWO LOVE-LOCKS 
 
 REVIVING languorous dreaming 
 Of conquered, conquering eye, 
 
 Upon thy forehead gleaming, 
 Two fairest love-locks lie. 
 
 I see them softly nesting, 
 Of wondrous, golden sheen, 
 
 Like little wheels come resting 
 From car of Mab the Queen ; 
 
 Or bows of Cupid ready 
 To let the arrows fly, 
 Bent circlewise and steady 
 For archer's mastery. 
 
 One heart have I of passion. 
 
 Yet two love-locks are thine ! 
 O brow of fickle fashion ! 
 
 Whose heart is caught with mine ?
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE TEA-ROSE 
 
 MOST beautiful of all the roses 
 Is this half-open bud, whose bare, 
 
 Unpetalled heart a dream discloses 
 Of carmine very faint and fair. 
 
 I wonder, was it once a white rose, 
 Till butterfly too ardent spoke 
 
 A language soft, and in the light rose 
 A shyer, warmer tint awoke ? 
 
 Its delicate fabric hath the colour 
 Of lovely and velutinous skin. 
 
 Its perfect freshness maketh duller 
 Environing hues incarnadine. 
 
 For as some rare patrician features 
 Eclipse the brows of ruddier gleam, 
 
 So masquerade as rustic creatures 
 Gay sisters of this rose supreme. 
 
 But, dear one, if your hand caress it, 
 And raise it for its sweet perfume, 
 
 Ere yet your velvet cheek shall press it, 
 'T will fade before a fairer bloom. 
 
 136
 
 tfc tfc tfc tfc 4? db db 4? df 4? 4? ibx db w x x tfc tfc a? t8? yt v * 
 
 THE TEA-ROSE 
 
 No rose in all the world so tender, 
 That gloweth in the springtime fleet, 
 
 But shall its every charm surrender 
 Unto your seventeen years, my sweet. 
 
 A face hath more than petal's power : 
 A pure heart's blood that blushing flows 
 
 O'er youth's nobility, is flower 
 High sovereign over every rose.
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 CARMEN 
 
 SLENDER is Carmen, of lissome guise, 
 Her hair is black as the midnight's heart ; 
 
 Dark circles are under her gypsy eyes, 
 Her swarthy skin is the devil's art. 
 
 The women will mock at her form and face ; 
 
 But the men will follow her all the day. 
 Toledo's Archbishop (now save His Grace !) 
 
 Tones his mass at her knees, they say. 
 
 Nestled in warmth of her amber neck 
 Lies a massive coil, till she fling it down 
 
 To be a raiment to frame and deck 
 Her delicate body from foot to crown. 
 
 Then out from her pallid face with power 
 Her witching, terrible smiles compel. 
 
 Her mouth is a mystical poison-flower 
 
 That hath drawn its crimson from hearts in hell. 
 
 The haughtiest beauty must yield her fame, 
 When this strange vision shall dusk her sky. 
 
 For Carmen rules, and her glance's flame 
 Shall set the torch to satiety.
 
 CARMEN 
 
 Wild, graceless Carmen ! Though yet this be, 
 Savour she hath of a world undreamt, 
 
 Of a world of wonder, whose salt young sea 
 Provoked a Venus to rise and tempt.
 
 WHAT THE SWALLOWS SAY 
 
 AN AUTUMN SONG 
 
 THE dry, brown leaves have dropped forlorn, 
 
 And lie amid the golden grass. 
 The wind is fresh both eve and morn. 
 
 But where are summer days, alas ! 
 
 The tardy flowers the autumn stayed 
 
 For latter treasures now unfold. 
 The dahlia dons its gay cockade, 
 
 Its flaming cap the marigold. 
 
 Rain stirs the pool with pelt and shock. 
 
 The swallows to the roof repair, 
 Confabulating as they flock 
 
 And feel the winter in the air. 
 
 By hundreds gather they to vow 
 Their little yearnings and intents. 
 
 Saith one : " 'T is fair in Athens now, 
 Upon the sun-warm battlements ! 
 
 140
 
 WHAT THE SWALLOWS SAY 
 
 " Thither I go to take my nap 
 
 Upon the Parthenon high and free. 
 
 My cornice nest is in the gap 
 
 A cannon-ball made there for me." 
 
 And one : " A ceiling meets my needs 
 
 Within a Smyrna coffee-house, 
 Where Hadjis tell their amber beads 
 
 Upon the threshold luminous. 
 
 u I go and come above the folk, 
 
 While their chibouques their clouds upfling. 
 I skim along through silver smoke, 
 
 And graze the turbans with my wing." 
 
 Another : " There 's a triglyph gray 
 On one of Baalbec's temples high. 
 
 'T is there I go to brood all day 
 Above my little family." 
 
 Another calleth, " My address 
 
 Is settled : ' At the Knights of Rhodes.' 
 
 In a dark colonnade's recess 
 
 I '11 make the snuggest of abodes." 
 
 141
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 " Old age hath made me slow for flight," 
 Declares a fifth ; " I '11 rest at even 
 
 On Malta's terraces of white, 
 
 Where blue sea melts to blue of heaven." 
 
 A sixth : " In Cairo is my home, 
 
 Up in a minaret's retreat : 
 A twig or two, a bit of loam 
 
 My winter lodgings are complete." 
 
 A last : " The Second Cataract 
 
 Shall mark my place the nest of brown 
 A granite king doth hold intact 
 
 Within the circle of his crown." 
 
 And all together sing : " What miles 
 To-morrow shall have stretched beneath 
 
 Our fleeing swarm : remembered isles, 
 Snow peaks, vast waters, lands of heath ! " 
 
 With calls and cries and beat of wings, 
 Grown eager now and venturesome, 
 
 The swallows hold their twitterings, 
 To see the blight of winter come. 
 
 142
 
 ***********++******** 
 
 E ! LS 
 
 *Old age hath mail u. 
 
 Declares a fifth ; * 1 '11 rest at even 
 
 On **"' ''-': reriV 
 
 Where blue "< ':>>*' 
 
 A aixth ; " In Cairo b my home, 
 
 IT P JSAPiB^lrfkN/ COFFEE-HOUSE 
 
 A^hbtogr^vu're from a paintmg by F. A. Bridgman 
 
 Shali mark my place the nest of browo 
 A granite king doth hold intact 
 W ithin the circle of his crown/* 
 
 Our fleeing swarm : remembered isles, 
 Snow peaks. va*t water*, land* of heath ! " 
 
 And one : " d ceiling meets wry nteds:. 
 
 Within, fl Smyrna (ojef-bpnse f 
 Where Hadjis tell their amber beads 
 
 Upon the ibrtsKold luminous^ ' 
 ; <> s<*. ' t cr cornc.
 
 fat********************** 
 
 WHAT THE SWALLOWS SAY 
 
 And I I understand them all, 
 
 Because the poet is a bird, 
 Oh ! but a sorry bird, and thrall 
 
 To a great lack, pressed heavenward. 
 
 It's Oh for wings ! to seek the star, 
 To count the seas when day is done, 
 
 To breast the air with swallows far, 
 To verdant spring, to golden sun ! 
 
 J 43
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 BLACK is the sky and white the ground. 
 
 O ring, ye bells, your carol's grace ! 
 The Child is born ! A love profound 
 
 Beams o'er Him from His Mother's face. 
 
 No silken woof of costly show 
 
 Keeps off the bitter cold from Him. 
 
 But spider-webs have drooped them low, 
 To be His curtain soft and dim. 
 
 Now trembles on the straw downspread 
 The Little Child, the Star beneath. 
 
 To warm Him in His holy bed, 
 Upon Him ox and ass do breathe. 
 
 Snow hangs its fringes on the byre. 
 
 The roof stands open to the tryst 
 Of aureoled saints, that sweetly choir 
 
 To shepherds, " Come, behold the Christ ! 
 
 144
 
 THE DEAD CHILD'S PLAYTHINGS 
 
 THE DEAD CHILD'S PLAY- 
 THINGS 
 
 MARIE comes no more at call. 
 
 She has wandered from her play. 
 Ah, how pitifully small 
 
 Was the coffin borne away ! 
 
 See about the nursery floor 
 
 All her little heritage : 
 Rubber ball and battledore, 
 
 Tattered book and coloured page. 
 
 Poor forsaken doll ! in vain 
 
 Stretch your arms. She will not come. 
 Stopped forever is the train, 
 
 And the music-box is dumb. 
 
 Some one touched it soft, apart, 
 Where the silence is her name. 
 
 And what sinking of the heart 
 At the plaintive note that came ! 
 
 10 145
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Ah, the anguish ! when the tomb 
 Robs the cradle ; when bereft 
 
 We discover in the gloom 
 Child toys that an angel left. 
 
 146
 
 AFTER WRITING MY REVIEW 
 
 AFTER WRITING MY 
 DRAMATIC REVIEW 
 
 MY columns are ranged and steady, 
 Upbearing, though sad forespent, 
 The newspaper pediment, 
 
 And my review is ready. 
 
 Now for a week, poetaster, 
 My door is bolted. Away, 
 Thou still-born masterpiece, aye, 
 
 Till Monday I am my master. 
 
 No melodrama shall whiten 
 
 My labour with threadbare leaves. 
 The warp that my fancy weaves 
 
 With silken flowers shall brighten. 
 
 Brief moment my spirit's warder, 
 Ye voices of soul that float, 
 I '11 hearken your sorrow's note, 
 
 Nor verses evoke to order. 
 
 47
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Then deep in my glass regaining 
 The health of a day gone by, 
 Old visions for company 
 
 The bloom of my vintage draining, 
 
 The wine of my thought I '11 measure, 
 Wine virgin of alien glow, 
 Grapes trodden by life, that flow 
 
 From my heart at my heart's own pleasure ! 
 
 148
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 THE CASTLE OF 
 REMEMBRANCE 
 
 BEFORE my hearth with head low-bowed 
 I dream, and strive to reach again, 
 
 Across the misty past's gray cloud, 
 Unto Remembrance's domain, 
 
 Where tree and house and upland way 
 Are blurred and blue like passing ghosts, 
 
 And the eye, ponder though it may, 
 Consults in vain the guiding-posts. 
 
 Now gropingly to gain a sight 
 Of all the buried world, I press 
 
 Through mystic marge of shade and light 
 And limbo of forget fulness. 
 
 But white, diaphanous Memory stands, 
 Where many roadways meet and spread, 
 
 Like Ariadne, in my hands 
 
 Thrusting her little ball of thread. 
 
 149
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Henceforth the way is all secure. 
 
 The shrouded sun hath reappeared, 
 And o'er the trees with vision sure 
 
 I see the castle tower upreared. 
 
 Beneath the boughs where day grows dark 
 
 With shower on shower of leaves down-poured 
 
 The dear old path through moss and bark 
 Still lengthens far its narrow cord. 
 
 But creeping-plant and bramble-spray 
 Have wrought a net to daunt me now. 
 
 The stubborn branch I force away 
 Swings fiercely back to lash my brow. 
 
 I come upon the house at last. 
 
 No window lit with lamp or face, 
 No breath of smoke from gables vast, 
 
 To touch with life the mouldering place ! 
 
 Bridges are crumbling. Moats are still, 
 And slimed with rank, green refuse-flowers, 
 
 And tortuous waves of ivy fill 
 
 The crevices and choke the towers. 
 
 150
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 The portico in moonlight wanes. 
 
 Time sculptures it to suit his whim. 
 And with the wash of many rains 
 
 My coloured coat of arms is dim. 
 
 The door I open eagerly. 
 
 The ancient hinges creak and halt. 
 A breath of dampness wafts to me 
 
 The musty odour of the vault. 
 
 The hairy nettle sharp of sting, 
 
 The coarse and broad-leafed burdock weed 
 In court-yard nooks are prospering, 
 
 By spreading hemlocks canopied. 
 
 Upon two marble monsters near, 
 
 That guard the mossy steps of stone, 
 
 The shadow of a tree falls clear, 
 That in my absence has upgrown. 
 
 Sudden the lion sentinels raise 
 
 Their paws, aggressive and malign, 
 
 And challenge me with their white gaze ; 
 But soft I breathe the countersign.
 
 dfedbi: :fc ic db tfc * 4: tfctk-sHrtlbslr&tfctfctfctfcsb ?fc Asfc 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 I pass. The old dog menaceth, 
 
 But falls back hushed, the shades amid. 
 
 My resonant footstep wakeneth 
 
 Crouched echoes in their corners hid. 
 
 Through yellow panes of glass a ray 
 Of dubious light creeps down the hall 
 
 Where ancient tapestries display 
 Apollo's fortunes from the wall. 
 
 Fair tree-bound Daphne still with grace 
 Stretches her tufted fingers green. 
 
 But in the amorous god's embrace 
 She fades, a formless phantom seen. 
 
 I watch divine Apollo stand, 
 
 Herdsman to acarus-riddled sheep, 
 
 The Muses Nine, a haggard band, 
 Upon a faded Pindus weep ; 
 
 While Solitude in scanty gown 
 Traces " Desertion " in the dust 
 
 That through the air she sifteth down 
 Upon a marble stand august. 
 
 152
 
 ft*********************** 
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 And now, among forgotten things, 
 
 I find, like sleepers manifold, 
 Pastels bedimmed, dark picturings, 
 
 Young beauties, and the friends of old. 
 
 My faltering fingers lift a crape, 
 And lo, my love with look and lure ! 
 
 With puffing skirts and prisoned shape ! 
 Cidalise a la Pompadour ! 
 
 A tender, blossoming rose she feels 
 Against her ribboned bodice pressed, 
 
 Whose lace half hides and half reveals 
 A snowy, azure-veined breast. 
 
 Within her eyes gleam sparkles lush, 
 As on the rime-kissed, deadened leaves. 
 
 Upon her cheek a purple flush 
 
 Death's own cosmetic hue ! deceives. 
 
 She startles as I come before, 
 And fixeth soft on me her eyes, 
 
 Reproachfully forevermore, 
 
 Yet with a charm and witching wise. 
 
 153
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Life bore me from thee at its will, 
 Yet on my heart thy name is laid, 
 
 Thou dead delight, that lingereth still, 
 Bedizened for the masquerade ! 
 
 Envious of Art, fair Nature wrought 
 To overpass Murillo's fame, 
 
 From Andalusia here she brought 
 
 The face that lights the second frame. 
 
 By some poetical caprice, 
 
 Our atmosphere of mist and cloud, 
 With rare exotic charm's increase 
 
 This other Petra Camara dowed. 
 
 Warm orange tones are gilding yet 
 Her lovely skin of roseate hue. 
 
 Her eyelids fair have lashes jet 
 
 That beams of sunshine filter through. 
 
 There shimmers fine a pearly gleam 
 Between her scarlet lips elate ; 
 
 Her beauty flashes forth supreme 
 A bright south summer pomegrariate.
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 Long to the sound of Spain's guitar, 
 I told her praise 'mid song and glass. 
 
 She came alone one evenstar, 
 And all my room Alhambra was. 
 
 Farther I see a robust Fair, 
 
 With strong and gem-beladen arms. 
 
 In pearls of price and velvet fare 
 Are set her ivory bosom's charms. 
 
 Her ennui is a weary queen's, 
 
 An adulating court amid. 
 Superb, aloof, her hand she leans 
 
 Upon a casket's jewelled lid. 
 
 Her sensuous lips their crimes confess, 
 As crimson with the blood of hearts. 
 
 With brutal, mad voluptuousness 
 
 Her conquering eye a challenge darts. 
 
 Here dwells, in lieu of tender grace, 
 
 Vertiginous allure, whereof 
 A cruel Venus ruled a race., 
 
 Presiding o'er malignant love. 
 
 155
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Unnatural mother to her child, 
 
 This Venus all imperative ! 
 O thou, my bitter joy and wild, 
 
 Farewell forever ! I forgive ! 
 
 Within its frame in shadow fine, 
 The misty glass that still endures 
 
 Reveals another face than mine, 
 The earliest of my portraitures. 
 
 A retrospective ghost, with face 
 
 Of vanished type, steps from the vast 
 
 Dim mirror of his biding-place 
 In tenebrous, forgotten past. 
 
 Gay in his doublet satin-rose, 
 Coloured in bold and vivid way, 
 
 He seems as if about to pose 
 For Deveria or Boulanger. 
 
 \ 
 Terror of glabrous commoner, 
 
 His flowing locks in royal guise, 
 Like mane of lion, or sinister 
 
 King's hair, fall heavy to his thighs. 
 
 156
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 Romanticist of bold conceit, 
 
 Knight of an art which strives anew, 
 
 He hurled himself at Drama's feet, 
 When erst Hernani's trumpet blew. 
 
 Night falls. The corners are astir 
 With many shapes and shadows tall. 
 
 The Unknown grim stage-carpenter 
 Sets up its darksome frights o'er all. 
 
 A sudden burst of candles, weird 
 With aureoles, like lamps of death ! 
 
 The room is populous, and bleared 
 With folk brought hither by a breath ! 
 
 Down step the portraits from the wall, 
 
 A ruddy-litten company ! 
 Circling the fireplace in the hall, 
 
 Where the wood blazes suddenly. 
 
 The figures wrested from the tombs 
 Have lost their rigid, frozen mien, 
 
 The gradual glow of life illumes 
 The Past with flush incarnadine. 
 
 157
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 A colour lights the faces pale, 
 As in the days of old delight. 
 
 Friends whom my thought shall never fail, 
 I thank ye, that ye came to-night ! 
 
 Now eighteen-thirty shows to me 
 Its great and valiant-hearted men. 
 
 (Ah, like Otranto's pirates, we 
 
 Who were an hundred, are but ten !) 
 
 And one his reddish beard spreads out, 
 
 Like Barbarossa in his cave. 
 Another his mustachio stout 
 
 Curls at the ends in fashion suave. 
 
 Under the ample fold that cloaks 
 
 An ever unrevealed ill, 
 Petrus a cigarette now smokes, 
 
 Naming it " papelito " still. 
 
 Another cometh, fain to tell 
 
 His visions and his hopes supreme. 
 
 Like Icarus on the sands he fell, 
 
 Where lie all broken shafts of dream. 
 
 158
 
 THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE 
 
 And one a drama hath begot, 
 
 Planned after some new model's freak, 
 
 Which, merging all things in its plot, 
 Makes Calderon with Moliere speak. 
 
 Tom, late forsaken by his Dear, 
 
 Love's Labour 's Lost must low recite ; 
 
 And Fritz to Cidalise makes clear 
 Faust's vision of Walpurgis Night. 
 
 But dawn comes through the window free. 
 
 Diaphanous the phantoms grow. 
 The objects of reality 
 
 Strike through their shapes that merge and go. 
 
 The candles are consumed away. 
 
 The ember-lights no longer gleam 
 Upon the hearth. No thing shall stay. 
 
 Farewell, O castle of my dream ! 
 
 December gray shall turn once more 
 The glass of Time, for all we fret ! 
 
 The present enters at my door, 
 And vainly bids me to forget.
 
 stdbdbdbifc db tfc ir drdbtfc^tfctfctfctfctfctfctfctfcdbsfc sbfc 
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 CAMELLIA AND MEADOW- 
 DAISY 
 
 WE praise the hot-house flowers that loom 
 Far from their native sun and shade, 
 
 The flaring forms that flaunt their bloom, 
 Like jewels under glass displayed. 
 
 With never breeze to kiss their heads, 
 They have their birth and live and die 
 
 On costly, artificial beds, 
 Beneath an ever-crystal sky. 
 
 For whomsoever idly scans, 
 Baring their treasures to entice, 
 
 Like fair and sumptuous courtesans, 
 They stand for sale at golden price. 
 
 Fine porcelain holds their gathered groups, 
 Or glove-clad fingers fondle them 
 
 Between the dances, till each droops 
 Upon a limp or broken stem. 
 
 1 60
 
 CAMELLIA AND MEADOW-DAISY 
 
 But down amid the grass unreaped, 
 Shunning the curious, in repose 
 
 And silence all the long day steeped, 
 A little woodland daisy blows. 
 
 A butterfly upon the wing 
 
 To point the place, a casual look, 
 
 And you surprise the sweet, shy thing, 
 Within its calm, sequestered nook. 
 
 Beneath the blue it openeth, 
 
 Rising on slender, vernal rod, 
 Spreading its soul in fragrant breath 
 
 For solitude and for its God. 
 
 And proud camellias tall and white, 
 
 Red tulips in a flaming mass, 
 Are all at once forgotten quite, 
 
 For the small flower amid the grass. 
 
 161
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 THE FELLAH 
 
 On seeing a Water-Colour by Princess Mathilde 
 
 CAPRICE of brush fantastical, 
 
 And of imperial idleness, 
 Your fellah-sphinx presents us all 
 
 With an enigma worth the guess. 
 
 A rigid fashion, verily, 
 
 This mask, this garment, seem to us, 
 Intriguing with its mystery 
 
 The ball-room's every CEdipus. 
 
 Isis bequeathed her veil of old 
 
 To modern daughters of the Nile. 
 
 But through this band austere, behold, 
 Two stars of radiance beam and smile, 
 
 Two stars, two eyes, two poems that spring, 
 The soft, voluptuous fires whereof 
 
 Resolve the riddle, murmuring : 
 
 " Lo, I am Beauty ! Be thou Love ! " 
 
 162
 
 THE GARRET 
 
 THE GARRET 
 
 FROM balcony tiles where casual cats 
 Sit low in wait for birds unwise, 
 
 I see the worn and riven slats 
 Of a poor, humble garret rise. 
 
 Now could I as an author lie, 
 
 To give you comfort as you think, 
 
 Its window I would falsify, 
 
 And frame with flowers refined and pink, 
 
 And place within it Rigolette 
 
 With her cheap looking-glass, somehow, 
 Whose broken glazing mirrors yet 
 
 A portion of her pretty brow ; 
 
 Or Margery, her dress undone, 
 
 Her hair blown free, her tie forgot, 
 
 Watering in the pleasant sun 
 
 Her pail-encompassed garden-plot ; 
 
 Or poet-youth whom fame awaits, 
 
 Who scans his verse and eyes the hills, 
 
 Or in a reverie contemplates 
 
 Montmartre with its distant mills. 
 
 163
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Alas ! my garret is no feint. 
 
 There climbeth no convolvulus. 
 The window with its nibbled paint 
 
 Leers Rimy and unluminous. 
 
 Alike for artist and grisette, 
 
 Alike for widower and lad, 
 A garret save to music set 
 
 Is never otherwise than sad. 
 
 Of old, beneath an angle pent, 
 
 That forced the forehead to a kiss, 
 
 Love, with a folding-couch content, 
 To chat with Susan deemed it bliss. 
 
 But we must wad our bliss about 
 
 With cushioned walls and laces wide, 
 
 And silks that flutter in and out, 
 O'er beds by Monbro canopied. 
 
 This evening, to Mount Breda fled 
 
 Is Rigolette, to linger there, 
 And Margery, well clothed and fed, 
 
 No longer tends her garden fair. 
 
 164
 
 ***********+************ 
 
 THE GARRET 
 
 The poet, tired of catching rimes 
 Upon the wing, has turned to cull 
 
 Reporter's bays, and left betimes 
 A heaven for an entresol. 
 
 And in the window this is all : 
 An ancient goody chattering, 
 
 And railing at a kitten small 
 That toys forever with a string. 
 
 165
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE CLOUD 
 
 LIGHTLY in the azure air 
 
 Soars a cloud, emerging free 
 Like a virgin from the fair 
 Blue sea ; 
 
 Or an Aphrodite sweet, 
 
 Floating upright and empearled 
 In the shell, about its feet 
 Foam-curled. 
 
 Undulating overhead, 
 
 How its changing body glows ! 
 On its shoulder dawn hath spread 
 A rose. 
 
 Marble, snow, blend amorously 
 
 In that form by sunlight kissed 
 Slumbering Antiope 
 Of mist ! 
 
 Sailing unto distant goal, 
 
 Over Alps and Apennines, 
 Sister of the woman-soul, 
 It shines ; 
 
 1 66
 
 ft*********************** 
 
 THE CLOUD 
 
 Till my heart flies forth at last 
 
 On the wings of passion warm, 
 And I yearn to gather fast 
 Its form. 
 
 Reason saith : u Mere vapour thing ! 
 Bursting bubble ! Yet, we deem, 
 Holds this wind-distorted ring 
 Our dream." 
 
 Faith declareth : " Beauty seen, 
 
 Like a cloud, is but a thought, 
 Or a breath, that, having been, 
 Is naught. 
 
 " Have thy vision. Build it proud. 
 
 Let thy soul be full thereof. 
 Love a woman love a cloud 
 But love ! " 
 
 167
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD 
 
 A BIRD from yonder branch at dawn 
 
 Is trilling forth a joyful note, 
 Or hopping o'er the frozen lawn, 
 
 In yellow boots and ebon coat. 
 
 It is the blackbird credulous. 
 
 Little of calendar knows he, 
 Whose soul, with sunbeams luminous, 
 
 Sings April to the snows that be. 
 
 Rain sweeps in torrents unrepressed. 
 
 The Arve makes dull the Rhone with mire. 
 The pleasant hall retains its guest 
 
 In goodly cheer before the fire. 
 
 The mountains have their ermine on, 
 
 Each one a mighty magistrate, 
 And hold grave conference upon 
 
 A case of Winter lasting late. 
 
 The bird dries well his wing, and long, 
 Despite the rains, the mists that roll, 
 
 Insists upon his little song, 
 
 Believes in Spring with all his soul. 
 
 168
 
 THE BLACKBIRD 
 
 He softly chides the slumberous morn 
 
 For dallying so long abed, 
 And bids the shivering flower forlorn 
 
 Be bold, and raise aloft its head ; 
 
 Behind the dark sees day that smiles, 
 Even as behind the Holy Rod, 
 
 When bare the altar, dim the aisles, 
 The child of faith beholds his God. 
 
 He trusts to Nature's purpose high, 
 Sure of her laws for here and now. 
 
 Who laughs at thy philosophy, 
 
 Dear blackbird, is less wise than thou ! 
 
 169
 
 THE FLOWER THAT MAKES 
 THE SPRINGTIME 
 
 THE chestnut trees are soon to flower 
 At fair Saint Jean, the villa dipped 
 
 In sun, before whose viny tower 
 
 Stretch purple mountains silver-tipped. 
 
 The little leaves that yesterday 
 Pressed in their bodices were seen 
 
 Have put their sober garb away, 
 
 And touched the tender twigs with green. 
 
 But vainly do the sunbeams fill 
 
 The branches with a flood of light. 
 
 The shy bud hesitateth still 
 
 To show the secret thyrse of white. 
 
 And yet the rosy peach-tree blooms, 
 Like some faint blush of first desire. 
 
 The apple waves a wealth of plumes, 
 And laughs in all its fresh attire. 
 
 170
 
 ************************ 
 
 FLOWER THAT MAKES SPRING 
 
 To bask amid the buttercups 
 
 The timid speedwell ventures out. 
 
 Nature calls every earthling up, 
 And reassures each tiny sprout. 
 
 Yet I must off to other sphere ! 
 
 Then please your poet, chestnuts tall, 
 Yea, spread ye forth without a fear 
 
 Your firework bloom fantastical ! 
 
 I know your summer splendour's pride. 
 
 I 've seen you standing sumptuous 
 In autumn's tunics purple-dyed, 
 
 With golden circlets luminous. 
 
 In winter white and crystal-crossed 
 Your delicate boughs I saw again, 
 
 Like lovely traceries the frost 
 
 Limns lightly on the window-pane. 
 
 Your every garment I have known, 
 Ye chestnuts grand that loom aloft, 
 
 Save one to me you 've never shown, 
 Of young green fabric first and soft. 
 
 171
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Ah, well, good-bye, for I must go ! 
 
 Keep, then, your flowers, where'er they be. 
 There is another flower I know, 
 
 That makes the springtime fair for me. 
 
 Let May with all her blooms arise, 
 Let May with all her blooms depart ! 
 
 That flower sufficeth for mine eyes, 
 And hath pure honey in its heart. 
 
 Let be the season where it waits, 
 
 And blue or dull be heaven's dome 
 
 It smiles and charms and captivates, 
 The precious violet of my home ! 
 
 172
 
 A LAST WISH 
 
 A LAST WISH 
 
 How long my soul has loved thec, love ! 
 
 It is full many a year agone. 
 Thy spring what charm of flowers thereof, 
 
 My winter what wild snows thereon ! 
 
 White lilacs from the land of graves 
 Blow near my temples. Soon enow 
 
 Thou 'It mark the pallid mass that waves 
 Enshadowing my withered brow. 
 
 My westering sun must speedy drop, 
 
 And disappear behind the road. 
 Already on the dim hill-top, 
 
 There gleams and waits my last abode. 
 
 Then from thy rosy lips let fall 
 
 Upon my lips a tardy kiss, 
 That in my tomb, when comes the call, 
 
 My heart may rest, remembering this. 
 
 173
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 THE DOVE 
 
 TENDER, beauteous dove, 
 Calling such plaintive things ! 
 
 Wilt serve unto my love, 
 
 And be my love's own wings ? 
 
 O, but we 're like, poor heart ! 
 
 Thy dear one, too, is far. 
 Remembering, apart, 
 
 Each weeps beneath the star. 
 
 Let not thy rosy feet 
 
 Stay once on any tower, 
 
 1 am so fain, my sweet, 
 
 So weary turns the hour ! 
 
 Forswear the palm's repose 
 
 That spreadeth over all, 
 And gables where the snows 
 
 Of other pinions fall. 
 
 Now fail me not, nor fear ! 
 
 He dwelleth near the king. 
 Give him this letter, dear, 
 
 These kisses on thy wing. 
 
 174
 
 THE DOVE 
 
 Then seek again my breast, 
 This flaming, throbbing goal, 
 
 Then come, my dove, and rest 
 But bring me back his soul ! 
 
 '75
 
 A PLEASANT EVENING 
 
 WHAT flurrying of rains and snows ! 
 Now every coachman, blue of nose, 
 
 In fur and ire 
 
 Sits petrified. Oh, it were right 
 To spend this wild December night 
 
 Before one's fire ! 
 
 The cosy chimney-corner chair 
 Assumes its most persuasive air. 
 
 I seem to see 
 
 Its arms held out, its voice to hear, 
 Beseeching like a mistress dear : 
 
 "Ah, stay with me ! " 
 
 A gauze reveals the orbed lamp, 
 Like a fair breast beneath a guimpe, 
 
 And drowsily 
 
 The shimmer of its light ascends, 
 Flushing with gold and crimson blends 
 
 The ceiling high. 
 
 176
 
 ************************ 
 
 A PLEASANT EVENING 
 
 The silence frames no sound of things, 
 Save for the pendulum that swings 
 
 Its golden disk, 
 
 And many winds that roam and weep, 
 Or stealthy to the hall-way sweep, 
 
 To dance and frisk. 
 
 It 's ball-night at the Embassy. 
 
 My coat's limp sleeves are signalling me 
 
 To dress anon. 
 
 My waistcoat yawns. My shirt obtuse 
 Seems raising high its wristbands loose, 
 
 To be put on. 
 
 A narrow boot's abundant glaze 
 Reflects the ruddy firelight's blaze. 
 
 Have I forgot ? 
 
 A glove's flat fingers span the shelf. 
 A thin cravat protrudes itself, 
 
 And begs a knot. 
 
 Then must I forth ? But what a bore 
 To seek the over-crowded door ! 
 To fall in line 
 
 " J 77
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 Of coaches bearing coats of arms 
 And haughty beauties with their charms, 
 Superb and fine ! 
 
 To stand against a portal wide 
 And see the surging mass inside 
 
 Bear form on form : 
 Old faces, faces fresh and young, 
 Black coats low bodices among, 
 
 A motley swarm ! 
 
 And puffy backs that hide their red 
 With laces fine of costly thread 
 
 Aerial, 
 
 Dandies, diplomatists, that press, 
 With features dull, expressionless, 
 
 At fashion's call. 
 
 What ! Brave, to win a glance of hers, 
 The rows of lynx-eyed dowagers ! 
 
 Try undeterred 
 
 To speak the dear name of my dear, 
 And whisper softly in her ear 
 
 Love's little word !
 
 A PLEASANT EVENING 
 
 Nay, but I '11 not I Her eye shall heed 
 A letter in the flowers I '11 speed. 
 
 , No ball-room now ! 
 Let Parma violets make good 
 Whatever be her passing mood. 
 They hold my vow. 
 
 Ensconced with Heine or with Taine, 
 Or, if I like, the Goncourts twain, 
 
 The time will go. 
 
 I '11 dream, until the hour shall stir 
 Reality, and wait for her. 
 
 She '11 come, I know. 
 
 179
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 ART 
 
 MORE fair the work, more strong, 
 Stamped in resistance long, 
 Enamel, marble, song. 
 
 Poet, no shackles bear, 
 Yet bid thy Muse to wear 
 The buskin bound with care. 
 
 A fashion loose forsake, 
 A shoe of sloven make, 
 That any foot may take. 
 
 Sculptor, the clay withstand, 
 That yieldeth to the hand, 
 Though listless heart command. 
 
 Contend till thou have wrought, 
 Till the hard stone have caught 
 The beauty of thy thought. 
 
 With Paros match thy might, 
 And with Carrara bright, 
 That guard the line of light. 
 
 1 80
 
 ************************ 
 
 ART 
 
 Borrow from Syracuse 
 The bronze's stubborn use, 
 Wherein thy form to choose. 
 
 And with a delicate grace 
 In the veined onyx trace 
 Apollo's perfect face. 
 
 Painter, put thou aside 
 
 The transient. Be thy pride 
 
 The colour furnace-tried. 
 
 Limn thou, fantastic, free' 
 Blue sirens of the sea, 
 And beasts of heraldry. 
 
 Before a nimbus gold 
 
 Transcendently uphold 
 
 The Child, the Cross foretold. 
 
 Things perish. Gods have passed. 
 But song sublimely cast 
 Shall citadels outlast. 
 
 181
 
 ENAMELS AND CAMEOS 
 
 And the forgotten seal 
 Turned by the plowman's steel 
 An emperor may reveal. 
 
 For Art alone is great : 
 The bust survives the state, 
 The crown the potentate. 
 
 Carve, burnish, build thy theme, 
 But fix thy wavering dream 
 In the stern rock supreme. 
 
 182
 
 Selected Poems
 
 xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtk 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 xdbxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 WHENEVER I follow my fancy away, 
 
 I love near the old Gothic castles to stray, 
 
 Where tower the roofs azure-slated and high 
 
 And crowned with low shrubs, green against the pale 
 
 sky. 
 
 I love the dear gables, the walls turreted, 
 The window-panes crossed with their networks of 
 
 lead, 
 
 The legended olden-time valiant and saint 
 Under ogival arch wrought with fantasy quaint, 
 The chapel with pinnacle piercing the air, 
 Whose bell rings the summons to worship and prayer. 
 I love the mossed stone where the rain-water files, 
 The courts where the grasses peep up mid the tiles, 
 The keep to whose summit the weather-vane clings, 
 Grazed oft by the stately ciconia's white wings, 
 The trembling drawbridges of gates blazoned bold 
 With fabulous monsters and griffins of gold,
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 The stairways colossal, the halls dim and vast, 
 
 Th6 corridors endless that gather the past, 
 
 Where faint as faint voices winds whisper and weep, 
 
 Where I wander at will, sunk in reveries deep, 
 
 And through hours of enchantment and mystery move, 
 
 In the bright Middle Ages of knighthood and love ! 
 
 1 86
 
 THE CAPTIVE BIRD 
 
 THE CAPTIVE BIRD 
 
 LONG time a prisoner, thou little bird, 
 
 These many days naught hast thou seen or heard, 
 
 Save inexhaustible, eternal rain, 
 
 Gray threads against a grayer sky's domain, 
 
 And cloud-bathed roofs. Amid the roar and chase 
 
 Of Winter dragging Storm about through space, 
 
 I know, dear heart, thou darest not to sing. 
 
 But let the bright sun of the lovely spring 
 
 Touch with its glance the blue-enamelled dome, 
 
 Over the silver seas bring swallows home, 
 
 Cast o'er the woods its trailing garments long, 
 
 And, little bird, thou shalt regain thy song. 
 
 But if, to memory bound, thou still regret, 
 
 Being unable ever to forget 
 
 The hill, the thicket, and the high elm-top, 
 
 The country golden with its golden crop, 
 
 The brimming river-sweep that wideneth, 
 
 Rippled by passing zephyrs sweet of breath, 
 
 I shall delight in all thy joys elate. 
 
 For linked we are together in one fate. 
 
 187
 
 ft*********************** 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 My soul, like thine, is caged with sufferings, 
 Against the mortal bars it beats its wings, 
 And fain would pierce the heaven's azure spell, 
 Itself an angel, track Ithuriel, 
 Inebriate with love and light and force, 
 And so ascend unto the Primal Source. 
 But ah, what hand shall break the barriers dun, 
 Or open up the pathway to the sun ! 
 
 188
 
 ******+**+*+++**+***+*+* 
 
 ON A THOUGHT OF WORDSWORTH'S 
 
 ON A THOUGHT OF WORDS- 
 WORTH'S 
 
 I 'VE read no line of Wordsworth whom the Steven 
 Of Byron hath assailed with bitterest gall, 
 Save this I came upon, a fragment small 
 
 In a romance pseudonymously given, 
 
 From Apuleius filched, ** Louisa," leaven 
 Of thought impure and pictures passional. 
 How well the flash of beauty I recall, 
 
 The u Spires whose silent finger points to heaven f " 
 
 A white dove's feather down the darkness strayed, 
 A lovely flower abloom in some foul nook. 
 
 And now when riming halts and fancy tires, 
 And Prospero is of Ariel unobeyed, 
 I over all the margin of my book 
 
 Trace group on group of heavenward-pointing 
 spires. 
 
 189
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 CARYATIDES 
 
 I LOOKED on Michael Angelo's wrought folk, 
 
 Sistine's great frescoes, the Last Judgment saw, 
 
 Speechless, the while the wonder in me woke. 
 And as I looked my spirit bowed with awe. 
 
 A mass of shapes of every attitude, 
 
 Lion-like faces, necks of oxen strength, 
 
 Flesh firm as marble, muscles taut and rude, 
 With force to break a cable's iron length ! 
 
 No stony arch upon their forms was set ; 
 
 But all their sinews to some task were steeled. 
 Meseemed their tensioned arms were dripping sweat. 
 
 What, then, the invisible load their power revealed ? 
 
 They bore a weight to weary Hercules, 
 
 The weight, O master, of thy mighty thought ! 
 
 And never noble Caryatides 
 
 Their shoulders to more massive burden brought ! 
 
 190
 
 **+******++*+***+******* 
 
 THE CHIMERA 
 
 THE CHIMERA 
 
 A YOUNG chimera at my goblet's brim 
 Gave sweetest kiss amid the orgy's spell. 
 
 Emerald her eyes, and to her haunches slim 
 The golden torrent of her tresses fell. 
 
 Her shoulders fluttering pinions did bedeck. 
 
 I sprang upon her back, for travel fain, 
 And toward me bending firm her lovely neck, 
 
 I plunged my tightening fingers in her mane. 
 
 She struggled madly ; but I clung, austere, 
 With iron knees I crushed her flanks to me. 
 
 Then softly came her voice, and silver-clear : 
 " Whither, then, master, shall I carry thee ? 
 
 To farthest edge of all eternal things, 
 
 Beyond the sun, beyond the bounds of space. 
 
 But weary ere the end shall be thy wings, 
 For I would see my vision face to face ! 
 
 191
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE ENCOUNTER 
 
 YESTER morning it was I beheld as I dreamed 
 On the arch of a bridge an encounter of horse. 
 
 Cuirassed and caparisoned, truly it seemed 
 
 The charging of splendid and passionate force. 
 
 Fierce dragons crouched low on the helmets of light, 
 And haggard-eyed, brazen Medusas peered out 
 
 From the bucklers. The imbricate brassarts were 
 
 bright 
 With knotted wild serpents which girt them about. 
 
 Oft from the gigantical arch's tall brim 
 
 A knight, losing balance, a mad frighted steed, 
 
 Reeled down to the depth of the water whose grim, 
 Cruel jaws waited wide in their crocodile greed. 
 
 It was you, O my thoughts, my desires ! battling well 
 Hard-pressing, down-beating, the bridgeway to keep. 
 
 And your mutilate bodies that hurtled and fell, 
 Engulfed in the wave, are forever asleep. 
 
 192
 
 sbdb 4: :fc ic db 4: if dt 4: 4:db^r^r4rdb^rdrdbtfc4r dbabtfc 
 
 VERSAILLES 
 
 VERSAI LLES 
 
 To be a city's ghost, Versailles, thy fate ! 
 
 Like Venus in her Adriatic, how 
 
 Thy paralytic form doth trembling bow 
 Under a carven mantle's sumptuous weight ! 
 Ah, what impoverishment, what fallen state, 
 
 Olden, yet not antique ! No vine hast thou, 
 
 About thy portico upspringing now 
 To veil thy nudeness wan and unelate. 
 
 And like a sorrowful, forsaken one, 
 Thou waitest for thy royal paramour, 
 
 Dreaming his bright return the livelong hours. 
 Beneath his tomb the Rival of the Sun 
 
 Now slumbers. Mute thy garden streams endure, 
 And but a statue people fills thy bowers. 
 
 '3
 
 ************************ 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 BARCAROLLE 
 
 TELL me, beautiful maiden, 
 Whither wouldst thou away, 
 
 To what shore blossom-laden, 
 
 Through the wind and the spray ? 
 
 Oars of ivory are gleaming, 
 Silken banners are streaming, 
 
 Golden-bright is the prow. 
 I 've a page fair and minion, 
 For a sail a saint's pinion, 
 
 And for ballast a bough. 
 
 Tell me, beautiful maiden, 
 
 Whither wouldst thou away, 
 To what shore blossom-laden, 
 
 Through the wind and the spray ? 
 
 Tell me, what is thy pleasure, 
 A wide ocean to measure ? 
 
 A far island to claim ? 
 Wreaths of snow-flowers to fashion, 
 Or to linger with passion 
 
 Near the flower of the flame? 
 
 194
 
 BARCAROLLE 
 
 Tell me, beautiful maiden, 
 Whither wouldst thou away, 
 
 To what shore blossom-laden, 
 
 Through the wind and the spray ? 
 
 " To the land ever vernal, 
 Where love liveth eternal, 
 
 Ah, take me ! " she sighs. 
 Sweet, this land of thy seeing 
 Hath no place and no being, 
 
 Under any love skies ! 
 
 195
 
 ************************ 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 O ARTIST, man, whoever thou mayst be, 
 Marvel not through so sad a gate to see 
 This new-born volume fatally unfold ! 
 
 Alas ! all monument built high, complete, 
 Before it raise its head must plunge its feet : 
 The skyward tower hath felt the secret mould. 
 
 Below, the night-bird and the tomb. Above, 
 Rose of the sun and whiteness of the dove, 
 Carols and bells on every arch of gold. 
 
 Above, the minarets, the window's charm, 
 Where birdlings fret their wings in sunbeams warm 
 The carved escutcheons borne by angels tall, 
 
 Acanthus leaves and lotus flowers of stone, 
 Like lilies in Elysian gardens blown. 
 Below, rude shaft and vault elliptical, 
 
 Knights rigid on their biers the deathlong days, 
 With folded hands and helpless upward gaze, 
 And oozing drips from cavern roofs that fall. 
 
 196
 
 THE PORTAL 
 
 My book is builded thus, with narrow line 
 Of stratum stone, embossed with many a sign, 
 And carven words the creeping mosses fill. 
 
 God grant that, passing o'er this humble place, 
 The pilgrim foot shall never quite efface 
 Its poor inscription and its work's unskill. 
 
 My ghostly dead ! That ye might walk the shades, 
 With patience have I wrought your colonnades, 
 And in my Campo-Santo couched you still. 
 
 There watcheth at your side an angel true, 
 To make a curtain of his wing for you, 
 Pillow of marble, cloth of leaden fold. 
 
 Yea, Righteousness and Peace have kissed in stone, 
 Mercy and Truth are met together, one 
 In flowing raiment, fair and aureoled. 
 
 A sculptured greyhound lieth at your heels. 
 A beauteous child eternally appeals 
 
 From out the shadow of the tomb enscrolled. 
 
 197
 
 Upon the pillars arabesques arise 
 Of blooming vines that flutter circlewise, 
 As o'er espalier twines the dappled green. 
 
 And the dark tomb appears a gladsome thing, 
 With all this bright, perpetual flowering, 
 And looks on sorrow with a smile serene. 
 
 Death plays coquette. Only her forehead fair 
 Hath pallor still beneath her ebon hair. 
 
 She seeks to charm, and hath a royal mien. 
 
 A burst of colour fires the blazons clear -, 
 The alabaster melts to whitest tear ; 
 
 Less hard uplooms the bronze-built sepulture. 
 
 The consorts lie upon their beds of state ; 
 Their pillows seem to soften with their weight, 
 Their love to flower within the marble pure ; 
 
 Till with her garlands, traceries, and festoons, 
 Trefoils, pendentives, pillars wrought with runes, 
 Fantasia at her will may laugh and lure. 
 
 198
 
 THE PORTAL 
 
 The tomb becomes a thing of bright parade, 
 A throne, a holy altar, an estrade, 
 For it is wish fulfilled of sight at last. 
 
 But if, by some capricious thought impelled, 
 Your hand should peradventure wonder-spelled 
 Upraise a cover rich with carven cast, 
 
 Under the heavy vault and architrave, 
 You still would find within the mouldering grave, 
 The stiff and white cadaver sheeted fast, 
 
 With never glimmer of a ray without, 
 Nor inner light to flood the bier about, 
 As in the pictures of the Holy Tomb. 
 
 Between her thin arms, like a tender spouse 
 Death binds her chosen to her, nor shall rouse 
 Them ever, nor let go her grasp of doom. 
 
 Scarce at the Judgment Hour their heads shall stir, 
 When at the trumpet blast the stars shall err, 
 And a strange wind blow out the torch's plume. 
 
 199
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 An angel shall discern them in his quest, 
 Upon the ruins of the world at rest, 
 
 For they shall sleep and sleep, the cycles long. 
 
 And if the Christ Himself should raise His hand, 
 As unto Lazarus, to bid them stand, 
 
 The grave would loosen not its fetter strong. 
 
 A tomb enwrought with sculpture is my verse, 
 That hides a body under leaf and thyrse, 
 
 And breaks its weeping heart to seem a song. 
 
 My poems are graves of mine illusions dead, 
 Where many a wild and luckless form I bed 
 When a ship founders in the tempest's peal ! 
 
 Abortive dream, ambition's eagerness, 
 All secret ardours, passions issueless, 
 All bitter, intimate things that life can feel. 
 
 Each day the sea devours a goodly ship. 
 Close to the shore there hides a reef to rip 
 Her copper-sheathed flanks and iron keel. 
 
 200
 
 ************************ 
 
 THE PORTAL 
 
 How many have I launched, with what fair names ! 
 With silken streamers coloured like the flames, 
 Never to cleave the harbour sun's reflex ! 
 
 Ah, what dear passengers, what faces sweet, 
 Desires with heaving breasts, hopes, visions fleet, 
 O my heart's children swarming to the decks ! 
 
 The sea hath shrouded them with glaucous taint : 
 The red of rose, the alabaster faint, 
 
 The star, the flower, lie floating in the wrecks. 
 
 Fearful and masterful, the hurtling tide 
 Dashes from drifting spar to dolphin side 
 
 My stark and drowned dreams that sink and part. 
 
 For these inglorious travellers distant-bound, 
 Pale seekers of Americas unfound, 
 
 Curve into hollow caverns, O mine Art ! 
 
 Then rise in towers and cupolas of fire, 
 Press upward in a bold cathedral spire, 
 
 And fix your peak in heaven's open heart ! 
 
 20 1
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Ye little birds of love and fantasy, 
 Sonnets, white doves of heaven's poetry, 
 Light softly on my gables argentine. 
 
 And swallows, April messengers that pass, 
 Beat not your tender wings against the glass, 
 My marbles have their rifts where you may win. 
 
 My virgin saint shall hide you in her robe, 
 For you the emperor shall let fall his globe, 
 The lotus heart spread wide to nest you in. 
 
 I've reared mine azure arch, mine organ grand, 
 I 've carved my pillars, placed with loving hand 
 In each recess a saint of martydom ; 
 
 I 've begged a chalice of Elygius, spice 
 And frankincense for holy sacrifice 
 
 Of Kaspar, and have drawn the sweet therefrom. 
 
 The people kneel at prayer. The radiant priest 
 In orphreyed chasuble prepares the Feast. 
 
 The church is builded, Lord ! Then wilt Thou come ? 
 
 202
 
 THE ESCORIAL 
 
 THE ESCORIAL 
 
 SET in defiance by a mountain crest, 
 There rises far across the country's breast 
 
 The great Escorial towered and tenebrous, 
 Upon its shoulder bearing in the gloam, 
 Like a huge elephant, a massive dome, 
 
 The granite whim of Spain's Tiberius. 
 
 Never did Pharaoh where the sad cliffs loom 
 Make for his mummy any darker tomb ; 
 
 Never had Sphinx more dulness in the vast, 
 Long desert where no thing of life resorts. 
 The mould o'ercovers the forsaken courts. 
 
 Priests, friars, and flatterers have wrought and passed. 
 
 And all were dead, if from the hands of kings 
 Ensculptured, and from nooks and panellings 
 
 There fluttered not a swarm of swallows free, 
 Playfully winging in a wild carouse, 
 To flick and tease and waken from its drowse 
 
 The giant form that dreams eternity. 
 
 203
 
 ************************ 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 A KING'S SOLITUDE 
 
 ENCLOISTERED I live in a tenebrous place 
 
 At the depth of my soul, with no love and no friend, 
 Alone like a god, with no equal to face, 
 
 Save mine ancestors sleeping their sleep without end. 
 For grandeur is solitude ! All the long day 
 
 A changeless, an indolent idol I stand ; 
 Superhuman and cold in my castle I stay, 
 
 The purple upon me, the world in my hand. 
 
 Crown of thorns like to Christ's they have set on my 
 hair. 
 
 Under weight of my terrible splendour I bow, 
 And the sharp, golden rays of the nimbus I wear ; 
 
 Bright drops of blood-royal I bear on my brow. 
 Heraldical vultures come tearing my side. 
 
 Prometheus chained to his mountain and cast 
 To the tempest of heaven, the wrath of the tide, 
 
 Was only a king to his glory made fast. 
 
 Throned high on my mystic Olympus, I note 
 But the voices of flatterers flocking in line, 
 
 Sole cadences counted as worthy to float 
 Unto summit so lofty, so distant, as mine. 
 
 204
 
 A KING'S SOLITUDE 
 
 If wild with oppression my people upswarm, 
 
 And rattle their irons and moan in their fear, 
 
 " Sleep, Sire," they tell me, " it is but the storm. 
 The thunder shall slacken, the sky shall be clear." 
 
 I Ve power for all things, and pleasure for none. 
 
 Ah, would I might know one deep wish in my heart, 
 Feel life in its warmth flood my bosom of stone, 
 
 Share one true delight, in one feast have a part ! 
 But lonely the sun in its circle must go. 
 
 High peaks are the coldest, and never a spring, 
 And never a summer can soften the snow 
 
 On height of Sierra, in heart of a king ! 
 
 205
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE LAUREL IN THE GENE- 
 RALIFE GARDEN 
 
 IN the Generalife a lovely laurel, 
 
 Gay as victory and glad as love, 
 Bathes its boughs in fountain mists auroral, 
 Hides a pearl within each bloom of coral. 
 
 And the green earth smiles to heaven above. 
 
 Like a blushing girl elate and slender, 
 
 Tint of flesh it taketh with the spring ; 
 Like an odalisk in her nude splendour, 
 Waiting by the water, flushed and tender, 
 Ready for her fair apparelling. 
 
 Beauteous laurel ! Many a mystic hour 
 
 Have I rested me beside its form, 
 Sealed my lips upon its precious flower 
 Sweet red mouth ! and, thrilling to its power, 
 
 Felt it give me back my kisses warm. 
 
 206
 
 ************************ 
 
 FAREWELL TO POETRY 
 
 FAREWELL TO POETRY 
 
 COME, fallen angel, fold thy wings of rose, 
 
 Doff thy white garment and thy golden ray ! 
 
 Piercing the ambient ether of thy way, 
 A star, thou couldst but hurtling fall to prose. 
 Upon the ground thy dove-like feet unclose 
 
 Walk for thy soaring-time is not to-day. 
 
 Within thy bosom bid thy treasure stay, 
 And let thy lyre a moment now repose. 
 
 O thou poor child of heaven, thy song was vain ! 
 Earth's ears were deaf to thy most subtle chord, 
 
 Nor could it guess the language of thy spell. 
 But ere thou leave me, O fair angel mine, 
 Go seek me out my pale sweet love adored, 
 And on her lips imprint a long farewell ! 
 
 207
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE TULIP 
 
 I AM the tulip, Holland's choicest flower. 
 
 The thrifty Fleming such my loveliness 
 Pays for my perfect bulb a price no less 
 
 Than diamond. Lordly lineage is my dower. 
 
 Like to a proud Yolande in her young hour 
 Of pomp and kirtle bright, upon my dress 
 Of dewy crimson crossed with silver fess, 
 
 I bear the painted blazon of my power. 
 
 The gardener divine with fingers deft 
 Spun golden beams of iridescent noon, 
 
 And liquid depths of purple fashioned up, 
 To make for me a robe of royal weft. 
 
 Peerless I stand yet grieve that Nature boon 
 Poured never perfume in my shining cup ! 
 
 208
 
 TOUCH NOT THE MARBLE 
 
 TOUCH NOT THE MARBLE 
 
 YEA, one may love a statue, so it be 
 
 Some subtle dream of Phidias. Tall and still, 
 From her bright self to man there may distil 
 
 An intimacy for he comes, and she, 
 
 The goddess waits his coming secretly. 
 And he forgetteth that her form is chill, 
 That her white glances fascinate and kill, 
 
 Bound fast before her fair divinity. 
 
 She seems to smile, and he, grown bolder, cries : 
 " Immortal one, a woman, then, art thou ? " 
 
 A fiery touch is on the marble wan ; 
 Straightway it trembles ; thunder shakes the skies, 
 Well knoweth all-indulgent Venus how 
 
 A god's desire may flame the heart of man ! 
 
 209
 
 ************************ 
 
 A L B E R T U S 
 
 or THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 A Theological Legend 
 
 THE COMRDT 
 OF DEATH 
 
 Translated into English Prose 
 By F. C. DE SUMICHRAST
 
 Albertus^ or The Soul and Sin 
 
 A Theological Legend
 
 A L B E R T U S 
 
 or THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 A Theological Legend 
 
 POEM 
 
 You shall see anon ; 'tis a knavish piece of work. 
 
 Hamlet, Hi, 2. 
 
 I 
 
 BY the side of a deep canal whose greenish, silent 
 tide with water-lilies and boats is covered, rises, with 
 pointed gables, granaries vast, slate-roofed towers on 
 which storks their nests do build, and noisy pot-houses 
 with topers filled, an old Flemish town such as Teniers 
 loves to paint. Surely the place you know ? Look, 
 there stands the willow, its dull green leaves on its 
 shoulders spreading, as spreads the hair of a girl as 
 she bathes ; there the church and its steeple too ; the 
 pond, where bravely duck armadas do disport. In 
 truth, all the picture lacks is a frame and nail where- 
 from to hang it on the wall. 
 
 215
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 II 
 
 Comfort and far niente ! A world of poetic calm 
 and satisfaction that wellnigh might the fancy excite 
 thither to go and Flemish turn ; to own a well- 
 coloured pipe, and a stoup with painted flowers adorned, 
 a tankard huge enough four pints to hold, such as 
 Drawer's topers grasp. And at night, close by the 
 stove with hissing, crackling logs, amid a cloud of to- 
 bacco smoke, hands on stomach folded, vague thoughts 
 idly to pursue, to doze or digest, to sing some old 
 refrain, to drink a health, within one of those warm 
 interiors which Ostade knows so well how to light up 
 with soft luminousness. 
 
 Ill 
 
 So that even you, poet and painter, would come 
 to forget that fairy land of which Goethe's Mignon, 
 of cold abhorrent, remembering, oft to her Wilhelm 
 speaks, the land of sunshine where the citron ripens, 
 where the jessamine ever freshly blows ; to make you 
 forget Naples for Amsterdam's sake, Claude Lorrain 
 for Berghem ; to make you willing to exchange, for 
 these mossy-green walls between which Rembrandt, 
 
 216
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 within the dun darkness, brings gleaming forth Faust 
 in dress of olden days, the fair marble palaces with 
 their white colonnades, the dark-hued women, the 
 langourous serenades, and all the azure Venetian air ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Of yore within this town, so tradition tells, there 
 dwelt a woman wicked, Veronica by name. Feared 
 she was by one and all, and it was whispered low that 
 round her home had murmurs strange been heard arise, 
 and that angels of evil there in darksome night their 
 pleasure took. The sounds were nameless sounds, 
 till then unheard by human ears, like unto the voice 
 of dead within the tomb, by magic spell from sleep 
 awaked ; faint plaints from underground arising ; distant 
 rumours, songs, cries, tears, the clank of chains, and 
 terrifying howls. 
 
 One stormy day, indeed, had dame Gertrude with 
 her own eyes seen emerge from out a cloud a black 
 fiend on lightning-bolt astride, who shot across the 
 blood-red sky, and within the chimney, whence sudden 
 rose vapours bluish, dash down head first with hideous 
 
 217
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 yell. The barn of Justus van Eyck, the farmer, broke 
 into flames, that none might quench, and in its fall, 
 an avalanche of fire, crushed to death four of the 
 workers. And people worthy of belief do declare that 
 Veronica stood there, laughing sardonic laughter and 
 muttering sarcastic words. 
 
 VI 
 
 The wife of Cornelius, the brewer, before her time 
 did bring into the world a child all covered o'er with 
 loathsome hair, and of ugliness such that gladly would 
 the father have seen it dead. 'T was said that on the 
 woman brought to bed, and since that day sick con- 
 tinuously and in her bed lying, Veronica, by some 
 foul, mysterious means, had cast an evil spell. And 
 truth to tell, her grim and treacherous mien more than 
 justified these reports. Her eyes were green, her 
 mouth a cave, black her teeth, wrinkled her brow, her 
 fingers knotty, bowed her back, her foot misshapen 
 and her legs yet worse, harsh her voice, and her soul 
 more repulsive even than her frame. The Devil 
 himself more hideous could not be. 
 
 218
 
 ************++**+**++*** 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 VII 
 
 This ancient witch did a hut inhabit that crouched 
 at the foot of a barren mound, exposed, in summer's 
 heat as in winter's cold, to the four winds of heaven. 
 The long-prickled thistle, the nettle and ivy spread 
 around in mass irregular ; upon it the grass luxuriant 
 its swaying plumes did hang, while through cracks 
 in roof and rifts in ceiling the rain, by obstacles un- 
 hindered, with its great drops the mouldy, rotten floors 
 did flood. Within the window frame scarce one pane 
 out of three might one note that unbroke was, and 
 never could the door fast be closed. 
 
 VIII 
 
 SJimy slugs silver-traced the walls, the stones of 
 which were cracked ; the plaster kept breaking away. 
 Lizards green and gray within the holes did lodge, and 
 when night fell a high, piercing note was heard, that 
 of the leaping frog, while the dun-eyed toads did 
 hoarsely groan. Thus it was that, on winter nights, 
 once the dark had fallen, and especially when a fleecy 
 cloud shrouded the horn of the crescent moon in mass 
 of vapour, no one not even Eisenbach the preacher 
 
 219
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 himself dared to pass in front of the sinister den 
 without shudder and pallor of fear. 
 
 IX 
 
 The interior worthy was of the exterior alluring : it 
 was a pandemonium, wherein on one and the same 
 row were jumbled together innumerable fantastic 
 articles. There were lean bats with wings diaphanous, 
 clinging to the walls with their four slight claws ; 
 broken-necked bottles, cracked earthen dishes, croco- 
 diles, serpents stuffed, rare plants, alembics, twisted 
 into shapes of the strangest, old manuscripts open lying 
 upon limping chairs, ill-preserved foeti offending the 
 nose from a mile away ; their yellow, blue faces 
 plastered against the glass of the jar. 
 
 It was a downright witches' sabbath of colours and 
 forms, amid which the paunchy jar, with its huge 
 sides, loomed like a river-horse, and the long-necked 
 vial seemed to be an Egyptian ibis perched upon the 
 edge of the sarcophagus of some Pharaoh or long-dead 
 Magi king. It was a vision like unto a madman's 
 dreams, or wrought in brain by opium, in which re- 
 
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 ceivers, matrasses, syphons, and pumps, long-drawn 
 like a phallus or twisted like trumps, assumed the 
 appearance of elephant and rhinoceros ; in which the 
 monsters traced around the zodiac, bearing on their 
 brows their name in Syrian, together boleros danced. 
 
 XI 
 
 A dusty heaping up of apparatus strange, of which 
 the eye the baffling contours could trace, and of old 
 volumes, with not one title in the Christian tongues. 
 A medley, a chaos in which everything grimaced, was 
 deformed, twisted, changed its shape ; a mirror reversed, 
 in which nought could be known, for all was trans- 
 posed red turned dun, white black became, and 
 black to blue did turn. Never under an alcove did 
 Smarra more hideous phantoms crowd : it was the 
 realising of fantastic tales, the living embodiment of 
 visions queer, Hoffmann at once and Rabelais. 
 
 XII 
 
 To make the picture complete, from the edge of 
 shelves there grinned whitened skulls, with polished 
 crowns, long teeth, triangular noses, and empty sockets 
 which seemed to glare with hungry look. A skeleton 
 
 221
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 upright, its arms hanging limp, cast, as willed the 
 light that streamed through the network of its ribs 
 scarce deserted by the inhabitants of the grave its 
 shadow in straight lines upon the wall. Had Satan's 
 self entered there, heretic though he be, such ice-cold 
 terror upon him would have fallen that, like a good 
 Catholic, he'd have crossed himself. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Yet to an artist a hell like this is a paradise. 'T was 
 thence Teniers his " Alchemist " drew, and Callot 
 many a motive for his " Temptation." 'T was thence 
 Goethe got all that scene in which Mephistopheles 
 leads Faust, eager his youth to renew, to the witch's 
 den the potion to swallow. The illustrious baronet, 
 Sir Walter Scott himself (Jedediah Cleishbotham), found 
 in it more than one theme. The character he re- 
 peats constantly, Meg, in "Guy Mannering," is as 
 like as two peas to our Veronica. All he did was to 
 take her and to conceal her dress. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The chequered tartan plaid and the bonnet hide the 
 skirt and the coif. Scotland has taken the place of 
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Flanders that is all. Then he has stolen from me, 
 the infamous plagiarist, this description (compare "The 
 Antiquary "), the black cat Marius on the ruins stand- 
 ing ! and many another touch. And I would almost 
 swear that he who to the sublime the grotesque did 
 wed, who created Bug, Han, Cromwell, Notre-Dame, 
 Hernani, within this very hovel those masks did mould 
 that, when one looks at their features fantastic, seem 
 to have been done by Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 XV 
 
 The cat, of which I have spoken in the preceding 
 stanza, was the great grandsire of Murr, the philoso- 
 pher, whose story, intertwined with that of Kreissler, 
 more than once has made me forget that the logs were 
 putting on, as the fire died down, their robe of plush, 
 that midnight was striking, and that it was winter time. 
 My poor Childebrand, truest of friends, of cats the 
 most tender-hearted, and endowed with the whitest 
 soul that could be found under fur so black, that friend 
 of mine whose death I so sorely mourned that since 
 that day I have life hated, one of his heirs also was. 
 
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 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 XVI 
 
 For the matter of that, this worthy cat was the one 
 and only creature allowed within the den ; the sole and 
 only one for whom Veronica felt any love. And it 
 may be that he alone in all the world her did love ; for, 
 indeed, old, ugly, and poor as she was, who else would 
 have done so ? Those we hate are wicked that is 
 excuse enough for us. It is night j all is silence ; a 
 red light flickers and gleams on the hovel's pane. 
 The cat, curled up on the broken-legged chair, watches 
 with serious, intelligent gaze, the old woman who 
 moves about and hastes to prepare some shameful 
 mystery. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Or else, on his whiskers stiff his paw rubbing, 
 smooths his coat, lustrous as ermine's, with the help 
 of his rough, harsh tongue, and feeling chilly, between 
 the andirons, close to the logs, his head under his tail, 
 artistically himself curls up. Meanwhile the wind 
 without still moans, and with the strident sounds of 
 the storm the orfrey mingles its screams. The roof 
 creaks and groans ; the logs crackle sharp ; the flames 
 swirl on high, and within the great caldron, under a 
 
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 foam of flakes, dark, stinking water bubbles and boils, 
 its sound accompanying the kettle and the feline's 
 
 purr. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Midnight is the hour appointed for the evil deed. 
 Midnight now sounds. Forthwith the infamous Ver- 
 onica a circle on the floor draws with her wand, and in 
 the centre stands. Outside the magic ring, phantoms 
 innumerable, luminous dots against the hangings dark, 
 tremble, like motes a sunbeam in the shadow reveals. 
 Meanwhile the hag her incantation mutters, utters 
 fierce cries, speaks words the sound of which pains 
 the ear as sledge-hammers wielded in a forge, and 
 which scrape the throat like potions evil. 
 
 XIX 
 
 But this is not enough. To fulfil the mystery, she 
 one by one her garments to the ground doth cast, and 
 naked stands. A terrifying sight ! A whitened skeleton 
 swaying in the wind, and which has grinned for six 
 months from the gibbet at the crows, is a cheerful 
 spectacle by comparison with this carcass with its 
 flaccid breasts, its yellow, sunken belly, wrinkled with 
 large folds, its arms red as lobsters. " Horror ! hor- 
 
 *5 225
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 ror ! horror ! " as Shakespeare would say ; a nameless 
 thing, impossible to describe ; the very ideal of nightmare 
 grim. 
 
 XX 
 
 Within her palm the water dark she takes and thrice 
 her bosom with it she doth anoint. Now, no human 
 tongue can truly tell what then befell ! The flaccid 
 breasts, that hung as hangs the skirt of well-worn coat, 
 miraculously swell and round become ; the cloud of tan 
 is cleared away, and they might be an opal globe parted 
 in twain, so fair the form and fair the tint. The blood 
 courses in them in azure veins, life gleams in them so 
 that even a maid of fifteen could scarce more blooming 
 be. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Her eyes she rubs, her whole face next. Roses 
 bloom once more ; smallest wrinkles go, as vanish 
 ripples when the breeze doth fail; her mouth with 
 enamels gleams, and brilliant light, a fiery diamond, 
 within her eyes doth flash ; her hair is jet, her frame 
 no longer bowed she is beauteous now ; so fair that 
 she would envy excite. Many a gallant swain his life 
 would peril merely to touch her fingers' tips, and no 
 
 226
 
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 one would dream, on seeing the lovely head, the body 
 fair, the figure sweet, to what she owes them. 
 
 XXII 
 
 A very pearl of love ! Great eyes, almond-shaped, 
 at times most German in their sweetness tender, at 
 times flaming with Spanish heat ; two glorious mirrors 
 of jet that make one wish to gaze within them one's 
 whole life long. Her voice's tone more sweet than 
 nightingale's lay ; Sontag and Malibran, whose every 
 note doth thrill and in the heart awake a secret note ; 
 Puck's roguishness, Ariel's grace, a winsome mouth 
 whereon the smile mingles with Esmeralda's pout and 
 mingling plays a miracle, a dream of Heaven ! 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Reader, hyperbole apart, she was truly beautiful 
 most beautiful ! That is, she seemed so, and that the 
 same thing is. Enough that the eye be deceived ; it 
 ever is by love; happiness due to fancy is the same 
 as if mathematics proved it true. For what is happi- 
 ness, if not to believe in and caress one's dream, with 
 prayer to God that here below it may never wane ? 
 For faith alone heaven to us shows in our terrestrial 
 
 227
 
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 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 exile, and this desert of the world, in which felicity on 
 nothingness is based as on reality is woe. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The lambent flame upsprings once more. Forth 
 from the circle Veronica steps, a tunic white slips on, 
 and over that a purple robe. Upon her head, in place 
 of the black cap she wore erstwhile, an ermine hood 
 she sets, and a mirror in her hand taking, looks long 
 within and with pleasure smiles at the sight she 
 sees. The moon just then, through a break in the 
 clouds, upon her cast her fond, chaste light. The 
 door open stood, so that one might from without look 
 straight within ; and, haply, had any at this time 
 strayed along the road, he would have made sure he 
 dreamed awake. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Veronica, with the tip of her wand, touches the cat, 
 which gazes upon her with bright, treacherous glance, 
 and rolls at her feet, its back curling. Thrice she 
 spins around, makes mystic signs, and whispers low, 
 cabalistic words. Then is seen a sight that makes the 
 blood run cold. In place of the cat, appears a hand- 
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 some youth, aquiline nose, forehead high, black mous- 
 tache, a youth such as maidens see in their dreams 
 of love. His mantle is red and his doublet of silk, 
 his Toledo blade has a sparkling hilt, he undoubtedly 
 is a sprightly lad. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 " 'T is well," said Veronica, holding out her white 
 hand to the young cavalier, who, hand on hip, in 
 silence waited. " Escort me, Don Juan." Juan 
 bowed. " Whither may I take you, madame ? " 
 The lady bowed and whispered in his ear a syllable 
 or two. Don Juan understood. " Here, Leporello," 
 said he in a loud, ringing voice. " Her ladyship goes 
 forth. Take a torch and light her on her way." 
 Instantly, torch in hand, Leporello appears. " Bring 
 up the carriage." They enter it, the whip cracks, the 
 coachman swears, and they 're off. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Off, but which way ? That is a profound mystery. 
 It was pitch-dark, and besides, in so dark a place who 
 the devil could have seen them ? No one, for all were 
 asleep. The moon had bound a cloud across its eyes 
 of blue lest they indiscreet should prove. So the 
 
 229
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 carriage reached the end of its way without any one 
 suspecting whom it contained. Not a single splash of 
 mud defaced the panels broad and blazoned ; the wheels, 
 as if the stones had been covered with velvet and with 
 silk, rolled on, silent, noiseless, through the fields straight 
 on, and so lightly that they made no mark, that they 
 nowhere the wheat bowed down. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 For the nonce, the scene to Leyden is shifted. 
 That petticoated monkey, that hag, hideous enough to 
 make Beelzebub himself turn on his heel, now young 
 and beautiful, incarnate poetry, treasure of graces, 
 makes the fashionable beauties and middle-class Venuses 
 of the place with jealousy wither, under their ample 
 skirts, overladen with galloons, and their lofty caps, full 
 six feet high. Empty are the rooms of Lady Barbara 
 Von AltenhorfF; empty are the halls of the young 
 Countess Cecilia Wilmot ; there is no sign of a crush 
 at the Landgravine of Gotha's. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Young and old, lawyers in dusty wigs, dandies shed- 
 ding around them the scent of amber, officers in gay 
 
 230
 
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 uniforms dragging their swords across the sounding 
 floors, painters and musicians, all crowd to the stranger's 
 rooms ; and, although it was far from proper, as vinegary 
 ancient prudes remark, thus to keep all men to one's 
 self, especially when one had no other attraction than 
 a piquant face and the beauty of youth, none the less 
 men kept running there. The sole topic of talk in 
 town was Veronica. Never was any name more fre- 
 quently spoken. 
 
 XXX 
 
 When she appeared it was impossible to hear one's self 
 for the enthusiasm, the delirium, the excitement, ex- 
 pressing itself in peals of applause and bravos and noise. 
 Never did dilettanti from their theatre-boxes rain down 
 more abundant praise, flowers, and verse on a prima 
 donna than at every step fair Veronica at the dance, at 
 the play, everywhere, received from her adoring admirers. 
 The poets wrote sonnets to her eyes and called her 
 " Sun " or " Moon " in acrostics ; painters painted her 
 face, and the rich ruined themselves in their rivalry. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 She gave the tone, the keynote of fashion. She was 
 adored like an idol. In naught would any have dared 
 
 231
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 her to contradict. The shape of bonnets and the form 
 of sleeves ; which was better, flowers or feathers white ; 
 which the right jewels, which the most becoming, 
 especially the important matter whether one should 
 rouge or not, she it was who decided all. The lady 
 of the Margrave Tielemann Van Horn and the old 
 Duke's daughter in vain protested by their heretical 
 dress ; scarce was there to be seen within their old- 
 fashioned rooms a broken-down admirer ancient. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Young would have become cheerful. Heraclites the 
 weeper, wiping his eyes, would have laughed louder 
 than Democritus at the comical sight of the efforts 
 made by the ladies of the place, short and stout Irises, 
 to dress as she did and to copy her grace. Maidens, 
 the slimmest of whom weighed three or four hundred, 
 rubicund faces, with flowers, lots of ribbons and laces, 
 masses of flesh (after Rubens' manner), wearing in- 
 stead of rich velvet and great pattern brocades, thin 
 tissues, gauze, fleece-like stuff. Ye gods, what a 
 masquerade ! 
 
 232
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 But as for our heroine, she was invariably charming, 
 whether adorned or not ; whether veiled or cloaked ; 
 whether cape wearing or a hood. In short, in every 
 way everything she had seemed endowed with life. 
 The folds appeared to understand when they ought 
 to flutter and when they ought to hang; the in- 
 telligent silk hushed its chatter or kept it up to 
 warble her praise ; the breeze blew just on purpose 
 to make her fringes shimmer, and her feathers flut- 
 tered like birds about to take to flight, while an in- 
 visible hand her laces separated and played within 
 
 their maze. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Her hair was always well dressed. Whatever she 
 wore, a mere trifle, the first thing she took, every 
 bit of ribbon, every flower, fairylike seemed to 
 be; whatever touched her at once precious became; 
 everything was in perfect taste and indicated qualky. 
 Whatever her dress, grand, rich, or quaint, she alone 
 was noticed. Her eyes made the flash of diamond's self 
 grow pale; her teeth were fairer than pearls, and 
 satin lost its gloss when near her skin. With her port 
 
 2 33
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 so free, her teasing wit, her charm both coy and arch, 
 she was in turns Camargo, Manon Lescaut, Philine, 
 in short, a ravishing wretch ! 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Hans, Aulic counsellor, and Master Philip for her 
 sake their gin, their pipe renounced. It was positively 
 jolly to see these worthy Flemings, so perfect of their 
 kind, stout, squat, their faces beaming, actually forget- 
 ful of their tulips, blooming at last, transform them- 
 selves into dandies and posture round the diva. Wives 
 and mothers certes did not spare her bitter remarks, 
 but serenely she kept on her way, none of her adorers 
 losing, and, caring little for the empty talk, welcomed 
 every one, and accepted the homage and the cash of 
 each. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Two months have passed. On this day, like a 
 queen, Veronica a headache boasts or pretends to 
 have. Her door is closed. Her courtiers in numbers 
 great are vainly waiting. Within a rich boudoir in 
 which amber pastiles sweet perfume shed, and where 
 every footfall upon the handsome Turkish rugs is 
 noiseless as on sward, in which a silver lamp and the 
 
 234
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 hissing logs alone break silence with their shrill sound, 
 our beauty in her morning wrapper, pale and white as 
 pearl, bends over a table, a paper crushing within her 
 hand. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 She sulks. Ye gods, how bewitching is a woman 
 when she sulks ! Her hand under her chin, her elbow 
 softly pressing one knee like the jasper rich, her body 
 willowy bending, like a buttercup with a drop of dew 
 o'er full. Her hair undone, that in a moment shows, or 
 hides, perchance, as the zephyr through it blows, or the 
 restless fingers through it move, the cheek, pearl-pink, 
 transparent, the brow azure-veined ; just as in great 
 gardens the limbs of trees with their foliage veil or 
 uncover the statues fair that stand under their summer 
 shade. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Whence, then, her grief? When she rose this morn 
 and in her glass did look did she herself discover older 
 or less fair to be ? Did she find within her jet black 
 hair one single pale silvery thread, or on her dazzling 
 teeth a single stain ? ' Did the two ends of the ribbon, 
 when her hands drew them, prove too short for the 
 
 2 35
 
 ***********++*********+* 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 stouter frame? Has a dress she expected and on 
 which she reckoned to take away the Count from 
 Lady Wilmot, has that dress been torn or crushed 
 on its way ? Is it her dog that has sickened ? Or, 
 after three nights at the dance, has fever paled the pure 
 carmine of her lovely lips ? 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Is her glance less bright, her neck less fair, the form 
 of her Greek face less pure ? Has some rival, in 
 greater youth or diamonds richer rejoicing, turned 
 more heads at the last assembly ? Nay, still, as ever, 
 the queen of the feast she is. All at her knees do 
 fall. But yesterday one of her lovers, filled with empty 
 despair on finding her unfaithful, within the Rhine 
 himself did headlong cast. This very morn for her 
 sake did Ludwig Von Siegendorff a duel fight; his 
 adversary 's dead ; himself is wounded. Surely this is 
 a great success ; all Leyden is talking about it now. 
 Why, then, her gloomy brow ? 
 
 XL 
 
 Why do her brows tremble and bend ? Why do 
 her long, black lashes, as, half closed, between them 
 
 236
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 tears now slip, flutter and cast upon the satiny skin 
 a brown aureole, a velvety shade such as Lawrence 
 paints ? Why do her troubled breasts within their 
 gauze press and under the thin nets rise and fall, 
 like snow when blows the storm ? What strange 
 thought imparts so dreamy an air to her lightsome 
 face ? Is it the remembrance of her first love and 
 the voice of infancy ? Is it regret that she has lost 
 her fair innocence, or of the future is it dread ? 
 
 XLI 
 
 Nay, it is not that. Too thoroughly corrupt is she 
 not to forget, and broken is the chain that her past to 
 her present linked. Besides, I do not believe there be 
 in any recess of her soul a single one of those remem- 
 brances which in every woman's heart, howe'er depraved 
 she may be, are left of better days, and remain spot- 
 less within the memory's depths like pearls within the 
 waters black. She is but a coquette, she has never 
 loved. A ball, a supper, a party, an entertainment to 
 be given, pleasure, these are the things that take 
 her out of herself and prevent her hearing the voice of 
 her oppressed heart. 
 
 237
 
 ************+*****++*+** 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 XLII 
 
 Here is the trouble. The night before at the play 
 was given Mozart's "Don Juan." Surrounded by her 
 lightsome crowd of dandies young, drawing-room 
 butterflies whose wings by some Leyden tailor have 
 been made, Veronica was present, the cynosure of all 
 eyes, coquetting within her box and radiant to behold. 
 All women else under their rouge with rage turned 
 pale, their lips did bite, but she, sure to please, like a 
 peacock its tail spreading, her fan opened out, chatted, 
 laughed aloud, let fall her glass, her glove took off, her 
 scent bottle passed, or made its rich enamel flash and 
 gleam. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 In vain the actors wrought with might and main, 
 spun out their finest notes. They made no gain. 
 Leporello step by step behind Don Juan walked in 
 vain ; in vain the Commander thundered with his 
 boots, Zerlina warbled playing with the notes, and 
 Donna Anna wept. They might have kept it up for 
 a livelong year without any. taking note. The stalls 
 were inattentive. They talked, they looked, but looked 
 another way. Through the gold-mounted glasses all 
 
 238
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 desires in the same direction turned. Veronica smiled. 
 The joy of being beautiful made her ten times more 
 beauteous yet. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Alone a man, by a pillar standing, undisturbed, un- 
 amazed by the sensation great, from the forgotten 
 stage his glance never taking, in a secret ecstasy deeply 
 drank those wondrous chords, those glorious harmonies, 
 which make thy name, O Mozart, shine over all ! 
 Thy genius his had seized and on its wings borne it 
 to the eternal spheres. Of time, or place, or world, he 
 unconscious was. Into music he was turned and his 
 heart as it beat, fluttered and sang with purest voice, 
 for he alone thy meaning caught. 
 
 XLV 
 
 At most, between the acts, upon the fair he coldly 
 glanced ; his eye flashed not, as if the look had struck 
 against a wall. Yet, like a bullet, swift-sped, that 
 glance across the house to Veronica's heart shot true, 
 and unconscious all, a grievous wound on her inflicted 
 a deadly wound. So falls the brave, by bosky 
 corner slain, all gloryless, laid low by shot perchance at 
 
 239
 
 irir db :b ie :fe 4? 4: dfc 4: ir^bdb tfc^^r 4:tfc4:4:4: A :fcdb 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 some hare aimed ; or killed by falling slate, or taken 
 off by fever, as he to his home returns. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 She who, till then, like the salamander cold amid 
 the flames, scarce deigned to give a passing caprice in 
 return for passion, and made it her delight for such 
 is woman's pleasure, hearts to torture and souls to 
 damn j she who pitiless trifled with love as a cruel 
 child with its plaything trifles, forgetting it and far 
 away casting it so soon as it wearies, she now was 
 suffering the pains that yesterday she caused. She 
 made men love her, and now she loved, and she 
 who captured at last in her snare was caught. Her 
 haughty heart at last was bowed. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 That is just the way of life, of fate. When on the 
 fatal dial strikes the hour, none may his end for 
 a day put off. No matter how virtuous, whether one 
 flee or stay, all must yield to that power, infernal 
 or celestial. Two things unavoidable are, one's 
 fate and love. Love, the joy and scourge of earth ! 
 sweet pain ; sorrow one regrets, and so full of charms. 
 
 240
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Laughter and tears ; pallid, lovely care ; ill, that all 
 seek ! A paradise, a hell ; a dream, in heaven begun, 
 on earth prolonged ; an enchantment mysterious ! 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 Oh, voluptuousness intense ! Pleasure which, may- 
 hap, of man God's equal makes ! Who would not 
 know you, if yet unknown, moments delicious and yet 
 so short, that are a whole life worth, and which the 
 angel that envies them would gladly pay for with an 
 eternity of happiness in heaven. Oh, sea of felicity, 
 ravishment, ecstasy, of which no words on earth can 
 convey the bliss, whether in prose or eke in verse ! 
 Oh, hours of trysting ! Oh, ye glorious sleepless 
 nights, delirious sobs intoxicate ! Sighs, strange words, 
 lost in a caress ! Kisses mad and wild desires ! 
 
 XLIX 
 
 Love, thou art the only sin worth while incurring 
 hell for ! In vain in his sermons the priest condemns 
 thee. In vain within her arm-chair, spectacles on 
 nose, the mother to her daughter as a monster paints 
 thee. In vain does jealous Orgon his door close and 
 to his windows bars doth place. In vain, in still- 
 
 16 241
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 born tomes, do moralists endlessly cry out against thee. 
 In vain coquettes thy power flout. When thou art 
 named, the novice herself doth cross. Young or 
 old, handsome or ugly, rosy-faced or pale, English or 
 French, pagan or Christian, every one loves at least 
 once in life. 
 
 L 
 
 As for me, 'twas last year the frenzy of love fell 
 upon me. Good-bye then to poetry. I 'd not time 
 enough to use it to compass words. Four months 
 and a half not another thing I did save worship my 
 idol, adore her, wonder at her glorious hair, ebony 
 waves in which my hands loved to lose themselves ; 
 listen to her breathing, watch her live, and smile when 
 she smiled to me, drink deeper intoxication from the 
 sight ; read her nascent desires within her eyes, on 
 her sleeping face note her dreams, and from her rosy 
 lips sip her breath within a kiss. 
 
 LI 
 
 But for that the world would have had this poem 
 in eighteen nine and twenty ; nay, earlier yet ; but, as 
 I have said, I had not leisure to string words upon a 
 verse like pearls upon a string. With her I was 
 
 242
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 wont to go into the great, deep woods to hear the 
 thrushes sing, for the time was spring. She, like 
 a child, scampered through the dew in quest of 
 butterflies ; her ankles wet with silvery shower, she 
 went singing on, as under her footsteps every flower 
 its calyx gently bowed, and I upon her gazed. 
 
 LII 
 
 Within the rich green sward May the strawberry did 
 crimson, and when she found one, happy and laughing 
 for joy, quickly she ran to me that I might with her share, 
 but I would not. Then came the battle. With one 
 arm I seized her two wrists and her waist, and with my 
 other hand forced her of the fruit to eat. At first she 
 resisted, but soon wearying of the unequal struggle, for 
 mercy begged, promising to pay a ransom of kisses ; 
 then, like the bird whose cage is opened, she 'd take to 
 flight and escape, the witch, to conceal herself behind 
 a bush. 
 
 LIII 
 
 Next I 'd hear her laugh amid the leaves at having 
 tricked me thus. Some busy bee emerging from 
 a bell, a lizard, a grasshopper on its long slender legs 
 springing, a caterpillar caught upon her lace, soon 
 
 243
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 brought her back uttering dreadful shrieks. Then 
 she 'd hide her head upon my breast, quite pale, trem- 
 bling when the branches in the wind did move. Her 
 beauteous breasts with the beating of her heart trembled 
 and fluttered like two little turtle-doves caught in their 
 nest, and which flutter their wings lightly in the hands 
 of the fowler. 
 
 LIV 
 
 While reassuring her, with practised hand the mon- 
 ster I would seize, and, her fear now gone, she 'd turn 
 to laughter again, and, nestling on me anew, laugh at 
 herself and kiss me as she said, " Ye heavens, how I 
 love him ! " Then when I kissed her back, dreamy 
 she leaned her head upon my shoulder and closed her 
 eyes, as if to sleep away. The long beam of light 
 pressing through the leaves gilded her lovely brow. 
 The nightingale sang its pearly trills, and the scent-per- 
 fumed breeze softly breathed under the arches green. 
 
 LV 
 
 Never a word we spake and sad we both did seem, 
 and yet if anywhere on earth happiness doth exist, we 
 twain most happy were. But what could speech have 
 served ? On ruddy lips the words we stayed ; the 
 
 244
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 thoughts we knew. We had but one mind, but one 
 soul for the pair of us, and, as it were, in Paradise in 
 one another's embrace locked, we could not dream 
 other heaven than ours might be. Our veins, our 
 hearts in harmony pulsed ; in the ravishment of ecstasy 
 profound the very world was well forgot ; nor before 
 our eyes did horizon spread. 
 
 LVI 
 
 Gone is all that happiness. Who 'd have believed 
 it ? Each to the other now a stranger is, for 't is the 
 way of men, whose Ever is never greater than a six 
 months' span ? Our love has flown, Heaven knows 
 whither. My goddess, like painted butterfly that flies 
 and leaves but bloom of red and white upon the finger 
 tips, her flight has taken, leaving in my heart naught 
 but mistrust of the present and bitter remembrance of 
 the past. But what of that ? Love is a strange thing. 
 In those bygone days I loved, and now I set my loves 
 so fair in wretched verse. 
 
 LVII 
 
 Thus, gentle reader, is my whole story told most 
 faithfully to you, so far as my memory (an ill-kept
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 register) can recall to my thoughts trifles that mean so 
 much, for they make up love, and by and by we laugh 
 at them. Forgive this pause. The bubble I took 
 pleasure in blowing and which floated in the air, gor- 
 geous with prismatic fires, has suddenly faded out into 
 mere drop of water, bursting when it touched the gable- 
 rooPs angle. Even so, when it met reality, my glorious 
 dream was spent, and now for mother only have I love. 
 All other affection in me has died out. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 Except love for thee, O Poesy, that speakest ever 
 loud in chosen souls ! Poesy ! O golden-haloed angel, 
 who, passing from one world to another without fear 
 of soiling thy white form by contact with ours for 
 a moment, within the gloom of our night thy flight 
 dost stay ; whisperest words to us, and with the tip of 
 thy wing driest our bitter tears. And thou, Poesy's 
 twin sister, Painting, God rivalling, and His equal, 
 sublime deception, wondrous imposture, that life re- 
 storest and nature doublest, to you twain I do not bid 
 farewell. 
 
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 LIX 
 
 Let me to my theme return. The young enthusiast 
 a handsome cavalier was in very truth, and certes a 
 maid more chaste than Veronica might well for him 
 love have felt. But before I go farther it might be 
 well to sketch his portrait, for the outer form helps one 
 to know what is within. Foreign suns had shone upon 
 him and enriched with hue of tan his Italian skin, 
 naturally pale. His hair, wildered by his hands' agita- 
 tion, fell over a brow which Gall ecstatically would 
 have felt for six months, and taken for base for a dozen 
 treatises. 
 
 LX 
 
 An imperial brow of artist and poet ; that of itself 
 the half of the head did form. Broad and full, bending 
 under inspiration which in each wrinkle untimely 
 drawn, concealed superhuman power, great thoughts ; 
 and it bore written these words, " Belief and Power." 
 The rest of the face corresponded with this noble brow, 
 yet was there something in it unpleasant, and, faultless 
 though it was, one wished it might have different been. 
 Irony and sarcasm gleamed over it, rather than genius. 
 The lower part the upper seemed to mock. 
 
 247
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 LXI 
 
 Strange the effect of this combination. It was like 
 a demon under angel's tread writhing ; hell under 
 heaven opened. Though he had glorious eyes, long 
 ebony brows towards the temples fining, over the skin 
 gliding as a serpent crawls, a fringe of fluttering silken 
 lashes, yet his lion-like glance and the fatal flash that 
 shot at times from his eyes made one shudder and 
 turn pale in spite of all. The boldest look must, per- 
 force, be cast down before that Medusa glance which 
 could change to stone, though gentle he strove to make 
 it seem. 
 
 LXII 
 
 On his stern lip, shadowed at each end with a slight 
 mustache, elegantly waxed, a mechanical smile at times 
 rested, but, in general, his expression deepest disdain did 
 plain betray. In vain the fair, having again in society 
 met him, did all that in such case coquette may do to 
 draw him to her feet. To her amazement, nothing 
 could touch his adamantine heart. Glances from be- 
 hind her fan, sighs, simperings, half-spoken avowals, 
 teasing arch, all failed, and utterly. 
 
 248
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 LXIII 
 
 He was not the man to let himself be caught in the 
 nets Veronica tried to set for him. A great eagle 
 scarce sacrifices a feather to the lime which a sparrow 
 holds. The foolish fly is caught by the wing within 
 the web the spider spins in corner dark, but the wasp 
 the whole with her bears away, and Gulliver, with 
 single effort, breaks the Liliputians' silken chains. Yet 
 so fine a prey was well worth troubling for, so, if she 
 did not plainly speak the words, u I love you," she tried 
 every art. But he, unchanging still, on her bestowed 
 no thought. 
 
 LXIV 
 
 This was the reason why her door to comers all was 
 closed. For, indeed, what cared her anxious heart for 
 her courtier train ? These handsome fellows, these dan- 
 dies, who before now delighted her, seemed at this 
 time affected or vulgar, their perfumed madrigals wearied 
 her. Noise and light to her brought pain ; all things 
 troubled and annoyed her. On her dainty hand she 
 rests her brow j her dimpled arm upon her chair hangs 
 limp. Poor girl ! just see the pallor of her cheeks ! 
 
 249
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 Grief her roses to pearls has changed j within her eyes 
 the tears begin to well. 
 
 LXV 
 
 The paper which the fair, with anguished mien, 
 with rosy-nailed fingers crushes and crumples, unques- 
 tionably a love-letter is on azure vellum, which through 
 the room sheds sweet and fashionable scent of amber. 
 I know all about it. Yet the handwriting and the 
 turn of phrase have something about them that tell of 
 woman. Is it, then, a note intercepted from a rival, or 
 does the lady on her own account to some young beau 
 now write ? The latter fact seems proved by the black 
 spot upon the white finger tip, by the inkstand, and by 
 the raven's quill. 
 
 LXVI 
 
 Suddenly, bird-like looking up, and throwing back a 
 curl astray, her indolent pose she leaves, and begins, 
 before calling for light and wax to seal her note, to 
 read again quite low, as if afraid the echo might under- 
 stand. " I will not send it. I 've written it ill," she 
 says, the paper tearing. Low is her voice. " It is only 
 fit within the fire to go." It was very cold, the flames 
 
 250
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 were hot. The paper, like the damned in hell, flashed 
 up in blaze of blue, 
 
 LXVII 
 
 And disappeared. While the sheet is being consumed, 
 the girl another takes, a moment thinks, and then begins. 
 Her hand, as swift as race-horse at Newmarket, scarce 
 the paper touches. She 's filled her page while yet the 
 ink of the first words undried is. " Don Juan ! " 
 With uncovered head, Don Juan before the lady stands. 
 Veronica agitated, with her eyes burning bright : 
 " This note to my lord Albertus." " The painter 
 who lives at the inn of the Monkey Green ? " " The 
 same ; and within an hour at farthest, Don Juan, see 
 that you are back." 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 Albertus, I need not tell you, is the handsome swain 
 I 've just described a few stanzas above. An artist 
 was he, loving with passion fanatical painting and 
 verse, to the full as much as music. Nor could he 
 have told, had God the choice given him, which he 
 would rather be, Mozart or Dante. But I who knew 
 him as well as he did himself, better perhaps, I 
 
 251
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 believe that he would have said Raphael. For, of these 
 three sisters equal in merit, at bottom painting was his 
 favorite and his truest talent. 
 
 LXIX 
 
 He considered the world an infamous pot-house. 
 What he believed about woman and man was what 
 Hamlet thought, he would not have given a copper 
 for the pair. Womankind delighted him not, save in 
 painting, and having since birth inquired the why and 
 wherefore, he was pessimistic as the oldest of men 
 might be ; consequently, more generally sad than other- 
 wise. Love was but an empty word to him ; although 
 quite young, still, for long years past, of belief in it he 
 had still none. Thus within his days moved many 
 hours of weariness. 
 
 LXX 
 
 All the same, his ills he patient bore. Great knowl- 
 edge a very great scourge is sure to be ; a child into an 
 old man it makes. At the very outset of life, novice 
 though one be, there is nothing new in what one feels ; 
 when the cause appears the effect is already known ; 
 existence is burdensome ; all is savourless. To the 
 
 252
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 sick man's palate pimento tasteless is ; the much-tried 
 nostrils scarce can ether smell : love becomes a mere 
 spasm ; glory an empty phrase ; like a squeezed lemon 
 arid the heart becomes. Behind Werther Don Juan 
 ever stalks. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 Our hero, like Eve his ancestress, had, by the ser- 
 pent urged, tasted the bitter fruit. A god he desired to 
 be. When naked he beheld himself and possessed in 
 full of knowledge human, he longed for death, but his 
 courage failed him, and as one tires of treading the 
 well-known path, he sought a new road to discover. 
 Now, did he find the world of his dreams ? I doubt it, 
 for in the search his passions he had outworn. He had 
 lifted up the veil and glanced behind. At twenty he 
 might have been laid in his coffin dark, of all illusions 
 bereft. 
 
 LXXII 
 
 Woe ! Woe ! unto him who the fathomless ocean 
 of man's heart imprudently seeks to sound ! Too oft 
 the sounding lead, instead of golden sand and pearly 
 shells that lovely shine, brings up but foul and stinking 
 mud -- If I could live another life again, certes I 
 
 253
 
 dbdb db db * db db 4r 4: 4: 4?4rtfr tMbsb !?!$? dbdbtl? 4: !?& 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 should not within it all search out as hitherto I have 
 done. What matters after all, whether the cause be 
 sad, if the effect produced be sweet ? Let us be merry ; 
 let us outwardly be happy. A handsome mask is bet- 
 ter than an ugly face. Then why, poor fools, do we 
 
 snatch it off ? 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 If he had been the arbiter of his fate you may be 
 sure that many a chapter of life's novel he would have 
 skipped, and passed at once to the conclusion of this 
 most foolish tale. But uncertain whether he ought to 
 doubt, deny, believe, or seek in death the riddle's 
 answer, like down wind-driven he let his life drift 
 on as chance itself did will. The affairs of the world 
 troubled him but little : the things of heaven interested 
 him still less. As far as his soul went, I must tell you, 
 even at the risk of your blame incurring, that he did 
 not believe in its existence any more than in God's. 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 That was the way he was made a nature strange 
 and yet his soul, which he disbelieved in, was pure. 
 What he sought was nothingness ; nothing would he 
 have gained if hell had been suppressed. A strange 
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 man indeed ! He possessed every virtue he ridiculed, 
 and the angel who, above, in his record indignant wrote 
 some gross heresy, some damnable sophistry, when it 
 came to deeds found him less guilty, and as he beheld 
 within his nature the good and holy, once more the 
 anathema withheld. For a fallen tear the blasphemy 
 had blotted from the fatal page. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 Now, for a change of scene. At present we are 
 at the Green Monkey Inn, the abode of my lord 
 Albertus, and in his studio. Tell me, most ordinary 
 reader, do you know what a painter's studio is ? A 
 tempered light from above falling gives everything an 
 aspect strange. It is like a picture by Rembrandt, in 
 which the canvas shows a white dot shining through 
 the dark. In the centre of the room by the easel, 
 under the brilliant beam in which atoms whirl, stands 
 a lay figure that might a phantom be. Everything half 
 shadow and reflection is. 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 The shadows grow deeper within the corners than 
 even under the old arches of a nave. It is a world, 
 
 255
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 a universe apart, in no wise resembling the world we 
 live in; a fantastic world in which everything to the 
 eyes doth speak ; everything is poetic ; in which 
 modern art shines by the side of that of old. Beautiful 
 things of every time and every land : a sample page, 
 from the book out torn ; weapons, furniture, drawings, 
 casts, marbles, pictures, Giotto, Cimabue, Ghirlandajo, 
 and I know not whom ; Reynolds by Hemskerk's side, 
 Watteau by Correggio's, and Perugino between the Van 
 Loos twain. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 Lacquered ware and vases of Japan, monsters and 
 porcelain ware, pagodas golden with little bells all hung, 
 glorious Chinese fans it would take too long to describe; 
 Spanish knives, Malay creeses, with wavy blades ; 
 khandjars, yataghans with rich-wrought sheaths; lin- 
 stock arquebusses, matchlocks, blunderbusses; helms 
 and corslets, battle-maces, bassinets, damaged, in holes, 
 rusted, stained ; innumerable objects, good for nothing, 
 but glorious to behold ; Oriental caftans, doublets 
 mediaeval ; rebecs and psalteries, instruments outworn : 
 a den, a museum, and a boudoir in one ! 
 
 256
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 Around the walls many canvases hanging, untouched 
 for the most part, others just begun ; a chaos of colours 
 but half alive. Leonora on horseback, Macbeth and 
 the witches, Lara's children, Marguerite at prayer; 
 sketches of portraits, among which one framed, of 
 a young girl, light on a dark background, stands out 
 and sparkles ; so fair that one knows not by what name 
 to call it, whether peri, fairy, or sylph, a graceful, 
 delicate being ; an angel from heaven whose wings have 
 been clipped to prevent its flying away. 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 With her beautiful head and her thoughtful, resigned 
 look, she seemed to be a Mater Dei, after Masaccio, 
 yet it was only the portrait of a former mistress, the 
 one he best and most loved ; a Venetian, who, in her 
 gondola one night on the Canaleio had been stabbed to 
 death. The beauty's husband, knowing her unfaithful, 
 had plan ned the deed. The story was a regular romance. 
 Albertus to the dead had drawn near, the black stuff 
 pulled away, sketched the portrait, which he finished 
 from memory, and then never again after of her spoke. 
 
 17 257
 
 ************************ 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 LXXX 
 
 Only when his eyes fell upon the canvas, concealed 
 from indifferent glances by a curtain thick, a furtive 
 tear, forthwith dried up, gleamed in them. A sigh from 
 out his breast softly rose, his brows he bent, but ne'er 
 a word did say. At Venice an Englishman dared make 
 an offer ; he would have emptied his purse the master- 
 piece to own, but that would have been to profane 
 /'/ Santo Ritratto and as he persisted and offered yet 
 more wealth, Albertus raging sought to drown the man 
 below the Rialto. 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 Albertus was painting. It was a landscape. Salva- 
 tor would have nas?ed it Selve selvagge. Rocks in the 
 foreground, in the middle distance the towers of a castle 
 showing their sharp vanes against a blood-red sky filled 
 with islands of clouds. The mighty oaks were bending 
 like the lightest trees, leaves up in the air did whirl, 
 the faded grass, like the rolling billows of a midnight 
 sea, under its gusts did rise and fall ; while incessant 
 lightning with its red light lit up the tops of the blown 
 pines, bending o'er the depths as over the mouth of 
 hell. 
 
 258
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 A man came in. It was Juan. A blue light shone 
 in the studio, and though he had no tail, nor horns, nor 
 cloven foot, although he did not smell of pitch or 
 sulphur, his eagle glance, his lip by grin sardonic curled, 
 his gesture stiff, his voice, his gait, would have made 
 any man at all prudent hasten quick to his Bible and 
 sprinkle him with holy water. None of these things 
 did Albertus do. He looked and saw him not, for his 
 soul and his eyes on his painting were fixed. "My 
 lord, a note," said this devil Mercury as he pulled at his 
 doublet. 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 The painter the note opened, looked for a signature, 
 and none did find. " Base wretch," between his teeth 
 he muttered. " Will you go?" "I will." 
 " When ? " asked Don Juan in softened tone. " Im- 
 mediately." " By Jupiter, that is the way to speak. 
 The lady lives but a step from here. I shall lead 
 you thither." " It is well," said Albertus, taking 
 down his sword, an Andrea Ferrara, a trusty blade 
 tempered with the blood of many a brave. " I am 
 with you. Pietro ! " A sunburnt face at the door 
 
 259
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 appeared and said : " What doth my lord will ? " 
 " Quick, bring here to me my cloak and hat." 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 In less time than it takes to tell, the man was back. 
 In a moment the young cavalier's toilet was done, and 
 the valet having brought a mirror, he smiled, and with 
 himself seemed well content. But suddenly, his com- 
 plexion, always pale, a paler white did turn. Whether 
 he saw it or merely fancied it he 'd seen within the 
 frame the Venetian lady's head move, and her mute lips 
 ope as if she sought to speak. u Well, my lord ? " 
 said Don Juan. " Dear one," the painter said, the 
 portrait kissing with a sad, soft smile, " it is too late 
 to draw back now." 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 The pair went out. Deserted was the town. Scarce 
 here and there some open window. The rain with 
 swift-falling drops the dark sky rayed ; the north wind 
 made every vane shriek and scream as in heavy weather 
 scream the gulls. A belated toper went by, pitching up 
 against the walls ; a street girl at her corner waited. 
 Albertus, silent and gloomy, followed Juan. Surely he 
 
 260
 
 J^Hr********************* 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 had neither the mien nor the gait of a lover ; a thief to 
 the gibbet led, or schoolboy on his way to punishment, 
 never stepped more slow than he. 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 He might to his place have returned, but the adven- 
 ture after all was really strange and such as ardently to 
 pique his curiosity ; so our hero meant to see the end. 
 The house was reached. Don Juan seized the brazen 
 knocker of the postern door and knocked a master's 
 knock. Black eyes, white brows, gleamed behind the 
 panes. The house was illumined, and light flashed 
 upon the darkened walls ; from landing to landing the 
 light came down ; the bronze door oped, and the 
 splendid, vast interior to the young cavalier's gaze was 
 revealed. 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 A little negro boy, a torch of perfumed wax holding, 
 under the porch was standing, in rich and gallant livery 
 of scarlet trimmed with gold. " Here," said Juan, 
 " fair page, lead his lordship by the secret passage." 
 Albertus followed. At the end of the corridor a cur- 
 tain rich half drawn back behind him closed. Scenting 
 his approach, two great white greyhounds on the carpet 
 
 261
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 lying, snuffed the air, raised their long heads, uttered 
 low and anxious whimper, and then fell back and 
 dozed. 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 Upon my word, it looked like the room of a duchess. 
 Everything was to be found in it, comfort, elegance, 
 and wealth. On a handsome citron-wood table shone 
 an alabaster lamp that cast around a soft and bluish 
 light. Pearls, silks, a casket with steel knobs, rich 
 sepias, bright water-colours, albums, screens delicately 
 wrought; the latest review, the most recent novel, 
 a black mask broken ; innumerable fashionable trifles 
 cast pell-mell were strewn upon chairs and tables in 
 attractive disorder. 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 Our inamorata, half seated, half lying upon a divan 
 soft, uttered, as if surprised, a little cry when Albertus 
 entered ; then, her glance the mirror gaining, puffed out 
 her sleeve and rearranged a disorderly ribbon. Never 
 had the signora been better dressed. She was adorable, 
 just fit to make recruits for the devil as fit as society 
 lady, nay, more. Her black and brilliant eyes showed 
 
 262
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 under their long eyelids such morbidezza, her manner, 
 her gestures, such graceful abandon. 
 
 XC 
 
 For a moment Albertus thought he saw his Venetian 
 fair. The strange head-dress, adorned in the Italian 
 fashion with great golden balls and sequins pierced ; 
 the coral necklace, the cross, the amulet, the knots of 
 ribbons, the whole dress ; the rich-coloured skin with 
 its warm, deep tones ; the dreamy look, the lazy atti- 
 tude ; the glance identical, the speech the same. She 
 resembled her so that he was deceived. Knowing 
 Albertus and his temper eccentric, the witch had 
 thought it well to assume this mask to slake her 
 
 lust. 
 
 XCI 
 
 Veronica rang. The golden portiere parted. A 
 little page, a rich livery wearing, entered, trays in his 
 hands bearing a genuine Flemish page, a fair and 
 rosy head like that seen in Terburg's painting in the 
 Louvre. Upon the table he placed flagons and cakes, 
 silver cups and silverware, poured the wine into glasses 
 lofty, bowed to the lovers, and then withdrew. The 
 wine was Rhine wine, whose golden robe was turning 
 
 263
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 yellow with age, a wine bottled at least an hundred 
 years ago, or two. 
 
 XCII 
 
 Within the tankards it glowed like gold. A single 
 glass would have sufficed a man to daze ; with the 
 second Albertus quite tipsy was. To his fascinated 
 glance all things did double show, floating contourless 
 in vapour dim; the floor uprose, the walls appeared 
 to spin. As for the beauty, all shame behind her cast- 
 ing, and letting her lust a free hand have, with her 
 passionate arms she clasped him round the neck, clung 
 to his body in heat and madness, clutched at his head 
 and tried to make him bend until her lips he met. 
 
 XCIII 
 
 Albertus was neither of ice nor stone ; and even had 
 he been, under the dark eyelids of the lady shone a 
 sun whose fire would stone have vivified and melted 
 ice. An angel, a son of heaven, to be in his place 
 would have sold his stall in the paradise of God. 
 " Oh ! " said he, " my heart burns with the strange 
 flame that in your glance flashes, and my soul I 'd give 
 to possess you alone, wholly and forever. A single 
 
 264
 
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 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 word of your lips would make me renounce life eternal, 
 for is eternity worth a single minute of your days ? " 
 
 XCIV 
 
 " Is that the truth ? " answered Veronica, a smile 
 on her lips and with an ironic look. " And will you 
 repeat what you just have said ? " " That to possess 
 you, to the devil I 'd give my soul, if have it the devil 
 would ? Yea, madam, I Ve said it." " Then forever 
 accursed be ! " cried the young man's guardian angel. 
 " From you I go, for no longer are you God's." The 
 painter in his madness heard not the voice, and the 
 angel flew away. A glow of sulphur filled the room, 
 and Mephistophelian laughter indescribable suddenly 
 sounded in the air. 
 
 xcv 
 
 For an instant Veronica's eyes shone with darksome 
 fire like those of orfreys in darkness hid. Albertus 
 saw it not, for certes, had he beheld the glance, great 
 though his courage, he would have crossed himself 
 for fear, on beholding the wild and grim look, for 
 it was indeed a glance that spoke of unending evil, 
 a glance of the damned, of the devil the time inquiring. 
 
 265
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 It read : " Ever, Forever, Eternity ! " Most horrible, 
 truly. The eye of man blasted by such a glance would 
 die and melt as melts the pitch within the furnace cast. 
 
 XCVI 
 
 Her lips trembled. It seemed as if some blasphemy 
 were about to escape, when suddenly she said, w I 
 love you," springing like a maddened tiger. " But 
 know you well what is woman's love ? When you 
 asked for mine did you test your soul ? Did you 
 estimate aright the strength of your heart ? What 
 mighty power within you do you feel capable of 
 bearing such burden without fail ? c Ever, forever ! ' 
 Think again ! Within the wide universe but one 
 being is capable of love eternal. That being is God, 
 for He unchanging is. Man, creature of a day, but 
 for a day doth love." 
 
 XCVII 
 
 Within the room, a beam from the lamp, stealing 
 pale and faint upon the gilded walls, behind the curtains, 
 discreetly drawn, a bed suggests. Albertus, no word 
 answering (the best reply, after all), thither draws her, 
 and to the edge of the bed doth her gently push. . . . 
 
 266
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Here in his shame-faced style a classical narrator, with 
 embarrassment blushing, does not fail to stop. What 
 are not these worthy points made to say ? Basilio 
 never strikes them out on the ground that they are 
 immoral, and in a novel chaste they stand as the 
 hieroglyph of what is not particularly chaste, or not 
 at all. 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 But I, who am no prude, and have no gauze or 
 vine-leaf on my sentence to stick, not one thing shall 
 I omit. The ladies who this moral tale may read 
 I beg will be indulgent to a few warm details ; the 
 wisest of them, I trow, will note them without a blush ; 
 the others will scream. Besides and mothers of 
 families will please take notice, what I am writing 
 is not intended for maidens young whose bread and 
 butter is cut in slices for them. My lines are a young 
 man's lines, and not a catechism. Emasculate them 
 I will not ; in their decent cynicism they go on, 
 straight or crooked. 
 
 XCIX 
 
 Little reck I, provided my lady Poesy, their mistress 
 absolute, finds them tickle her fancy ; so, chaste like 
 
 267
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 Adam before the Fall, they onward freely go in their 
 sainted nudity, free from all vice, and showing without 
 fear all that the hypocrite world so carefully conceals. 
 I am not of those whom a bosom bared or a skirt 
 rather short compels aside to look ; my gaze on these 
 things does not rest by preference. Why declaim so 
 much against an artist's work? What he does is 
 sacred. Pray, ye rigorous critics, do you see naught 
 else than that ? 
 
 The stay-lace the painter had cut. Veronica's 
 lovely frame for sole vestment her Flanders linen now 
 had on ; a mere cloud of lawn ; spun air ; a breath ; a 
 mist of gauze, that under its network allowed the gaze 
 to wander with delight ; in a word, the flimsiest stuff 
 you can think of. It did not take Albertus long to 
 tear away this rampart frail, and in a hand's turn he 
 had his beauty nude. He was wrong ; it is spoiling 
 one's own pleasure ; this sort of thing is killing one's 
 own love and its grave digging, alas ! for too oft with 
 the veil illusion and desire both fall away. 
 
 26S
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 CI 
 
 Not thus this time; the lady was so fair that a 
 saint in heaven would for her sake damnation have 
 welcomed. A poet in love could not have thought 
 out an ideal more perfect. O Nature ! Nature ! by 
 the side of thy work what is painting worth ? What 
 becomes of Raphael, of beauty the lord ? What of 
 Correggio, Guido, and Giorgione, Titian and all the 
 names whose praise one age to the other sings ? O 
 Raphael, believe me, thy brushes cast away, and thou, 
 Titian, thy palette. God alone the mighty Master is ; 
 His secret well he keeps, and none may make it out ; 
 in vain we strive. 
 
 CII 
 
 Oh, the lovely picture ! Blushing rosy red with 
 shame, red as berry in May, upon her heaving breasts 
 her head she bows and her arms doth cross with her 
 arch, roguish look, her little pout, her long fluttering 
 lashes her cheeks caressing, her skin, browner showing 
 'gainst the white sheets, her long hair naturally curling, 
 her eyes flashing with carbuncle's glow, her fair, golden 
 neck, her coral lips, her Cinderella foot and her limbs 
 
 269
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 divine, and what the shadow hides and what may be 
 guessed, in her own self she more than a seraglio 
 well was worth. 
 
 cm 
 
 The curtains have closed again. Frantic laugh, 
 shrieks of voluptuousness, ecstatic moans, long-drawn 
 sighs, sobs and tears, Idolo del mio cor! Anima miaf 
 my angel, my life ! and all the words in that language 
 strange which love delirious invents in its heat, these 
 were the sounds one heard. Wrecked was the alcove ; 
 the bed creaked and groaned ; pleasure a very rage 
 became. Showers of kisses and storm of movements 
 lascivious ; arms round bodies grappling and clutching ; 
 eyes flaming, teeth meeting and biting, breasts that 
 convulsive bound. 
 
 CIV 
 
 The lamp flared up, and in the alcove's depths flashed, 
 lightning-like, a red and tawny light. 'T was but for 
 an instant, yet Albertus saw Veronica, her skin by 
 burning marks all rayed, pale as though dead, and so 
 disfigured that he shuddered at the sight. Then all 
 once more dark became. The witch her lips to the 
 young cavalier's glued again, and anew the couch bent 
 
 270
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 and creaked under love's bounds. Midnight struck. 
 The sound mingled its shrill falsetto with the low 
 lashing of the rain upon the window pane, and in the 
 near-by tower hooted the owl. 
 
 CV 
 
 Suddenly, within his very grasp, a prodigy fit 
 to confound the strongest brain, Albertus felt the 
 charms of the fair melt away, and vanish the very flesh. 
 Broken was the prism. It was no longer the woman 
 whom all adored, but a foul hag with great green eyes 
 rolling under eyebrows thick, and, to seize her prey, at 
 full length stretching her long, thin arms, like hooks. 
 Satan himself would have drawn back. A few white 
 hairs hung stiff down her skinny neck ; her bones 
 showed plain under withered breasts, and her ribs stuck 
 out of her sides so foul. 
 
 CVI 
 
 When he beheld himself so close to this living death, 
 with terror the blood in his veins ran cold. His hair 
 upon his head did stand, and his teeth chattered as 
 though they would break. Meanwhile, the hideous 
 skeleton her blue lips to his cheek pressing, everywhere 
 
 271
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 with strident laugh pursued him. Within the shadow 
 at the foot of the bed climbed shapes most strange. 
 Incubus, nightmares, ghastly, deformed spectres, deathly 
 multitude of Goya's brains ! Horned snails issued 
 from beneath the bricks and silvered the old walls with 
 phosphorescent slime ; the lamp smoked and sputtered. 
 
 CVII 
 
 Instead of the gilded bedstead, a filthy couch ; in 
 place of the boudoir rose a little room of aspect 
 wretched, with an old window frame of panes badly 
 cracked ; the walls, green with damp, were wet with 
 rain, the great drops falling upon the grimy floor. 
 Juan, a cat again, cast innumerable sparks, and fas- 
 cinated Albertus with the gleam of his glance, and 
 like the dog in Faust, waving around him magic bands, 
 traced a brilliant circlet with his tail upon the hearth, 
 upon which flickered a blue flame. 
 
 CVIII 
 
 Hop ! Hop ! cried the old woman ; and down the 
 chimney, suddenly ablaze with golden fires, two broom- 
 sticks, bridled and saddled, entered the room, in every 
 direction kicking, caracoling, prancing, rolling, and leap- 
 
 272
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 ing as do horses by their master called. " These be my 
 English mare and my Arab steed," said the witch, 
 opening her crablike hands and patting on the neck the 
 broomsticks both. A swollen toad with long slender 
 paws the stirrup held. Housch ! housch ! like grass- 
 hoppers swift the two broomsticks their flight do take. 
 
 CIX 
 
 Trap ! trap ! they go as goes the north wind. 'Neath 
 them the earth shadows pass in long, grey lines ; above, 
 the cloudy sky hurries by ; on the dim horizon strange 
 shadows pass. The mill turns around and pirouettes. 
 The moon, now full, shows her light like lantern dim ; 
 a curious donjon underneath gazes ; a tree its black 
 limbs outstretches far; a gibbet haggard shakes its 
 fists and follows, its corpses bearing; a crow, croaking 
 as it scents the dead, flaps heavily through the air, and 
 with its wing strikes the brow of the young man 
 dazed. 
 
 CX 
 
 Bats and owls, orfreys and vultures bald, great owls 
 and birds of night with dun, flaming eyes ; monsters 
 of all kinds yet unknown, strygae with hooked beaks, 
 ghouls, larvz, harpies, vampires, and werc-wolves, 
 
 i 273
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 impious spectres, mammoths and leviathans, crocodiles 
 and boas, growling and snarling, hissing, laughing and 
 chattering, swarming and gleaming, flying, crawling, 
 leaping, till the ground is covered and darkened the air. 
 Less swift is the speed of the breathless brooms, 
 and with her gnarled fingers the bridle drawing, 
 " This is the place," the old hag cried. 
 
 CXI 
 
 The place was lighted by a flame, a blue light cast- 
 ing like that of blazing punch. It was an open spot 
 within the forest's depth. Wizards in their gowns and 
 witches nude astride upon their goats adown the four 
 avenues from the four corners of the world arrived at 
 once. Investigators into sciences occult, Fausts of 
 every land, magi of every rite, dark-faced gypsies, and 
 rabbis red-haired, cabalists, diviners, hermeceutists 
 black as ink and asthmatically gasping, not one of 
 them all failed at the meeting-place. 
 
 CXII 
 
 Skeletons preserved in dissecting rooms, stuffed ani- 
 mals, monsters, greenish foeti, yet dripping all from 
 their spirit bath, cripples and lamesters on slugs 
 
 274
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 mounted ; man hanged to death with protruding tongue 
 grimacing; pale faces beheaded, with red-circled neck, 
 with one hand staying their tottering heads; every 
 creature ever put to death (a dreadful blood-stained 
 crowd) ; handless parricides in black veils shrouded ; 
 heretics grouped in tunics sulphurous ; wretches on the 
 wheel broken, contused and blue ; drowned ones with 
 marbled flesh a sight most dismal to behold ! 
 
 CXIII 
 
 The president in great black chair seated, with 
 taloned fingers the leaves of his book turning, was busy 
 backward spelling God's sacred names. The light 
 that gleamed from his orbs of green the book illumined, 
 and on the open page made the words flash out in lines 
 of fire. They were waiting for the Master ere the fun 
 began. All were growing impatient. He was slow 
 in coming, and to the evocations seemed a deaf ear to 
 turn. Albertus fancied he saw a tail, a pair of horns, 
 goat's feet, great round eyes in lustre lacking, an 
 apparition horrid. 
 
 CXIV 
 
 At last he came ; but no devil of sulphur stinking 
 and of aspect terrific ; no devil old-fashioned, but the 
 
 275
 
 *******+****++*+**+*+*+* 
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 dandiest of fiends, wearing imperial and slight moustache, 
 twirling his cane as well as could have done a Boule- 
 vard swell. You could have sworn he'd just come 
 from a performance of " Robert the Devil," or " The 
 Temptation," or had been attending some assembly 
 fashionable. He limped like Byron (but not worse 
 than he), and with his haughty mien, his aristocratic 
 looks, and his exquisite talent tying for his cravat, 
 in every drawing-room a sensation he would have 
 made. 
 
 cxv 
 
 This dandy Beelzebub made a sign, and the company 
 drew together the concert to hear. Neither Ludwig 
 Beethoven, nor Gluck, nor Meyerbeer, nor Theodore 
 Hoffmann, Hoffmann the fantastic, nor stout Rossini, of 
 music king, nor Chevalier Karl Maria von Weber, 
 could surely with all their genius have invented and 
 written the wondrous symphony which these black 
 dilettanti played at first. Boucher and Beriot, Paganini 
 himself could not have embroidered a stranger theme 
 with more brilliant pizzicati. 
 
 276
 
 6**^******+********+*** 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 CXVI 
 
 Virtuosi with their dried, thin fingers made the strings 
 of the Stradivarii sing again. Souls seemed to sound in 
 the voices of the grave ; cavernous gongs like thunder 
 rumbled ; a jolly sprite, his round face swelling funnily, 
 blew in two horns at once ; here, one strikes on a bone ; 
 the other, for a lark takes his belly for a drum, two 
 bones for sticks ; four little demons with iron bows 
 make four giant double-basses roar and moan ; while a 
 stout soprano opes wide his gaping jaws. The result : 
 a hellish row. 
 
 CXVII 
 
 The concert finished, began the dances. Hands 
 with hands the chains did form. Within the great 
 black chair the devil seated himself and the signal 
 gave. Hurrah ! hurrah ! The crowd, spurning the 
 ground, howling and mad, dashed along like bridleless 
 steed. The heavens, the sight to shun, closed their 
 starry eyes, and the moon, in cloudlets twain her face 
 now veiling, with fear from the horizon fled. Terri- 
 fied the waters stayed, and the echoes' selves silent 
 became, dreading the blasphemies to repeat which on 
 that night they heard. 
 
 277
 
 ALBERTUS, OR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 It was as though there whirled, aflame, through the 
 dark, the monstrous signs of a zodiac sombre. The 
 heavy hippopotamus, four-footed FalstafF, awkward rose 
 upon its massive legs and broke out in lascivious gam- 
 badoes. The crippled, truncated and lame, leaped like 
 toads, and the goats, livelier, performed entrechats and, 
 graceful, kicked ; a death's-head, with long, lean legs, 
 trotted along like spider huge ; in every corner swarmed 
 some hideous thing; worms slimed over the trodden 
 ground. 
 
 CXIX 
 
 Loose in the wind their hair, their cheeks aflame, the 
 women twisted their bodies nude into postures infamous, 
 whereat Aretino's self would have blushed. Hot kisses 
 marked the bruised breasts and shoulders white ; black 
 hairy fingers touched the hips ; sounds of lustful embrace 
 over all arose ; eyes flashed with electric glance ; lips 
 burned in lascivious pressure ; fierce laughter, shrieks, 
 guttural sounds rose in the air. Never did Sodom, 
 never did Gomorrah loathsome darken the sky and soil 
 this earth with more hideous unions foul. 
 
 278
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 CXX 
 
 The devil sneezed. To fashionable nostrils the 
 odour of the company unbearable was. " God bless 
 you," said Albertus politely. Scarce had he uttered 
 that sacred name when phantoms, wizards and witches, 
 sprites and gnomes, as by enchantment, into thin air 
 vanished. With terror he felt sharp claws, fierce teeth 
 strike at his flesh, from him torn. He shrieked, but his 
 cry by none was heard. On that morn, near Rome, 
 peasants found upon the Appian Way the body of 
 a man stone dead, his back broken, his neck twisted. 
 
 CXXI 
 
 Happy as a boy who has finished his task at last I 've 
 got to the end of my poem so moral. Are you as glad 
 as I am, reader dear ? In vain for two months past to 
 bring this volume to a close my hand upon the sheet 
 the pen did screeching drive ; the unwilling theme 
 but slowly went ; the stanzas, lazily rocking on their 
 golden wings, together came like swarm of bees, or else 
 disorderly by the wayside idly fluttered. The num- 
 bers grew, one sheet upon another, the ink undried 
 still, was laid, and I, all courage losing, to myself 
 
 279
 
 ALBERTUS,QR THE SOUL AND SIN 
 
 kept repeating : " To-morrow, to-morrow 't will be 
 done." 
 
 CXXII 
 
 This Homeric poem, in the world unequalled, pre- 
 sents a wondrous allegory profound. But if you the 
 marrow wish, the bone you must break ; to enjoy the 
 scent the vase must needs be oped ; the curtain be 
 drawn from the painting it hides ; and when the ball is 
 done the domino's mask be cast away. I could have 
 explained clearly every part, and to each word attached 
 some learned gloss. But I take it, reader gentle, you 've 
 brains enough to follow me. So, good-night. Close 
 the door. Give me the tongs, and tell my man to bring 
 me a volume of Pantagruel. 
 
 280
 
 The Comedy of Death
 
 THE COMEDT 
 OF DEATH 
 
 LIFE IN DEATH 
 
 I 
 
 'TwAS All Saints' Day. A drizzle cold along the 
 horizon's gloom like a thick woof spread its network 
 gray ; cold the north wind blew ; scattered russet 
 leaves fell fluttering from the branches bare of the 
 stunted elms. 
 
 And each and all went into the cemetery vast and 
 lone to kneel by the stone placed over the dead ; there 
 to pray to Almighty God for the rest of their souls, 
 and with fresh flowers tearfully to replace the pale 
 immortelles and withered wreaths. 
 
 I, who knew not the bitter grief of having buried 
 either my mother or my sire under the withered turf, 
 at chance I walked gazing at the tombs, or, through 
 
 283
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 an opening between the branches of the trees, at the 
 city's swelling domes. 
 
 And as I noted many a leafless cross, many a grave 
 on which the grass grew tall, where none to pray knelt 
 down, with pity I was filled ; with pity great, for the 
 poor forsaken tombs which none on earth within his 
 heart did bear. 
 
 No trace of green upon these slabs; and yet the 
 names of widows desolate, or husbands in despair, their 
 falsehood bare displayed to every passer's eye, with 
 ne'er a trace of moss to veil their huge letters black. 
 
 And, as I gazed, within my heart uprose a thought 
 which ever since has my soul possessed. Suppose it 
 were true that the dead raging within their biers do 
 twist about their knotty arms and strive to throw off 
 their covers of stone with efforts incredible ? 
 
 Perchance the tomb no refuge is where on pillow 
 hard man may in peace at last forever sleep, forgetful 
 of all worldly things, pleasure nor pain feeling, remem- 
 bering not being or having been. 
 
 Perchance for sleep there is no desire; and when 
 the rain filters downward to the corpse come the cold, 
 
 284
 
 ************+++****++*+* 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 the weariness, and the lonesomeness of the grave. 
 Oh ! how sadly one must dream within that place, 
 where neither moan nor breath can move the shroud's 
 long, stiff folds ! 
 
 Perchance, alive to the passions in us that once did 
 blaze, the ashes of our hearts still feel and move 
 within the tomb, and some remembrance of this world 
 within the next bears with it a remnant of a life of 
 yore with ours mingled. 
 
 These lonesome dead ! No doubt they wives did 
 have, some one both near and dear ; some one to 
 whom their thoughts they told. But, oh ! the horror 
 of their grief if ever they did awake within the 
 depths of their tomb on which never a tear nor a flower 
 doth fall ! 
 
 To feel that one has passed away without leaving 
 more trace than does the ship's wake on ocean's face ; 
 that one is dead to all ; to see that the best beloved 
 have one so soon forgot ; and that the weeping willow 
 with its long, bending boughs alone over one's grave 
 mourns. 
 
 At least if one could, when the pale, wan moon 
 opes its calm eyes with silvery glance, and earthward
 
 dbirtt: db tfc db 4: & tfc 4r sb^kdSrtfrtfetfetfcTl: tJbtfctfe &sfe A 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 looks and casts a bluish light, if one could, within 
 the cemetery's range, between the white tombs, the 
 will o' the wisp o'er the grass flitting, under the 
 branches stroll a while at least ! 
 
 If one could home return within the house, the 
 stage of the former life, and, chilled, by the fireside 
 within the arm-chair sit ; glance the old books over ; 
 within the desk rummage until the time when dawn 
 the window lighting drove one back to coffin cold. 
 
 But no. Upon the mortuary bed one must remain, 
 with covering none but the sheeted shroud ; no sound 
 the silence breaking save crawl of worm that slowly 
 drags towards its prey, cutting its secret mine; no 
 sight but night. 
 
 Then, if they be jealous, the dead, all that Dante 
 has told of torments in his burning spiral would pleas- 
 ant be to that they suffer. Lovers, who know what 
 jealousy is, what tortures that frenzy means, imagine 
 a jealous corpse ! 
 
 Powerless and wroth ! He is there, in his grave, 
 while she, who was loved with heart's deep love, false 
 to the oaths she swore, now in another's arms repeats 
 
 286
 
 SELECTED PO E M S 
 
 what she blushing whispered, when nestling close, with 
 sacred words. 
 
 And to be unable to come, on a December night, 
 while she is dancing, to cower in her room, and when 
 she 's back, and slowly, smilingly, before the glass her 
 dress undoes, to show within the mirror's depths one's 
 skeleton and bared ribs. 
 
 To laugh hideously with toothless laugh ; to mark 
 with cold kisses her heaving breast; and clutching 
 her white and rosy hand with bony fingers, to moan 
 these words, with hollow voice that human no longer 
 is: 
 
 " Woman, you made me promises numberless. 
 Have you forgot them all ? I, in my sombre grave, 
 I remember still. You told me, at the hour when 
 death came to me, that soon you would follow. 
 Weary of waiting, now am I here to fetch you ! " 
 
 Within my mind's depths a strange thought, cancer- 
 like gnaws and wears me out. Mine eyes sunken 
 become; upon my brow are wrinkles new; my hair, 
 my very flesh, from off my temples drop, for hideous 
 is the thought. 
 
 287
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 For death no longer, then, the great Consoler is. 
 Man, even in the tomb, 'gainst fate has no recourse, 
 and one may no longer cease to grieve for life by 
 caressing the blessed hope of calm and peace after the 
 storm and stress of life. 
 
 288
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 II 
 
 Within my brain these thoughts revolving, thought- 
 ful I stood, with deep-bowed head against a tombstone 
 leaning. Brand-new it was, and on the white marble 
 shoulder of the weeping figure the willow's long 
 branches like a cloak did fall. 
 
 The north wind leaf by leaf stripped the wreath, 
 the remnants of which on the column's top did lie. 
 They seemed like tears which their flowers shed upon 
 the maid in life's springtime removed ; a gentle morn- 
 ing bloom withered before noon. 
 
 The crescent moon betwixt the yews did shine; 
 great black clouds the wan sky crossed and drove still 
 on; the will o' the wisps flashed around the graves, 
 and the weeping willow its plumes did shake. 
 
 Plain in the night sounds I heard from the nether 
 world arising ! Moans of terror and agony deep ; 
 voices entreating new flowers upon their tombs ; ask- 
 ing how went the world, and why the widows left 
 behind so long delayed them to join. 
 
 19 289
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 Suddenly scarce could I credit my own ears, 
 from under the gaping marble, oh, terror ! oh, wonder ! 
 I heard the sound of speech. A dialogue it was, and 
 from the depths of the grave sharp, shrill tones mingled 
 with another voice. 
 
 Chilled with fear I was. With terror my teeth 
 chattered ; my trembling limbs almost gave way, for 
 I understood the worm with the dead girl, of a sudden 
 awaked upon this winter night within her icy cage, 
 its hymen was celebrating. 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 Is this an illusion ? Has the night so long dreamed 
 of, the wedding night, come at last ? Is this my 
 nuptial bed ? Surely this the hour when the groom, 
 young and scented, enjoys the beauty of the bride and 
 from her brows removes the maiden orange-flower. 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 A long, long night 't will be, O fair dead girl ! 
 To me for ever Death hath thee betrothed. Thy bed 
 is but the tomb. Now is the time when bays the 
 watch-dog at the moon ; when the foul vampire sails 
 forth in search of prey j when downward swoops the 
 crow. 
 
 290
 
 ************************ 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 Oh ! beloved, quickly come ; long since the hour is 
 passed. Oh ! draw me to thy heart, within thine arms 
 close pressed, for cold I am and full of dreadful fears. 
 Warm with thy kisses my mouth which icy feels. 
 Oh ! come to my side ; and room I '11 make for thee, 
 though narrow is our couch. 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 Five feet in length by two in width ; the size was 
 ta'en with care. The couch too hard is ; the groom 
 will never come. Thy cries he hears not ; at a feast 
 he is. Come, upon thy pillow quietly lay thy head and 
 cross thine arms again. 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 What is the damp and breathless kiss I feel ? That 
 lipless mouth, is it a human one ? Is this a living 
 kiss ? Oh, wonder ! none to right or left of me ! 
 With horror my bones do quake ; my whole flesh 
 quivers as quakes the aspen when blows the wind. 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 Mine is the kiss ; the earth-worm I, here to fulfil 
 the solemn mystery. Possession now I take. Thy 
 
 291
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 husband I 've become, and faithful sure will be. The 
 gladsome owl, with strong wing the air beating, sings 
 our wedding song. 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 Oh ! if only some one by the cemetery would pass ! 
 In vain I strike my brow against the coffinboards ; the 
 lid too heavy is. Sounder than the dead he buries deep 
 the grave-digger sleeps. The silence is profound ; de- 
 serted is the road, and echo's self to my cries is deaf ! 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 Mine are thine ivory arms ; mine thy fair white 
 breasts ; mine thy polished waist and glorious hips 
 luxuriant swelling; mine thy little feet; thy hands so 
 soft ; thy lips, and that first kiss which thy maidenly 
 shame to love refused. 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 'T is over ! 'T is over ! The worm is here. Its 
 bite makes in my side a deep, broad wound ; my heart 
 it gnaws. Oh, torture ! Qh, my God ! the cruel 
 pain! Mother, sister mine, why come you not unto 
 my call ? 
 
 292
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 Within their hearts the thought of thee even now is 
 gone ; and yet upon thy grave, poor deserted one, the 
 orange flowers still brilliant are. The funeral pall 
 scarce folded is, yet like yester's dream they have 
 forgot forgot thee and for ever. 
 
 THE DEAD GIRL 
 
 Grass faster grows within the heart than even on the 
 grave, and soon the cross and lowly mound alone recall 
 the presence of the dead. But where the cross that 
 tells of tomb within the soul ? Forgetfulness, second 
 death, annihilation which I seek, come unto me ! I 
 call for you. 
 
 THE WORM 
 
 Be now consoled, for Death gives Life. Upspring- 
 ing under the shadow of the cross the eglantine more 
 rosy is, more green the sward. The flower's roots 
 within thy frame shall plunge, and where thou sleepest, 
 tall shall wave the grass ; for in God's hands is nothing 
 lost. 
 
 One of the dead their speech had wakened for silence 
 called. Lightning, not from heaven, but from earth, 
 
 2 93
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 showed me within their tombs all the dead ; skeletons 
 of bodies with yellowed bones, or purplish flesh in 
 tatters falling away. 
 
 Both young and old the graveyard's inhabitants, poor 
 forgotten dead, hearing upon their tombs but the roar 
 of the gale, and to weariness a prey within their 
 dwelling cold, sought with sightless eyes to read the 
 hour upon Eternity's mighty dial. 
 
 Then all to darkness turned, and on my way I went, 
 pale at having seen so much ; with doubt and horror 
 filled ; weary in mind and body both. And, ever 
 following me, countless cracked bells like the voices 
 of the dead swung out to me the moans they tolled. 
 
 294
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 III 
 
 To my home I returned. Gloomy thoughts swarmed 
 and swept before mine eyes, with icy-cold wings my 
 brow touching, just as at eventide around cathedral 
 spire the flocks of crows their spirals wind, and circle 
 ever round. 
 
 Within my room, where quivered a yellow light, all 
 things assumed forms horrible and weird, and aspects 
 passing strange. My bed a coffin seemed ; my lamp a 
 funeral light ; my cloak outspread the darksome pall, 
 with holy water oft bestrewed within the doorway while 
 a prayer is breathed. 
 
 Within its frame enclosed the ivory Christ, nailed 
 with outstretched arms upon the sombre stuff, more 
 pallid still became, and as on Golgotha in last keen 
 agony, the muscles on the yellowed face stood out in 
 anguish writhing. 
 
 All the paintings, their faded hues illumed by the 
 hearth-fire's gleam, strange tones assumed, and with 
 inquisitive air, like spectators within stage-box seated, 
 
 295
 
 ************************ 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 all the smoky old portraits, and dull-toned pastels their 
 eyes now opened wide. 
 
 A death's-head, from the skull well cast, white stood 
 out, grimacing, garish under a bluish beam. I saw it 
 to the bracket's edge advance ; the jaws seemed striving 
 speech to use, the eyes to light with glance. 
 
 From the dark orbs (where were no orbs) flashed 
 sudden sparklings dun, as from a living eye. A breath 
 came forth from 'twixt its shaking teeth. 'T was 
 not the wind, for straight the folds of curtains by the 
 window felL 
 
 Then, like the voice one hears in dreams, sad as the 
 moan of waves upon the shore, I heard a voice ; and 
 as that day so many things I 'd seen so many effects 
 marvellous of unknown cause my dread was less 
 this time : 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 
 I am Raphael Sanzio, the mighty Master. Oh ! 
 brother, tell me, can you my features know in this 
 hideous skull ? For there is nothing 'mid the casts and 
 masks these shining skulls polished like helms of 
 steel that makes me different from them all. 
 
 296
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 And yet, 't is I, 't is I, indeed : the youth divine, 
 the angel of beauty and the light of Rome, Raphael 
 of Urbino, the brown-haired lad you see in museums, 
 idly leaning, dreaming, resting his head upon his 
 hand. 
 
 Oh ! my Fornarina, my fair beloved ! who took with 
 a kiss my soul in ecstasy to heaven ascending. This, 
 then, is your lover the handsome angel-named painter 
 this head with its strange grimace. Well, 't is 
 Raphael ! 
 
 If e'er, asleep within the chapel's depth, she were to 
 wake and come when calls my voice, with fear she filled 
 would be. Nay, let the half-raised stone upon her 
 head fall again. Oh ! come not, come not ! but keep 
 within your tomb the dream within your heart. 
 
 Accursed analysers ! Race most vile ! Hyenas 
 that track the funeral step by step the body to dig up ! 
 When will you be done breaking open biers to measure 
 our bones and our dust to weigh ? Let the dead sleep 
 in peace. 
 
 My masters ! Do you know but who could 
 have told you ? what one feels when the saw's teeth 
 
 297
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 tear our palpitating heart ? Do you know whether 
 death is not another life ? And if, when their remains 
 from the tomb are dragged, the dead are satisfied ? 
 
 So you come to search with hands profane our tombs 
 which you violate, and to steal our skulls ! How bold 
 you are ! Do you never fear that some day, pale and 
 wan, the dead may rise and curse you there just as I 
 curse you ? 
 
 So you fancy that in the rottenness you shall sur- 
 prise the secrets of mother Nature and the work of 
 God ? It is not by the body the soul can be learned ; 
 the body but an altar is ; genius is the flame ; and you 
 the fire put out. 
 
 Oh ! Child Christs of mine ! Oh ! my dark-haired 
 Madonnas ! Oh ! you who owe to me your fairest 
 crowns, saints in Paradise ! The learned cast my skull 
 upon the ground, and you suffer it, nor hurl thunder- 
 bolts at these wretches accurst. 
 
 So 't is true : Heaven its power has lost j Christ is 
 dead indeed ! The age Science for its God has ta'en ; 
 for faith, Liberty. Farewell to the perfume sweet of 
 
 298
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 the mystic rose ; to love, farewell. Farewell to poesy 
 of old ; to sacred beauty a long farewell. 
 
 In vain our painters, to see how shaped it was, 
 within their hands shall turn and turn my head again ; 
 mine, mine alone my secret is. Copy they may my 
 tones ; copy they may the pose ; but two things had I 
 that shall fail them ever, Love and Faith. 
 
 Tell me, which of you, of this age infamous the off- 
 spring mean, can saintly render woman's adored 
 beauty ? None, alas ! not one. For your boudoirs, 
 the haunts of lust, lascivious scenes you need. Who 
 e'er glances at you, virgins mine, so draped ? Oh ! 
 my sainted ones, no man. 
 
 The time has come. Your task is done. Like a 
 wan old man the dying age bewails and struggles on. 
 The Angel of Judgment to his lips the trumpet sets, 
 and the voice is about to call : "Let justice be done; 
 mankind is dead ! " 
 
 No more I heard. Dawn with opal lips, quite sleepy 
 yet, upon the dullish window-pane a chill beam cast, 
 and I saw vanish the vision strange as vanishes the 
 orfrey, by sudden gleam startled, under a Gothic arch. 
 
 299
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 DEATH IN LIFE 
 
 IV 
 
 Death is multiform : its face, its vesture changes 
 oftener than actress lightsome. Beauteous it can make 
 itself, and is not ever a sickening carcass that groans 
 toothless and makes grimace most hideous to behold. 
 
 Its subjects do not all within the graveyard dwell ; 
 they sleep not all on pillows stony under the shadow 
 of the vaults ; they wear not all her pallid livery ; not 
 upon all has the gate been closed in the gloom of the 
 grave. 
 
 Dead there are of kinds most various. To some 
 stench befalls, and corruption, palpable nothingness, hor- 
 ror and disgust, night profound and dark, and the avid 
 bier, its jaws wide opening like gaping monster. 
 
 Others, whom one sees unfearful go to and fro in 
 the sight of the living under their shroud of flesh, have 
 the invisible nothingness, the inner death which none 
 
 300
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 suspects, which none doth mourn, not even nearest and 
 dearest. 
 
 For when one goes into the cities of the dead to visit 
 the tombs of the unknown or famous, the monuments 
 or the mounds, whether or not there lie asleep forever 
 under the sombre shadows of the yews some friend 
 beloved, whether one weep or not, 
 
 One says : Behold, dead are these. Moss has 
 spread its veil over their names ; fast the worm its web 
 doth spin in the sockets of their eyes ; their hair has 
 made its way through the boards of their biers, and 
 their flesh in dust doth fall upon the bones of their 
 forbears. 
 
 At night their heirs fear not they shall return ; even 
 their dogs now scarce remember them. Their por- 
 traits, with smoke befogged, with dust thickly covered 
 o'er, in shops are strown away ; those who once envy 
 fierce to them did bear, their praises now gladly sing 
 for they are dead and gone for good and all. 
 
 The Angel of Sorrow praying on their tomb alone 
 for them mourns with tears of stone, and as the worm 
 
 301
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 their body gnaws, so gnaws forgetfulness their name 
 with silent tooth. For tester they six feet of heavy 
 mould do own. Dead are they ; of the dead they 
 are. 
 
 Perchance a tear, from your heart escaped, upon 
 their dust, snow-strewn, rain-soaked, slowly filters 
 down, which joy will bring them in their sad home ; 
 and their dried up hearts, feeling they are mourned, 
 faintly beat once more. 
 
 But no one says, on seeing the man who bears 
 death within his soul, " Rest and peace be thine ! " 
 What to the sheath is given, to the blade is denied. 
 The body is wept for and the wound is soothed, but the 
 soul may break and die without any feeling dread or 
 giving it a tomb. 
 
 And yet there is an agony horrible that none can ever 
 guess ; there is grief incredible that eye can never see ; 
 there is more than one cross on the Calvary of the soul, 
 without the golden halo ; without the woman white ever 
 prostrate below. 
 
 Every soul is a sepulchre wherein things innumerable 
 lie ; hideous cadavers buried asleep within rosy faces. 
 
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 *********+*++++++++++*+* 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Tears are always found beneath the living smile ; the 
 dead behind the living are, and truth to tell, mankind 
 is a cemetery. 
 
 The unburied tombs of old cities dead, the halls and 
 wells of Hundred-gated Thebes not so populous are ; 
 nor are there to be seen skeletons more dread, or a 
 greater mass of bones and skulls with ruins mingled. 
 
 Some there are with no epitaphs on their tombs, who 
 of the dead as in the catacombs build up a mighty 
 mound ; whose hearts are but a level field, where no 
 cross shows, nor memorial stone, and which blind 
 Death with divers dusts confusedly doth fill. 
 
 Others, less forgetful, have funeral vaults wherein 
 are ranged their dead, as in the vaults of Ghebers and 
 Egyptians; around their hearts their mummies stand, 
 the pallid features recalling of all their former loves. 
 
 Lovingly embalmed in remembrance pure, within 
 themselves they guard the soul they loved, a treas- 
 ure sad and charming both. Death dwells in them in 
 the midst of life ; they ever seek the dear soul lost, 
 which on them smileth still. 
 
 303
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 Where, if one searches, will a skeleton not be 
 found ? What hearth is there that every night beholds 
 the family circle unbroken yet ? Where is the thresh- 
 old, smiling and fair though it be, that has not beheld 
 the owner outward pass under the black pall, never 
 again homeward to turn ? 
 
 The little flower which joys now, offering its bloom- 
 ing lips to kisses of the snow, the daughter is of Death. 
 Perchance its roots into the ground from some loved 
 dust have caught the scent divine that charms so 
 much. 
 
 Oh ! betrothed of yesterday, that are lovers still, 
 the place where nest your loves has served like you 
 some old man grim. Before your soft sighs had waked 
 its echoes his death-rattle it heard, and the remem- 
 brance an odour sepulchral mingles with the sweet 
 bridal perfumes. 
 
 Where shall we tread and not a tomb profane ? 
 Even if we had the wings of the dove, were swift-footed 
 like the deer, and the waves traversed like the flashing 
 fish, everywhere would be found the hostess, black and 
 white, ready to receive us. 
 
 34
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Oh ! cease then, ye mothers young, to cradle your 
 sons in the arms of bright imaginings ; cease to dream 
 of brilliant future for them. Spin them a shroud with 
 the thread of their swaddling-clothes ; for your sons, 
 were they pure as angels and fair as they, to death are 
 all condemned. 
 
 305
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 Amid sighs and moans and groans let us descend to 
 its very depths the gloomy spiral and all its accursed 
 turns. Our guide is no Vergil, the master poet; no 
 Beatrix towards us her lovely head doth bend from 
 distant Paradise. 
 
 For guide we have a wan-faced virgin, who never 
 was kissed by golden tan from lips of sun. Colourless 
 her cheeks, bluish her lips ; alabaster white the nipples 
 of her breasts, but rosy never. 
 
 A mere breath sways her delicate form ; her arms, 
 more translucent than jasper or agate, languidly hang by 
 her side. From her hand escapes a withering flower, 
 and folded on her back her diaphanous wings motionless 
 remain. 
 
 More sombre than night, more staring than stone, 
 under her ebony brows and her lashes long shine her 
 two great eyes. Like the waves of Lethe, dark and 
 silent flowing, her loosened hair her ivory flesh enfolds 
 with silent clasp. 
 
 306
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Upon her brow, the linen bands chaste and 
 simple ornament with hemlock leaves and violets 
 are twined. For the rest she is nude, and one laughs 
 and trembles on seeing her approach ; for her look 
 sinister and alluring at the same time is. 
 
 Although she has kin in every bed on earth, under 
 her wreath of white barren she still remains since 
 eternity began. The burning kiss dies out upon her 
 fatal lips, and of her virginity, the pallid rose has none 
 e'er plucked. 
 
 She is the one that leads to tears and to despair ; 
 she is the one who from mother's lap doth take away 
 her burden sweet and dear ; she is the one who jealous 
 lies between lovers twain and wills that in her turn 
 she wedded be. 
 
 Bitter she is, and sweet ; wicked she is, and good. 
 On each illustrious brow she sets a crown, fearless 
 and passionless. Bitter to fortunate ones; to the 
 wretched sweet ; alone she brings to mighty grief its 
 consolation. 
 
 She gives a bed to those who, through the world, 
 like Wandering Jew, are walking night and day and 
 
 37
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 sleep have never known. To all pariahs she opes her 
 inn, and Phryne welcomes as she does the virgin ; foe 
 and friend as cordially receives. 
 
 Following the steps of this guide with face impassi- 
 ble, onward we go adown the spiral terrible towards 
 the bourne unknown, through a living hell that knows 
 not cave nor gulf, nor burning pitch, nor seas with 
 sulphurous waves, nor great horned devil. 
 
 Here against a pane there is a light as of a lamp, 
 with the shadow of a man. Let us the stairs ascend, 
 draw near and see. " Ah ! 't is you, Dr. Faustus ! in 
 the same attitude as Rembrandt's wizard in the sombre 
 painting that gleams with light. 
 
 "What ! have you not broken your alchemist's vials? 
 Do you still bend your great, bald, sad brow over some 
 manuscript old ? Do you still seek within your book, 
 by the light of that sun mystical, the word cabalistic 
 that makes the Spirit rise ? 
 
 14 Tell me, has Science, your mistress adored, to your 
 chaste desires yielded at last ? Or, as when you first 
 
 308
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 met, do you kiss of her dress but the hem or eke her 
 slipper ? Is there yet in your breast asthmatic breath 
 enough for a sigh of love ? 
 
 " What sand or what coral has your lead brought up ? 
 Have you sounded the depths of this world's wisdom ? 
 Or as you drew from your well did you in your pail 
 bring up nude, fair Truth, until now ignored ? If you 
 are a tree, where then are your fruits ? " 
 
 FAUST 
 
 I have plunged within the sea, under the vault of the 
 waves. The great fishes cast their fleeting shadows 
 down to the water's depths. Leviathan lashed the 
 abyss with its tail, and their lovely blue hair the sirens 
 combed upon the coral reefs. 
 
 The hideous cuttle-fish and the monstrous polyp 
 their tentacles all out-stretched ; the shark and the ore 
 enormous their great green eyes on me did turn ; but to 
 the surface I came again, for my breath failed me. A 
 heavy mantle for aged shoulders is the mantle of the 
 seas. 
 
 309
 
 ************+++*****+*** 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 From my well limpid water alone have I drawn ; the 
 Sphinx, as I question, still silent is. Pallid and broken 
 down, alas ! I am still at perhaps and / know not^ and 
 the flowers of my brow are fallen like snow on the 
 place where I have passed. 
 
 Oh ! woe is me, that I, unguarded, tasted the golden 
 apples of the tree of Science, for Science is Death. 
 Not the upas of Java's isle, nor Afric's euphorbias, 
 nor the manchineel that gives magnetic sleep, a stronger 
 poison hold. 
 
 In nothing, now, do I believe. And when you 
 came, for very weariness my study I was renouncing 
 and ready my furnace was to break. Within my 
 being not a fibre now thrills, and like a pendulum my 
 heart alone doth beat with movement unchanging. 
 
 Nothingness ! This, then, is what at the end one 
 finds. As the tomb doth hold the dead, so doth my 
 soul a living cadaver contain. It is to reach this point 
 that I such pains have taken, and that, profitless, my 
 soul to the winds I 've scattered as scattered is the 
 grain. 
 
 310
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 A single kiss, oh ! fair and gentle Marguerite, 
 snatched from thy blooming mouth, so fresh, so small, 
 is better worth than all of this. Seek not for the Word 
 which in the Book has never been, but know how to 
 live, forget not that you must live. Love, for that is 
 all! 
 
 3 11
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 VI 
 
 The endless spiral within the depths doth plunge. 
 All around, waiting but for the wrong answer ere your 
 blood they suck, upon their great pedestals with hiero- 
 glyphs strewn, sphinxes with pointed breasts, with 
 fingers armed with claws, roll their glittering eyes. 
 
 As one passes before them, at each step one stumbles 
 on old bones, on carrion remains, on skulls that hollow 
 sound. From every hole there issue stiffened limbs ; 
 and monstrous apparitions hideous flash through the 
 darksome air. 
 
 It is here that Oedipus the riddle yet must solve, 
 and that still is awaited the beam that shall dispel the 
 darkness of eld. It is here that Death its problem doth 
 propose, and that the traveller, her pallid face perceiving, 
 draws back in affright. 
 
 Ah ! how many noble hearts and souls so great in 
 vain through every poesy and every passion all have 
 sought the answer to the fatal page. Their own bones 
 lie there with no sepulchral stone, with no inscription 
 carved. 
 
 312
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 How many, Don Juans unknown, have filled their 
 lists and still seek on ! How many lips turn pale 
 under kisses sweetest, which have never pressed their 
 fancy's lips ! How many desires to heaven from earth 
 have returned, forever unappeased ! 
 
 Students there are who would all things know, but 
 who for valet and teacher never Mephistopheles find. 
 In attic rooms are Fausts without their Marguerites, 
 whom Hell repels and God casts out. Pity these, 
 oh ! pity them all. 
 
 For they suffer, alas ! from ill incurable, and a tear 
 they mingle with every grain of sand that Time lets 
 fall. Their heart, like the orfrey within the ruins' 
 depths, moans within their weakened breasts a hymn 
 to despair. 
 
 Their life is like the woods when autumn ends. 
 Every passing wind from their crown doth strip the 
 last touch of green, and their weeping dreams go silent, 
 floating through the clouds like flock of storks when 
 winter draweth nigh. 
 
 Their torments never in poets' songs are told. 
 Martyrs of thought, they bear not round their heads
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 the shining aureole , and on the ways of earth they 
 lonely march, and on the frozen ground they fall as 
 snow doth fall when in the night it comes. 
 
 As on I went, my thoughts turning over, sad and 
 speechless, under the icy vault, along the narrow way, 
 stopping suddenly my companion said, as she stretched 
 out her hand so frail : " Look whither my finger 
 points." 
 
 It was a horseman with a waving plume, long curl- 
 ing hair and black moustache, and spurs of gold. He 
 wore a mantle, a rapier, and a ruff, like the ruffling 
 blades in days of Louis Treize, and seemed still young. 
 
 But on looking close I saw that his wig, under the 
 false brown hair upon the neck, allowed to show the 
 whitened hair. His brow like face of ruffled sea was 
 wrinkled ; his cheek so hollow that all his teeth did 
 show. 
 
 In spite of the thick rouge with which it was 
 covered, as marble is o'erlaid with rosy gauze, 
 his pallor was plain to see ; and through the carmine 
 his lips that coloured, under his forced laugh 't was 
 plain that every night hot fever did him kiss. 
 
 3H
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 His staring eyes seemed eyes of glass ; they nothing 
 had of earthly look nor tear, nor glance. Diamonds 
 they were, set within his gloomy lids, and shone with 
 cold gleam and unchanging brilliancy. An old man 
 in truth he was. 
 
 His back was bowed, as bowed as arch of bridge ; 
 his feet were sore and swollen by the gout, his weight 
 able scarce to bear; his pale hands trembled as tremble 
 the waves under the North wind's kiss, and let slip the 
 rings too big for his fingers grown. 
 
 All this luxury, all this rouge upon the sunken face 
 formed a combination monstrous both and strange, and 
 dark was the sight and uglier yet than coffin in cour- 
 tesan's home ; than skeleton adorned with robe of 
 silk; than old hag in a mirror glancing. 
 
 Entrusting to night his amorous plaint he stood 
 below a darkened pane beneath a lonesome balcony. 
 No white brow against the glass did press ; no sun of 
 beauty did its face unveil within the open depth of 
 heaven. 
 
 " Tell me, what do you there, old man, in the dark- 
 ness ; on a night when the funeral swarms fly forth 
 
 3*5
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 from out the tombs ? Pageless and without torch, 
 whom seek you so late, so far, at the hour when the 
 Angel of Midnight in the belfry sings and weeps ? 
 
 " You are no longer at the age when all smiled and 
 welcomed you ; when, petal by petal, virgins scattered 
 at your feet the flower of their beauty ; it is no longer 
 for you that windows are oped. You are fit for naught 
 but by your ancestors to sleep under the carven marble 
 tomb. 
 
 " Hear you not the owl its shrill cry uttering ? Hear 
 you not in the woods the great, hungry wolves howl ? 
 Oh ! foolish old man, return ; it is the moment when 
 the moon wakes the pallid vampire upon its golden 
 couch. Return to your home, return ! 
 
 " The mocking wind your song on its wing away 
 hath borne ; none to you is listening, and adown your 
 mantle stream the tears of the gale." He answers 
 nothing. " Oh ! Death, tell me who this man may 
 be, and know you the name by which he is called ? " 
 " That man is Don Juan." 
 
 316
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 VII 
 
 DON JUAN 
 
 Oh ! happy youths whose heart scarce opes as 
 doth the violet to the first breath of smiling spring; 
 milk-white souls like maybloom sweet, where, in the 
 welcome sunshine and in the silver rain, all warbles and 
 all blows. 
 
 Oh ! all ye who your mother's arms do leave with- 
 out knowing life and knowledge bitter and who seek 
 all things to learn, poets and dreamers, more than 
 once, no doubt, on edge of woods, as your road you 
 took in sunset's splendour; 
 
 At that lovely hour when on branches swaying the 
 white doves bill and the bullfinches nest; when weary 
 nature sighs and falls asleep ; when, like a lyre when 
 the strain is done, the leaf in the breeze quivers ; 
 
 When calm and forgetfulness on all things fall; 
 when the sylph returns to its pavilion of rose under 
 the perfumes nestling, moved by these things and of 
 restless ardour full, you have longed for my lists and 
 my conquests all. You have envied me 
 
 317
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 The feasts, and the kisses on shoulders nude, all the 
 sensuous pleasures to your age unknown ; exquisite 
 torments dear! Zerlina, Elvira, Anna, the jealous 
 Roman girls, England's fair lilies, Andalusians brown, 
 all that lovely flock of mine. 
 
 And then the voice of your souls did ask of you : 
 "How did you do to have more women than Sultan 
 ever owned? How did you manage, in spite of bolts 
 and bars, within the bed of lovely maids to sleep ? You 
 happy, happy Don Juan ! 
 
 " You forgetful victor, a single one of those, whose 
 name you put not down, one of your least fair, your 
 most modest flower ; oh ! how well, how long, we 
 should have adored her. She would have adorned, 
 as within an urn of gold, the altar of our heart. 
 
 " She would have scented, that humble violet whose 
 head your foot within the grass did bow, our own pale 
 springtime. We should have picked up, and wet with 
 our tears the blue-eyed star, that in the ball-room had 
 fallen from your inconstant hand. 
 
 " Oh ! wondrous tremors of the fever of love ; doves 
 that from heaven upon the lips alight ; kisses so bitter-
 
 xxxxxxxx xxxxxtfrxxxxxxaPxxsfc 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 sweet ; last veils falling ; and you, glorious waves of 
 golden hair, flowing over shoulders brown, when shall 
 we know you ? " 
 
 Ye children ! I have known all these pleasures you 
 dream of ; round the fatal tree Eve's serpent of eld did 
 not more closely twine. To mortal eyes never did 
 human-headed dragon the fruit of that forbidden tree 
 make shine with greater brilliancy. 
 
 For, like nests of finches tame, ready their flight to 
 take, on lips I 've caught nests of timid loves ; within 
 my arms phantoms ravishing I 've pressed ; many a 
 blooming virgin upon me has outpoured the purest 
 balm of her calyx white. 
 
 The truth to find, ye cunning courtesans, I 've pressed 
 under the rouge your lips more worn than stones upon 
 the road. Ye loathsome sewers, to which flow the whole 
 world's streams, within your depths I 've plunged ; and 
 thou, Debauch so foul, thy morrows I have known. 
 
 I 've seen the purest brows prostrate sink, once the 
 orgy done, amid the outpoured wine upon the cloth red- 
 stained. I have seen the close of balls, and arms per-
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 spiring, and pallid faces more wan than death under 
 their rumpled hair when rose the sun. 
 
 Like the miner who works an oreless vein, by day, 
 by night the depths of life I 've searched, and never 
 struck the lead. I 've asked of love the life it gives, 
 but all in vain ; and ne'er on earth have I affection felt 
 for one who bore a name. 
 
 Many a heart I 've burned, and on its ashes trod ; 
 but like the salamander, cold amid the flames I did 
 remain. I had mine own ideal fresh as dew, a 
 vision golden, an opal, by God's own glance iridescent 
 made; 
 
 A woman, such as sculptor never wrought ; herself 
 a Cleopatra and a Mary too, in modesty, grace, and 
 beauty all ; a mystic rose, wherein no worm did lurk ; 
 a burning volcano to stainless purity of snow allied ! 
 
 At the fateful parting of the ways, Pythagoras' Y, 
 the left road 't was I took ; and though onward I travel, 
 yet the bourne I never reach. Deceitful Sensuality! 
 't was thou I followed, and it may be that the riddle of 
 life could be solved, O Virtue, by thee alone ! 
 
 320
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 Why did I not, like Faust, within my cell so dark, 
 gaze on the wall at trembling shadow of microcosm 
 golden ? Why did I not, books of old and magic 
 works reading, by my furnace pass the darkness* hours 
 in seeking pleasure ? 
 
 Strong was my mind : I could have read thy book 
 and drunk thy bitter wine, O Science, without being 
 intoxicate, as young student well may. I should have 
 forced Isis her veil to remove, and from heaven's 
 heights brought down the stars within my sombre 
 room. 
 
 Listen not to Love, an evil teacher he. To love is 
 not to know ; to live is to know. So learn, and learn 
 still more. Cast and cast again the lead, and plunge 
 yet deeper down within the depths profound than did 
 your elders e'er. 
 
 Let Leviathan through its nostrils blow; let the 
 weight of the seas within your breasts your lungs sharp 
 pierce. Hunt through the black reefs that no man yet 
 has known, and in its casket golden the ring of Solomon 
 perchance you '11 find. 
 
 ai 321
 
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 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 VIII 
 
 Thus spake Don Juan, and under the icy arch, 
 wearied, but resolved the end to reach, I took my 
 way again. At last I entered on a gloomy plain which 
 a fiery sky on the boundless horizon closed with circle 
 of carmine. 
 
 The soil of the plain was ivory white, and cut by 
 a river like a silken band of richest red. It was level 
 all j nor wood, nor church, nor tower ; and the weary 
 wind swept it with its wings and uttered plaintive 
 moans. 
 
 A first I thought the tint so strange, the blood-red 
 hue with which the stream thus flushed was but some 
 reflection faint ; that chalk and tufa formed that ivory 
 white. But as I bent to drink, I saw it was real blood 
 indeed that flowed. 
 
 I saw that with whitened bones the earth was 
 covered o'er, a chill snow-fall of death, where no green 
 plant, no flower, did grow ; that the soil was made of 
 the dust of men, and that people enough Thebes, Pal- 
 myra, and Rome to fill were sleeping there. 
 
 322
 
 ********************+*+* 
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 A shadow with bowed back, bent brow, passed with 
 the wind. HE it was unmistakably, with coat of gray 
 and little hat. An eagle golden over his head did soar, 
 seeking, thereon to rest, anxious, bewildered, the 
 standard's staff. 
 
 The skeletons sought to put on their heads ; the 
 spectral drummer its sticks rattled in time with His 
 sovereign step ; a clamour vast rose as he passed, and 
 cannons countless roared in the storm their triumphal 
 brazen blast. 
 
 He seemed not the tumult to hear, and like a marble 
 god, of its worship careless, walked on in silence sunk. 
 Sometimes only, as if by stealth, his eyes looked up 
 and sought in heaven his star now fallen. 
 
 But the heavens, purple with the conflagration's 
 light, showed never a star, and the growing flames 
 kept rising and rising higher. Then, paler still than 
 when in the St. Helena of old, his arms upon his 
 breast he crossed, full of muttered moans. 
 
 When he came before us, " Mighty Emperor," 
 said I, " the mysterious word which fate compels me 
 here below to seek ; the last word which Faust of his 
 
 323
 
 xdbx vx xdbtpx xxxtfctfetfcdbtfctfcdbtfctbdbxdb 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 books did ask, as Don Juan of love, the word of Death 
 or Life, can it be you know ? " 
 
 "Oh! wretched child," said the imperial shade, 
 " return above. Icy cold is the wind and chilled 
 through am I. Along this road no hostelry you will 
 find where you may warm your feet, for Death alone 
 receives those who this way pass. 
 
 " Look, 't is all over. The star eclipsed is. Black 
 blood falls in showers from my eagle's side, wounded 
 in its flight, and with the white flecks of the eternal 
 snow from the depths of the sombre skies the feathers 
 of its wings downward flutter to the ground. 
 
 " Alas ! your desire I can never satisfy. In vain 
 the word of Life have I sought, like Faust and Don 
 Juan. I know no more than on the day of my birth, 
 and yet, in the heyday of my power, it was I that 
 made the calm and storm. 
 
 " Everywhere I was called above all men, THE 
 MAN. Before me the eagle and the fasces were borne 
 as before the old Roman Csesars ; there were ten kings 
 that bore my train ; I was a Charlemagne within a single 
 hand the globe embracing. 
 
 3 2 4
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 " No more have I seen from the top of that column 
 where my glory, a tri-coloured rainbow, gleams than 
 you can see from below. In vain with my heel I 
 spurred on the world ; ever rose the sound of camps 
 and the roar of the guns, of the stress of battle and 
 storm. 
 
 " Ever came on salvers the keys of the towns, ever 
 a concert of bugles and servile cheers, of laurels and 
 speeches ; a black sky, with rain of shot, dead men 
 to salute upon the battlefield, thus were spent my 
 days. 
 
 " How bitterly did your sweet honey name, oh ! my 
 mother, Laetitia, belie my fortune woeful ! How 
 wretched I ! Everywhere I bore my wandering pain ; 
 I had dreamed of Empire, and the globe of earth did 
 hollow sound within my palm. 
 
 " Oh ! for the lot of a shepherd, and the beech 
 under which Tityrus during the heat of the day with- 
 draws and sings of Amaryllis. Oh ! for the twinkling 
 bell and the bleating flock, the pure milk flowing from 
 the udder white between the fingers fair. 
 
 325
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 " Oh ! for the scent of the new-mown hay and the 
 smell of the stable ; for the brown bread of the herd 
 and for nuts on the table, and a platter of wood ! 
 For a seven-hole flute put together with wax, and of 
 goats half a dozen that the sum of my desire ; I who 
 have been the conqueror of kings. 
 
 " A sheepskin my shoulders shall cover ; Galatea 
 laughing shall flee to the reeds and I pursue her. 
 Sweeter than ambrosia shall be my verse, and 
 Daphnis shall with jealousy pale at the sound of the 
 airs I shall play. 
 
 " Oh ! I long to go to my Corsican home ; through 
 the wood where the goats, as they roam, the bark of 
 trees nibble ; down the gullies deep, along the hollow 
 way where cicada shrilly sings, careless in its wander- 
 ing, my ranging flock following. 
 
 " Pitiless the Sphinx to whomsoever fails. Impru- 
 dent youth, do you mean that it shall slay you and 
 drink the purest blood of your heart ? The only one 
 the fatal riddle who guessed slew his father Lams, and 
 incest committed. Such the victor's sad reward ! " 
 
 326
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 IX 
 
 Now I have returned from that sombre voyage, 
 where through the darkness for torch and for star one 
 has but the eyes of the owl ; and, as after a day's plough- 
 ing the buffalo returns with slow steps and worn, and 
 head bowed down, I go with shoulders bowed. 
 
 From the land of phantoms I have returned, but still 
 to wear, far from the speechless realms, the pallid hue 
 of death. My vestments, like the funeral crape cast 
 upon an urn, hang limp adown my frame unto the 
 ground. 
 
 I have escaped from the hands of a Death greedier 
 far than that by Lazarus' tomb which watched, for 
 what it takes it keeps : with the body parts, but the 
 soul retains ; the torch returns, but the flame puts out ; 
 and Christ Himself would powerless prove. 
 
 I am no more, alas ! but the shadow of myself ; the 
 living tomb wherein lies all I love ; and alone, for 1 
 survive myself. I bear about with me the ice-cold 
 remains of my illusions lovely dead for whom I 
 make a shroud. 
 
 327
 
 ************************ 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 I am yet too young; I must love and live, O 
 Death ! I cannot yet resolve to follow thee adown the 
 darksome way. I have not had time to build the 
 column on which Glory my crown to-morrow morn 
 shall hang. O Death, do thou later return ! 
 
 Oh ! white-breasted virgin, thy poet spare ! Remem- 
 ber, I the first did thee make more beautiful than day. 
 Thy greenish hue, to diaphanous pallor have I changed; 
 under glorious dark hair thine old skull concealed ; and 
 thee have I courted. 
 
 Oh ! let me live a while and thy praise I '11 sing : 
 thy palaces to adorn, angels I shall carve and crosses 
 forge. Within the church and within the graveyard 
 the marble I '11 make weep, and the stones shall moan 
 as upon a regal monument. 
 
 I shall devote to thee my loveliest songs; ever for 
 thee bouquets of immortelles and scentless flowers I '11 
 have. My garden, O Death, with thine own trees 
 is planted, the yew, the box, the cypress, over the 
 marbles twine their green-brown boughs. 
 
 I tell the handsome flowers, sweet glories of the beds, 
 the lily majestic its white cup opening, the tulip golden, 
 
 328
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 the rose of May the nightingale doth love, I tell the 
 chrysanthemum, too, and many another still, 
 
 Grow ye not here ; another soil now seek, ye fresh 
 springtime loves ; for this garden austere your brilliancy 
 is too great. The holly's painted leaves would wound 
 you and in the air the hemlock's poison you 'd imbibe, 
 and bitter scent of yew. 
 
 Forsake me not, O Mother, O Nature ! A time of 
 youth thou owest to every creature; a season of love to 
 every soul. I still am young and yet feel the chill 
 of age ; I cannot love. Let me have my youth if 
 but for a single day. 
 
 Be no stepmother to me, O Nature beloved. Let 
 some sap return to the faded plant that hates to die. 
 The torrent from mine eyes with its tears has drowned 
 its worm-eaten bud which sunshine does not dry and 
 which fails to bloom. 
 
 O virgin air, O crystal air, O water, principle of 
 this world ! Earth, that feedest all ! and thou, fertile 
 flame, a beam from God's own eye ! let not die yet, ye 
 who life bestow, the poor drooping flower that seeks no 
 more than for a brief time to blow. 
 
 329
 
 xxdbxx xxtSrx * ^tirxxxxxtfex xxx xx 
 
 THE COMEDY OF DEATH 
 
 Stars that from above behold the whirling worlds, 
 rain down on me from your lashes golden your diamond 
 tears ! Moon, lily of the night, flower of the garden 
 divine, pour thy rays upon me, O fair solitary, from 
 the uttermost depths of heaven ! 
 
 Eye ever open in the centre of space, do thou pierce, 
 O mighty Sun, the passing cloud, and that I may see 
 thee once more let the eagles through the heavens that 
 swoop on mighty wing, the griffins that fiery fly, the 
 swallows swift, to me their wings now lend ! 
 
 Ye Winds ! that from the flowers their soul's per- 
 fume steal and avowals of love from lips beloved ; pure 
 Air of the Mountains, still full of the scent of the 
 balsam ; Breeze of the Ocean which one breathes so 
 free, my lungs now fill ! 
 
 April has made for me a grassy carpet whereon to 
 lie ; above my brow the lilac blooms in clusters great, 
 for now is springtime come. Take me within your 
 arms, sweet poet's dreams ; between your polished 
 breasts my poor head rest, and cradle me long. 
 
 Be far from me, nightmares, spectres of the nights ! 
 Roses, women, songs, - all things fair and loves glori- 
 
 33
 
 SELECTED POEMS 
 
 ous, these are what I want. Hail ! O Antiquity's 
 Muse, Muse with the fresh green bays and tunic white, 
 that younger art every day ! 
 
 Brown with lotus eyes ; fair with eyelash black, O 
 Grecian girl of Miletus, upon the ivory stool place thy 
 fair bare feet, and with golden nectar let the cup be 
 filled. To thy beauty first I drink, Theone white, and 
 then to the gods unknown. 
 
 More lascivious and yielding than the wave, thy 
 bosom is ! Milk is not whiter, nor apple rounder. 
 Come, one sweet kiss ! Make haste, make haste, for 
 our life, O Theone, is a winged steed by Time 
 spurred on. Let us hasten our life to use. 
 
 Shout, lo, Paean ! . . . But who is this woman under 
 her veil so pale ? Why, 't is thou, infamous hag ! I 
 can see thy skull so bare, thy great orbless sockets, 
 loathsome prostitute ! eternal courtesan ! clasping the 
 world with thine arms so lean. 
 
 33 1
 
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