theWitgh ofNe 
 
 E T 
 
 EDWARD BRENNAN 
 
 rriiiriilMifimiiittiifiiffT 
 
Tne wiicn or nemi, and other poems. 
 
 3 1924 013 438 787 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013438787 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.— 
 
 BLANCA: POKMS AND BALLADS. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 1868. 
 
 AMBROSIA AMORIS. BOOK I. 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 1869. 
 
 A LAMENTATION ON REPUBLICAN 
 FRANCE, 
 
 DEDICATED TO HIS MAJESTY NAPOLEON III. 
 
 1870. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI, 
 
BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREV. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD BEENNAN. 
 
 ILonlJon : 
 SAMUEL TINSLEY, PUBLISHER, 
 10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND 
 1873. 
 
TO 
 MY WIFE 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE WITCH OF NEMI . 
 
 I 
 
 THE ACACIA BOWER 
 
 34 
 
 MY soul's chase 
 
 39 
 
 STRIVINGS .... 
 
 42 
 
 A DREAM-SONG .... 
 
 51 
 
 A SONG. .... 
 
 S3 
 
 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT . 
 
 ss 
 
 LIFE AND LOVE. 
 
 80 
 
 ATOMS ..... 
 
 83 
 
 A SONG. .... 
 
 8s 
 
 TO AUGUSTA .... 
 
 86 
 
 UNDER THE BEECH-TREES 
 
 90 
 
 A HYMN TO FRIENDSHIP 
 
 92 
 
 AN ADIEU 
 
 96 
 
 EXTASIA DREAMETH 
 
 97 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 lOO 
 
 UNCERTAINTY . . . . • 
 
 ii6 
 
 YEARS AGO ! . 
 
 I20 
 
 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 124 
 
 A SONG. .... 
 
 127 
 
 LIFE ..... 
 
 128 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY . 
 
 129 
 
 BEMBO AND LUCRE2IA BORGIA . 
 
 132 
 
 love's amulet .... 
 
 148 
 
 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS . 
 
 153 
 
 POST MORTEM NULLA VOLUPTAS 
 
 206 
 
 THE DREAM OF CYBOREA 
 
 207 
 
 THE DENIAL 
 
 210 
 
 'TIS WRITTEN .... 
 
 . 216 
 
 THE LILY OF LOVe's STREAM . 
 
 221 
 
 THE LILY OF LOVe'S PARADISE. 
 
 222 
 
 THE LILY OF MY HEARt's VALE 
 
 ■ 223 
 
 AIDEN ..... 
 
 224 
 
 love's LAMENTATION . 
 
 227 
 
 AN INVITATION .... 
 
 • 232 
 
 THE WOOING OF LOVE AND HOPE 
 
 • 23s 
 
 ALLEGRIA .... 
 
 ■ 237 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TWO SONGS 
 
 LINES .... 
 
 THE BURDEN OF DECEIVED LOVE 
 
 PANTHEISTIC IMMORTALITY 
 
 SIENA . . ' 
 
 AREZZO . 
 
 TOMMASO SGRICCI 
 
 THE SPEAKERS . 
 
 IF? , 
 
 WHO? . 
 
 FAITHFUL 
 
 MARAH . 
 
 ALICE . 
 
 VAIN DESIRES . 
 
 AN IDYLL FROM MOSKHOS 
 
 LINES WRITTEN NEAR TORRE-DI-QUINTO 
 
 REMEMBRANCE .... 
 
 TO EXTASIA SLEEPING . 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD 
 
 ALLON-BACHUTH 
 
 TO SIR ROBERT PRESCOTT STEWART, KNT. 
 
 LO-AMMI .... 
 
 PAGB 
 244 
 
 245 
 248 
 249 
 250 
 
 251 
 
 252 
 
 254 
 256 
 260 
 263 
 268 
 269 
 270 
 271 
 
 273 
 284 
 286 
 291 
 296 
 299 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MANIE TENZIE .... 
 
 • 303 
 
 BETRAYED .... 
 
 • 313 
 
 job's soliloquy 
 
 • 335 
 
 ELEGIACS ON CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 • 338 
 
 ALBA's PARTING 
 
 ■ 341 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 ■ 348 
 
 NOTES . • . 
 
 • 353 
 
ARGUMENT 
 
 Apollo becoming enamoured of i Vestal virgin, dishonoured 
 her. But fearing lest 'the mother of his unborn child should be 
 condemned to death, conveyed her secretly to Umbria, where 
 she gave birth to a beautiful boy. The Vestal died before he 
 arrived at man's estate. This youth in his turn fell in love with 
 an Umbrian maid. But Vesta, ever mindful of the grievous wrong 
 Apollo wrought her, came disguised as a Grecian damsel to the 
 grape harvest of Umbria, and caused this youth to appear to his 
 lover to be a-wooing her. Wherefore the maiden, smitten with 
 jealousy most dire, encompassed her lover's 3eath by treachery. 
 For this cause Jove, at the request of Apollo, visited the maiden 
 with a dreadful woe, by endowing her with endless life, and 
 turning her heart to an unquenchable fire. In her desolation she 
 wandered to the volcano Nemi, believing that by watching the 
 contention of its fire hers would be soothed. Seeing this, Apollo 
 took compassion on her, and besought his father, Jove, to revoke 
 his former decree. But this the King of Gods and man durst 
 not do ; yet to satisfy his son he changed the volcano into a lake, 
 from whence the maiden might drink, and thus cool the fires 
 that perpetually ravished her. Apollo considering this act in- 
 sufficient in mercy, severely rebuked his father ; whereupon a 
 strange ■ sedition arose in Hades, and well nigh a revolt in 
 Heaven. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 In the old days when gods like mortals wooed 
 The maids of earth, and for their favours sued, 
 Where now a lake in peace embosomed lies, 
 A raging furnace breathed unto the skies, 
 And round its base there wandered to and fro 
 A thrall of hate and life's absorbing woe ; 
 And still she haunts the shore and cypress grove 
 A deathless wreck of jealousy and love. 
 Whose doleful wails when evening's curtain falls 
 Fret the low sighing breeze at intervals. 
 
 Come, round me gather all, and I will sing 
 The wrath that made of love a weird thing ! 
 
 As yet when earth and heaven enjoyed one sun, 
 And gods and men in happy concord won 
 From each respect, and honoured worship due. 
 
2 THE WITCH OF NEML 
 
 A lovely virgin did Apollo woo. 
 E'en her, the fairest of her race and kin. 
 The gods and men heroic strove to win. 
 But her the virgin goddess truly loved, 
 And Vesta wrathfully the gods reproved, 
 Clasped the chaste maiden to her loveless breast. 
 And with these words the wildered maid addressed 
 ' For you the gods and men do strive in love, 
 You whom I've blest from my high throne above. 
 You whom I've guarded with a jealous care. 
 Of gods' and mortals' love I say — beware ; 
 For I have seen the fairest hour of bliss 
 Changed into life-long sorrow by a kiss. 
 Be thou my priestess, watch my altars' fires. 
 And I shall grant thee all thine heart's desires ; 
 For thee shall Love his cunning arts fulfil. 
 And joyous pleasure e'er attend thy will.' 
 
 The maiden smiled, and vowed for aye to be 
 A vestal virgin for felicity. 
 
 Which vow when whispered in the higher world, 
 By jealous gods contending arts were hurled 
 Into the vestal's breast for woe or weal. 
 And secret passion in her heart did steal ; 
 
THE WITCH OF NEML 
 
 But Vesta, ever mindful of her care, 
 Breathed in the priestess' soul a soft — ^beware. 
 
 Of all the gods the chiefest in the strife 
 The beautiful Apollo was, Elysian life 
 For him, alas, had heavenly pleasures few 
 While he would Love in vestal robes pursue. 
 One night while she chaste Vesta's fires did guard 
 From heaven the god came down for Love's reward. 
 When as the vestal prayed before the fires 
 Within her breast were wakened strange desires, 
 Vesta unmindful : for great Jove agreed 
 To help Apollo in his hour of need ; 
 Therefore, when he from high Olympus stole, 
 Jove plighted Vesta in a nectareous bowl ; 
 Whereon the goddess, piqued with honours vain. 
 Quaffed the full cup, Jove pledging her again : 
 And thus she quaffed until she told her love 
 Unblushingly for the almighty Jove. 
 
 Meanwhile on earth when all the world was still 
 Apollo wrought his empyrean will, 
 Taught the fair vestal love's inspiring bliss. 
 And showed life's fruitful joys dwelt in a kiss. 
 
4 -THE WITCH OF NEMl. 
 
 The generous moons full-seasoned caused to bloom 
 A mortal flower within the vestal's womb, 
 Which thing the goddess saw, and with fierce breath 
 Consigned her priestess to a lingering death. 
 But Jove disproved, and by Apollo's will 
 He bore the god's spouse to an Umbrian hill. 
 Here to Apollo did she bear a son 
 Whom nature lavished all her favours on ; 
 But ere the babe matured to manhood's pride 
 The mother languished for her love and died. 
 
 The youth increased in stature and in strength, 
 Comely in form and feature, till at length 
 A maiden lovely as the blushing dawn, 
 Gentle and timorous as the milk-white fawn 
 That starts 'from out an Umbrian brake at morn 
 When frighted by the ruthless hunter's horn. 
 Waked with her eyes of love-absorbing fires 
 The dormant flame that youth to love inspires. 
 A mortal she of lineage and race. 
 But goddess-like in bearing and in grace, 
 A guileless maid whose innocence should prove 
 An artful monitor to hate and love. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 5 
 
 In visions fair the youth of loves had dreamed, 
 Loves robed in subtle beauty, and which seemed 
 Strange beings, such as mortals seldom see, 
 Of lissome limb and graceful symmetry j 
 Yet none did seem as magical as this 
 That brought unto his soul such trancing bliss ; 
 None so supremely sweet, whose love intense 
 Was hallowed by ethereal influence ; 
 And yet an earthly pledge of human love, 
 Fruit of the mingled sweets that are thereof, 
 A virgin round the summers of whose years 
 Love trellissed joys to warp consuming fears. 
 On her the Graces all their charms bestowed. 
 And with ethereal light her blue eyes glowed. 
 From whence flashed rays that amorous hearts enthrall, 
 To bind with chains of love the hearts of all ; 
 Her voice was as a lute's that wooes the breeze 
 Of night with its delicious harmonies. 
 Such was his love, as strange a.thing as Spring, 
 Which did enraptured treasures to her bring, 
 Taught the winged fancies of her airy soul 
 That life to be complete must taste love's bowl. 
 They drank, alas, and perished by the draught 
 Their eager souls unwittingly had quaffed ; 
 
6 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 For Discord, wroth that such sweet bliss should be, 
 Cast in their midst the seeds of jealousy. 
 
 It happed that in the month when rich-dowered vines 
 Are garnered of the f;:uits that yield rich wines, 
 From Rome came damsels dark of eye and skin 
 Who helped to gather the grape-harvest in. 
 Amongst them there was one of Grecian race, 
 Lofty of mien, and arrogant of face; 
 ^Vho with alluring ways Apollo's son 
 Made seem to shower his loving favours on ; 
 The while unmindful of his lover's wrath — 
 Not seeing it, he faithful to his troth — 
 Chafed the dark Grecian with sweet tales of loves 
 Of Nymphs and Satyrs in the neighbouring groves. 
 These favours magnified by Love's fond eyes 
 Nurtured the tares of blighting jealousies. 
 
 And so it fell when all the vine-trees' fruits 
 Were garnered 'mid the strains of songs and lutes. 
 When the hght dance made all hearts full with joy 
 One maiden soul was sick with hate's alloy — 
 The hate of jealousy, wherefore she strove 
 To slay the Grecian and her faithless love. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 In treacherous wrath she asked them to partake 
 At festal supper, poisoned leavened cake — 
 AVherewith their souls from earth would pass away, 
 And make in their swift deaths their nuptial day — 
 The cake her lover ate with hearty glee ; 
 But she, the dark-eyed damsel, sparingly. 
 And as they supped the youth was stricken dead ; 
 Whereon she turning to the maiden said, . 
 ' I Vesta am, from, whom this youth's sire stole 
 My fairest priestess, whilst the friendly bowl 
 I did partake with awe-inspiring Jove, 
 And told the Thunderer my immortal love. 
 But me Jove mocked to help a lustful god. 
 Which to revenge I've come from my abode : 
 Mindful of all the griefs Apollo wrought. 
 Through all these lands my vestal frail I've sought ; 
 Bound by my oath to avenge this direful woe, 
 And in my wrath to lay the perjurer low. 
 But this the Fates forewilled, and her soul's shade 
 Now wanders through broad Enna's flowery glade, 
 Where Pluto's queen doth endless welcomes keep, 
 And earth-bom pains enjoy eternal sleep. 
 Disfavoured thus, the gods for honours done 
 Lent to my wrath Apollo's base-born son, 
 
8 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Him, by the hand of jealous love, I slew, 
 He faithful to the troth he plighted you.— 
 On you then be your slaughtered lover's blood.' 
 
 Then rose the goddess, and augustly stood 
 Before the sorrow-stricken maid, and laughed 
 In ruthless glee, ' The luscious cup I quaifed 
 With thee, O Father of all gods and men. 
 Unto my soul made love delicious then. 
 But thou mad'st slight the passion then inspired. 
 And with consuming hate my soul was fired ; 
 So goddess-like I've wrought my awful will, 
 And to Apollo's son borpe speedy ill. 
 Upon this maiden, slave of fete's decree. 
 Hurl thine avenging wrath, a mortal she — 
 But I a queen immortal still shall live 
 To show thee slighted love can ne'er forgive.' 
 Then did she glide from out the lorn maid's sight 
 Behind the curtains of the purple night. 
 Upon whose breath the light-winged zephyrs bore 
 This dismal wail from death's sigh-surging shore, 
 ' Ye gods, an angry god's offending woe 
 Shall with thee, maiden, through life's journey go. 
 Then in the woods the voices of the night 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. g 
 
 Ceased to make music for the faun and spright, 
 And the pale stars their silent vigils kept, 
 While all, but she, the wildered maiden, slept. 
 Life seemed to pause, meanwhile each swaying tree. 
 Sobbed through the lonely night its sympathy. 
 
 Now, safiron-clad, the mellow morning rose 
 Awaking half the world from sleep's repose, 
 Whenas Apollo stood before Jove's throne, 
 ^Requiring vengeance for late evils done 
 By her who in her heart's desponding dearth 
 Slew her dear love, a demi-god by birth ; 
 In whose charmed.death the aithless Fates combined 
 To grant full measure to Queen Vesta's mind, 
 Regardless who with agonizing tread 
 Should trample tares of woe on their doomed head. 
 For this dire deed Apollo sought from Jove 
 Requital for an outraged father's love. 
 Besought the Father in his raging ire 
 To turn the maiden's heart to quenchless fire. 
 Jove hearkened : then with lightning, his decree 
 Made full the maiden's soul with misery ; 
 Not Vesta's ; she, whose hate and cunning ways, 
 Brought to the youth's sweet life an end of days. 
 
lo THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Whose wrath, keen whet by slighted love, designed 
 To wreck an amorous damsel's peace of mind, 
 But she a goddess mocked the Thunderer's hate, 
 And left her victim to propitiate 
 The gods for blood in impious passion shed 
 Ere from Olympus fearful vengeance sped. 
 
 Like gods, like men, the will that smites with power 
 We seldom strike at, but the fragile flower 
 Whose thorns us wound, fulfilling heaven's high wish, 
 With death we compass, and triumphant crush. 
 
 Racked by the flamej that burned within her heart 
 The maid sought peace from each alluring art. 
 Strove to appease the Almighty's wrath with vows. 
 And votive offerings, such as he allows 
 Grief-stricken mortals to make unto him 
 When the soul pines, and tears make bright eyes dim. 
 But peace was not for her : the high god heard 
 But hearkened not unto her suppliant word ; 
 For those whom Jove in his dire anger smites 
 Life hath not pleasures, nor the earth delights. 
 E'en such as feel the fury of his breath 
 Twere better, far, they wooed the kiss of death : 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. ii 
 
 For them love wakes not, nor its passion thrills 
 With dazzling beauty Life's revolving ills. 
 
 At, length the maid, by burning sorrow driven, 
 Sought upon earth the peace desired of heaven, 
 Wandered to Nemi, where a raging fire 
 Belched unto heaven hell's fierce relentless ire ; 
 For there she hoped such fury would appease 
 The ceaseless tortures of her heart's disease. 
 The gods on her would pity take, forsooth. 
 And still the anguish of her blighted youth. 
 
 Here from a cavern by the mountain's base 
 The love-lorn maiden, outcast of her race, 
 Bound by the sorrow of the Thunderer's spell 
 Watched the wild tempests of conspiring hell; 
 For she had hoped, by guarding noisome fires. 
 To appease the gnawings of her heart's desires ; 
 Had hoped, with Hope's imaginings vain. 
 To calm her writhing soul's devouring pain 
 By adding anguish to her god-sent woe 
 In seeing hell's dread wrath contending so. 
 Thus wearily the years of her youth's prime 
 
12 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Sped on the wings of unrelenting time, 
 Till deathless sorrow cast on her its pall, 
 And the sere leaves of Hope began to fall. 
 Thus passed a century of bitter years 
 Bathed in the streams of sigh-fermented tears. 
 
 Who has not seen when misery fills the soul 
 The surf of disappointment scattered, roll 
 Upon the strand of some dark hidden peace 
 To bear our shackled griefs a swift release, 
 As they, purloined of their Satanic spell, 
 Sink in an abyss unfathomable ? 
 Who has not seen when hope forsakes our breasts 
 A strange fulfilment to our soul's behests ? 
 E'en while our spirits, languish in regret 
 New pleasures teach our memories to forget ; 
 And the old anguish that was decked with bays 
 Is sepulchred in dark oblivious days ? 
 
 Apollo weening that her years of pain 
 Had made atonement for her lover slain, 
 A youth whose lofty mien, and lovely face. 
 Proclaimed the godhead of his sire and race. 
 Besought great Jove, by mercy's tender art, 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 13 
 
 To quench the flames that parched the damsel's heart; 
 
 For, ' Father of all gods and men,' said he, 
 
 ' No crime, or earth-begrimed iniquity. 
 
 Can measure guilt with that relentless foe 
 
 Who man condemns for sin to endless woe ; 
 
 Nor can the faults designed in life's short Spell 
 
 Deserve eternal punishment in hell ; 
 
 For man is thrall to thine austerest will, 
 
 And when he errs he is obedient still. 
 
 Therefore, wilt thou a servile life consign 
 
 To tortures endless by decree divine ? 
 
 Nay, mighty Jove, in will omnipotent 
 
 Thine ancient anger to this maid relent, 
 
 Quench the dread flame that gnaws her virgin-breast, 
 
 And grant in mercy this thy son's request.' 
 
 The awe-inspiring God whose powers are full, 
 Yet still in love and hate immutable, 
 Looked on Apollo with assenting nod. 
 And thus made answer to the suppliant god : — 
 ' For thee, did I my awful vengeance pour 
 On her who jealous unto Lethe's shore 
 Thine earth-bom son with secret poison sent, 
 As thitherward foiled Vesta's hatred went ; 
 
14 THE WITCH OF NEMT. 
 
 For thee, Apollo, of the gods most fair, 
 Who me assails with pure immortal prayer, 
 I would to thy behests fulfilment bring. 
 But I, who am of gods and men the king, 
 Durst not in this revoke my former will 
 Lest I, foresworn, bear men untoward ill. 
 The spell of days divided, and the hours 
 Of time are mortals', and the winter's showers 
 Give travailling earth with its sharp tears 
 A recompense for barren wasted years, 
 And oft in sorrow youth is weaned of woe, 
 And pain unbidden netherward doth go. 
 But wrath begun with heaven-avenging fire 
 Sent into human hearts can ne'er expire. 
 Yet, by the majesty of mine own oath. 
 From mercy's paths to stray I am ever loth ; 
 Certes, I'll bring this stricken damsel peace. 
 And from eternal woes her soul release.' 
 
 Then went Apollo joyful on his way, 
 Regretful for the prayer of that dire day 
 That brought a love-lorn maid such years of pain. 
 Years that should wax ere ever they should wain. 
 Though heedful of the Thunderer's promise given 
 
THE WITCH OF NEML js 
 
 And godlike loyal to the vows of heaven, 
 Yet wondered he how Jove a means could find 
 To fashion forth his wish unchanged in mind, 
 Subvert the wrath, that brought such grievous ill. 
 By searching mercy's ways to work his will : 
 Though he a god, but moulded to his sphere, 
 His penetrating ken could scale not near 
 The intricate heights of Jove's supremest ways 
 Hid in the depths of undissolving days ; 
 Nor could he scan with his divining soul 
 The arts Olympus' chief held in control, 
 Whereby he would the maiden's griefs dispel, 
 And still be in his ways immutable. 
 
 Like gods, like men, beyond their native range, 
 B.eason makes fools, and doth men's wits estrange. 
 
 Swift from 01)mapus went Jove's high commands 
 Spreading dismay throughout Italian lands ; 
 His lightnings flashed, his boisterous thunders rolled 
 With intermittent ragings uncontrolled ; 
 Heaven's floodgates oped, and downward poinred 
 Its wrathful seas, obedient to his word. 
 Then mortals fearful lest the world again 
 
16 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Should be o'erdeluged by descending rain, 
 The God propitiated in their fears, 
 And slew upon his altars snow-white steers, 
 Such as one sees at spring-time's sundown driven 
 By Tiber's banks, when through the gates of heaven 
 Fall the sun's shadows like rich streams of gold 
 Ere daylight sinks behind night's purple fold. 
 Steers that for mortals never bore a load, 
 Meat suited to the palate of a god. 
 
 But Jove beheld, and thought within his heart, 
 ' How finite man is in his every part, 
 Not knowing of our high empyreal will. 
 He deems our mercy nought but anger still ; 
 Forgetting that the sun which thaws the snows 
 May also be the harbinger of woes. 
 Which severs with its warm and balmy breath 
 The ice-bound avalanche to scatter death ; 
 Unmindful that the rain which swamps the lands 
 May be a gift of mercy from our hands, 
 And the dread lightnings we from heaven have hurle 
 May still the fires that undermine the world. 
 E'en quench the flames that with contentious strife, 
 Had wrecked for years a fellow-mortal's life. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 17 
 
 O men, ye are with all your reason blind, 
 In comprehension mean, an atom to our mind. 
 When chastened by our pity's kindly rods, 
 Ye think us cruel, and contemn the gods ; 
 Complot with vain rebellious arts to find 
 The secrets of our judgments to mankind, 
 Mock at our mercy, scorn our god-like love, 
 Since we for good your impious acts reprove 
 That ye may shun the gins that trap to hell, 
 And woes eternal, soul-destructible. 
 For you the sun and moon and stars do shine. 
 Made luminous by love and light divine ; 
 For you the storms from bondage we release 
 That ye may find in calm more perfect peace ; 
 For you the lightnings splinter in the skies. 
 Responsive to the thunder's harmonies ; 
 And yet ye would our empyrean scale, 
 For ye would fain against the gods prevail, 
 Would fain usurp the warder of our might, 
 And dim our glory with impervious night. 
 But yet, withal, forgiving we comply 
 Unto your prayers, and soothe your destiny. 
 And ere your souls we yield to Hades' gloom 
 Death of its terrors we in love desume. 
 
;8 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Robing your spirits, by supreme decree. 
 
 In all tlie sheen of immortality. 
 
 When will ye cease, O men, in vaunting pride 
 
 To search the ways, a myriad streams divide ? 
 
 When cease to scan from reason's phantom towers 
 
 The wisdom that impels the love thaf s ours ? 
 
 For deem ye we a god, creator still. 
 
 Can thus be fathomed by your finite skill ? 
 
 O perverse children of a stiff-necked race, 
 
 Turn from backsliding ways to paths of grace ; 
 
 For when we of our ancient wrath relent, 
 
 The heralder of peace or lightning's sent, 
 
 Charged with the message of our generous love, 
 
 From heights Olympian, and Olympian Jove.' 
 
 Meanwhile the wroth volcano belched on high 
 Flames that made crimson all the night-wrapt sky 
 And shook with an internal strife the earth, 
 And gave to earthquakes an abortive birth, 
 Roared in its rage as by sore pains oppressed. 
 And grumbling sank to an eternal rest. 
 
 When the faint shadows of the morning fell, 
 Peace held the world in its delicious spell, 
 And Zephyr breathed his perfumed airs abroad 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMT, 19 
 
 In token of the favour of the god ; 
 
 And the fierce mount, that with consuming fire 
 
 Threatened all lands with desolation dire, 
 
 In earth's convulsion sank below its base, 
 
 And crystal waters rippled o'er the place ; 
 
 Around it rose steep hills of living green 
 
 Whereon the sheep and agile goat were seen. 
 
 And louder than the fretful pine-trees' sigh 
 
 Was heard the skylark's liquid melody, 
 
 Then from her cave the wildered maiden rose, 
 
 And drank the lake's sweet waters, chill as snows 
 
 That melt to silvery streams on native hills 
 
 And murmuring trickle through their self-made rills. 
 
 Now when Latona's son saw what was done. 
 He bowed before his awfiil father's throne ; 
 Seven times he homage paid ; then thuswise spake, 
 ' Thou, O great sire, who for my anger's sake 
 Didst pour on one the vials of thy hate, 
 Yielding her soul to Nemesis and fate, 
 And who didst yesterday her griefs assuage. 
 Repentant of thy former ruthless rage. 
 Didst soothe the tempests of her virgin breast, 
 Compliant in thy love to my behest, 
 
20 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Appeased, but quenched not, those fierce fires 
 
 Her stricken spirit each drawn breath respires, 
 
 Whose heart would drown itself in cooling seas 
 
 To slake thereby its deathless agonies. 
 
 O father, in the fiilness of thy love, 
 
 Pour down the plenteous mercy sprung thereof; 
 
 Quench thou those flames with thine all-potent might 
 
 And blot remembrance out of memory's sight. 
 
 For, surely, years of agony below 
 
 Have more than quitted mine — a father's woe, 
 
 Requited more than seventy times the pain 
 
 When Death the soul I gave me gave again. 
 
 'Gainst this poor maid the false Erinyes strove. 
 
 By hatred urged, to smite her youthful love. 
 
 Not hers the guilt : 'twas Vesta's blighting guile 
 
 Surcharged a soul with jealousy, the while 
 
 She all the furies of revenge pent up, 
 
 Till he, my son, should drink the poisoned cup. 
 
 She ever mindful of that day, O Jove, 
 
 When drunk with nectar she confessed her love 
 
 For thee, to whose great power a bowl she quaffed, 
 
 The which thou mocking toldst the gods and laughed 
 
 Thus slighted, she her vengeance keen did whet 
 
 To pay through me her heart's most bitter debt 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMt. 2) 
 
 In suchwise as her soul would deem divine 
 
 Since for my sake thou plighted her in wine, 
 
 While I before her own eternal fires 
 
 Her vestal taught to yield to my desires. 
 
 For this did Vesta in her wrath pursue 
 
 The offspring of my loins ; for this she slew 
 
 By his fair lover's hands, the life I gave, 
 
 And sent his soul across Styx' silent wave. 
 
 But we are gods ; and shall our deeds be worse 
 
 Than mortals' whom we smite with death, and curse? 
 
 Can we in heaven rebuke the crimes of earth. 
 
 Since our example gives to crime a birth ? 
 
 Since sinning thus these mortals serve us still ; 
 
 We prompt the fault, and they obey our will. 
 
 Yet 'tis for, this that souls are lost in hell," 
 
 For we: in love, not hate, are mutable. 
 
 Turn to the ways where justice sits on high, 
 
 Weighing life's sorrow -with eternity ; 
 
 From all thine ancient deeds of hate relent, 
 
 And hearken to the prayers the penitent 
 
 Within thy temples utter, soft and low, 
 
 Lest thou in hate dam life's blood in its flow. 
 
 Stretch forth thine hand with power, and quell 
 
 The woes that. on Ijiis maiden's life befell, 
 
22 THE WtTCit OF NEML 
 
 On that dire day when I to thee repaired, 
 
 Distraught in soul from all the griefs I shared, 
 
 To ask thee by thy vengeance to increase 
 
 This maiden's grief, and spoil her hope of peace. 
 
 Complete the work love yesterday began. 
 
 And with tormenting fires cease scourging man ; 
 
 Dispel the darkening clouds that gather there 
 
 Where unresponsive tears evoke a prayer, 
 
 Where pitying eyes upturned to thee require 
 
 A respite to her soul's unsatiate ire. 
 
 Stretch forth thy sceptre, and therewith allay 
 
 The flames that leek her spirit night and day ! 
 
 Complete the mercy yester-eve begun 
 
 Ere dawn doth usher in the morrow's sun ; 
 
 Make full the favours of thy grace, O Jove, 
 
 And quell this maiden's anguish with thy love ! 
 
 Forgetful of mine ancient prayer and hate, 
 
 Hearken, since I would fain propitiate 
 
 My former hest whereby this damsel's life 
 
 Was wedded to a never-dying strife ! 
 
 For well we wot thou who dost scatter death 
 
 Can also calm the tempests by thy breath, 
 
 That the winged-word which doth hell's anger calm 
 
 Can also give a wounded soul the balm 
 
THE WITCH OF NEML 23 
 
 Of peaceful years, and quiet, and full health. 
 And all that is to man eternal wealth, 
 The fairest of fair things that e'er can be, 
 Tfhe fruitfiil hope of immortality. 
 Vaunt not thy might by making mountains sink 
 ?ill waters well therefrom, whence she may drink 
 lo soothe the weary sorrows of past years, 
 Vhich with tormenting fires revive with tears ! 
 Ifay, rather quench her heart's consuming fire, 
 And thus make manifest thy might, O Sire.' 
 
 The while Apollo spake the thunderer frowned, 
 But now he rose disturbed, and smote the ground, 
 Then groaned aloud as though his soul was vexed, 
 \nd with conflicting thoughts his mind perplexed. 
 But yet he spake not : then upon his son 
 ie gazed awhile, and turning to his throne 
 ie seven times smote it with his lightning rod, 
 ls thrones are struck when stricken by a god. 
 .non, from his empyreal head, the crown 
 Ie wore, since he was crowned heaven's king, fell down, 
 lorn which there darted lightnings pale and red, 
 Tiat in demoniac glee played round his head. 
 'Jien the four winds let loose from out their caves 
 
24 THE WITCH OF NEML 
 
 Lashed the deep seas to heaven ascending waves ; 
 
 The Phorcydes drew back the veil of night 
 
 To gape upon the desolating sight ; 
 
 The one-eyed Cyclopes peeped from their forge, 
 
 Wherein they fashioned Jove's all-vengeful scourge, 
 
 Whose lightning shafts, and thunder-bolts when hurled 
 
 Spread death and wild destruction through the world. 
 
 For now to all. Hell's deep abyss was plain 
 
 From Hades' shores to Tartarus' black main, 
 
 On which Jove gazed with agonizing look 
 
 Till the foundations of Olympus shook ; 
 
 For never had his god-like eyes beheld 
 
 The woe to which his swift decrees impelled 
 
 Sin-burthened man his errors to atone. 
 
 Then slow descending from his riven throne. 
 He stood upon the verge of that abyss 
 From whence sighs 'rose mid many a demon's hiss ; 
 He stood as near as gods celestial can 
 To hear the cries of hell-condemnfed man. 
 Even while he listened shrieks arose from hell. 
 Which Pluto and his minions fain would quell. 
 Lest Jove all-fearful of a new revolt 
 Would hurl 'gainst him his god-avenging bolt.. 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 25 
 
 But no avail : for still they madly cried 
 'Gainst Jove's uncurbed and uncompliant pride. 
 Even louder still in shrieks the female tongues 
 Railed against him for his eternal wrongs, 
 And told the thunderer with unblushing face 
 His own unrighteous deeds brought their disgrace, 
 That he their blood distilled to sin and lust 
 To mock them for their all-confiding trust. 
 
 Then Proserpina from her couch arose 
 To hear her thrall's soul-saturated woes, 
 Then turning fiercely from those shades that wailed, 
 With bitter words she thus her sire assailed : 
 ' Thou from whose mouth unmeted judgments fell 
 With crueller pangs than wingfed-words can tell, 
 And for whose sentence souls at Hades' gate 
 Even now thy heaven-sent retribution wait, 
 Thou who all-potent with absorbing breath 
 Dost combat man with ever-conquering death.; 
 From where thou standest, looking firom above^ 
 Behold devouring flames consume thy love, 
 And the pent anguish of eternal years 
 Seethe in this furnace of desponding tears.' 
 
26 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Even as she spake some spirits groaned their crime 
 And held on h%h a bowl, wherein a rime 
 Was seen, through which there struggled weary sighs, 
 Fretting the airs with uttered agoniesf, 
 And down its sides there trickled tears of blood 
 Into the fires beneath where Jove now stood, 
 Which, as they fell, in fumes of sighs returned 
 Like incense foul, to hideous blackness burned. 
 Others held urns, strange-fashioned, like a heart 
 Transfixed with death's lifb-barbbd dart. 
 From whence dark bloody sweat in bubbles burst 
 Which ever as they did, shrieked shrill, and curst 
 Their fate, till falling down like living sperm 
 They turned to flame, and then became a worm 
 Whose body crimson was, and of great length, 
 Full seventy cubits, and prodigious strength ; 
 Its head was humane lovely to behold. 
 It seemed a woman's, filleted with gold, 
 With flowing hair whose dazzling hue might vie 
 With the sun's beams that fringe the western sky ; 
 Her snow-white body down unto her waist 
 Seemed as a virgitf s, earthly bom, and chaste, 
 And from her shoulders wings, not arms, did grow 
 Whose feathers wore the peacocks brilliant glow. 
 
THE WiTCtt OF NEMI. 27 
 
 Her eyes, like stars, absorbed their native blue, 
 And her bright teeth were of an opal hue. 
 Around her waist, whereat she joined the worm, 
 A ruby-jewelled girdle bound her firm. 
 From which was hung, enwoven by curious loom, 
 A robe whose weft was tnade of woman's womb, 
 Whereon was many a hieroglyphic sign. 
 Embroidered richly by some art divine. 
 Telling the joys wherewith each from their birth 
 Had made delicious transient life on eatth. 
 
 Such were these reptiles, fair and foul to see, 
 Who tasted once of life's sublimity. 
 Decked in the ephemeral beauties of the flesh, 
 And crowned by Heaven with Hope's divinest wish ; 
 Whose lips the while they caught love's rapt impress 
 Blushed, trembled, at their own strange loveliness; 
 Whose bodies fashioned for delicious ways 
 Made pleasure one with sorrow's fruitful days, 
 Possessing all the favours that endear 
 Souls unto souls in this terrestrial sphere. 
 Anon they crawled to where o'er hell's abyss 
 Jove stood, and rose full-length towards him to hiss, 
 
28 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Then falling backwards tumbled far below 
 The depths of Hell's unutterable woe ; 
 And ever as they fell there rose this cry 
 From m)Tiad voices, ' Sin and misery.' 
 And Echo through his palace walls within 
 Was heard to murmur, * Misery and sin.' 
 
 Anon was seen mid all this clangour loud, 
 Death desolate, without his nuptial shroud, 
 Through heaven's brass portals rushing out and in, 
 Shrieking with husky voice, ' O still-bom sin. 
 Arise, awake you to your old desires 
 Ere life consign you to hell's thirsty fires. 
 Arise, come forth, from thine own mother's womb 
 Till Jove in mercy seal your damnfed doom. 
 Arise, arise, with all your barbarous din, 
 I will exalt you — I, the lord of sin. 
 With Gods I barter for your breath a span, 
 I, Death, the terror of sin-stricken man.' 
 
 Now Jove nor winced nor breathed with bated breath, 
 But paused to hear what each grim spectre saith ; 
 Which when he heard he calmly gave a nod 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 29 
 
 Such as becomes a monarch and a god, 
 
 And ere again these dismal sounds did break 
 
 Upon his charmfed ears, he loudly spake, 
 
 And sternly called upon the dark-eyed Night 
 
 To draw her curtains o'er this mystic sight, 
 
 Lest these contentions might incite the gods' 
 
 To strive against his power with treason's rods. 
 
 For such a scene was ne'er before revealed ; 
 
 For Hell's domain from Heaven's was e'er concealed. 
 
 Then Night obedient to her sovereign's word 
 Drew her dark veil o'er all heaven saw and heard, 
 And nought of that drear sight was after seen. 
 Through which revolt above well nigh had been, 
 Save that when she below the horizon's bar 
 Lets fall her purple shroud, each jewelled star 
 That trembles 'neath a mortal's wistful gaze, 
 Is one of those lost souls who in old days 
 Questioned the justice of great Jove's decree, 
 And violent strove to conquer destiny. 
 These nightly watch, and wait their sleeping kin. 
 Till death to their flame chambers guide them in. 
 Where their soul's shades in gnashing grief do cry 
 Against the avenging gods eternally. 
 
30 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 Man bom to life, is dowered at birth with fear 
 Of Deathj the hideous bane of pleasure here, 
 Here where we toil in sorrow ever on 
 Awaiting fearfully each morrow's sun. 
 And yet we longing watch the orient skies 
 Whence golden days from greyish dawn arise. 
 Full of new hopes we watch the awakening morn, 
 When daylight o'er the dark horizon's borne 
 Lightly on burnished wings that ever flies 
 Onward, unheedful of man's destinies. 
 Still, all we hazard on the morrow's light. 
 Lowers on our souls in darker shades than night. 
 Night from whose womb Death gains his secret power 
 And hurtles fearlessly his shaft each hour. 
 Withal we hope with hope that's paled with doubt, 
 For life suspired at noon may urge life out. 
 Day after day we cheat the fearful odds 
 Laid on our souls against capricious gods 
 Who with a word may smite our sweetest breath 
 With all the fetid pestilence of death. 
 Day after day, uncertain of the next. 
 With fears of Death our weary spirits' vext ; 
 Day after day each pleasure murmureth, 
 ' The monotone of life is death — death — death.' 
 
THE WITCH OF NEMI. 31 
 
 Can we, when on blanched mouldering bones we gaze, 
 Appease our terrors with uncertain days, 
 And inane hopes,- that this degraded clay 
 Shall waken on a resurrection day ? 
 I dare to doubt that we have more than life, 
 At best our portion here with sorrow rife ; 
 We reap in anguish what we dare not sow. 
 The fecund tares of recompenseless woe. 
 Begot in rapture, and conceived in joy, 
 Our body's full of life's most sweet alloy ; 
 The thrilling sweets that dower love's fruits with earth 
 Are soon embittered by the pangs of birth. 
 Ushered to earth and time with fear and pain, 
 From time our soul is ushered hence with twain, 
 Whither I know not, save where all have gone 
 Into the caverns of oblivion. 
 Offspring of nature, fashioned in the womb. 
 Love grasps life's light to yield it to the tomb. 
 Like a new comet travelling in the sky. 
 We rise in glory, and in setting die 
 Still in our native brilliancy arrayed 
 And clothed in radiancy from time we vade ; 
 For the bright flame that gives our spirit power 
 Glows with its wonted splendour, till the hour 
 
32 THE WITCH OF NEMI. 
 
 When as a vision soon we glide away, 
 The mean, unworthy pastime of a day. 
 Yet still while here, we fain would cozen fears 
 By b'urthening our souls with endless years, 
 Would fain make time the pledge to life, 
 That joys immortal wait on earthly strife. 
 O vain, delusive hope, that would dispel 
 Death of its terrors with a greater hell. 
 
 Like men, like dogs who at the moon do bark, 
 They hate the light that shows the night is dark. 
 With life our soul its tortuous journey wends, 
 And with the breath of life our journey ends. 
 
 The tumult o'er, great Jove with awful look 
 
 Did his rebellious son thuswise rebuke, 
 
 ' For you, O Paean, did I turn from hate 
 
 * 
 
 To acts of mercy all compassionate ; 
 
 For you did I by my great might eschew 
 
 The wrath I hurled from paradise for you 
 
 Upon this maiden, who by yon lake's brink, 
 
 To soothe her burning pangs, now stoops to drink 
 
 And yet withal you by contention strove 
 
 To teach the world my mercy's hate, not love, 
 
THE WITCH OF NEML 33 
 
 Strove to make all Olympus' gods rebel, 
 And waked sedition in the depths of hell ; 
 Would fain have made the Cyclopes revolt, 
 And slay me by mine own fire thunder^bolt. 
 For this your crime, nathless you be a god, 
 Yon maiden shall for aye in sorrow plod 
 Life's thorny ways a phantom of despair, 
 A deathless spectre to your vengeful prayer.' 
 
 Here Jove ceased speaking : then Apollo went 
 Forth from his presence on new deeds intent, 
 Deeds merciful to man, thus to requite 
 The heaven-sent sorrow of his former spite. 
 
 Then did the amber Dawn in the east arise 
 To chase the sluggard Night from turquoise skies. 
 
34 
 
 THE ACACIA BOWER. 
 
 List while the south-wind is breathing 
 
 • Sweet songs above 
 Hush while the zephyrs are wreathing 
 
 Garlands of love 
 Mid the green leaflets that bower 
 
 The amorous dove 
 Listen ! for Love's halcyon power 
 
 Cometh thereof. 
 For this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 Sleeps under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 Springtime and Summer, sunshine and shower, 
 O ever keep green our acacia bower ! 
 
 List while the love-words are stealing 
 
 Into the soul ! 
 
THE ACACIA BOWER 35 
 
 Hush ! while with doubt-stricken feeling 
 
 Ripple and roll 
 
 Vows from young hearts that discover 
 
 Passion's full bowl 
 
 Close to the lips of each lover 
 
 Faint from control. 
 
 For this is the hour. when Love with his dower 
 
 Sleeps under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 
 Springtime and Summer, sunshine and shower, 
 
 O ever keep green our acacia bower ! 
 
 List ! while bedewed with love-whispers 
 
 The frail leaflets sigh 
 Evening's and sundown's late vespers. 
 
 Wafting on high 
 Feehngs that bum in life's censer, 
 
 Fearful to die. 
 Union of spirits intenser 
 
 Than sympathy. 
 For this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 Dreams under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 Springtime and Summer, and sunshine and shower, 
 O ever keep green our acacia bower ! 
 
 3—2 
 
.■36 THE ACACIA BOWER. 
 
 Hush ! now the souls of two lovers 
 
 Mingle and glow 
 Under the gloaming that covers 
 
 Pleasure and woe. 
 Murmurs love-laden, and seasons 
 
 Ripe and in bloom, 
 Full of sweet treasures and treasons, 
 
 Shelter in gloom. 
 For this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 Wakes under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 Summer-suns shining on Springtime's fresh flowers, 
 O ever keep green the acacia bowers ! 
 
 Listen ! the grasses heave lightly. 
 
 Listen again ! 
 
 Hear how the nightingales sprightly- 
 Pour forth their strain ! 
 
 Night falls with feelings deHcious, 
 
 Waxing to wane, 
 
 Fraught with love's fancies and wishes 
 
 Strangers to pain. 
 
 For this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 
 Sits under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 
.THE. ACACIA BOWER. 37 
 
 Summer-suns shining on Springtime's fresh showers, 
 O ever keep green our acacia bowers ! 
 
 Lo now the pipings of kisses, 
 
 Liquid and strong, 
 Trellis and echo life's blisses, 
 
 Falling among 
 Floweret's with Love's favours leaven. 
 
 Wafting along 
 Under the purple of heaven 
 
 Love's latest song. 
 For this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 Sings under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 Summer-suns shining on Springtime's fresh flowers, 
 O ever keep wreathed our acacia bowers ! 
 
 List to the fountain's sweet water's 
 
 Murmuring stream ! 
 Hearken ! for one of Eve's daughters 
 
 Wakes from a dream 
 Delicious, and glowing with pleasure. 
 
 Bright in the gleam 
 Sparkling from Love's brilliant measure 
 
 Like a sun's beam ! 
 
38 THE ACACIA BOWER. 
 
 Fqr this is the hour when Love with his dower 
 Smiles under the shade of the acacia bower. 
 Summer-suns shining on Springtime's fresh flowers, 
 O ever keep wreathed our acacia bowers ! 
 
MY SOUL'S CHASE. 
 
 After the sun to the saddening west, 
 Onward and onward, never to rest. 
 Over the waves of the sinking sea, 
 Onward in chase of Eternity, 
 
 Lost in the vale of an unknown night, 
 Under the ray of a wasting light 
 Hurries my soul 
 Seeking the goal 
 Of Immortality. 
 
 After thie sun to the distant west, 
 Onward in search of eternal rest. 
 Lost in the depths of the purple sky 
 Under the dome of eternity. 
 
40 My SO uns chase. 
 
 Lost in the desert of deathless night, 
 Under the ray of a wasted light 
 
 Hurries my soul 
 
 Seeking the goal 
 Of Immortality. 
 
 Chasing the day to its ruby rest, 
 Onward, where souls are for ever blest. 
 Onward and onward in search of bliss 
 Caught from the balm of an angel's kiss, 
 Lost in the swamp of a dismal night. 
 Lacking the ray of a wasting light 
 Hurries my soul 
 Seeking the goal 
 Of Immortality. 
 
 Chasing the day to its evening's rest. 
 Onward and onward unto the west. 
 Scaling the clouds that are foaming high 
 Dimming the gates of eternity. 
 
 Lost in the mist of a mournful night, 
 Watching the rays of a dazzling light 
 Hurries my soul 
 Seeking the goal 
 
 Of Immortality. 
 
MY SOUL'S CHASE. 41 
 
 , Onward and onward glideth the west 
 Moqking my life with an earthly rest, 
 Onward, beyond Time's limitless sea 
 Unto the verge of eternity, 
 
 Over the surf of a struggling breath, - 
 Borne on the wings of treacherous death 
 Hurries my soul 
 Unto the goal 
 
 Of Immortality. 
 
42 
 
 STRIVINGS. 
 
 I STROVE with the breath of the evening 
 To fathom the meaning of night ; 
 
 But the darkness bewildered my fancy, 
 Made waste with the shadows of light. 
 
 I strove with the breeze of the morning 
 To whisper me whence came the day ; 
 
 But the splendour of noon smote my spirit 
 With longings for life's bright array, 
 
 I strove with the sunset for reason 
 Why time gathered peace in the west ; 
 
 But sleep overcame all my visions 
 And lent to my strivings a rest. 
 
 I strove with the dawn for pleasure ; 
 
 I strove with a senseless aim ; 
 For life is a wearisome measure 
 
 Full-brimming with grief and pain. 
 
STRIVINGS. 43 
 
 I strove with the midnight in passion 
 
 For rest to my panting soul ; 
 But Death on the night's wings did fashion 
 
 My hopes to its billowless roll. 
 
 I strove with the springtime for freshness, 
 For youth and its love made one ; 
 
 "But the breath of the winter withered 
 My hopes with an echoless moan. 
 
 I strove with the summer for suiishine 
 To brighten the darkness of pain ; 
 
 But the shades of its glories soon waning 
 Made deeper the darkness again. 
 
 I strove with the harvest to gamer 
 
 The ripened fruits of the years ; 
 But pestilent sighings soon blighted 
 
 Their rich golden fruits in their ears. 
 
 I strove with the autumn to bury 
 The crisp crimson sorrows of life ; 
 
 But the leaves to my footfall made answer, 
 ' To strive against sorrow is strife.' 
 
44 STRIVINGS. 
 
 I Strive with the winter to teach me 
 Whence cometh its joys ; but it saith : 
 
 ' The joys of our life are a phantom ; 
 The earnest of life is in death.' 
 
 I strove then with Love to make holy 
 The pathways and byeways of sin ; 
 
 But its pleasures were smitten with treason, 
 And all its fair favours a gin, 
 
 Wherein to entrap the unwary 
 
 With seemings of virtue and grace, 
 
 To shackle his spirit with sorrow. 
 And balm him with lies to his face. 
 
 I strove then with Lust for a season 
 To taste if its joyance were pure ; 
 
 But the potion was mingled with anguish, 
 Which made my desires as a sewer. 
 
 I strove with my soul to encompass 
 The meaning of love and of lust ; 
 
 But it murmured in sadness and silence, 
 * They are one and mutable^dust.' 
 
STRIVINGS.. 45 
 
 I strove with my body to tell me 
 
 If lust and earth-love were the same ; 
 
 And it answered : ' They twain are one passion 
 With a fair and a filthy name.' 
 
 I strove when the wroth waves were lashing 
 
 The sea's waters into white foam, 
 To learn in what caverns of Ocean 
 
 The desolate storms had a home ; 
 
 But my strivings were vain and delusive : 
 
 For, surely, if wisdom were shod 
 With the secrets that slumber in heaven, 
 
 Then man were not man, but a god. 
 
 I strove when the tempests were riving 
 The skies with their thunders and fire, 
 
 To conjure my spirit to tell me 
 If death be the end of desire. 
 
 ' Yea,' it murmured in accents that chilled me, 
 
 ' The end of desire is in death.' 
 Then I wept ; for my body's sweet cunning 
 
 After life never quickeneth. 
 
STRIVINGS. 
 
 I strove when the years of my life-time 
 Were gay with their ripeness and bloom 
 
 To search out the depths of the future ; 
 But my heart whispered, ' Search in the tomb. 
 
 Ah, surely, the pleasures of youth-tide 
 Are galled by the tear-drops of death ; 
 
 Yet we taste the diluted libation 
 
 When God fills our body with breath. 
 
 I strove with the raptures of pleasure 
 To mingle my breath with its joy ; 
 
 But I found ere the autumn of life-time 
 The potion did sicken and cloy. 
 
 I strove with sharp pain to discover 
 
 If death were the dower of sin ; 
 But a voice from the grave answered hollow 
 
 ' 'Tis fashioned with life from within. 
 
 I strove at the noontide to dazzle 
 My fears with the glories of hope ; 
 
 But I saw that its splendours evanished 
 As hours on Time's wings did elope. 
 
STRIVINGS. 47 
 
 I strove with the twihght to chasten 
 My doubts of hereafter with bliss ; 
 
 But my soul in its orisons whispered, 
 ' No boon is so sweet as life's is.' 
 
 I strive when the moon's in its crescent 
 To compass the source of its light ; 
 
 But a cloud passing over bewilders , 
 My- strivings with darkness and night. 
 
 I strive when the summer-sun's shining 
 To grasp in my hand a bright beam ; 
 
 But my heart mocking lispeth this answer, , 
 * O vain is the drift of man's dream.' 
 
 I strive when the rainbow makes glorious 
 
 The highways of rain-fretted skies 
 To draw from its mystical beauties 
 
 A ray of my soul's paradise. 
 
 But the magic that hallows its splendours 
 
 Reflects on the mists of my doubt, 
 And I cry in my agony. Sorrow 
 
 And Misery soon find man out. 
 
48 STRIVINGS. 
 
 He travels to-day and to-morrow 
 Blindfolded with years that shall be, 
 
 And he halts by the grave to prevision 
 The joys of eternity. 
 
 And he sees there himself but a shadow, 
 The phantom of pleasures that were. 
 
 And he trembles as earth fades for ever 
 Behind the dark clouds of despair. 
 
 And he pauses to hear the low voices 
 That welcome the spirits to bliss ; — 
 
 But no voice breaks the silence of death-land 
 For all round its dim shores is peace. 
 
 Then, then is the ocean of hopings 
 Lashed into white waves by strange fears, 
 
 Till the heart quails before the false beacon 
 That lights us to time-fallow years. 
 
 But Death with its pestilent breathings 
 Soon blasts life's fair temple to dust ; 
 
 So resigned we pursue the delusion 
 With a will goaded on by a must. 
 
STRIVINGS. 
 
 I strive with my spirit to teach me 
 If God be dispenser of peace, 
 
 And I bide the response ere the terrors 
 Of luxuriant sorrows increase. 
 
 I strive, O I strive in my anguish, 
 And water my couch with my tears, 
 
 To learn if that Satan in pity 
 Requite our sin-travailing years. 
 
 I strive in my sadness to measure 
 The mystical years that shall come ; 
 
 But I fail : for my reason is finite 
 And grasps not their infinite sum. 
 
 I've striven, and still am I striving 
 With Love in its noblest estate 
 
 To gather the fruits of its favours. 
 To baffle the furies of hate. 
 
 I strive with the skylark to waken 
 The sleepers of earth with my song ; 
 
 But words to my thoughts make faint music. 
 And speech fails the sound to prolong. 
 
 49 
 
so STRIVINGS. 
 
 I strive with the nightingale, sadly 
 To pour forth my spirit irx. woe ; 
 
 But my wailing only empoisons 
 The barb of Life's terror and foe. 
 
 I strive with the spectre of dreamland 
 
 To vision me whence comes man's breath ; 
 
 But the demons of darkness envelope 
 This mystical secret in death. 
 
SI 
 
 A DREAM-SONG. 
 
 Dream on, my love, the magic light 
 
 Of joy now fills my soul. 
 And peace dispels the fears of night, 
 
 And Life's in Love's control. 
 
 Dream on, my love, the moments fly 
 
 On the swift wings of time. 
 And all my hopes Eternity 
 
 Bears to its aerial clime. 
 
 Dream on, my beauty, dream away — 
 
 The dream of life is near : 
 Beyond the marge of dying day 
 
 My life's love-song I hear. 
 
 Dream on — I hear the rushing sound 
 
 Of death's engulphing wave. 
 Dream on— Death's surging seas abound, 
 
 And roar around my grave. 
 
 4—2 
 
A DREAM-SONG. 
 
 Dream on — my earthly dreams now glow 
 
 With heaven's absorbing gleam ; 
 I see Love casts the robes of woe, 
 
 And glides beyond my dream. 
 
 Dream on — I dream [The dreamer dies. 
 
 « # « « « 
 
 The magic light 
 
 Of joy hath filled his soul ; 
 For peace dispelled the fears of night, 
 
 And Life's in Love's control. 
 
55 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 I'll to the woods where the violets grow, 
 Where the harebells and the cowslips blow ; 
 There on the moss-bank close by the stream, 
 Shall my life glide like a lovely dream. 
 
 Then to the woods where the woodbine grows, 
 Mingling its sweets with the wild hedge-rose, 
 I will away at the break of day, 
 When the lark sings its awakening lay. 
 
 Down in the dell where the fire-flies light 
 
 The pixies' bower on a moonless night ; 
 
 There where the elves on the glistening stream 
 
 Dance away night in a lovely dream, 
 I will away at the break of day, 
 Where the lark sings its awakening lay, 
 To breathe the sweets of the wild hedge-rose 
 In the old woods where the woodbine blows. 
 
54 A SONG. 
 
 On the moss-bank by the glassy brook, 
 
 Under the shade of a sylvan nook, 
 
 From lily-cups that float by the brink, 
 
 I of the crystal water will drink. 
 So to the woods at the break of day 
 When the lark sings I'll hasten away ; 
 Where the elves dance at night on the stream 
 Shall my life glide like a lovely dream. 
 
55 
 
 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Locrinus, King of Loegria, a portion of Britain, slays Hymyt, a 
 viking, who has laid waste his brother's territory. Among the spoils 
 is a princess, named Esyllt, whom he weds, being smitten with her 
 exceeding beauty. But previously having been betrothed to Guen- 
 doline, the daughter of Corineus, Chief of Cornwall, he, fearing for 
 Esyllt's life and his own, puts her away privily, and weds the Cornish 
 princess, whom in course of time he repudiates, and recalls from her 
 seclusion his lawful wife, who meanwhile has borne him a daughter. 
 Then it comes to pass that all three are slain by this same Cornish 
 Princess. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Tis well the gods have deemed it fit to hide 
 Our fate behind the mount or mole of years ; 
 
 Lest terror-stricken mortals would them chide 
 By ever languishing mid unborn fears : 
 Clouds of despair would wrap our brows, and tears 
 
 Make big the direful phantom to our eyes, 
 
 And every dreamy hope and thought that cheers 
 
 Our journey to the land beyond the skies 
 A dis mal heralder would be of sad surprise. 
 
S6 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 II. 
 Locrinus king of Loegria held court 
 
 Of all the mighty men at Trinovant. 
 Thus with winged words addressing them : ' To sport 
 
 Of tournament, and tilt, and chase we grant 
 
 A holiday ; nor shall we, till we plant 
 Our heel upon this Hymyr's neck, drink wine 
 
 Of wassail cup ; but in his blood shall vaunt 
 Deeds valourous and great, through which shall shine 
 Our glorious descent from gods and men divine. 
 
 III. 
 ' By usurpation on our brother's throne, 
 
 Hymyr the Hun, the bloody sea-king reigns, 
 And underneath his rule the Albans groan 
 
 As desolation wastes their fertile plains ; 
 
 Wives are made widows, blood each brook distains ; 
 Our maids dishonoured by his barbarous band ; 
 
 The terror of his name fresh horror gains. 
 And cries of vengeance echo through the land. 
 And men beseech the gods to lend a succouring hand.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then rent the air as darting upward went 
 A thundering volume pregnant with applause, 
 
LQCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 57 
 
 And every eye dilated flashed assent. 
 
 And each heart prayed the gods to help the cause. 
 
 Then all was calm : as is the dreadful pause 
 Which Nature broods in when fierce storms presage. 
 
 Then issuing from earth's dark depths she draws 
 From heaven in splendours riven divine-like rage. 
 So seemed this human wrath, alike in every age. 
 
 V. 
 
 Where the blue stream forsakes its amber groves, 
 And spreads to blend with Ocean's vast expanse, 
 
 Where vernal nature parts with all she loves, 
 And yields to waste the pleasures that enhance, 
 AVhere silvery shadows as fair wanton's dance 
 
 In soft delights night's tranquil hours away, 
 And myriad lamplets as they glow entrance 
 
 The scene that fadeth with awakening day, 
 Two mighty armies stood their prowess to display. 
 
 VI, 
 
 Soon through the land the cry of war was heard, 
 The clash and clangour of contending steel. 
 
 The" war-horn, and the oath-fermented word, 
 The chargers' neighing, and the rattling wheel 
 Of chariots over fields of slain, and weal 
 
S8 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 Of conquering ire ; anon, the moan of pain 
 And anguish filled the air — the last appeal 
 To arms swelled on the breeze as day did wane, 
 And eve in sombre robes stole o'er the battle plain. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Night brought not slumber ; and the warriors' dirt 
 Waked from his orient cradle tardy day ; 
 
 Then did the strife renewed at mom begin, 
 And wearied not until the evening grey 
 With streaks of lingering light faded away. 
 
 Then fire-trailed slaughter with a bloody lust 
 
 Spread through the Huns confusion and dismay ; 
 
 For purblind Fate with its unerring thrust 
 Hymjrr the dauntless chief laid grovelling in the dust.. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Tis awful when we see the mighty fall, 
 
 When o'er the boast and dread of empires, earth 
 
 In silence casts its unemblazoned pall, 
 And the brave heart that once a country's worth 
 In valour, pride, and love maintained, to mirth 
 
 Of drum and laughter shall awake no more : 
 The cruel shaft of Death thus maketh dearth 
 
 Our joys, so that our spirits fain would soar 
 Unto those life-spent souls that beckon from heaven's door 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 59 
 
 IX. 
 
 If that there be beyond the goal of earth 
 Another land where souls in union meet, 
 
 If in the abyss of death we find a birth 
 Where joys eternal life-lorn spirits greet, 
 Then are the terrors that entoil the feet 
 
 Of Time but phantoms fretted with despair, 
 And all our sorrows here a bitter-sweet 
 
 That makes delicious those rapt pleasures there 
 Where Hope can enter not, and Love is ever fair. 
 
 X. 
 
 Soon pride was full within the conqueror's breast, 
 And spleen made sick each haughty foeman's heart ; 
 
 For on the blood-stained wold the trunkless crest 
 Of their great chieftain lay, with Grief athwart 
 The harnessed corse ; then did veiled Mercy start 
 
 With pity from the brave Locrinus' soul ; 
 For woman wept, and wantonly did part 
 
 With those translucent pearls that lovers dole 
 To Death for sweet Love's sake to buy back that it stole. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She was a princess stolen from her home. 
 The land of amber tresses and blue eyes, 
 
6o LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 AVhere Albis' tawny waters gurgling roam 
 Through valleys that do vie with paradise ; 
 Where summer's sun luxuriously supplies 
 
 The loveliest charms that any land can boast ; 
 Where beauteous day in variant splendour dies, 
 
 And snow-capped mountains, tinted with a host 
 Of -heaven's ambient shades, in dizzy heights are lost. 
 
 XII. 
 
 A white robe scarcely half enwrapped the maid, 
 
 La)dng the fountains of her bosom bare ; 
 Her suppliant lips, and wondering eyes betrayed 
 
 A heart o'erwhelmed with fear and hope's despair. 
 
 Upon her snowy shoulders clustering hair 
 Fell down like wavy beams of golden light, 
 
 And beauty's cunning art strove everywhere 
 To waken love to ravish with delight 
 Desire, whose keenest sense was hallowed by the sight. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Where is the man that dares to gaze on love. 
 When he beholds her in her pristine grace. 
 
 And conjm-e not impassioned words to move 
 The sympathy that beameth in her face ? 
 Rapture of soul, and ecstasy will chase 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 6i 
 
 His amorous thoughts, till at love's pleasant goal 
 He panting faints, self-vanquished by the grace 
 Love's vision made so luscious to his soul 
 When uncurbed passions swelled as seas that foam and roll, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 So loved the Loegrian king : with tender speech 
 He bade the captive maid approach in peace, 
 
 And say if such a love as his could reach 
 Her soul, and with a silent yea increase 
 His new-felt joy. As when loud thunders cease 
 
 To terrify, and south winds fan a calm. 
 Soft shadows gather in an argent fleece 
 
 Upon the sky's blue mirror ; so the balm 
 Of his own words his soul o'ershadowed like a palm. 
 
 XV. 
 
 As the pale water lily droops its head, 
 
 And green weeds frosted with the pearly spray 
 Entangle it, so seemed the blue-eyed maid 
 
 As ■with a mein distraught she did essay 
 
 In terror's timorous accents to allay 
 The fears of hope that filled Locrinus' breast. 
 
 Then with a fervour that brooks not delay 
 They placed their lips to lips, and each carressed 
 As when love's bond is full, and hearts are truly blest. 
 
62 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Now, to their souls none of earth's dreams were dull, 
 
 The flowers of peace were strewed on their life's way, 
 To them all passing things were beautiful ; 
 
 For youth's aspiring hope maintained its sway. 
 
 For them Time wreathed with each revolving day 
 A garland decked with many a jocund hour ; 
 
 For them, their smiles, their lips, love's looks obey 
 As fancy with some pleasure-finding power 
 Builds for their faithful hearts a rich love-trellised bower. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 How sweet is love, that doth life's griefs distil, 
 
 When souls ecstatic blush and bloom with joy. 
 When lips blend sweetly till earth's fears are still, 
 
 And hope's elixir makes the spirit coy ! 
 
 Ah me ! who can with pleasures so employ 
 Vain-fruitful days that sorrow lacks a reign. 
 
 Sorrow that doth with poisonous draughts destroy 
 The springs of holy passion in the fane 
 Of our sublimest thoughts in Time's expansive main ? 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Time's tongue lisps faintly ere it perisheth 
 In endless night, the doom of destiny. 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 63 
 
 Where life and love are close inhumed by death, 
 And all entrancing pleasures cease to be. 
 Day after day, year after year we see 
 Man sacrificed in hecatombs to gloom. 
 Obedient unto Nature's dire decree. 
 An inane offering to the silent tomb 
 Where bides nor love nor hope the darkness to illume. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Alas ! dark clouds these lovers' lives o'erspread : 
 For jealousy made black with blighting breath 
 The lucent phantoms each so late had wed. 
 And doomed its glories to a flickering death. 
 . Despair and bitter chagrin lurked beneath 
 The gauzy robes of their fond heart's day-dreams, 
 
 Dreams whose ephemeral beauties Love doth wreathe 
 To garland Time, so that the present seems 
 A pledge of future bliss absorbed in heavenly beams. 
 
 XX. 
 
 In years of plastic youth Locrinus wooed 
 A Cornish princess. Lady Guendoline, 
 
 Who proudly promised him the hand he sued. 
 And deigned imperiously to be his queen. 
 Soon absence proved his amorous heart had been 
 
64 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 The dupe to artifice and cunning wiles ; 
 
 For true love ne'er had shed its rays serene, 
 Or sanctified their troths with faithful smiles, 
 Or laid upon their Hps the kiss that hate beguiles. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Proud was the father of this haughty maid. 
 
 Ruthless in war, and mighty in the chase ; 
 His rage the fiercest of his foes dismayed, — 
 
 A giant chieftain of a giant race, 
 
 Corineus named : his will towered o'er disgrace ; 
 A kindly friend, a fierce avenging foe 
 
 Who champed his ire till in his rugged face 
 Anger stood rampant, and the lambent glow 
 Of his impassioned will caught flame from fires below. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Whenas Locrinus broke his erst-made troth. 
 Which, when by messengers the maid's sire heard. 
 
 He and his knights made- glamour in their wrath. 
 And pledged the gods in wine their vengeful word 
 War, they cried, war on him who basely blurred 
 
 The fair escutcheon of their chief; a knave 
 Who durst dishonour thus their sovran lord. 
 
 By sharing half his throne with one a slave — 
 Then did they swear to slay him who such insult gave. 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLI. 65 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Corineus when on bloody vengeance bent, 
 Was as a cloud that in the eastern sky 
 
 Lowers gloomily o'er earth with wrath intent, 
 A sure presage that awful storms are nigh 
 Pregnant with lightnings that do terrify. 
 
 His locks were grizzled, and his lofty brow 
 By age was furrowed, and his eagle eye 
 
 Was cold and piercing, charged with hate enow 
 To guide without remorse death's desolating plough. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Proud like a statue set on high he stood ; 
 
 His mien majestic as becometh kings. 
 His veins well charged with that swift-flowing blood 
 
 That floods to fire and flame ; whose passion brings 
 
 In every mirrored thought the hideous wings 
 Of death-trailed lust like night extended spread 
 
 In jaundiced shadows o'er life's pleasant springs. 
 His knotted thews like coiling serpents wed 
 The isthmus of his soul, the pillar of his head. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Ill boding terrors in the Loegrian's breast 
 Made sick the heart with many a fancied fear ; 
 
 5 , 
 
66 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 But still Love sacrified to his behest 
 
 The votive offering of a sigh or tear. 
 
 The infuriate chief in war's array drew near 
 Boiling with wild tempestuous rage, - 
 
 Urged to revenge by frenzied bard and seer, 
 Embittered by the doubts that oft engage 
 The thoughts in ireful breasts on life's grief-trodden stage 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Frustrated hopes, and unfulfilled desires 
 
 Make pale with livid fears youth's damask hue, 
 As secret flames from doubt's deep hidd^ fires 
 
 To ashes burn the joys that once seemed true. 
 
 When parting sorrows damp the hopes like dew 
 And whet the silent tears that well from shame, 
 
 Sad are the souls that some love-phantom sue 
 Till peace forlorn assumes that mouldering name 
 Which calls the body dust, and breath eternal flame. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 I fain would learn if after death we be 
 The essence of divine desire and love 
 
 ■Clothed in the robes of immortality. 
 If that our souls, in regions far above 
 The visions of mankind, do live and move 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 67 
 
 Dismantled of the flesh, like gods supreme, 
 
 Dowered with the myriad joys that are thereof. 
 If in death's fathomless abyss the gleam 
 Of life eternal meet Time's life-defined extreme. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Like a swift hurricane Corineus came 
 
 Scourging the Alban lands with fire and blood. 
 
 Until in Trinovant his awfiil name 
 
 Swept like a pestilence, or dreadful flood 
 That spreads dismay, and death, and solitude 
 
 Through fertile fields, and many a homestead hearth 
 Where love maintained its sway, however rude 
 
 The tongues that uttered its sweet strains of mirth 
 Mid laughter blithe and full that never dreams of dearth. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Secure from danger, and impending woes 
 
 In shepherd's cot Locrinus hid his bride, 
 Reporting o'er the land that in the throes 
 
 Of labouring love the queenly mother died. 
 
 How bums the soul when mighty griefs deride 
 The bitter pangs that make us more than slaves ! 
 
 How desolate is worldly pomp and pride 
 To minds that in those streams for ever lave 
 Where sorrow drowns our hopes till love make life a grave ! 
 
 5—2 
 
68 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Supreme in hate, reinless his uncurbed will, 
 
 The blood-words of revenge still on his lips. 
 He bade the Loegrian king his troth fulfil. 
 
 Or he with his true sword would life eclipse. 
 
 As when a tumid cloud that wraps the tips 
 Of lofty hills, dimming the radiant light 
 
 That dying day in vermeil splendour drips 
 In Hquid gold, clears till each purple height 
 Silvered with pallid hues looks bright though all is night ; 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 So with Locrinus : by compulsion dire 
 He wedded with the Lady Guendoline. 
 
 Then sank his heart at Hate's impervious pyre 
 As hope waxed pale, robed in the mystic sheen 
 Of spectral pleasures that so late had been 
 
 In the exhaustless treasures of his soul. 
 Lives there an antidote to love ? — I ween 
 
 Not e'en an amulet that can control 
 Its eddying and flow, its surge and billowy roll. 
 
 'Tis sad to see in holy wedlock joined 
 Hands, when the hearts antipathies divide. 
 
LOCRINVS AND ESYLLT. 69 
 
 When sacred vows from paradise purloined 
 By lying tongues, are uttered side by side 
 Fair in the front of God him to deride ; 
 
 When mutual ends thus blent in rivalry 
 
 With mouldering years, and faded hopes have died, 
 
 A desolation of remorse shall be 
 The portion of their souls throughout eternity. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And thus were wed two hearts that knew not love, 
 
 Hearts teeming with the floods of bitter hate. 
 Earth-bound for concord, but the bond above 
 
 By discord rent, for Love's obsequious fate. 
 
 A life consumed by fires that ne'er abate. 
 Love's hate-impassioned enmity, and all 
 
 The dark antipathies that fearful wait . 
 The vengeful hour when with its stinging gall 
 Hate yields to hate and hope at death's grim festival. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 In secret cot amid the tranquil vales. 
 
 Where streamlets flow, and purple mountains rise, 
 The fair Esyllt her faithful spouse bewails. 
 
 And dreams of happiness in ether skies. 
 
 How vain that dream with all its sympathies ! 
 
70 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. . 
 
 How very vain the hope of after bliss ! 
 
 Here souls are meted out their destinies ; 
 And of all destinies the sweetest is 
 A kiss ; for there's no world, I fear, succeeding this. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Away from hatred and disdaining eyes 
 
 She weans her heart of many a worldly care ; 
 
 Imbued with hope her daily task she plies. 
 Nor pines in solitude, but yearns to share 
 Her love's first-fruits, should heaven the blossom spare. 
 
 With love and all its trancing sweets ; for she 
 Tear-nourishes the bud her true love bare 
 
 Unto her lord, unblossomed though it be, 
 Yet it shall bloom to flower life's swift decaying tree. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Delicious fruit of love's inblent desires ! 
 
 Ecstatic joys pregnated in the womb ! 
 Flowers of the passion of some mutual fires 
 
 Formed in the soundless depths of gloom 
 
 To deck the earth and putrify the tomb. 
 Such are we : spectres on the expanseless sea 
 
 Of Time, the incarnation of the fume 
 Of Doubt and Hope, till by divine decree 
 We on death's shore resume our old divinity. 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. ^^ 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Our old divinity ! — Are we divine 
 
 Who, day by day bathed in Time's lucent light,- 
 Must slumber ever in that cavemed mine 
 
 Where all's oblivion and eternal night ; 
 
 Where is nor any joy, nor pleasant sight, 
 Nor beauties luminous wherewith our eyes 
 
 Are charmed, nor any terrors to affright 
 Our body's soul, pensile uncertainwise 
 Between Elysian fields and earth's sure paradise? 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Seven weary years concealed from haunts of men 
 The mother languished for that joyous day 
 
 When death should on Corineus frown ; for then 
 Her hopes, slow mouldering to decay. 
 With love's new joys should haste to cast away 
 
 The memory of ancient woes with life 
 That ravishes and feasts on its new prey, 
 
 For grief's pavilioned light with splendour rife 
 Oft silvers passing clouds of once o'erwhelming strife. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Meanwhile, on hunting expeditions feigned, 
 Locrinus saw the mistress of his love, 
 
73 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 Whose fainting heart new ties to earth had chained ; 
 The bond was heaven's, a dowry from above. 
 SWeet harbinger of peace ! who durst reprove 
 Such fate that had so great a boon bestowed 
 
 On them ? Their souls with increased ardour strove 
 To breathe on high the. gratitude that flowed 
 In fancy's boundless stream where myriad phantoms 
 glowed. 
 
 XL. 
 
 When Autumn's torch that bums the years away 
 Cast o'er the vernal woods its sickly hue 
 
 Of livid red, and when the short-lived day 
 
 Pined for the summer's sun, and morning's dew 
 Decked not the fields as it was wont to do. 
 
 Then winged Corineus' soul immutable 
 
 Unto that land whose bourne death hides from view. 
 
 Whose shores are washed by souls in spell 
 Of vacancy or sleep, or hopes no tongue can tell. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Mindful of former wrongs the amorous king 
 Straightway divorced the haughty Guendoline ; 
 
 And froin her woodland home in. pomp did bring 
 His faithful, loved Esyllt to be his queen : 
 Her whose dear life for many years had been 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT: 73 
 
 A sacrifice to her absorbing love, 
 
 The damask of whose cheeks old years had seen 
 Glow with full passion when new vows did move 
 Her soul to seek its mate with arts that spring thereof. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Ere yet Locrinus from sequestered vale 
 
 Called his lorn wife to share his royal crown, 
 The slighted Guendoline had heard the tale 
 
 How Esyllt lived her rival envy down. 
 
 But she to callous ways by hatred grown 
 Dissembled her fierce wrath and direful will 
 
 Till she should with her sole begotten son, 
 Madoc, destroy her traitorous spouse, and fill 
 The Loegrian land with woe, and queen and daughter kill. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Whenas by spies in Trinovant she heard 
 Her ancient rival shared Locrinus' throne. 
 
 In jealousy she seized the avenging sword 
 To claim the regal sceptre as her own. 
 Or till her son should be to manhood grown. 
 
 Then all the giants' sons prepared for war, 
 Eager Locrinus should, in blood atone 
 
 Their sovereign's wrongs : thus did the rismg star 
 Of Esyllt's glory wane mid gathering clouds afar. 
 
74 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 'Tis sad that bliss for time is seldom ours, 
 
 We who are heirs to many a hidden ill, 
 We whose frustrated joy in darkness dowers 
 
 The secret woe our lives inherit still. 
 
 For us new fears for ever rise to chill 
 The fervent trust that would our doubts consume ; 
 
 In us the mystery of desire hath will 
 To fashion loves for nought but utter gloom. 
 And foiling hopes that chafe our spirits to the tomb. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Who joyful bides the recompense of days 
 
 That treacherously hides within the folds of years ? 
 
 Who strives to penetrate the future's ways' 
 Without the spectre of dissolving fears 
 Passing where neither dawn nor twilight cheers 
 
 With hope the weary traveller on that road 
 
 Whose m3mad byeways are kept green with tears ? 
 
 Who so consumed with pleasure seeks the abode 
 Where souls are blent in airs,and flesh with mouldering sod? 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Soon through the peaceful land spread civil strife 
 V^Tietted with lust of unrelenting rage. 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 75 
 
 The blood-dyed streams and moans of smitten life 
 Did not the hate of either foe assuage ; 
 But rather ardour gave to their dire wage. 
 
 Nor did War stay his pestilent career ; 
 But sweeping on, supported by its page 
 
 Famine, mid wailings, scattered far and near 
 The tares of woe from Death's tear-perforated bier. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 An arrow by a Cornish archer sped 
 
 Pierced to his very heart the Loegrian king : 
 Then did the mourners weep their sovereign dead, 
 
 iVnd all the land was filled with sorrowing. 
 
 From north to south did these sore tidings bring 
 Dismay and anguish to each faithful breast : 
 
 And Grief spread over all his sombre wing, 
 When unto Trinovant by wrathful hest 
 Came maHce-mantled death an uninvited guest, 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Sorrows and troubles gather year by year 
 
 Like death-mounds on the desert plain of life, 
 
 Kept ever green by every secret tear 
 That swells unbidden in our breasts 'gainst strife. 
 Death armed with Grief as with a keen-edged knife 
 
76 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 Wounds Memory until regrets do flow 
 
 With desolating flood where hopes are rife, 
 And we with sinking hearts desire to go 
 Where endless peace absorbs the fleeting hours below. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Revenge and Hate, and all the powers that move 
 Natures of base condition to conspire 
 
 Against the varied complements of love. 
 
 Raged in the Cornish princess' breast with ire 
 Fiercer than storms surcharged with deadly fire. 
 
 With these she strove to force to bitter death 
 The luckless queen ; for jealousies most dire 
 
 With undissembled wrath did Discord wreathe, 
 While Calumny would quench life's latest struggling breath 
 
 L. 
 
 Then Guendoline in rage insatiate 
 
 Bade Esyllt and Sabrina to be brought 
 To her, that she herself might seal their fate, 
 
 And mock the tears her jealous hatred wrought; 
 
 For Esyllt for her lord was sore distraught. 
 And hoped that death her burning griefs would pall 
 
 Ere life from sympathy fresh springs had caught. 
 Full well she knew these ruthless conquerors all 
 Would make o'er their spent lives a bloody festival. 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. -jr 
 
 LL 
 
 Then with revenge still seething in her soul. 
 
 In cruel glee these venomed words she saith, 
 ' Thou base-born wretch, of life's most bitter bowl 
 
 Thou'lt drink the very dregs even unto death. 
 
 Get hence, and yield to nether airs thy breath, 
 Thou and thy daughter, for this land no more 
 
 Shall weep, for desolation burtheneth 
 Her grievously unto her chalk-cliffed shore 
 Whereon the breakers dash amid the tempest's roar. 
 
 LII. 
 
 ' I hate thee, slave ; and but for thee my life 
 Had known fulfilment to a haughty love, 
 
 And yet I never loved, nathless the strife 
 Of jealousy in me began to move 
 When thou a rival to my wish didst prove. 
 
 Get hence ; unto yon stream a sacrifice 
 I yield ye ; may the avenging gods above, 
 
 If the oblation please them in somewise, 
 Thrust your polluted souls headlong from paradise.' 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Then Esyllt turning, meekly to her said, 
 
 ' Princess, if I in aught have done thee wrong. 
 
78 LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 
 
 Surely, the gods have heaped upon my head 
 Vengeance requiting thee : for, since among 
 This people I have come, the weary song 
 
 Of sorrow or of woe hath been my theme. 
 Yet in -that land whither I'm borne along 
 
 I trow great pleasures shall upon my spirit gleam, 
 Else earthly love to me hath been a saddening dream 
 
 LIV. 
 
 ' But ere I pass beyond that dismal streams- 
 Embracing her the sole fruit of our love — 
 
 Where night shuts out dawn's rosy beam 
 
 From that dark land and spectre-haunted grove, 
 Know that my heart did always faithful prove 
 
 Unto my slaughtered lord ; and if to thee 
 Evil hath come, it came from those above. 
 
 The gods have measured it — not such as we — 
 And what they mete to man such is his destiny.' 
 
 LV. 
 
 Then'did the Conqueress bid her warriors take 
 The widowed queen and her Sabrina fair. 
 
 And cast them in the angry stream to slake 
 Her yet unsatiated hate's despair. 
 Thus did these twain life's bitter chalice share, 
 
LOCRINUS AND ESYLLT. 79 
 
 Meekly obedient to the high gods' will ; 
 
 For well they knew death endeth all our care, 
 And all must thuswise soon or late fulfil 
 Their dreary life's day-task up Time's untrodden hill. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 As oft the setting sun at evening laves 
 In all the splendours of its lustrous light, 
 
 So sank to rest 'neath Severn's glassy waves, 
 Sabrina and Esyllt, to that drear night 
 Where death despoiling life with venomed spite 
 
 Burthens the winged treasures of our souls 
 With blank oblivious years, that phantom spright 
 
 That flutters fearlessly in our control 
 Till Death quaffs all the draught and breaks the crystal bowl. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Like a strange meteor did they pass away 
 
 To taste the pleasures of their spirits' sphere ; 
 They passed like sunshine on a summer's day 
 
 'Neath silvery waves like purest crystal clear. 
 
 Like dreams that glide before our minds' eyes here 
 They passed unto that undiscovered land 
 
 Where fearful things dispel the very fear, 
 And love, deflowered by Death's most treacherous hand. 
 Sinks Jn the waste of years as in a quickening strand. 
 
8o 
 
 LIFE AND LOVE ; 
 
 AN ECHO. 
 
 Hush, my heart ! the hours are steaUng 
 
 Hours are stealing 
 Life from every thought of earth, 
 And o'er all a gentle feehng 
 
 Getitle feeling 
 Glides to whisper of new birth. 
 Birth to life that is immortal, 
 
 Life that is immortal, 
 Far beyond heaven's purple portal, 
 
 Yon heaven's purple portal, 
 Where the angels wait the soul 
 That on Death's dark wings with healing. 
 
 Wings with healing, 
 'Mid celestial pseans pealing, 
 
 Pceans pealing, 
 Floats beyond Time's drear control. 
 
LIFE AND LOVE, 8j 
 
 Hark, the paeans loud are pealing 
 As the hours of life are stealing 
 O'er my soul with gentle feeling, 
 As within heaven's purple portal 
 I am robed with life immortal. 
 
 Life immortal. 
 
 Hush, my heart ! thy life's fulfiUing 
 
 Lifis fulfilling 
 Love with every passing breath, 
 And its future dream is thrilling 
 
 Dreain is thrilling 
 All my soul to welcome death, 
 Death that maketh love immortal, 
 
 Maketh love immortal. 
 Far beyond heaven's purple portal. 
 
 Yon heaven! s purple portaly 
 Where is pure inspiring love, 
 Where the angel-souls are telling 
 
 Souls are telling 
 To the spirits that are willing 
 
 That are willing 
 The completed bliss thereof. 
 
 6. 
 
82 LIFE AND LOVE. 
 
 Hark, the angel-souls are telling 
 To my heart its love's fulfilling, 
 And its earthly dream is thrilling 
 A.11 within that inner portal 
 As I am robed with love immortal. 
 
 Love immortal. 
 
83 
 
 ATOMS. 
 
 Sunlight and twilight, darkness and sheen, 
 Days that shall come and days that have been, 
 Fashion their splendours to love such as mine 
 Pure as the light of a summer sunshine. 
 Rosebud and blossom, 
 Tendril and leaf, 
 Blushing and blooming 
 For days that are brief, 
 Making the soul full of pleasure divine. 
 Quaffing the draughts of celestial wine. 
 These be the atoms that mingle with fears 
 The life that to love the spirit endears. 
 
 Sorrow and laughter, passion and pain, 
 Ever fulfilling their worthless gain, 
 
 6—2 
 
84 ATOMS. 
 
 Fashioning life for the span of a breath 
 Under the shadow of mocking death, 
 Waiting and wanting 
 Glorified years, 
 Culling the sweetness 
 Of sympathy's tears, 
 Filling the soul with a worldly disdain 
 Ere ever it wake to its heavenly reign. 
 These be the atoms that mingle with fears 
 The Hfe that to love the spirit endears. 
 
8s 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 Why seek ye a peace in this valley of doubt ? 
 
 Why seek ye a joy where trae joy bideth not ? 
 O come where the houris of heaven shall shout 
 
 In praise of the pastime love's sweet ways begot ! 
 
 Abide ye the time when a smile and a tear 
 
 Commingled in peace with a mellow-toned laughter, 
 
 Shall teach you the pleasure that liveth not here, 
 But slumbers for each in the hidden hereafter ; 
 
 When the songs of the houris in rapture awaking 
 The dead from their couches of water and earth, 
 
 Shall bring to your spirits the peace that partaking 
 Of gives to your pleasures a heavenly birth. 
 
 Then, then the sweet songs of the beauties of heaven, 
 Shall thrill the love-cords that entwine round your 
 heart, 
 And Peace in its pinions by perfumed winds driven 
 , Shall wing round your throne till your sorrows depart. 
 
86 
 
 TO AUGUSTA ; 
 
 ON SEEING HER HAT DECKED WITH ROSES. 
 
 A LOVE-BUD decked with roses, 
 
 With cheeks as blooming bright, 
 And eyes whose hue is liquid blue 
 
 Our love and first delight. 
 ■ Let suns make sweet the springtime, 
 
 And halcyon airs combine 
 To waft from thee, my beauty. 
 
 Life's winter frost and rime. 
 
 II. 
 
 Fair love-bud crowned with roses 
 Despoiled of every thorn. 
 
 Each winsome smile doth life beguile 
 For thee, fruit of love's morn. 
 
TO AUGUSTA. 8? 
 
 Let roses bud in springtime, 
 
 And blgw till summer-days 
 Entwine thy heart with pleasures, 
 
 And wreathe thy brow with bays. 
 
 III. 
 First pledge of love long plighted, 
 
 Be all thine hours as gay, , 
 And full of sun as is this one, 
 
 This southern April day. 
 Let skies of liquid azure 
 
 Encanopy thy youth. 
 And golden evenings whisper 
 
 Thy morrow's smiling ruth. 
 
 IV. 
 
 O could I hope, my love-bud, 
 
 Thy life would be as free 
 From worldly cares, and sorrow's tares, 
 
 As we would have it be. 
 Let tears bereave all sadness 
 
 Of every secret pain, 
 Our hopes shall steal their glory 
 
 From summer suns again. 
 
38 TO AUGUSTA. 
 
 V. 
 
 We, father, and sweet mother, 
 
 Whose mingled love thou art, . 
 In love's desire, with love conspire 
 
 Thy coming griefs to thwart. 
 Let grief usurp the sceptre 
 
 Of thy heart's latest love, 
 New fashioned joys shall gather 
 
 To crown the fruits thereof 
 
 VI. 
 
 My love-bud decked with roses 
 
 With which thy beauty vies, 
 Thy playful ways in infant days 
 
 Make pastime ere spring dies. 
 Let suns make bright the summer, 
 
 And halcyon hopes combine ■ 
 To wreathe thy life with pleasure. 
 Stolen from heaven's holy treasure, 
 As time with dancing measure 
 
 Quaffs to thy peace in wine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 O love-branch that hath trellissed 
 Round thy mother's heart and mine. 
 
TO AUGUSTA. 
 
 May suns arise in winter skies 
 Till death our loves entwine. 
 
 Yet, while life's in its springtime, 
 Shalt thou, my fairest dove. 
 
 Be garlanded with olive 
 And all the flowers of love. 
 
90 
 
 UNDER THE BEECH-TREES. 
 
 I. 
 Pledge me the gift of ripened love, 
 Pledge me the joy of life-in-time, 
 Pledge me the boon of earthly bliss 
 In a kiss 
 Under these beeches ; as above 
 The sweet songs of this leafy clime 
 Echo a thrilling melody 
 That will be 
 Full of the ardour of love's breath, 
 Sweet as the rapt words that love saith 
 Reft of the fear that perisheth 
 Hard by the sepulchre of death, 
 When souls awakening to celestial bliss 
 Welcome their kindred with a joy like this : — 
 
 [77iey kiss 
 
UNDER THE BEECH-TREES. gt 
 
 II. 
 Pledged now, and plighted are our vows, 
 Plighted and pledged for earthly hours. 
 Plighted and sealed with heavenly bliss 
 In a kiss 
 Under these beeches, on whose boughs 
 A feathered choir pipes Love's sweet powers 
 Full of a swelling harmony 
 That shall be 
 When years are lost in wasted breath, 
 When earthly passion perisheth. 
 When all that Love would say he saith 
 Close by the sepulchre of death 
 
 As thy fair soul and mine in endless bliss 
 Pledge earthly love in heaven with joy like this :■ — 
 
 [ TAey kiss. 
 
93 
 
 A HYMN TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 In youth and age, the bond of years 
 
 With gentle current glides away 
 Beyond the source of sorrow's tears, 
 
 Beyond the haven of life's day. 
 
 In every thought, in every doubt, 
 
 A secret grace imprinted lies, 
 Till all the passions of earth's rout 
 
 Have swept us to our destinies. 
 
 The broken reed, the empty bowl 
 
 Shall then full powers from heaven assume, 
 When o'er the stream of death, the soul 
 
 Is borne through shade's benighted gloom. 
 
 Where'er the joys of youth shall greet 
 
 My age's memory and pain. 
 Let truth consorting friendship, meet 
 
 With peace our sail outspread again. 
 
A HYMN TO FRIENDSHIP. 93 
 
 The prow of my life's bark is driven 
 
 Against the rugged cliffs of hate ; 
 But still my stable trust is heaven, 
 
 And faith enduring in my fate. 
 
 I faint not for the shrill applause 
 That heralds through the world my fame : 
 
 I faint not for caprice's laws 
 
 That blasts or builds an earthly name. 
 
 I pause not in my journey here 
 
 For weak, regretful, worthless praise ; 
 
 I pause but in this vale to cheer 
 
 The pilgrim struggling through hfe's ways. 
 
 I wait with palpitating heart 
 
 The magic gift bestowed by God 
 On mortals, that its social art 
 
 May soothe me in this frail abode. 
 
 It is not art : 'tis heaven's choice gift 
 
 From paradise by cherubs borne 
 Upon their silvery wings to lift 
 
 Our souls from paths unkempt, forlorn. 
 
94 A HYMN TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 'Tis part of God instilled in few 
 To sanctify the portion blest, 
 
 And fill with heaven's refreshing dew 
 The hour of toil ere evening's rest. — 
 
 The eve of life, the night of time 
 Sinks slowly 'neath the western sea. 
 
 And bears our souls with solemn chime 
 On, into dark eternity. 
 
 In sunshine and in shade and grief, 
 Sublimer hopes entrance our lives ; 
 
 For, though the bonds of Ufe be brief, 
 We cherish not-its fleshly gyves. 
 
 O secret spell, O dreary dream 
 That waits upon our last sad hour, 
 
 O fearful, dreadful sullen stream 
 Swollen with floods of sorrow's dower. 
 
 O moment still, moment claspt ' 
 Within the arms of conquering death. 
 
 You bear us to a land that past 
 
 A thoraand times m<da. -filing breath. 
 
A HYMN TO FRIENDSHIP. 95 
 
 Still grant us, heaven, that gift sublime 
 That makes us love with pleasant calm ; 
 
 Give Friendship's bliss for fleeting time 
 And lull our fears with its sweet balm. 
 
96 
 
 AN ADIEU. 
 
 Farewell ! and when life's tempests gather 
 To cloud the hours of hope's repose, 
 
 Entwine thy faith with love's rapt pleasure 
 Till doubt with peace entranced glows. 
 
 Farewell ! I must not say for ever, 
 I know we twain must surely meet. 
 
 If not on earth in that bright region 
 Where Love and Time twine round God's feet 
 
 Farewell ! securer joys await us 
 
 Than those which fill each troubled breast ; 
 For we, and all, shall meet in heaven 
 
 Where Love hath peace and endless rest. 
 
97 
 
 EXTASIA DREAMETH. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose, 
 
 Damask mingled with pale, 
 Lovely head in a languid repose 
 
 Under a leafy veil, 
 Under the shade of the willows 
 
 Drooping over the stream, 
 Fanned by the sweetest breeze that blows. 
 
 Beauty sleepeth to dream. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose. 
 
 Tinted by fairy art, 
 Cheeks that bloom when the hfe glows 
 
 With a delighted heart. 
 Beautiful peace that heaven bestows 
 
 Over thy placid face. 
 Linger Avith thee till thy soul knows 
 
 Peace in its holiest place. 
 
 7 
 
98 EXT ASIA DREAMETH. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose, 
 
 Beauty lieth asleep 
 Close by the bank where the brook flows 
 
 Slowly, solemn and deep. 
 Emblem of Time ! through life's billows 
 
 Time steals on in a dream, 
 Restless ever, onward it goes 
 
 Like to this limpid stream. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose, 
 
 Warmed by the summer's sun, 
 Beauty lies, slumbering away those 
 
 Dreams of a grief begun. 
 Full of hope's sorrowful heart-woes, 
 
 Lulled into sleep with tears. 
 Here, on her couch where the moss grows; 
 
 Visions mock at her fears. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose, 
 Eyes fringed with silken beams, 
 
 F^yes whose beseeching gaze shews 
 Love in thy nature teems. 
 
EXTASIA DREAMETH. 99 
 
 Thou to whose love my worn soul owes 
 
 All its treasure's increase. 
 Slumber, my beauty, till night close 
 
 Round thee its wings of peace. 
 
 Blushing as blushes the red rose, 
 
 Rose-tint or lily-pale, 
 Lovely head in a languid repose 
 
 Under a weeping veil. 
 Beauty asleep 'neath those willows 
 
 Fretting the glassy stream ; 
 Beautiful peace on her face glows — 
 
 Dream on, Extasia, dream. 
 
 7—2 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 Hail to tliee, Goddess of tile skies, 
 
 That with thy pallid brow inspires 
 Thoughts with the magic spell of peace, 
 
 And Hopes with never-dying fires ! 
 High on thy throne in heaven thou crown'st 
 
 With silvery halos purple night, 
 And o'er the lofty pine-trees' crests 
 
 Glid'st onward ever in thy flight. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 Mother of love, queen of the night. 
 Praised be thy beauty, praised thy might, 
 Under the lustre of thine eyes 
 We dream of glorious paradise. 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. loi 
 
 Mother and maiden, virgin and bride, 
 Shine on us, shine in all thy pride. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Mistress of bliss, mother and queen, 
 Seeing our loves, and being seen, 
 Make our maids true, make our hearts light, 
 Goddess and maid,- queen of the night. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 Queen of the night, chaste mother shine 
 On us the light of love divine. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 Chaste queen who from thine azure home 
 
 Look'st down with smiling wan-like face, 
 Instilling with ingenuous love 
 
 The kiss of heaven's sublime-bom grace. 
 The glow of thine entrancing gaze 
 
 With transient pleasure fills my soul. 
 And holy quiet joy impels 
 
 My life's dear wish beyond control. 
 
I02 A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 Praised be thy beauty, praised thy might, 
 Goddess and maid, bride of the night. 
 The myriad sweets of paradise. 
 Flood in the splendour of thine eyes. 
 Maiden and mother, virgin-bride. 
 Shine on us, queen, in all thy pride. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Queen of the shadows, queen of the night, 
 Virgin and bride in robes bedight 
 Lustrous and wan, of glistening sheen. 
 Hear us who laud thee lovely queen. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 Mother of love, chaste goddess shine 
 On our dark souls thy light divine. 
 
 Poet. 
 Goddess of night, cold, stately queen, 
 To thee a sacred hymn I raise ; 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 103 
 
 For thee the music of my soul 
 
 Swells with the flame of silent praise. 
 
 Thou shinest through my leafy bower 
 In mirthful, silent, mystic sheen, 
 
 And strew'st with arabesque the floor 
 Of pearly dew and softest green. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 
 Beautiful Moon ! bride of the night, 
 Pour down on us thy liquid light. 
 Lovers are we whom fair youths woo, 
 Make thou our loves faithful and true. 
 Here, 'neath the oak's outspreading bough, 
 We'll dancing laud thee, goddess, now ; 
 Under thy full bright-beaming face 
 We'll sing thy power with music's grace ; 
 With timbrels and with cymbals we 
 Will worship, sandalled-goddess, thee. 
 Goddess and mother, throned above, 
 Love us, and guard our virgin love. 
 Shine on us, queen, in all thy pride. 
 Mother and maid, virgin and bride. 
 
tp4 A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Goddess of night ! lovers we be 
 Dreaming under the acorn tree ; 
 Fruitful help-mates grant us, O queen, 
 For faithful lovers we have been. 
 Beautiful maid with beaming hair, 
 Hear, and answer our midnight prayer. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 
 Queen, from thine empyrean shine 
 With all the light of love divine, - 
 And from thy bow an arrow speed, 
 A messenger of holy meed. 
 
 ; Poet. 
 
 Thy trancing gaze imbues with light 
 
 Thie cloud-bound visions of my love, 
 And with thy glowing beauty wane 
 
 The sombre doubts that are thereof. 
 For thee all nature finds a tongue, 
 
 For thee the liquid strains of song 
 Waft bn the evening's fluttering breeze 
 
 Through echoing forests borne along. 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. loj 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 Lady of love, lady of light, 
 Mother of joy, queen of the night, 
 Under thy fair front's radiant gaze 
 We, dancing, chaunt our hymn of praise; 
 Virgin and bride, goddess and maid. 
 Come to us, come, our love to aid. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 Mistress of dreams, mother of bliss, 
 Teach our lovers thy chaste-like kiss ; . 
 Make their hea,rts pure with thy chaste light. 
 Goddess, and stately queen, of night. 
 
 Semichorus.- 
 
 Queen of the night, fair goddess shine 
 With all the light of love divine ; 
 Season man's woe with timely mirth, 
 And fruitful make the labouring earth. 
 
 Poet. 
 For thee the nightingale doth pipe 
 Its lute-like notes in summer-tide ; 
 
io6 A HYMN TQ THE MOON, 
 
 And the lorn lovers pine alone 
 For thee the night's ethereal bride. 
 
 Long wooed by gods, a virgin still, 
 Chaste sovereign of the amorous stars 
 
 Who suppliant ever worship thee 
 Unmindful of old jealous wars. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 
 Mother and maid, queen of the night. 
 Hail to thy beauty, hail to thy might, 
 Thrice blest is she on whom a beam 
 Of thy pure light in sleep doth gleam. 
 From thee well joys of strange device- 
 Virtuous love of nameless price. 
 Under the oak-tree's leafy shade 
 Thee we worship, mother arid maid. 
 Love, and the light of love art thou, 
 Beautiful queen, succour us now. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Lady of love, mother and queen, 
 Seeing our loves, and being seen. 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 107 
 
 Give us, O give us faithful wives 
 To charm our lone and barren lives. 
 Hearken, mother, virgin and bride, 
 And grant the wish our hearts confide. 
 Lady of love, mistress of night, 
 Fill our souls with thy sacred light. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 Queen of the stars, chaste goddess shine 
 On us the light of love divine. 
 
 Poet. 
 Adown the lengthy vistas steal 
 
 Thy soft benignant lucent rays 
 To chase the phantoms of the shade 
 
 To dark untrodden silent ways ; 
 As floating over hill and vale 
 
 Thy beauty beams with placid joy, 
 And night-winds whisper to my heart 
 
 The peace that wastes in life's alloy. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 Shine on us, shine, O lovely Moon ! 
 Mistress of months, grant us a boon 
 
io8 A HYMN TO THE MOON. ■ 
 
 Fruitful wives, and mothers make us 
 With thy full powers all luminous. 
 Give us brave sons, and daughters fair, 
 Thewed and supple, this is our prayer, 
 Make thou our daughters lissom for love. 
 And ripe for the joys that are thereof. 
 Goddess and maid, virgin and queen, 
 Shine on our midnight festal scene. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Queen of the night, thy vigils we keep , 
 Chasing away the burthen of sleep. 
 Thou art our hope, O pensive Moon, 
 Hear us, and grant this heavenly boon, 
 Make our wives faithful, make them fair, 
 This is our hope, this is our prayer. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 Goddess and queen, chaste virgin shine, 
 And fill our souls with light divine. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 Thou guardian of the sombre night. 
 Thou goddess of the wooded glade, 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. log 
 
 Thou queen of every fairy throng 
 
 That revels 'neath this beechen shade, 
 
 On thee the elfs with mournful cry 
 
 Call, lest the dawn their spell should break ; 
 
 To thee the ghostly things of earth 
 Their mystic sacrifices make. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 
 Mother of seasons, thee we hail ; 
 Maiden and queen, lovely and pale. 
 Shine on us now, and quicken our loves, 
 Strewing with shadows these sacred groves. 
 Balm our lips with the dew that is 
 Full of delicious ecstasies. 
 Lady of light, virginal bride, 
 Shine on us now, shine in thy pride. 
 All-fruitful wives with thy love-power 
 Make us, O queen, when love shall flower ; 
 For maidens chaste and pure are we 
 Who singing praise and call on thee. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 Come to us now, come to our aid, 
 Virgin and bride, mother and maid ; 
 
no A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 Lady of love, queen of the night 
 Grant us the boon of love's delight. 
 Mother of months and slumbering hours, 
 Mother of fruits and fruitful flowers, 
 Virgin and queen, goddess and spouse, 
 To thee we pay our midnight vows. 
 Hear, and answer, lady of night, 
 Mistress of months, maidens' delight 
 
 SEMICHORtJS. 
 
 Queen of shadows, goddess of groves, 
 Fill our soul with chaste-like loves. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 For thee the nymphs and sylphs on streams 
 
 Their mystic vigils alway keep ; 
 For thee the gentle rippling waves 
 
 Make music on the silent deep ; 
 For thee the murmuring trees do sigh ; 
 
 The leaves Ksp softly prayer to thee ; 
 All nature, charmed with thy wan joys. 
 
 Extols thy chaste divinity. 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. in 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 
 Hail to thee, Huntress ; hail to thee, queen ; 
 Shine on our midnight festive scene. 
 Fruitful mother of fecund earth 
 Mingle with love our virgin mirth, 
 Give us the boon of maidens' lives, 
 And make us faithful, fruitful wives. 
 Mother of months, grant us a boon, 
 Wives and mothers O make us soon. 
 Then we'll praise thee with song and dance 
 When wedded joys our loves entrance. 
 With cymbals loud our virgin throng 
 Shall laud thee, lady, here among 
 The wooded dales and trelUsed vines 
 Wherethrough thy lambent glory shines. 
 Hearken, mother, grant us this boon ; 
 Hear and bestow, O pensive Moon \ 
 For we pure maidens e'er have been. 
 And true of heart, O puissant queen. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 
 Mother of shadows, in robes bedight 
 Glowing with pallid silvery light ; 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 
 
 Beautiful maid with golden hair, 
 Hear and answer our youthful prayer. 
 Mete us the boon of life and love, 
 And all the pleasures that are thereof. 
 Give us, O give us our heart's desire, 
 And with rapt joys our loves inspire ; 
 Maids pure hearted, and virgins fair. 
 Grant thou us our true loves to share j 
 Give these to us who pay thee vows, 
 Queen of the stars, and chaste as snows 
 That crown the brows of Apennine, 
 Grant us thy dower of love divine. 
 Hearken and hear, O lovely queen, 
 For faithful lovers we have been. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 
 Thou whose breath is the pearly dew 
 Decking the lotus-leaf and rue, 
 Breathe a blessing from thy chaste soul, 
 And hold thy lovers in love's control. 
 And from thy throne of liquid sheen 
 Come down and kiss them, mighty queen. 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 113 
 
 Poet. 
 
 Thou bride of night, thou goddess chaste, 
 
 Smile through thy veil of hicent sheen ; 
 Thou monarch of the nocturn gloom. 
 
 Thou fair and fruitful maid serene. 
 Over the slumbering world O shed 
 
 The tranquil glow of peace supreme, 
 And melancholy with thy light 
 
 Shroud in the magic of a dream. 
 
 Chorus of the Maidens. 
 Mother of all fair fruitful things, 
 And all that to thy bounty clings. 
 Fairy queen of the elfin streams, 
 ' Whereon thy sparkling glory gleams, 
 Through all the hours of silent night 
 Make full our amorous spirits' plight. 
 Queen of our revels, virgin queen. 
 Under our feet are fields of green 
 Strewed with the night-flowers full in bloom. 
 And perfiimed by the fragrant broom, 
 Hereon we dance to thee our praise 
 Under thy mild and placid gaze. 
 
 8 
 
114 ^ -HYMnr to -THE MOON. 
 
 Over our heads are fields of grey 
 Melting before the breath of day 
 Into -sweet tears of glistening dew 
 Decking the rose, and hyacinth blue, 
 Mistress of months, maidens, and flowers. 
 And purple night's soft sandalled hours. 
 Make our love full, and its fruits fair, 
 By the sweet balm of thy cooling air. 
 This is our hope, O lady wan, 
 Ere o'er the hills cometh the dawn. 
 Hearken, and grant life's choicest boon 
 To us who hymn thy laud, O Modn. 
 
 Chorus of the Youths. 
 Shine, O goddess, with power divine ; 
 Grant thou our prayers, give us a sigii ; 
 Make our wives fruitful ; make "them fair, 
 Virgins or wives, this is our prayer. 
 Maiden and queen, grant us life's boon, 
 We who hymn thy praises, O Moon. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 
 Mother of months and dew-decked flowers ; 
 Bride of the night whose sandalled hours 
 
A HYMN TO THE MOON. 115 
 
 Tread the hills like a timorous fawn 
 Fearful of death with the coming dawn. 
 Hear us, O Bride, grant us love's boon 
 Who hymn thy praises, O pallid Moon ! 
 
n6 
 
 UNCERTAINTY. 
 
 AN IMPROVISE. 
 
 Shall I be smitten with death, 
 
 Shall I be smitten with woe 
 When the sun arises on high 
 
 With a bright crimson glow ? 
 Shall I be stricken with death 
 
 When the moon arises to shine ? 
 Shall this my soul be smitten 
 
 With a sorrow divine ? 
 
 O, when the pain that falls sadly 
 Pierceth the core of my heart, 
 
 Then through the tempests of years 
 I shall pass, and depart ! 
 
UNCERTAINTY. 1 1 7 
 
 O, how the thought chills my soul ! 
 
 O, how the dream wastes my hope ! 
 For the desires of life 
 
 That with .breath shall elope. 
 
 God ! if God be in shadow ; 
 
 God ! if God be in death ; 
 Can God the Merciful hope for" 
 
 The passing of life's fondest breath? 
 
 For, through the mists of the morrow 
 
 I see but a dreary gloom, 
 And through the faltering years 
 
 I see but .the shade of the tomb. 
 Ever and ever desponding, 
 
 Ever made sick with my fears, 
 I chasten the clouds of my sorrow 
 
 With sad and uncertain years. 
 They gather and fall o'er my spirit 
 
 Like pleasure sore blighted with pain; 
 They fall and they fade like the evening 
 
 To brighten the morrow again. 
 
ii8 UNCERTAINTY. 
 
 call me ! O call me, ye spirits, 
 Beyond the fair mountains of death ; 
 
 For I see on the purple horizon 
 The spectres of earthly breath. 
 
 1 strive in wrath with my passions, 
 I call upon God in my woe 
 
 To dull the ethereal splendour 
 
 That over my weird thoughts glow. 
 
 I sink in the sadness of sorrow ; 
 
 I am lost in the clouds of despair ; 
 But my love for the things that are present 
 
 With smiles mocks my lorn spirit there. 
 
 The abyss of the future surrounds me, 
 The depths of the night are in gloom. 
 
 Yet the phantom of Hope gathers round me 
 As I slumber as if in. the tomb:, 
 
 O they part ! O they part !■ all the glories 
 That bind me with love to this earth ; 
 
 They part ; for the joy of Life'isi pleasnies 
 Made sear all my soul at its birth. 
 
UNCERTAINTY. 1 1 9 
 
 The soul — ^hath it birthright in sorrow ? 
 
 The soul — ^hath it seasons for gain ? 
 Bides my soul on the dismal to-morrow 
 
 To find resurrection in pain ? 
 No — I die ; we all die, and in dying, 
 
 With dire stricken breath 
 We yield both our souls and our bodies 
 
 To darkness eternal at death. 
 
YEARS AGO ! 
 
 O HOW she loved me years ago 
 
 When sunny hours embowered us, 
 
 When hopeful youth, its brightest glow 
 
 With dazzling grace empowered us. 
 
 But this you know 
 Was years ago. 
 
 But soon the breath of winter cold 
 
 Nipped my fair floweret in the bud : 
 
 Though years are young, that time is old 
 
 When my love loved me as I would, ' 
 
 Which was you know 
 Years, years ago. 
 
YEARS AGO/ 
 
 The days soon passed mid smiles and tears, 
 
 Mid fruitful sorrow, pain, and anguish. 
 Yet for that love, of by-gone years 
 My fainting soul shall ever languish, 
 Even, although 
 'Twas years ago. 
 
 O well she loved me years ago 
 
 When future hopes embowered us, 
 And pleasures shed the magic glow 
 That with rapt joy empowered us. 
 But this was so 
 Years, years ago. 
 
 Ah, fickle Time ! ah, fickle heart ! 
 
 Why thus soon change such joy to sorrow? 
 Why lend us Hope, then mock the part 
 That eagerly awaits the morrow ? 
 
 That morrow — oh ! 
 Years, years ago. 
 
123 YEARS AGO.' 
 
 Ye know not grief whose loves are true, 
 
 Whose lips are warmed with faithful kisses ; 
 For love's full heart requiteth you j 
 And of earth's joys the sweetest this is. 
 
 How sweet — I know 
 From years ago. 
 
 Love first caressed, then cast away 
 
 Stings deeper, far, than aspish bite, 
 And clouds the heart's own brightest ray 
 With gloomier shades than darkest night. 
 Such was my woe 
 Years, years ago. 
 
 Farewell, my love, ray love no more 
 
 As you were onca— years, years ago— 
 We'll meet, perhaps, upon that shore 
 Where Love assumes its brightest glow. 
 The radiant glow 
 Of years ago. 
 
YEARS AGO.' 123 
 
 I know you loved me years ago 
 
 When future hopes embowered us, 
 
 And pleasures shed their wonted glow 
 
 As peace sublime empowered us, 
 
 Yes, it was so, 
 But — ^years ago. 
 
124 
 
 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 
 
 To-day. 
 
 Wooed and wedded, O happy am I, 
 
 Heigh ho, happy. 
 This is the day of all my life, 
 Happiest, merriest, maiden and wife. 
 
 Heigh ho, heigh ho. 
 Under the light of my lover's eye 
 Basketh my heart's love deliciously, 
 
 Heigh ho, happy. 
 Flushed with the joys of my spirit's play, 
 Bright as the loveHest maying day, 
 Wreathed with the blossoms of Love's array, 
 I and my soul with pleasure are gay, 
 Jasmine or orange, leaflet or flower, 
 This is my life's most delicious hour. 
 
rO-DA Y AND TO-MORRO W. 125 
 
 This is the day when my soul is full 
 With a passionate peace unutterable, 
 
 Heigh ho, heigh ho. 
 For I've been wooed and wedded to wive, 
 On earth is no happier maid alive. 
 
 Heigh ho, happy. 
 
 To-morrow. 
 
 Wedded and wived a year am I, 
 
 Heigh ho, weary. 
 
 Now are the days of sorrow and strife, 
 
 Days that call me mother and wife, 
 
 Heigh ho, heigh ho. 
 
 Under the frown of my husband's eye 
 
 Sinketh my spirit's hope bitterly, 
 
 Heigh ho, weary. 
 
 Water, ye tears, my lorn bosom's woe ! 
 
 Heartless and cold as the winter's snow 
 
 Now is the love that a year ago 
 
 Made my young heart with love's rapture glow. 
 
 Cypress and yew in the north wind's breath. 
 
 Whine the sad song of my early death ! 
 
126 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 
 
 O parched are my lips for that burning kiss 
 Which brought to my soul deleterious bliss, 
 
 Heigh ho, heigh ho. 
 That day whereon I was wedded to wive — 
 O God, that this day should see me alive ! 
 
 Heigh ho, weary. 
 
127 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Beyond the utmost power of sight, 
 To the land where the angels dwell, 
 
 My spirit sped on the wings of light ; 
 'Twas a land that my soul knew well. 
 
 There the moon's tright rays pale shadows cast 
 
 On my dream of love that long had past. 
 
 Heaven's harps were thrilled by the seraph choir, 
 Love, love was the theme of their song : 
 
 Then I awaked with a hallowed ire, 
 For my spuit was with that throng, 
 
 As my first-love sang that sweet old theme 
 
 We sang together in life's sad dream. 
 
128 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 ^LiFE comes to us mid pains and fears, 
 And e'er keeps fretting through all years ; 
 It struggles hard to catch the breath 
 That it must yield to potent death ; 
 It pauses here to feel the power 
 Of endless time with measured hour, 
 To see days italic with silent tread 
 O'er lands made great with all its dead. 
 Where like a bark upon a sea 
 It helmless sights eternity, 
 And eager to make sure its shore 
 It urges on with double oar, — 
 With Faith and Doubt in every breath, 
 But to be swamped at last by death. 
 
I2g 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 'Tis an old, old story : 
 
 How old ? ah, who can tell ? 
 Since the days when Time 
 Was wandering wild 
 
 Bereft of age's magic spell ; 
 When angels were as we are, 
 
 If such as angels be, 
 When God was hewing days and years 
 
 Out of eternity ; 
 When Beauty was not lovely 
 
 Since all heaven's race were fair ; 
 For the trancing glow of holy grace 
 
 Was beaming everywhere. 
 Mayhap this story were it known 
 
 Makes sinless life a woe. 
 Perchance it makes the angels 
 
 Man's ever jealous foe. 
 
130 THE. OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 Love made the heavens, and Love the earth j 
 
 Love crowned creation's wonder; 
 Love brings to man a timely birth, 
 
 And rends his joys in sunder. 
 But Love's my theme, and Love's my song, 
 And for it I shall still prolong 
 The hope that brought peace in my youth, 
 And gave me pastime in its ruth. 
 O sweet delicious tender joy. 
 That day Love lived without alloy. 
 The moments passed surcharged with passion, 
 
 Nor paused to hear Love's tale begun, 
 But glided on in the old fashion, 
 
 Whilst Love and I made pleasure one 
 Until the languid evening perse ■* 
 
 Shut out the golden setting sim. 
 What Love's to-day 'twill be to-morrow ; 
 Then wherefore tune my l3T:e to sorrow ? 
 
 The chaplet Peace enwreathes my heart, 
 Therefore we twain made one that day 
 
 Are very loth in life to part 
 Unless from grief I borrow. 
 Then Love for years shall be my theme. 
 
 And Love's delicious joys my song 
 
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 131 
 
 As down the smooth or ruffled stream 
 Of life my spirit's borne along. 
 
 In a golden sundown, by a lake, 
 
 Where trees their long lank shadows spread ; 
 Within a still sequestered brake, 
 
 Where myrtles whisper to the dead, 
 There reigns a silence so serene 
 
 That spirits haunt this lonely spot 
 To tell to each what they have seen 
 
 In that dire land where love dwells not. 
 There e'en the breath of summer's day 
 Pauses to kiss eve's tears away. 
 There Death itself would fain desire 
 To chafe its chillness with Love's fire. 
 
 Here Love to me its story told. 
 How old the tale ? ah, who can tell ? 
 Albeit it bound me with its spell 
 As it had done when Adam fell, 
 
 Or ere time dreamed of growing old. 
 
132 
 
 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA, 
 
 AN INTERLUDE. 
 
 Scene — In the Boudoir of the Duchess of Ferrara 
 Midnight. Lights burning. The Duchess alone. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Come batte il mio cuore ! e come lento 
 Passa il tempo che aspetta sull' amore ! 
 Quanto mi duole questa ira ! — Esso viene — 
 
 gioja ! — Ben venuto Cardinale ! 
 
 Enter Cardinal Bembo. 
 
 Bembo. 
 
 1 thank Ferrara's Duchess for her wish. 
 What would your Excellency that I should do, 
 Now that I've come, fulfilling your commands ? 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 133 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Abide with me, my Bembo, till with love's sweet speech 
 We have beguiled the lonely hours of night. 
 
 Bembo. 
 For this intent your Highness did command 
 I should this night give audience to your will ? 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 For no more dire intent than this, did I 
 Command thee here ; I will not say command — 
 It is too harsh a word for lovers' tongues. 
 Say, rather, did beseech thy presence here. 
 Then shall our words make concord with our hearts, 
 And the delicious yearnings of my life 
 Shall know no sweeter joy than that my soul 
 Shall feast upon thy mellow-measured words. 
 
 ^EMBO. 
 
 What ! doth your Highness speak thuswise to prove 
 If I be traitor to'Ferrara's lord and yours : 
 As if some godless aspiration strove 
 To make me play the truant to my wits ? 
 Ev'n in my wildest vanity I dare 
 
134 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 Not fashion hope to such a treacherous joy 
 As this wherewith you fain would bait my blood, 
 Ev'n if I knew your Highness uttered not 
 These pleasurable words for some conceit. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Bembo, I do but mould the longings of my soul 
 
 To words that scarcely shadow forth its will. 
 
 Were I to tell thee half my love for thee, 
 
 'Twould more than compass thy life's days and mine, 
 
 And e'en such time were not enough to speak 
 
 Its power, if that the keynote of thy love 
 
 Found not in me its passioned harmony. 
 
 Why look thus doubtfully ? Dost think I sport 
 
 With that which well I know must vanquish me ? 
 
 Dost think I'd drink such deadly poison thus. 
 
 And singe my soul with such consuming fires ? 
 
 Dost think I'd play the fool with such a love — 
 
 A love that hungers to devour itself? 
 
 I tell thee, Bembo, from the hidden springs 
 
 Of all my life I nourish love for thee. 
 
 Bembo. 
 You'll ever find me faithful to your wish. 
 In love, or aught your fancy conjures forth 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 135 
 
 From the dark depths of its most mystic ways, 
 
 I am your servant still ; but, should the taint 
 
 Of some unseen regret in aftertime 
 
 Fall heavily upon your soul, I would 
 
 For these your words give you an antidote. 
 
 Prince of the Holy Church am I, a priest 
 
 To hear confessions, and make light 
 
 By absolutions burthens that oppress 
 
 The sons and daughters of the Church of Christ. 
 
 So if your Highness will, deeming it just, 
 
 Confess yourself to me in suchwise as you list. 
 
 I'll hearken well, and, as our duty is, 
 
 As much as lieth in me tender you 
 
 A balm for that which makes your spirit sore. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Then, as a woman who from him she loves. 
 He loving her, asketh the cherished boon of life. 
 Grant thou fulfilment to my waning hopes. 
 And tell me from thy soul thou lovest me. 
 
 Bembo. 
 Thereby your Highness would the office fiU 
 From which by holy canon you're debarred. 
 
136 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 Ev'n if I loved you with such passioned ire 
 
 That its tempestuous wrath seethed in my heart. 
 
 And life itself were wasting for a kiss, 
 
 The which, if I but asked you for, should have. 
 
 And thus by hanging on your sigh-steeped lips 
 
 I might by tasting their deliciousness 
 
 Drink of the draught that slaked my thirsty soul, 
 
 I durst not utter it.:— For we confess, 
 
 As princes of the Holy Church of Christ, 
 
 And high in sacred trust, to none but God. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Tell me, my Bembo, that thou lovest me, 
 
 'Twill truly be a balm unto my soul ; 
 
 'Twill ease the loathsome burthen .of my fears. 
 
 No truer absolution canst thou give 
 
 To my infatuated sin, than this — 
 
 If sin it be to love thee, since I'm wed 
 
 Unto a man rich in conceits of war, 
 
 And charged to death with proud alliances, 
 
 A man of such chill manners, and of mien 
 
 So haughty, but appliant to his will, 
 
 That love is still a stranger to his breast, 
 
 In whom desire can wake not sympathy. — 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 137 
 
 Bembo, if sin there be in loving thee, 
 One for whom nature seemed to fashion me 
 To be partaker of thy spiritual trust. 
 I was not formed as meaner women are 
 To be the puppets of intriguing courts 
 Who barter for our loves as licenses. 
 Ah, Bembo, tell me that thou lovest me, 
 And with a kiss absolve my treasured sin. 
 
 Bembo. 
 I tell you I confess to none but God. 
 If you would be absolved for this your love, 
 Confessing, ope the secrets of your heart 
 And shew me all the love that's hidden there. 
 Then shall I search the caverns of my soul 
 That I may find a balm for your desires, 
 And make delicious your love-stricken years. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Then hear my soul's confession of its love. \she kneels 
 
 But ere I tell how first it grew to be 
 
 The mighty thing it is, I will confess 
 
 To thee the story of my youth's and matron years. — 
 
 Sole daughter of a fierce ambitious priest 
 
 My father sought to wed me for his weal, 
 
138 BEMBO AND LJJCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 While yet a child, to one of Spanish race, 
 But fortune's beacon lighting him to fame. 
 He wedded me, ere sixteen summers warmed 
 My blood, to Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. 
 This youth was one whose heart beloved himself. 
 Whose little mind was servant to his will, 
 A vain conceited thing whose constant dreams 
 Tailored new doublets, and wove silken hose. 
 Him did I suffer with for full four years. 
 Oft kissing him the while, but as a child 
 Caresseth a new toy — because 'tis new. — 
 But when these years had fled my heart professed 
 Unto my sire, communion brought not love. 
 This matched itself unto the Pontifi''s mind. 
 For whom ambition wrought new ways to power. 
 Thereon he made my old espousals void, — 
 By virtue of the trust he held from God, 
 Vicar of Christ, and Pontiff of his Church, — 
 To mate me with a new and mightier prince. 
 An offshoot of the house of Aragon. 
 Hast heard me, father, thus far in my life 
 Wherein was nurtured my absorbing love ? 
 
 Bembo. 
 As yet no love-tale fell upon mine ears. 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 139 
 
 But speak, my daughter ; if thou ever loved 
 'Twill doubtless wake my sympathies for thee. 
 So teach thy tongue to give it utterance, 
 And tell the sequel to thy wedded life. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Bisceglie's Duke, this time my body's spouse. 
 
 Waked nor respect nor love within my breast. 
 
 My heart untutored learned the power of hate. 
 
 And scourged my thoughts with its demoniac rage. 
 
 He was a man whose upright mien bespoke 
 
 His mind, whose ambling gait pourtrayed his thoughts ; 
 
 A man such as a thousand of our maids 
 
 Might with duplicity pass lustrums with. 
 
 And whom, when dead, might mourn as one beloved, — 
 
 A man nor love for self nor friend beguiled. 
 
 One for whom life was all involved in feasts. 
 
 Amusements, horses, masquerades, and wine ; 
 
 One dull to all the throbs of sympathy 
 
 That leap unbidden in the human breast ; 
 
 And, though his passion quickened in my womb, 
 
 I loathed him who thus meanly measured life. 
 
 And whispered one the hate that fettered me, 
 
 My brother Cesare, my most true friend, j 
 
J40 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 Anon, at the tenth moon my babe was bom — 
 The kindly providence that made me mother 
 Soon made an orphan of my new-born babe ; 
 My husband digd by the assassin's hand, 
 Leaving my widowed self a legacy 
 To him who now is gay Ferrara's Duke. 
 Hast hearkened, father, to my heart's sad tale ? 
 If pity for me hath a part in thee. 
 Assure me of it, that my tongue may learn 
 Words apt in importunity wherewith 
 To change thy pity into fervorous love. 
 
 Bembo. 
 If pity can assure thy tongue to speak 
 More fervidly the yearnings of thy soul. 
 If pity can thine importunity 
 Assure with a more certain hope to have 
 Absolvment clear for thy life's loveless days. 
 All that is mine I do on thee bestow. 
 'Tis true that pity often stirs up love, 
 And that the love thus wakened weds desire 
 For those whose sorrows find in pity kin. 
 Thus far thy heart's confessed indiflference. 
 And hate, for. which I do conceive thy life 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 141 
 
 Hath in its fruitlessness atonement made ; 
 Therefore herein I hold thee as absolved 
 By God himself, and therein meddle not. 
 But touching that thy heart would fain confess 
 I have not heard the lisping of a word, 
 So pitying pause to hear thee utter it. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Him, for whose name my father bartered me, 
 
 I love not ; in the which our hearts are peers, 
 
 He lacking love for me : and yet withal 
 
 We bear for each a mutual respect, 
 
 A debt due all whose lives are brimming full 
 
 Of heartfelt deeds and mighty purposes. 
 
 Alfonso is a prince whom all his subjects love ; 
 
 A man in whose great heart his country's good 
 
 Holds sway omnipotent in its estate ; 
 
 But in whose breast the fires of love are quenched, 
 
 The wells of sympathy long parched by grief 
 
 For her whom late he loved, and loving mcmrns. 
 
 Thus by strange ways our diverse feelings verge 
 
 To that which hath nor love nor hate — respect — 
 
 His later love precluding love for me, 
 
 My latest, only love, repelling love for him. 
 
142 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 O, Bembo, if thou'dst have confession full, 
 
 It is the love I nourish here for thee 
 
 Maketh me bear the life-ofFending ills 
 
 Of my lorn spirit's unrequited years. 
 
 Now have I told mine inmost thoughts to thee, 
 
 And bared my soul's still bleeding wounds in hope 
 
 That thy heart's artifice shall be their balm. 
 
 Turn thy bright beaming eyes on me, and say 
 
 Thou lov'st me ; then my gaping wounds are healed, 
 
 My weary soul refreshed with joyous hopes 
 
 Of days replete with all the ecstasies of love, 
 
 When in the sunshine of thy smile I'll bloom 
 
 To peace, thereby absolved of all my sin. 
 
 Chafe not my fears with doubt ; but say thou lov'st 
 
 Her, who, in shewing thee her heart, unbound 
 
 The sore oppressing chains that womaned her. 
 
 Bembo. 
 Then be thy soul expurged of all its guilt. 
 For with thine absolution my heart teems. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 O God, thou lov'st me then ! or, do I dream ? 
 Come, Bembo, with the melody of speech 
 Assure me by confessing all thy love. 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 143 
 
 Bembo. 
 Confess — I do confess to none but God. 
 For wherewithal shalt thou thus be absolved, 
 Since in confession I surcharge thy soul 
 With all the guilt of mine. But since thou wilt 
 Have passioned words with which to charm thine ears, 
 I'll grant thy very heart's desire, and speak 
 Thy sin's absolvment from my very soul. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Then, let the magic of thy thrilling words 
 Steep my infatuated fears in bliss. 
 
 Bembo. 
 Daughter, the agony of thy desires 
 Hath struck the keynote of my sympathy. 
 Hear then thine absolution, and consume 
 Thy fears ; as that which makes thy spirit whole 
 Hath day and night for years consumed me. 
 Since first I saw thee as Ferrara's bride, 
 Decked as a pageant queen beside thy lord, 
 My fancy traced thy portrait on my heart, 
 And there 'twill live till death obliter it. 
 Ev'n though the aspirations of my soul 
 
144 BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 
 
 Scaled to the highest peak of paradise, 
 I durst not tutor this my cherished hope 
 To vision thee, Lucrezia, my beloved, 
 As other than my love's own phantom queen. 
 But now, since thou hast told me of thy love, 
 A recompense for all thine ancient woe, 
 And the waste, barren years of thy young life 
 Shall in thy absolution compass thee. 
 Lucrezia, couldst thou fathom my love's depths, 
 The wildering thought of its profundity 
 Would swamp to death the shallowness of thine. 
 Were I to breathe its fierce desires, the fires 
 That draw from dull cold earth delicious fruits, 
 Rich in the treasury of beauty's sweets. 
 Would fair to picture to thy woman-soul 
 The ravenous flames that lecking fan my love 
 To surging wrath for thee, mine earthly queen. 
 Not e'en the plangent wave's convulsive sobs 
 Fretting their sorrows into myriad tears 
 Could mirror thee the grievings of my breast 
 When first I gazed upon thy damask cheek. 
 Glowing with all the varied hues of youth. 
 And thought that such a luscious draught as that 
 Which brimmed upon thy coral lips, would make 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 145 
 
 Ferrara's son intoxicate that night. 
 Canst thou divine my love's infinity ? 
 Canst thou not in these burning words inform 
 Thine amorous soul of the ecstatic love 
 That panting — panting, ever panting still. 
 Ravished my life with its unsatiate desire? 
 
 could I speak the mystery of its spell ! 
 Could I but picture thee its might ! But, God, 
 
 1 fail in human speech to fashion forth 
 The cloven fires that saturate my soul. 
 Come closer, darling ! Hear me, sweet ! 
 
 Thus — thus do I absolve thy sinning soul \Kissing her 
 By adding to my fires this incensed oil. 
 Press, press thy burning lips to mine, till full 
 With my delirious love thy sin's absorpt. 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 My soul dreamt not of such a soothing balm 
 As that which thy love-word pours in my heart. 
 With the delicious joys of our lips' bliss 
 Let's breathe in each the fire of hidden hopes, 
 And spoil delusion with a satiate hour. 
 Pietro, if we lack aught in this our love, 
 
146 BEMBO AND LUCREZTA BORGIA. 
 
 Let darkness make complete its trancing joy. 
 
 ^Blows out the light 
 Now bind me in the rapturous bonds of love, 
 And with delights love only knoweth of, 
 Make my infatuated soul thy thrall. 
 Lay, lay thy head upon my breast, O God ! 
 Now kiss me, Pietro, kiss me ! How he love's ! 
 
 Bembo. 
 'Twere better, sweet, that there should be some light : 
 'Tis very dark 
 
 LUCREZIA. 
 
 Doth darkness hinder love ? 
 The treacherous flames that in pur bloods conspire 
 To vanquish each now hath the hour for spoil. 
 'Twere better Love should commune in the dark. 
 That all its latent glories may shine forth 
 In their impulsive brilliancy to shed 
 Around our secret ways their lambent light. 
 Pietro, my love consumes my very soul : 
 Cast thou on me the waters of thy joy 
 That this my ardent blood shall seething waste 
 Its own desires in ecstasy. — A kiss — 
 
BEMBO AND LUCREZIA BORGIA. 14; 
 
 Another — O such joy ! they ravish me ! 
 Stay ! stay ! nay, kiss me now, I hunger still ; 
 My very soul is famished for such bliss, — 
 Now let thy love do with me what it lists. 
 
 Bembo. 
 
 Lucrezia, hush ! the passion of thy love 
 
 Doth as a hurricane o'ercome thy speech. 
 
 Abide, and calm thy spirit's storm with this — 
 
 \Kissing Iier 
 
 Thus let us pass the midnight hours — abide — abide. 
 
 Lucrezia. 
 Abide ! no — ^no — subdue my soul with thine 1 
 Pietro, our love shall know no utterance. 
 O God ! O Pietro ! give me all thy love I 
 The darkness covers us — 
 
 Bembo. 
 
 Lucrezia, sweet. 
 
 to — 2 
 
148 
 
 LOVE'S AMULET. 
 
 Kiss me, my beauty, and tell me 
 The joy that is sweetest to love ; 
 
 Kiss me, and I will caress thee 
 As 'twere with the wings of a dove. 
 
 A dove's love is fierce in its passion, 
 But a sparrow's is surer and true. 
 
 So we'll love as the doves love for fashion, 
 And strive for the sparrow's love too. 
 
 The serpent hath eyes fascinating, 
 
 And kisses delicious and keen. 
 But treachery lives in its favours, 
 
 And death in its poisonous spleen. 
 
 While its tongue on the lips hangs for pleasure 
 
 Giving passionate fire unto faith. 
 He coileth around you, encircling 
 
 Your body with anguish and death. 
 
LOVE'S AMULET 149 
 
 Kiss me, and tell me the joy, love, 
 
 To me that is sweetest an hour : 
 Kiss me, and tell me in whispers 
 
 The force of its fleeting power ! 
 
 Truth is to love, O the sweetest 
 
 Of all the fair joys of the heart : 
 Then kiss me, and truth, love, shall mingle 
 
 Our lives with its joys ere we part. 
 
 For sparrow's or dove's love, I tremble 
 
 Lest doubt turn to ashes our lust. 
 So kiss me, my darling, and tell me 
 
 If beauty be fleeting like dust. 
 
 Yea as dust by a fierce wind is scattered 
 To parch up the summertide's tears, 
 
 So the beauty of woman Time flatters 
 To temper the wrath of new years. 
 
 But truth it endures till the shadow 
 
 Of Time's dissolution is nigh. 
 And its glories make dim the illusion 
 
 Of Future's eternity. 
 
ISO LOVE'S AMULET. 
 
 Life's love, if that truth should forsake it 
 And not lend the grace of its bliss, 
 
 Must vanish in clouds of old memories 
 When souls cease to speak in a kiss. 
 
 For kisses are sparks from our spirits 
 
 Awakened by lips into light, 
 •Whose brilliancies splendours inherit 
 
 That dazzle the visions of night. 
 
 Then wake on my lips, love, with fervour. 
 The long-slumbering fires of my soul, 
 
 And lighten the dark ways of sorrow 
 Wherein the fierce waves of doubt roll. 
 
 We seek not in Time for the phantom 
 Of love that is moulded to days ; 
 
 But we drift towards the death-spoiling beacon 
 That's wreathed with translucent bays. 
 
 Its beauty despoileth the terrors 
 
 Of death, and our life's certain doom, 
 
 For we hold here the bond of our union 
 To earth and eternity's gloom. 
 
LOVES AMULET. 151 
 
 By that sombre still sea glide the spectres 
 That fain would us lure with a spell 
 
 To the waves that heave high with the sighings 
 Of sorrows hiccupping from helL 
 
 But life is our season for pastime, 
 
 Let us revel and frolic in youth ; 
 Since the suns of old days shine no longer 
 
 We'll bask in the starlight of truth. 
 
 Then kiss me, my sweet heart, and murmur 
 What pleasure o'ercometh life's pain, 
 
 What rapture despoileth the terror 
 Of death, our life's sad certain gain ? 
 
 Sting my lips with those passionate kisses, 
 Those sparks of our spirits' desires. 
 
 And overreach grief with their blisses, 
 And warm my cold heart with their fires. 
 
 Kiss, kiss me, and tell me the feelings 
 To thee that have mightiest power ; 
 
 Kiss sweetly, and whisper me softly 
 The strain of their mystical dower ? 
 
IS2 LOVES AMULET. 
 
 The tremulous beauty of passion 
 Made holy in lifetime and youth, 
 
 By the pledges of Love and its saviour, 
 The angel of lifetime — Love's truth. 
 
>S3 
 
 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Amensis. 
 My heart is sick for love's enticing ways, 
 Now that mine eyes have caught the spark that fires 
 The secret sjrmpathy of amorous souls ; 
 And the foiled sweets my blood hath fed upon 
 Make my soul furious for a mutual joy 
 Wherewith to nourish the awakened pangs 
 That famish and yei feed my hungry breast. 
 His form is ever mirrored in my dreams, 
 His shadow haunts me. O ! by Egypt's gods, 
 Entoiled in his embraces amid smiles. 
 And thrilling kisses, and love's sultry sighs, 
 My glutton passion shall be satiate ; 
 And the swift current of my secret stream 
 Shall he, my lovely Hebrew bond-youth, stay 
 
154 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 With the first-fruits of his delicious love. 
 Thou mighty goddess who provoked my birth, 
 And mated me unto a barren spouse, 
 Mingle with thy delights my full filled veins, 
 And Avith the glowing breathings of thy might 
 Extol in my completed joy thy power ! 
 O Isis, sovereign goddess of desire. 
 Wake my expiring faith with trust intense, 
 And fashion me for pleasure's amorous sweets. 
 That my enticements may allure this youth, 
 My Israelitish slave to whom I'm thrall. 
 To waste with Love's supremest ecstasy 
 The yearnings of my blood that vanquish me ! 
 Hath Love's infatuation so instilled 
 My spirit with a serpent-tongued deceit 
 That I should cheat my lawful lord of joys 
 That I had vowed were solely hi^ for life, 
 Or, hath the magic light of this boy's eyes 
 Bewitched my fancy with those sorceries 
 That blind life's reason with their mystic ways, 
 Flooding the barren heart with heavenly light, 
 Ev'n urging to oblivious shades and death 
 The blunted passion of life-wedded flesh ? 
 ye divinities who guard our loves, 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 155 
 
 Purge my lust-fretted soul of its remorse, 
 And kindle in love's treasury a flame 
 Wherewith may be absorbed my blood's desires. 
 Enter Joseph. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Potiphar, my master and thy lord, by me 
 His servant, sendeth greeting unto thee. 
 The which he would himself have given, but 
 That Pharaoh by the word of his own mouth 
 Hath bidden my lord speed with urgent haste 
 To Memphis, there with him to worship Ptah. 
 Therefore by me thy lord hath sent his love. 
 And doth commend you to his gods to heed 
 In loving wise the duty and the faith 
 Yovir mutual loves, for life, require of each. 
 
 , Amensis. 
 All glory to the gods that taught our Pharaoh's heart 
 To bid my Lord fulfil his sovereign wish. 
 And when did Pharaoh and thy master part 
 To worship Ptah ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Ev'n as I entered here 
 I saw the Pharaoh's chariot pass the gates. 
 
IS6 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Sweet youth, my thanks ; nay, more, my sweeter love, 
 For this delicious message thou hast taught 
 Thy Hebrew tongue to bear me from my lord. 
 Come, sit by me awhile, and tell me, boy, 
 Of thy captivity, thy home and birth, 
 Thy father, and thy kin, of her who gave 
 A gift so goodly to the gods and me ; 
 For knowest thou that Potiphar bought thee 
 That thou might'st wait on me as servitor ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Yea, lady, verily I wot my lord 
 Bought me to serve thee alway in his house. 
 E'en made me chief thereof for thy sweet sake, 
 And nought hath holden from me saving thee. 
 And as thou listest to hear aught of me, 
 My tongue with joy shall make all known herewith. 
 Of my captivity, and home, the land 
 Wherein we dwelt, in Hebron's shady vale. 
 My father and my kin, of Rachel, she 
 Who gave me life, shall I now tell to thee. 
 The wives and handmaids of my father bare 
 Him twelve male children, and one female child. 
 
JOSEPH AND AM ENS IS. 157 
 
 Dinah, she whom Shechem, Hamor's son, defiled 
 Because he loved her, and my sister him. 
 ■ Then Hamor asked my father, Israel, 
 If he would give his daughter unto wife. 
 Seeing that Shechem was beloved by her. 
 And when he communed with his sons, they spake 
 To Hamor, saying : ' Let your sons and all 
 Your males be circumcised, then we will wed 
 Our sister to your son, and, furthermore, 
 Our daughters will we wed unto your sons ; 
 And if you will, your daughters shall we wed, 
 And we shall be one people serving God.' 
 And all the Shechemites were circumcised : 
 Whereon in treachery my brethren, twain, 
 Simeon and Levi, smote them with the sword 
 So that they died : then spoiled them of their goods : 
 For in that Shechem with our sister lay, 
 Gteat folly had been wrought in Israel. 
 My mother, Rachel, to my father bare 
 Two sons, my brother Benoni and me. 
 For her our father, Israel, twice seven years 
 Laban, his uncle and her father, served 
 In Padan-aram, whither he had fled 
 Before his brother Esau's face ; for he, 
 
IS8 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 In that his mother did abet him to't, 
 
 Purloined deceitfully the blessing which 
 
 Isaac, their sire, would fain have given him. 
 
 Therefore he sware him by a mighty oath 
 
 To compass Jacob's death whene'er the days 
 
 Of mourning for their father passed ; for our 
 
 Grandfather Isaac was on point of death 
 
 When Jacob stole our uncle Esau's right. 
 
 But El-EUiohe-Israel him saved ; 
 
 For it was told him of his brother's oath ; 
 
 Therefore to Padan gat he secretly, 
 
 And there our mother, Rachel, did he woo ; 
 
 For, verily, he loved her with great love. 
 
 And asked her sire to give her unto wife ; 
 
 And Laban said, ' Serve thou for full seven years. 
 
 Then shall I give thee Rachel for thy wife.' 
 
 And Israel said to Laban, ' Be it so.' 
 
 And Israel served for her seven weary years, 
 
 Which, when fiilfiUed, a marriage feast was made. 
 
 And Laban gave him Leah unto wife ; 
 
 But her my father, Jacob, never loved, 
 
 For she was tender-eyed, and elder-born. 
 
 And Jacob said, ' Why hast thou served me thus ? 
 
 My wage was Rachel, prithee give me her.' 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 159 
 
 And Laban said, ' We have a custom here 
 That she who is the younger may not wed 
 Before her sister that is elder-bom ; 
 So serve thou seven more years, and I 
 Will surely give thee Rachel for thy wife.' 
 And Israel served for her : for with a love 
 Supreme he loved her ; and they twain were wed, 
 And Rachel to my father bare me first, 
 And in her death my brother Benoni. 
 
 Amensis. 
 O cruel, cruel, and unkindly death 
 To smite the tree that bore such goodly fruit ! 
 In sooth did Israel, thy father, love 
 Thy mother ; but how came it thou wast sold 
 To be a bondsman to the Midianites ? 
 For those who sold thee to my lord thus spake 
 Concerning thee, 'From merchants, whom their speech 
 Bewrayed as Midianites, we purchased him.' 
 Now tell me wherefore thou didst leave the vale 
 Of Hebron, wherein thou wast bom, and where 
 Thy brethren and thy kindred dwell, and where 
 Thou say'st thy father lives, and hath his home ; 
 For, verily, thy God dealt sore with thee. 
 Seeing thou'rt highly favoured, and still young. 
 
i6o JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Thus was it, lady ; ever since my birth 
 My father loved me with exceeding love, 
 Seeing I was his Rachel's eldest-born. 
 And the first pledge of their united loves, 
 The which with jealous eyes my brothers saw ; 
 Therefore with hatred keen they hated me. 
 In time, behold, I dreamed a dream, in which 
 Meseeraed my brethren and myself did glean 
 After the reapers in my father's fields, 
 And that my sheaf of its own will arose 
 Upright, and stood, while all my brothers' sheaves 
 Did likewise, but obeisance made to mine. 
 Wherefore my brethren hated me the more, 
 And baited me with bitter words, therefore 
 I sorrowed in my heart and held my peace. 
 Anon, it came to pass I dreamed another dream : 
 Meseemed that in the highest heavens I saw 
 The sun, moon, and eleven stars, to me 
 Bow lowly down, which thing I told my sire ; 
 For which he did rebuke me sorely, saying, 
 ' Shall I, thy mother, and thy brethren bow 
 Ourselves before thee to the earth?' and laughed, 
 But not in mockery ; and my brothers spake 
 No word, but all while hated me the more. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. i6i 
 
 Amensis. 
 By Ra, in strange-wise did thy troubles come. 
 And did thy God who shewed thee all these dreams 
 Deliver thee into thy brothers' hands ? 
 Say on, say on, how came it thou wast sold 
 To strangers, seeing the Apuriu are free'? 
 
 Joseph. 
 It came to pass at Shechem were our flocks, 
 The which my brethren tended for our sire. 
 Thither my father sent me, for he said, 
 < I fain would learn if all be well with them, 
 And with the flocks :' so thitherward I went. 
 Lo, when I came unto the field where erst 
 They shepherded the flocks, they were not there ; 
 And as I sought them, one came by and said, 
 ' What seekest thou ?' and then I answered him : 
 ' I seek my brethren and their flocks ; I pray 
 Thee where be they ?' and lo, he said, ' I heard 
 Them say, " To Dothan let us go." ' Then I 
 To Dothan straightway went, and found them there. 
 And when I told them all my father's wish. 
 How that he yearned to know if they were well, 
 And if the flocks were well ; they answered nought, 
 
i62 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS, 
 
 But communed with themselves to take my life. 
 
 Whereon my brother Reuben said, ' We will 
 
 Not slay the lad, but Cast him in this pit.' 
 
 For, peradventure thought he, I will save 
 
 The lad. Then did they cast me in the pit 3 
 
 And then my brother Reuben went away. 
 
 Then did the others, lifting up their eyes, 
 
 Behold a company of Ishmaelites, 
 
 The offspring of our great'grandfathefs son 
 
 By Hagar, Ishmael, who with their mules 
 
 And camels came from Gilead, and brought 
 
 With them its zori, spiceries, and myrrh, 
 
 Which they to Egypt, here, for hither they 
 
 Were bound, did bring for merchandize. To these 
 
 My kindred sold me, and they unto thee. 
 
 Thus did it come to pass God brought me here 
 
 To find sweet bondage, lady, in thy house, 
 
 All glory to Jehovah, Israel's God, 
 
 For truly he hath made my sorrow light. 
 
 , - Amensis. 
 
 O kindly God that brought thee here for me ; 
 And but for these thy dreams thou had'st ne'er seen 
 My face, nor these mine eyes have mirrored thine. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 163 
 
 Come bide by me all day, and we will talk 
 
 Of Hebron's valley, and its silvery streams, 
 
 Of Shechem, Dothan, and of Gilead 
 
 Whence come the balm and myrrh which lend 
 
 Voluptuous graces to Egyptian maids. 
 
 Then thou shalt strive and teach me thy sweet speech. 
 
 The tongue in which thou say'st Jehovah speaks. 
 
 And thus, the while my lord's away, we'll make 
 
 Delicious pastime, and our lives shall be a joy ; 
 
 For fain would I beguile the tortoise-hours 
 
 Of this my youth by learning some sweet words 
 
 In thy soft Hebrew speech. Now tell me, boy, 
 
 How callest thou this earth in thine own tongue. 
 
 That I with my Egyptian voice may strive 
 
 To utter it with all the flow of thine. 
 
 Joseph, 
 Haarets : thus do we entitle it. 
 
 Amensis. 
 O apt, apt speech that thus in harsh notes calls 
 The kindless earth, Haarets, ev'n my tongue 
 Doth catch its bitterness ; and yet meseems 
 Ev'n in its bitterness there's much that's sweet. 
 
 II — 2 
 
i64 yCSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Haarets ! how I love thee, for thou art 
 
 A holy surety, and a 'happy joy, 
 
 And in thy sorrow there is much of bliss 
 
 That death in all its glory rivals not. 
 
 Pray look on this : knowest thou what sign it is ? 
 
 What import the design, and how divine ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 It is an emerald as a beetle graven, 
 But what its import is I cannot say. 
 
 Amensis. 
 It is a scarabeus : worn by all our dames 
 To ever emblem to their minds that after death 
 We have another life; and that the next 
 Surpasses in its joy the majesty of this. 
 The whither we obtain this life is heaven. 
 Hast thou in native speech so sweet a word ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Nay, lady ; such a place we wot not of 
 But where our God, Jehovah, dwells we call 
 By Hashamayim , but its palaces 
 Doth no man fashion as his dwelling-place 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 165 
 
 When we to God yield up our bod/s ghost. 
 For we do hold, at least our fathers held, 
 That in our death we barter all that's life's, 
 And pass into that land from whence we came 
 In labouring sorrow ; but what whither 'tis, 
 Alas, our bUnded reason cannot dream. 
 
 Amensis. 
 And do thy father and thy brethren think 
 Men hath no dwelling in this realm of God ? 
 Nay, surely, each must have an after hope ; 
 For life is but a wearisome decree, 
 A vague and unsubstantial thing, that wastes 
 Ere it is e'en complete. Hast thou no hope ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Yea, lady, much : not for myself, alas ; 
 For our Jehovah ne'er hath promised bliss 
 Of an eternal pastime after death 
 To any son of Abraham ; but for 
 The offspring of our loins hath he reserved much. 
 For, verily, on earth we shall be great. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Hath the Apuriu no noble name 
 Whereby to call their mighty God's abode? 
 
i66 yOSEPH AND A MENS IS. 
 
 Joseph. 
 We have ; but our Jehovah's dwelling-place 
 Cannot contain his majesty : the heavens, 
 The seas, and all dark places that the ken 
 Of man can ne'er attain to, all's too small 
 To hold the awful mightiness of Him 
 Who is Elohim, Adonal, God. 
 The name by which we call his dwelling-place 
 Is Hashamayim; for the lofty skies, 
 Alone, maintain the holiness of him 
 Who is our El-Elohe-Israel. 
 
 Amensis. 
 O sweet, sweet name ! let me but whisper it ! 
 Is't Hashamayim — ^heavens ? — delicious sound ! 
 Could I but give thee, word, thy latent power, 
 My tongue should echo through the world 
 The mellow voiced pleasures of thy joy. 
 What ! Hashamayim ! O thou thrilling word. 
 My voice doth quiver lending it to speech ! 
 For in thy hapnonies I hear the whispering voice 
 Of Him who is our God, and mighty Isis' spouse 
 O fruitful, generous Isis, teach me love ! 
 Doth thy God know the influence of love ? 
 
JOSEPH AND A MENS IS. 167 
 
 Or is He in His ways an all-absorbing power, 
 Self-generative; self-conceiving, one 
 In whom his own desire fulfils itself? 
 Or, hath he in himself that which distils 
 The secret richness of earth's thrilling love ? 
 Or, hath he one who queens his every will, 
 Fulfils his passion, and consumes his love 
 With sweet inducements as our Isis doth 
 Osiris, who is Egypt's chiefest god? ■ 
 If that thy God be sovereign of such bliss, 
 The passioned ecstasy of earthly love, 
 Then tell me of it, that my soul may woo 
 So fair a deity as is thy God. 
 For I do pant to whet my youthful blood 
 With the rapt pleasures -of an amorous god, 
 Since we in Egypt lack our heart's desire 
 In that we serve a god whose loves are wan, 
 Whose mystic rites awaken in our breasts 
 The magical delights of jocund youth 
 To lay them waste with unsufiicing ire. 
 Such be our gods : with all the artifice 
 Their priests can conjure to instil our minds 
 With their empyreal grace, our spirits mock, 
 And find in all their ways the boast of power, — 
 
i68 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 An inane, false, deceptive might, that all 
 
 In seeming hold as creed, while in their hearts 
 
 They yearn to serve some love-inspiring god. 
 
 I would worship such a God as thine 
 If I but knew that in his Godhead dwelt 
 Man's boon of life, the complement of love. 
 Tell me, O tell me if thy God be love. 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 1 wot not, truly, if our God be love ; 
 
 For by such name great Abram knew Him not. 
 Albeit He dowers the earth with love and life, 
 The which delighteth man till death's dire day. 
 And I have heard our father Israel say, 
 ' Serve ye Jehovah ; then your days shall wax 
 In peace and plenteousness, and in the night 
 Shall trancing love be pUlowed on your breasts.' 
 
 Amensis. 
 O promise fair ! then let love pUlow here. 
 And in my every thought I'll worship Him 
 Who is thy God. Come hither, boy 1 my soul 
 Is faint to learn from thine own lips the love 
 Which in the night-time pillows on our breasts 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 169 
 
 If we do serve Elohe-Israel. 
 
 Pray teach me how to worship, then my soul 
 
 Will satisfy itself with all its ire, 
 
 And the dull fires that smoulder in my breast 
 
 Shall burst to splendour for love's sacrifice. 
 
 Know, Hebrew, I do rage to feast upon 
 
 The sweets of such a strange-like cult ; for long 
 
 My blood hath hungered for such joy, e'en till 
 
 The vesicles of my lorn heart have drunk 
 
 Libations of false hope to famishment. O God ! 
 
 How I do pine for such a love as this, 
 
 With which thou sa/st thy God is full 
 
 As Nilus, when with Ethiopia's snows, 
 
 Molten by An, she overflows to floods. 
 
 Through Egypt spreading rich fertihty. 
 
 Let me but bask a spell beneath its rays, 
 
 Then shall my spirit, flushed with all its sweets, 
 
 Intoxicate my life with its deliciousness. 
 
 And my weird fancies shall assume the robes 
 
 In which Love clothes itself the while it feasts. 
 
 Yea, more, I'll waken all the majesty 
 
 Of ifs sublime divinity, and thus 
 
 Foil, frustrate, and dispel the passion which 
 
 In secret doth consume my unjoyed life — 
 
i7t> JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 For life hath many complements of joy 
 
 We never exercise to yield us bliss. 
 
 By Isis, I beseech thee with thy lips 
 
 To teach my yearning soul the trancing power 
 
 Of this all-luminous and magic love. 
 
 This do, and this thy recompense shall be : — 
 
 I'll worship none but Him who is thy God, 
 
 And pay my vows to none save Him who thralls 
 
 For such delicious servitude thy kin. 
 
 Haste, haste and teach it me ; then shall my tongue 
 
 Lisp forth my vows in praise, and I will cry, 
 
 Surely, Jehovah only is a God. 
 
 Joseph. 
 O lady, would my tongue could speak His love, 
 Then should I tell it thee with all my heart. 
 But I, who am a servant of our God, wot not 
 Its mighty mystery ; but this I know 
 That those who taste its bliss find heaven therewith, 
 And nought remains to chafe man's burning soul 
 With keen desire for unaccomplished peace ; 
 For all the heart's desires are made thereby complete 
 Would I could be herein thy monitor, 
 Then this my tongue would loose itself with joy 
 To tell in liquid strains the hallowed love of El ; 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 171 
 
 And we should bask beneath the mystic flames 
 That flash like slHvered lightning from its glow, 
 Till by the haven of our lives, by death — 
 Our souls should wing the whither whence they came. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Meseems this love thou speakest of is sanctified 
 By earthly sweets, else would its bliss be lack 
 Of those ethereal dreams that gild our lives, 
 Since thy God gives thee not a future land 
 Upon the hope of which to hazard bliss 
 Formed of the cunning ecstasies of time, 
 No after-life to balm thy soul for death. 
 Then, surely, this empyreal love thy God 
 Possesseth must be tutored to an earthly joy ; 
 And if herewith He halloweth your days. 
 Then must your souls' acquittal be made full 
 In love's distilled desires that all your lives 
 Taste its enticements upon earth ere death. 
 Smiting with poisonous shaft, doth vanquish all. 
 Tell me, fair youth, if in thy life thy lips 
 Have ever hung on woman's for a spell 
 Of rapturous moments, till thy blood caught fire. 
 Nay, blush not, tell it me, for mine own lips 
 
172 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Are parching to be pressed to thine — there, there, 
 
 I have confessed my wish ; and by ftiy very soul 
 
 I yearn to taste the flavour of thy lips, 
 
 ■For I have heard a priest of Isis say, 
 
 The tingle of strange flesh when kissed is sweet ; 
 
 So I would fain now search the truth thereof. 
 
 And thus anoint my soul, a novice made 
 
 For love's captivity, with its strange balm. 
 
 Ev'n such an one as thou art have I dreamt 
 
 Should chasten my long famished hopes with love. 
 
 Come, peld thee to my joy, and we shall chase 
 
 The disappointing fears that gather round 
 
 Our hearts like shadows gloomed by woe. Come 
 
 come. 
 Make satisfied my hest, and we shall be 
 Full of the maddening bliss that is of earth. 
 
 Joseph. 
 O wherefore speak'st thou thus ? for love, I've heard 
 My father oft-times say, is not of earth, but heaven. 
 For 'twas with such a love he served for her 
 Who was his best-belovfed wife. And, too, 
 I've heard that such a love may be 'mongst men. 
 And full as hallowed and as ripe with bliss. 
 But such love hath not part in me, for I 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. it^ 
 
 Have never loved, nor woOed such love as thou 
 Would'st have me wed wherewith to encounter thine. 
 Yea, I would feast on such a mellow fruit 
 If I might know where I may garner it. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Then let thy soul make banquet with my love. 
 And satiate thy longings with its fruits ! 
 Now hold thy peace, and I will tutor thee. 
 Give me thy lips to kiss, and I will chafe 
 Thy rigid blood until it bum and burn 
 With such consuming heat that thou shalt call 
 Upon thy God to yield thee unto love. 
 For, by my faith, in Egypt well we wot to love. 
 And have in us the power to charge the blood. 
 And every pleasing sense inoculate. 
 With such empyreal joy, that when thou hang'st 
 Upon my lips the twinkling of a star 
 Thy soul shall gasp for its 4elight, and then 
 In searching out the fountains of my love 
 Thou'lt find accomphshment to thy desires. 
 Nay, blush not, for in woman dwells man's bliss. 
 And in her body is fulfilment to his will. 
 She ever hath with her the boon of joy 
 
174 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Wherewith to satisfy his amorous best ; 
 
 But that which woman doth desire of man 
 
 Is but the passing tribute of his blood, 
 
 From whence springs ecstasy, and sweetest love, 
 
 And all intense delights that hallow life ; 
 
 For in the yearnings of his blood she finds 
 
 Completion to desire, not in himself. 
 
 The which when lacking love's .fierce wrath is but 
 
 The guardian of love's most mysterious spell. 
 
 Come, sit by me, and we will tune our hearts 
 
 To strains of some new-fashioned harmony 
 
 Waked in strange-wise with sighs, and wanton hopes. 
 
 And all the thrilling favours that break forth 
 
 In chantings mystical from kindred souls. 
 
 Yea, we will blend our spirits with thy God's, 
 
 For in that He is Love we shall be His ; 
 
 For I am overwhelmed with Love's behests. 
 
 Hearken the while I shew thee all my soul. 
 
 And whisper whence is this sweet will that chafes 
 
 My blood, my lips, and all my thoughts with flame. 
 
 Whose cunning ardour whets to madding rage. 
 
 And wakes my hunger for the feasts of love ! 
 
 Hear how I would make waste its ravenous fires 1 — 
 
 By hanging on thy lips a love-pledged hour. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 175 
 
 Joseph. 
 I would that I could all thy wants fulfil. 
 Then should I make complete thy love-desires 
 Ev'n to the acme of their wildest dreams. 
 But, verily, I wot not ought of such a love 
 As this, the which thou speakest of, else with my soul 
 I'd yield thee all the bliss thy heart doth seek. 
 Jehovah, He who is my father's God, 
 Hath never shewed me aught of this His love 
 Which thou would'st fain encompass for thy joy, 
 Else I would make its raptures one with thee. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Sit by me here, and I will tell thee all 
 The powers that hallow this divine-like gift, 
 But ere I would depict its magic arts, 
 Tell me if in that charmfed speech in which 
 Jehovah communes with thy kin, there is 
 A word that hath the melody and grace, 
 And fiery force of that which we call — Love ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 I wot of no diviner art than that 
 Which did my father and my mother make 
 
176 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 As one, of no sublimer power than that 
 Which throbs in human breasts, and wakes anon 
 The heart to seek its mate for earthly bliss. 
 This we call Love ; but if it hath in it 
 The fiery force of that which is thy love, 
 I know it not, ne'er having tasted it. 
 But, truly, for its sweets my spirit yearns. 
 
 Amensis. 
 If thou wilt list to me, thy virgin soul 
 Shall learn this art : then shall thy days be full 
 Of pleasure, and the summer of thy life 
 Be golden with the ripe fruits of its joys. 
 
 Joseph. 
 O lady, teach it me ; for even now 
 My spirit thirsts to know the power which made 
 My father for my mother, Rachel, serve 
 In Padan-aran fourteen weary years. 
 O tell it me, that I may feast my heart therewith. 
 
 Amensis. 
 In sooth, anon I'll tell it thee : but hast 
 Thou not amongst thy deities one who 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 177 
 
 Doth make thy youths and maids as fruitful vines, 
 One who doth teach their lips in glowing words 
 To woo delicious bliss, and plight themselves 
 To each for life and hidden after-time ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 We have no God but one, Jehovah, He 
 Is Israel's God, and Him alone we serve, 
 And He is terrible in war and hate, 
 And visits with His wrath His enemies. 
 And overthroweth those who rise to smite 
 Against His majesty with alien will. 
 If that He have this attribute of love 
 I wot not ! haply it may be ; but I 
 Have never caught the sweet sounds of its theme. 
 
 Amensis. 
 
 strange, strange people with a strange-like God ! 
 Possessing one who lacks the balm of life. 
 Strange people ! Yea, meseems if for a God 
 
 1 had but one, I'd choose him who is Love. 
 Not love whose elements are water-like, 
 But whose full complements are fire. 
 Now, hearken, while I tell thee of our god, 
 
r/S JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 The essence of whose subtle being is love. 
 
 This power our priests pourtray in woman's form. 
 
 How beautifiil and generous are her gifts ! 
 
 Her name is Hjithor when the love she pours 
 
 In human breasts makes friendships spring; 
 
 But Isis, when with her tremendous ire 
 
 She swamps our veins with all the ecstasies 
 
 That flash and foam from passioned bliss. 
 
 She is our life — Her chiefest sanctuary 
 
 Is Busiris ; there in her leafy grove 
 
 Nilus in silence blends his joys with hers. 
 
 If thou wouldst see Egyptia's Queen of Queens 
 
 In all her glory worshipped — 'tis there, 
 
 There eyes and soul would feast themselves until 
 
 Thy brain with all the amorous sights thou'dst see 
 
 Should reel as if o'ercome by Kakem wine. 
 
 O Isis ! how I pant to serve thee now ! 
 
 O Hebrew, by my soul if once her joys 
 
 Be blent in thine, I wage this God of thine 
 
 Shall ask from thee thy vows in vain. Come, come 
 
 And let us twain this day serve Isis, she . 
 
 Who with her myriad pleasances and wiles 
 
 Chafes the unbloomed desire of Egypt's maids. 
 
 But, by my troth, me kindlessly she mocked 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 179 
 
 By wedding me unto a barren man 
 
 Who taunts my fancy with a thousand dreams 
 
 Of joy acquired, still lacking all the joy, 
 
 Of bKss complete, still wanting all the bliss 
 
 Of those full throbbing sweets that savour life 
 
 And make delicious pastime of our youth. 
 
 But yet, withal, I'll serve her if she will. 
 
 And if thou wilt be antient to my Vows, 
 
 Then shall my heart be satisfied, and all 
 
 The dreamy influence of love 
 
 That gathers joyously about my paths 
 
 Shall make the secret springs of life flow o'er 
 
 With teeming flood ; and heaven's lucent light 
 
 Shall with its magic woo my new-found love. 
 
 Whose hallowed pleasures shall bewitch my blood. 
 
 Arise, my Hebrew, let us worship her; 
 
 For I sis queens the phalanx of the gods. 
 
 Joseph. 
 This goddess, Isis, she of whom you speak, 
 Full often have I heard of, and her power, 
 And fain would I be antient to thy pledge ; 
 But, she being stranger to my God, I may 
 Not worship her lest Elohim despoil 
 
i8o JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 My life for pa)dng at her altars vows 
 Which He doth deem His recompense for breath,- 
 For thus would shame be wrought in Israel. 
 Nay, lady, nay ; I durst not thus ofifend. 
 
 Amensis. 
 What ! doth thy God forbid thee e'en to love ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 I know not ; but' if shame thereby be wrought. 
 Shame that doth gloom the countenance of man, 
 And dim the glory of my people's God, 
 Then, verily, I may not harbour love 
 Lest God should smite me in his vengeful ire 
 And cast me forth from Israel's heritage. 
 
 Amensis. 
 O cruel, and unkindly God ! But thinkest thou 
 That Isis could o'ercome thy God by love ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 In sooth she might, if that her power be great 
 Enough to match itself 'gainst Elohim's, 
 Whose mightiness outreaches human ken, 
 Who holds close-bound within His lightest thought 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. i8i 
 
 The storms contending in infinite space, 
 Whose very wrath when kindled rives the heavens 
 That would contain His dire impulsive rage. 
 If she have power to combat with such might, 
 If Love can overwhelm Elohim's strength, 
 Then, surely, shall our God be overcome. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Ah, youth, this love which Isis hath, hath power 
 To crumble in a breath yon mighty sphinx, 
 E'en tame the fiercest lion of the grove, 
 Stay battles, and appease the hate of kings. 
 Subdue dissension, and compel to tears 
 The eyes that flashed destruction on a foe. 
 This love of which we speak, fermenting prayer, 
 Doth so intoxicate the very Gods 
 With such intense delight that they comply 
 To the unuttered longings of the soul. 
 Endowed with this seductive element, 
 Think'st thou that Isis would o'ercome thy God ? 
 Yea ; and of this great power she hath enow 
 To whelm the mystic heavens, the seas, the world 
 With all the fruitful treasures of her joys, 
 Enow to make inebriate with bliss 
 
1 82 JOSEPH AND AMEN SIS. 
 
 This cold, insensible, decaying clay- 
 That is ennobled with the soul of love 
 By the supreme decree of her high will. 
 'Tis she who clothes our spirit with that hope 
 That cowers before the tomb, the magic hope 
 Of immortality, with which we chafe 
 Our most inconstant selves until we faint, 
 And make this spectre-wish a bitter-sweet. 
 The which we neither compass nor destroy, 
 Seeing in its uncertainty there's joy 
 That magnifies itself with majesty 
 As unsubstantial as a phantom-bark 
 That waxes with illusion till in clouds 
 Of night it fades to very nothingness. 
 This Isis breathes that keen delicious dew 
 That nourishes in youth the buds of love. 
 Love whose beguiling sweet thou soon must taste. 
 Else is thy life an unesteemfed gift 
 Which thou wilt give again unto thy God 
 Charged with the fetid airs and chymic fumes 
 Of time-developed sin, which gift He dowered 
 Thee with in unmatured divinity, 
 Wherein the seeds of purity lay hid 
 Till they should in the sunshine of love's years 
 Ripen for heaven and immortality. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 183 
 
 Joseph. 
 Lady, I fain would taste of this sweet bliss, 
 Fain hear of Isis and her attributes, — 
 Those sacred influences that make life 
 An amulet unto the soul for peace. 
 Tell, tell- me all her charmed ways arid wiles 
 That I may banquet Thought the while you speak 
 
 Amensis. 
 'Tis she who swells the waters of the Nile — 
 He is her love — for her his veins are full 
 With life-producing power, the which he yields 
 To her desire till barren fields made ripe 
 With all the golden treasures of the year 
 Fill full the threshing-floors of this my land, 
 Egypt the amber-sandalled and the starry crowiied, 
 The mother of astrologers and arts, 
 Twin-bom with Time, and best beloved of God. 
 O how I love .thee, cradle of the earth ! 
 But Isis — Isis Egypt's goddess-queen — 
 'Tis she, who in her plenitude of love 
 Giveth us pastime and delight in man. 
 Trains the ingenuous heart to kindly wajys, 
 Makes eajrth the treasure-house of bliss for time, 
 
i84 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Fashions the hopes that they may twine around 
 Uncertain years and bind our souls thereto. 
 'Tis she who in the raptures of her love 
 Breathes in the soul strange ecstacies until 
 They swell within the heart to wake desire. 
 Such is the God thy soul should serve, 'tis one 
 Whose myriad attributes surcharge the brain. 
 For all its varied powers converge with such 
 Divine-like dreams to love, that life's a heaven. 
 Come, let us twain now yield ourselves to love. 
 
 Joseph. 
 I durst not ; lest I thus offend my God. 
 For peradventure this strange love 
 Of which you speak is ahen to His will. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Love ahen to Jehovah's will 1 In truth 
 This God of thine must be at enmity 
 With that which is His better self if He 
 Offence can find in aught that is of love. 
 Then, wherefore, as thou say'st, did He create 
 The heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that lives 
 If love were not the architect thereof? 
 Wherefore did He choose you, Apuriu, 
 
JOSEPH AND AM EN SIS. l^ 
 
 From out the peoples of the earth to be 
 Select unto Himself if He lack love ? 
 Why, in the choice love was made manifest ; 
 For loving you He chose you to Himself 
 To be beloved. Come, yield with me to love. 
 If thou wilt hearken to my wish, love's joys 
 Will recompense thee for thy fears. Wilt hear ! 
 By all my soul doth own I love thee, boy, 
 Yea, love thee in suchwise as Isis loves, 
 Or teaches us to love. Hear, hear awhile ! 
 For thee my passion's full, and would complete 
 The raptures of its latest trance with thee. 
 Come, come, with kisses and caresses sweet. 
 We'll press out time between our lips and give 
 Our souls the food they each now hunger for. 
 If thine doth hunger not, know, mine is faint j 
 With wasting famishment. Come, sweet. 
 Now yield thee to my hest, and press my lips 
 With thine, and thus we'll leaven Isis' joy. 
 Now give and take this pledge of love. O God ! 
 
 \They kiss. 
 
 Joseph 
 O sweet ! Stay ! precious joy ! There, there, enough. 
 
i86 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Nay, press until our lips have caught the fire 
 That smoulders fiercely in our hidden souls. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Withhold ! withhold ! thy lips are like to fire. 
 
 Amensis. 
 With such a fire doth Isis kindle love. 
 
 Joseph. 
 This love with which thy goddess fills the blood 
 Courses like molten flames e'en to the heart. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Thereby she teaches man her magic bUss. 
 Thuswise she makes her choicest favours fiiU. 
 
 \Kisses him. 
 
 Joseph. 
 We will forego this joy ; I fear this love, 
 Lest it may sacrifice my God in me. 
 
 Amensis. 
 If it hath power, then yield thee to its will. 
 
 Joseph. 
 I dare not, knowing not the will thereof 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 187 
 
 Amensis. 
 To immolate itself with its own fires. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Consuming him who makes the sacrifice. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Nay, her for whom the sacrifice is made. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Not yielding aught in recompense thereof. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Yea, leaving much wherewith to feast again. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Doth Love survive its own self-sacrifice ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 From its own ashes doth it rise again. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Then we will make an offering of our gifts 
 Before we make complete the sacrifice. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Seeing that the gifts be made acceptable. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Say what oblations most appease the God. 
 
 Amensis. 
 A sacrifice made full with love complete. 
 
 Joseph. 
 If that the love be sacrificed when full, 
 Doth such oblation then appease the God ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 Until she long for new-made sacrifice. 
 
 Joseph. 
 But there be gifts all-pleasing unto love, 
 And offerings made ere sacrifice ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 Truly ; but these be such as waken her to ire, 
 Else, lacking which, the sacrifice is vain. 
 
 Joseph. 
 These gifts then be oblations made by faith. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Without which Isis mocks such sacrifice. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 189 
 
 Joseph. 
 What be the gifts to her acceptable ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 These be the gifts dehcious unto her. [Kisses him. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Delicious are these gifts to those who give. 
 
 Amensis. 
 And goodly are the lips that hallow them. 
 
 Joseph. 
 O would our God, Jehovah, taught such love, 
 And favoured such sweet, bloodless sacrifice ! 
 For such soul-thrilling bliss as this ne'er taught 
 My Hebrew lips the theme of very joy. 
 Yea, I will taste its madding ecstasy 
 Until my soul hath learned its artifice. 
 Here, here, from thy delicious lips I take 
 Their sweetest gifts to offer them to love. 
 
 \JCisses her. 
 Thy service, Isis, is a trancing joy. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Press close until thy lips are satiate I 
 
190 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 O sweeter, far, than choice Anthylla wine 
 
 Whose draughts distil such passion from the blood 
 
 Of more intoxicating power, are these 
 
 Thy lips whereon I banquet now my soul, 
 
 And quaff in copious draughts the bowl of joy 
 
 Whose taste doth whet the bloodless sacrifice 
 
 We make anon to Isis in our love. 
 
 Here could I bide, and chafe desire, until 
 
 My boiling blood throbbed loudly in my veins, 
 
 And the sublimer essence of my life 
 
 Sought its distUment in accomplished bliss. 
 
 Soul lend thyself to love's abandonment ! 
 
 And you ye lips drink the ambrosial draught 
 
 Ere the full-brimming cup o'erflow itself ! 
 
 JOSEPH.- 
 
 O would to God my blood could make full feast, 
 And satiated taste the ecstasy of love. 
 
 Amensis. 
 E'en so then let it be ; for aU my love 
 Is thine, and to thy wish my body's slave. 
 Delay not in fulfilling thy blood's hest. 
 That in its rapt fiilfilment I may give 
 Accomplishment intense to my desire. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. i^i 
 
 Joseph. 
 I wot not what is that thou yeamest for. , 
 
 Amensis. 
 My soul's desire abides on thy love's will 
 Whereon to feast with glutton appetite. 
 
 Joseph. 
 What ! doth the worshippers of Isis feast 
 Upon the remnants of the sacrifice ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 Nay ; but upon the sacrifice itself. 
 
 Joseph. 
 And doth the goddess taste no part thereof? 
 
 Amensis. 
 Truly, the essence, only, she partakes. 
 
 Joseph. 
 If we consume the offerings, what remains 
 Whereby the goddess may be satisfied ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 The ecstasy of all her votaries ; 
 
192 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. ■ 
 
 For it's the essence of the sacrifice 
 Which finds its distillation in our veins. 
 
 Joseph. 
 In thuswise then the goddess feasts herself : 
 She banquets on the pleasures of her love. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Seeing that her worshippers are satiate. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Else the oblation's not acceptable ? 
 
 Amensis. 
 If sacrifice succeed not to the gifts. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Then I would fain propitiate this love 
 Which Isis prompts our spirits to. There, there. 
 
 \Kisses 'her. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Another, yet another — thus we whet 
 Great Isis' appetite by chafing love. 
 
 Joseph. 
 O what delirious joys these sweet gifts wake. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS:.':. i% 
 
 Amensis. ■ - 
 
 A madding joy that must exhaust itself. 
 My spirit grows intoxicate therewith. 
 
 Isis, goddess of my life, make full my hope ! 
 Are they not sweet, delicious, keen ? Love i • 
 
 \Kisses him. 
 Now let's together quaff Love's nuptial draught 
 
 Joseph. 
 Abide ! Withhold J this thing I durst not do 
 For all this love belongeth to thy lord. .'" 
 
 Amensis. 
 Nay, jest not, Hebrew, yield thee to my best, 
 No soul shall learn, aught of our sacrifice. 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 1 dare not thus great Potiphar requite. 
 Seeing that he trusteth me, withholding nought 
 From me save thee, his wife. G how I yearn 
 To taste the raptures of thy fervent blood 
 And make with thee this pleasing sacrifice. 
 But no — I dtirst not 'worship thus strange gods, 
 Or make them sacrifice in anywise 
 
 Lest El-Elolie-Israel slioUld send 
 
 13 
 
194 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Upon this mystic worship untoward woe. 
 I'll hence — temptations ofttimes vanquish us. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Ah stay ! repent not thus thy latest wish 
 But 3delding to thy will bestow on me 
 The plenteous harvest of thy first-reaped love. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Jehovah ! God of Israel ! Give ear, 
 Lend speedy succour to my wavering soul. 
 Forego thy pleadings, love, I'll hence — Farewell. 
 
 \Aaempts to run off, but she holds him. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Nay, stay; my very life I'd sacrifice 
 To be partaker of thy love. Fulfil 
 Thy wish and mingle thy desires with mine. 
 
 Joseph. 
 What, if thereby I give my God offence. 
 
 Amensis. 
 In nowise can offence thereby be given. 
 
 Joseph. 
 My conscience[^bids me shun this mystic rite. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 195 
 
 Amensis. 
 Thereby may not thy conscience barter that 
 Which may be pleasing to thyself and God ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Yea, but the spirit ever prompts to good. 
 
 Amensis. 
 If that the flesh desire some evil thing. 
 Seeing that love is hallowed by the gods 
 No godless thing can ever spring therefrom. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Of this would I take counsel of my God. 
 
 Amensis. 
 But will Jehovah hearken to thy prayer 
 Lacking therewith a bloody sacrifice ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Surely, if so be I do counsel ask 
 Desiring fully to acquaint my soul 
 If such love be acceptable to Him. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Then press my burning lips another while 
 
 13—2 
 
196 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS^ 
 
 That I may feast my eager hopes once more 
 Upon the kiss that ravishes my flesh. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Wliy court contagion thus from lips 
 That echo but the murmurings of the blood ? 
 Why thus consume thy very soul ? There, — there. 
 
 \Kisses her. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Now bind me with thine arms in circlet-wise ! 
 Another while, ah yet another while, 
 Perchance our alien spirits shall accord. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Nay, nay, forgo ! I cannot longer stay 
 To trifle with temptation so. Farewell ; 
 Lady, God give ttiy spirit peace, farewell. \Runs off. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Gone, gone, and still my love unsatisfied. 
 O I sis, why thus chafe me with false hopes? 
 Why waken in my soul these strange desires ? 
 Why mock me with such sweets to ruin me? 
 For lo this Hebrew youth hath every element 
 That makes conspirator of Love against 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. i<)7 
 
 The sacred .majesty of virtuous will, 
 
 And is endowed with that keen sympathy 
 
 That wakes the latent fires of love to flames. 
 
 O, goddess, make my yearning, famished flesh 
 
 Full satisfied with thy delights ! Inspire 
 
 This lovely youth with passion's rapturous wish^ 
 
 And teach his virgin love the secret spell 
 
 That influences joy, that he may seek 
 
 And find accomplishment thereof in me. 
 
 My lord to whom I'm wed endows not love 
 
 With its inheritance ; therefore my blood 
 
 Flows through my youthful veins with barren flood 
 
 To fret my life with unfulfiUing wants. 
 
 Perchance, if patiently I tutor him, 
 
 The acme of my hopes may be attained, 
 
 And that which is my heart's most cherished wish, 
 
 Shall search. the caverns of his virgin love 
 
 And find the spell that needs must vanquish him. 
 
 Surely, in time accomplishment must come 
 
 If only opportunity be apt ; 
 
 For I have heard the priests of Isis say. 
 
 That she by her obdurate will o'ercomes 
 
 The Goddess Pasht, so that she yields to love 
 
 The favours virtue consecrates to her. 
 
igS JOSEPH AND AMENSTS. 
 
 Him would I compass thus, subduing him. 
 Yea, by the gods I'll die or hold him thrall ; 
 For all my blood is flames, and parches me. 
 O, Isis, succour me in this my need ! 
 Then shall thy servant, grateful, worshipping 
 Before thine altars, lay the first fair fruits 
 Of that which thou shalt give as pledge of love 
 Deep in my thoughts this burning wish shall lie 
 Until I find the well-spring of his sympathy. 
 For, truly, man's desire is woman's love, 
 And woman's love-wish is for man's desire. 
 O for this keen desire ! I'd barter half 
 My mated years to call its pleasures mine. 
 Help me, O Isis, then my prayers shall know 
 No God or Goddess, saving only thee. 
 Again he comes ! O, how my fluttering soul 
 Beateth against the barriers of my breast. 
 Haply he comes obedient to my will. 
 
 Enter Joseph. 
 Say, say, what tidings dost thou bear me now ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 E'en while I speak, my master and thy lord 
 Awaits thy coming in the outer hall. 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 199 
 
 Amknsis. 
 What, hath my lord already hither come ? 
 The Pharaoh worshipped Ptah short while to-day, 
 Else had they not returned ere evensong. 
 
 Joseph. 
 Why, lady, 'tis past sundown full an hour. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Indeed ! how swiftly wing the hours we lend 
 To love ! 'Meseems the heart forgets its toil 
 When the infatuating spell of hope 
 Blindfolds the longing eyes that watch on time. 
 Ah me ! — what would thy master have with me ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Touching the cat-faced goddess' festival 
 At Bubastis, the whither Pharaoh goes 
 To-night accompanied by all his court, 
 Hither must Potiphar betake himself; 
 So he would have thee bear him company. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Go, say to Potiphar I hither come 
 ^Vith an obedient wife's becoming haste. 
 
 \ExU Joseph. 
 
200 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 How coldly looked he on me while I spake ! 
 'Tis strange 1 cannot teach him the sweet song 
 That finds, rapt harmony in human breasts. 
 Perchance the god he serves forbids this love — 
 It cannot be : I'll strive again and conquer him, 
 Subdue his yet unvanquished soul with mine. 
 By supplications meek and opportune 
 Will I beguile his guileless heart to love, 
 And tutor him in all its mysteries. 
 What wakened first this sympathy in me, 
 The languid beauty of his sable eyes, 
 The liquid flowing of his people's speech. 
 Whose words like. honey trickle from the tongtie> 
 Or the ingenuous utterings of his soul 
 Which panther-like made of my heart its prey ? 
 Conscience — thou querist of our secret ways ! 
 I cannot answer thee this hidden thing. 
 It was not Set's device this sympathy ? 
 No, no ; it is not sin to sanctify 
 The life with holy love, since I am wived 
 To one whose lips are alien to my blood, 
 Whose barren kisses make my spirit pant 
 For the delirious joys of womanhood. 
 P cruel, cruel goddess to despoil 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. ,201 
 
 My youth's anticipated hopes with such 
 
 A loveless spouse. — I had forgot, he waits 
 
 Me even now. I serve the Goddess Pasht, 
 
 Or lend my voice to hyxan her praise at her 
 
 Bubastis festival ? Nay ; by my soul 
 
 I am too sick at heart to worship her, 
 
 Or bow myself before her altars' fires ; 
 
 Too sick for this my latest, only love, 
 
 To give companionship to Potiphar. 
 
 I'll plead excuse of health, and bide me here : 
 
 And while my lord the cat-faced goddess serves, 
 
 With amorous artifice will I conspire 
 
 To rob Jehovah of this Hebrew's love. 
 
 O, Isis, hearken to my secret prayer ! \Rises to go out. 
 
 Again my bond-youth comes to say my lord 
 
 Impatient grows with biding over much. 
 
 Enter Joseph. 
 Hath Potiphar grown weary waiting me ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Nay, lady \ scarcely had I gained the utter hall, 
 Having made known to thee my master's will, 
 When from the Pharaoh came a mes5enger 
 Who baxie my lord repair to Bubastis 
 
202 JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 
 
 Forthwith, with all the guard, to greet him there. 
 
 Then my lord turned, and said, Go tell 
 
 Thy mistress straightway I go hence to greet 
 
 The Pharoah coming to the festival. 
 
 And should the thing be mated to her mind, 
 
 Let her repair to Bubastis with all her maids 
 
 To pay her vows to Egypt's goddess-queen. 
 
 Amensis. 
 I am too sick with late-foiled hopes 
 To pay the goddess vows in anywise. 
 I'll bide me here, and gamble time with thee, 
 And chase the love-luxurious hours of night 
 With the delicious music of our hearts ; 
 And we will quaff the intoxicating draught 
 Of sympathetic souls dissolved to words. 
 So thou wilt stay with me to comfort me. 
 
 Joseph. 
 I cannot, lady ; for my lord's away. 
 And I meanwhile must all his will fulfil. 
 
 Amensis. 
 But am I not thy misfiress ? Art thou not 
 My slave, and must thou not do my best too ? 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. 203 
 
 Joseph. 
 Yea, in such wise as I offend not God, 
 Nor bring dishonour on my master's name. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Who is thy God to find offence in love ? 
 Dost say He's mightier than Egypt's Gods ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Jehovah, Israel's God, gives place to none. 
 
 Amensis. 
 What ! wilt thou dare contemn my people's Gods' 
 To whom the Pharaoh humbly bows the knee ? 
 
 Joseph. 
 Lady, I utter nought against Egyptia's Gods. 
 I but extol Him whom my kindred serve. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Fear not ; I was but ivroth. I meant not ill. 
 My words are but the smoke of smothered fires. 
 Say thou wilt ravel this hope-tangled night 
 With me, then shall my heart be satisffed. 
 
 Joseph. 
 So great a wickedness I cannot do 
 
204 JOSEPH AND- 4MENSIS. 
 
 And sin against my God. It must not be. ' 
 
 For, surely, would Jehovah visit me with woe, 
 
 And cast me forth from mine inheritance. 
 
 For, know, while in the outer court I stood. 
 
 Feasting upon thy passion-thrilling words 
 
 And yearning to fulfil thy rapturous wish^ 
 
 My father, Jacob, in a vision came. 
 
 And thuswise to me spake, ' My son, my son 
 
 If thou consent to this iniquity - 
 
 Which now thy wayward flesh doth prompt thee to, 
 
 For this untoward sin 'gainst Potiphar, 
 
 Albdt the darkness cover it, thy name 
 
 Which should hereafter with thy brothers' be 
 
 Graven, and jewelled with refulgent gems, 
 
 Upon the breastplate of our God's High Priest 
 
 Shall be struck out ; for by this mighty sin 
 
 Shame and reproach should come to Israel.' 
 
 Then with his hand he smote me on the loins 
 
 And glided from my sight. It must not be. 
 
 Forego, lady, this sin-charged desire 
 
 Lest it beguile thee to unrighteous ways. [Goin^ 
 
 Amensis holding him. 
 Heed not such mocking visions-, lad ; 
 
JOSEPH AND AMENSIS. aoj 
 
 They're but the phantoms of a wildered brain. 
 By Isis, I'll not let thee go until 
 Thou yield'st thee to my will. 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 Behold ! my lord 
 Wotteth not what is with me in the house. 
 
 [Exit, leaving his garment in her hands. 
 
 Amensis. 
 Stay, stay ! Come back ! — What, hath he fled to mock 
 The love I prodigally have given him ! 
 Ha, ha, he shall noT slight the treasure of my soul, 
 And sport the choicest jewel of life 
 Which I would fain have decked him with. ' Ye Gods 
 My breast surcharge with all your vengeful ire 
 That in the gins thereof I may entrap this slave. 
 My mighty love hath turned mighty hate 
 Envenomed by the gall of foiled desire. 
 With this — I'll satiate my dire revenge. 
 
 \She secretes the garment. 
 
206 
 
 POST MORTEM NULLA VOLUPTAS. 
 
 O FAIR, infatuated, wayward girl, " 
 
 Low in the depths of thine unfathomed soul 
 Strange unembodied hopes do alway roll 
 
 Shaped by thy mind's tempestuous whirl. 
 
 O could I round my body twine a curl 
 
 Of thy bright chesnut hair, then in control 
 Of thy sweet love I'd grasp the whole 
 
 Of life's delicious joys ere death should hurl 
 
 His shaft of damp delusion through my breath, 
 Or ere he swathed in robes of fetid clay 
 
 This body rich with pleasures drawn from thee. 
 
 Clasp my love-famished lips as my soul saith. 
 We bide here but the pastime of a day 
 So we will blend our souls voluptuously ! 
 
307 
 
 THE DREAM OF CYBOREA. 
 
 Lo I dreamt last night when the moon was full 
 That the devil unrobed beside me lay, 
 That the Lord of Hell with kisses me loved, 
 And chafed my damp lips till the dawn of day. 
 
 A bitterer kiss ne'er tasted my lips ; 
 It stung with the deadly poison of lust, 
 And stilled in my heart the current of love 
 Till the blood in my veins was parched as dust. 
 
 And he smote my lips with a maddening ire, 
 With a passion that joy makes full to slay, 
 And wasted love, and my love's delight. 
 Till my throbbing veins were as dull as clay, 
 
 Apd I thought he turned upon me and mocked, 
 And whispered the life he begot was lost ; 
 That the mortal I then conceived in me 
 Would sin against Jl.ight and the Holy Ghost. 
 
2o8 THE DREAM OF CYBOREA. 
 
 That Jehovah decreed before time began, 
 From out of his loins and my virgin womb 
 Should be born a man, like the sons of men, 
 Who should pine in the depths of endless gloom. 
 
 Then my heart was full of a burning grief, 
 My soul overwhelmed with a shame made chaste, 
 And I sorrowed till tears flowed fast like rain. 
 And the springs of my love were dried and waste. 
 
 Then I dreamt the dull grey light of the dawn 
 Unbidden despoiled the night of its fears, 
 And the shadows that bound the horizon's brows, 
 Were steeped in the crimson glow of the years. 
 
 And I saw on the mountains snowy feet, 
 Fairer than ever the prophet sang of; 
 And I heard on the breath of the morning sweet 
 The murmurous trill of the cushat-dove. 
 
 Then a low voice broke on my Fancy's spell, 
 Arid wailed with the wail of a bitter pain — 
 ' Woe, woe to thee, mother, the blasts of hell 
 Have smitten thy fruit as a blighted grain,' 
 
THE DREAM OF CYBOREA. 209 
 
 Then I in my terror arose and wept, 
 And lifted my voice to my people's God : — 
 Then the sun arose in the safiiron east, 
 And the gleaners' songs were echoed abroad. 
 
 And I called the daughters of Kerioth, 
 And told them the vision that came to me : 
 But they mocked as is Israel's daughters wont. 
 Yet the fears thereof filled my memory. 
 
 And it came to pass when the ninth full moon 
 Made the purple sky with its pallor wan, 
 The soul on that night that my lord begat, 
 To my joy assumed the fair form of man. 
 
 Then I gathered together my nearest kin, 
 And we made us merry with those who came ; 
 For that day had the babe been circumcised. 
 And his father gave him Judas to name. 
 
 Yet betimes when the sombre shroud of night 
 Wraps my wearied spirit in balmy sleep, 
 I dream of the fearful vision of hell 
 And I press my boy to my bosom and weep. 
 
 U 
 
2IO 
 
 THE DENIAL. 
 
 The Prophecy. 
 
 Scene I. — TTie Last Supper. 
 
 Peter. 
 Though all should be offended for thee, Lord, 
 For this thy word ; 
 Though all men rise to smite ; 
 Yet no offence of mine shall bring thee shame, 
 Whose holy name 
 Giveth my spirit might, 
 
 Jesus. 
 Verily, of a truth to thee I say, 
 Ere dawn of day 
 Vain shame shall sacrifice 
 Thy words, augmenting thy soul's coming woe. 
 Ere the cock crow 
 Thou shalt deny me thrice. 
 
THE DENIAL, 
 
 Peter. 
 Master, fain would I rather with thee die 
 Than thee deny. 
 
 Disciples, omnes. 
 Yea, master, we would rather with thee die 
 Than thee deny. 
 
 Peter. 
 Did I not ev'n in blood 
 Prevail when all men railed, when Judas' kiss 
 Despoiled thy peace, 
 When thou encompassed stood 
 Rebuking me, and bade me my sword sheathe 
 Lest I with death 
 Should smite him whom thou healed, 
 Though unappealed ? 
 Yet thou dost say thy name I shall deny 
 Ere morrow's sky 
 Be flushed with morning's breath. 
 
 Jesus. 
 Peter ! I say, the cock shall not crow twice 
 Till thou deny me thrice. 
 
 14—2 
 
212 THE DENIAL. 
 
 The Denial. 
 Scene II. — The Hall of the High Priest's Palace. 
 Peter with Roman soldiers and Jews sitting round a 
 brasier of ■fire. 
 
 Roman Soldier. 
 What, hath this man some grievous evil wrought 
 That ye have brought 
 Him hither, armed with rods 
 As one who spreads sedition ? Whence the cause 
 Hath he your laws 
 Defiled, or cursed your Gods ? 
 
 Jewish Bystander. 
 I wot not what hath been the man's offence 
 Save his pretence 
 To sit on David's throne. 
 A vain imagination of a mind 
 Of alien kind, 
 Which some foiled hope hath sown. 
 
 A Damsel. 
 Nay, nay, I know ; at least such wise I've heard 
 T?y some averred 
 That he for years hath been 
 
THE DENIAL. 213 
 
 Speaking against the Prophets and the law 
 Which hold in awe 
 All, but this Nazarene. 
 Further, he giveth out he our Messiah is, 
 Whom prophesies 
 Made sure of David's line 
 Would come to rule us with all-conquering power ; 
 For whom this hour 
 Our drooping spirits pine. 
 Not such as this mean Galilean seems, 
 A man of dreams. 
 One of low ordered birth. 
 But one whose reign to us should bring 
 With him our king 
 Omnipotence on earth. 
 One of this fellow's followers art thou, 
 
 \Turningto Peter 
 A dupe I trow. 
 Perchance when he shall rule 
 Our land, thou dream'st he'll share this kingdom, too. 
 With such as you 
 Whom knaves with hopes befool. 
 
 Peter. 
 Dost speak to me ? I wot not aught of him. 
 
214 THE DENIAL. 
 
 Save what the dim 
 Uncertain rumours say, 
 A man of fancies, vain, above the law ; 
 
 Him ne'er I saw 
 Before this very day. 
 
 Damsel. 
 How say'st thou this, when thy false words impeach 
 Thy northern speech ! 
 Thou'rt, too, of Galilee — 
 Thy tongue bewrayeth thee. Was I not near 
 When Malchus' ear 
 Thy sword smote off? Thou'rt he. 
 
 Peter. 
 By Abram and the hosts of Heaven, I swear 
 I was not there. 
 Nor know I aught you say, 
 "Tis true, my northern speech proclaimeth me 
 Of Galilee, 
 From whence I came this day. 
 
 A Jewish Bystander. 
 What, man, wilt thou with eager, burning speech 
 Strive to outreach 
 
THE DENIAL. 215 
 
 What we ourselves have seen ? 
 Thou art e'en of his sect, and these mine eyes 
 Disprove thy lies, 
 With him thou'st always been. 
 
 Peter. 
 By him who gave me life, I Swear to thee 
 Thy memory 
 Doth make thine eyesight dim. 
 This Nazarene of whom you speak thus-wise 
 My soul denies, 
 I ne'er knew aught of him. 
 
 [ The cock crows. 
 
2l6 
 
 'TIS WRITTEN ! 
 
 Write me a song asked me, one, 
 Write me a song that shall be 
 
 Sweeter than honey and wine. 
 Sweeter than sweet harmony ! 
 
 Tell of some purer delight 
 Joyous and fiercer than love's ; 
 
 Purer than water or light. 
 Purer than kisses of dove's. 
 
 Fiercer than storms, or than fire, 
 Fiercer than hell or hell's pains, 
 
 Fiercer than passion or lust, 
 Fulfilling its feverish gains ! 
 
 Though sweeter, fiercer, and purer 
 Than honey, or passion, or light. 
 
 Its joys must be stronger and surer 
 Than earth's most stateliest might. 
 
'TIS WRITTEN. 217 
 
 Write me a chant like to this ! 
 
 Write it in poison or blood ! 
 Write it ? God write it, say I — 
 
 God wrote as best he could. 
 
 In poisoned Death it was writ 
 
 For God by the foot of Time, 
 Who writing, poisoned with it 
 
 The author, God, with his crime. 
 
 Time mocked at God with his sin ; 
 
 Sin from his throne mocked and fell, 
 And rent with its barbarous din 
 
 Delusion and death and hell. 
 
 Hell held the god that death slew, 
 
 Delusion trammelling his kin, 
 Wasting blood, water and thew. 
 
 Mingling salvation therein. 
 
 O Christ, thou mortal and God, 
 
 Thou lord of a frenzied few, 
 They scourging with rope and rod 
 
 Smote a man-god smiting you, 
 
21 8 'TiS WRITTEN. 
 
 Meek, humble, lowly and poor 
 Are all, when need crieth must : 
 
 But God compassed all to make sure 
 The dire damnation of dust. 
 
 Ashes with ashes and dust 
 
 Moulded by Love into man. 
 Quickened by passionate lust 
 
 Fulfilled the work he began. 
 
 Fulfilling in life the rapt treason 
 
 Man fain would make one with his soul 
 
 Suppressing the conscience of reason 
 That nought but a God can control. 
 
 Visions convulsed into splendours 
 Uttered as leavened with life ; 
 
 Phantoms surcharged with terrors 
 Seasoned with horrors and strife. 
 
 God-Christ immortal and pure 
 For nine moons lay in a womb, 
 
 That he as man might endure 
 
 The anguish of death's and hell's gloom. 
 
'TTS WRITTEN. 219 
 
 Mystical, mighty and strange 
 
 Unto the fancy of man 
 Seemeth this spectre of change — 
 
 God overwitting his plan. 
 
 Clothing His spirit in flesh, 
 Whetting His pureness with vice. 
 
 Casting the mantle of sin 
 Over the glory of paradise. 
 
 Charging his bosom with breath, 
 Wasting His potence with blood. 
 
 Piercing the arrow of death 
 Into His God-head for good. 
 
 Death, then, is fiercer than hell, 
 
 For struck it not at a god ; 
 Fiercer than passion or lust 
 
 Scourged with a sharp-stinging rod. 
 
 Purer than kisses of doves. 
 
 Purer than water or light, 
 Death sifts the soul of its loves 
 
 Shuffling off sin in its might. 
 
'TIS WRITTEN. 
 
 Sweeter than honey or wine 
 
 Is death in its bitterest hour, 
 Sweeter than love's hottest brine, 
 
 Luscious though bitter and sour. 
 
 God wrote by the foot of Time, 
 Man's portion is Life and Death ; 
 
 'Twixt which, the shadow of crime 
 Is fanned by a burning breath. 
 
 Uncertain, unrighteous, withal, 
 Is that which springeth thereof; 
 
 'Tis fashioned to illumine and pall 
 Our lives — ^'tis lust, or 'tis love. 
 
 Either, or both, they're the same, 
 
 Shunted to serve our desire. 
 Burnished or tarnished in fame, 
 
 Both are the flames of one fire. 
 
 Then sweeter, fiercer, and purer 
 Than honey or passion or light 
 
 Is Death — and fearfully surer 
 
 Than morning that groweth from night. 
 
THE LILY OF LOVE'S STREAM. 
 
 There is a purity in soul-bom love 
 
 Whose cloven grace flamed words can ne'er express, 
 
 Though chastely passioned yet impassionless : 
 Its fires ethereal stolen from above 
 Where by the Seraphs' perfumed breath 'tis wove 
 
 'Mid radiant smiles as souls mate-souls caress 
 
 O'ershadowed by an eteme happiness. 
 O that such mystic beauties would thee move 
 To waken s)anpathy in thy warm breast, 
 
 Then I might breathe thy charms deep in my soul 
 As fervourous passion sank to troubled rest 
 
 O'ercome by sweets mine arid heart hath stole. 
 Drink on, sweet soul. Love's stream will constant flow 
 Till thou its lily in Elysium blow. 
 
THE LILY OF LOVE'S PARADISE. 
 
 Whene'er I gaze on thy tourquoise eyes, 
 
 Or on the damask of thy lily-face, 
 
 Or with the pencil of my fancy trace 
 Thy perian beauty on Love's Paradise, 
 From my lorn breast my trembling spirit flies 
 
 To grasp thy being in its rapt embrace, 
 
 That I, entranced with love's voluptuous grace, 
 May heavenward wing where pleasure never dies. 
 
 Divinest creature of mine earthly joys. 
 Thy virgin smile illumines my life's way. 
 
 Dispels its shadows, and the gloom destroys, 
 
 Till from Fear's darkest night dawns brightest day 
 
 May thy divinity more glorious shine 
 
 To guide my pen to sing of praises thine. 
 
223 
 
 THE LILY OF MY HEART'S VALE. 
 
 Thou lily of the valley of my heart, 
 
 Sublimest blossom that e'er bloomM there, 
 Feed on sweet flower, suspire love's air, 
 
 And to my soul thy fragrancy impart. 
 
 Nature in thee hath with its cunning art 
 Moulded a form of grace supremely fair. 
 And blent therein a soul sublime to share 
 
 With thy delicious life its holier part. 
 
 My soul subdued with love's absorbing ways. 
 
 Abides the hours when smiles shall wreathe my 
 hopes 
 
 With pleasure-bound and peace-inspiring days. 
 When thy sweet spirit clasped in mine elopes 
 
 Beyond — where lilies and the lotus bloom, 
 
 Nourished by lovers' sighs — beyond the tomb. 
 
224 
 
 AIDEN. 
 
 Each year you live brings some new tie ■ 
 
 To bind you closer unto life, 
 Some new-discovered sympathy 
 
 With which all worldly things are rife, 
 Some love that trelliseth the heart 
 With cunning art 
 Ere you depart 
 From hence, with grief and sorrow-laden. 
 For that mist-land — the spirits' Aiden. 
 
 Alas, in life there's much alloy, 
 
 It is the dross of mystic breath. 
 It palls our spirit's earthly joy. 
 
 That thought of thoughts — our certain death, 
 The dower of each sojourner here 
 Whate'er his sphere. 
 On sorrow's bier 
 From hence he passes, with grief laden. 
 For that mist-land — the spirits' Aiden. < 
 
AIDEN. 225 
 
 Unto each heir of sin this is 
 
 The bane of his dread sorrow. 
 To-day our hearts are full of bliss ; 
 
 But then there always is a morrow 
 Burthened with fear of sudden death 
 That lighteneth 
 The bark of breath 
 That sails from earth, with anguish laden, 
 For that mist-land — our spirits' Aiden. 
 
 Nathless each one some pleasure has, 
 A soul's robe by the angels wove ; 
 Whate'er in life doth come to pass, 
 
 All hath this heavenly garment — love. 
 It wreathes the earth-bound heart with peace, 
 And will not cease 
 Though fears increase 
 As hence we're driven, regret-laden, 
 To that mist-land — our spirits' Aiden. 
 
 Although Death waits on every man. 
 
 Yet it makes dearer, far, one tie 
 Than any earthly joyance can — 
 
 The bond of human sympathy. 
 
 IS 
 
226 AIDEN. 
 
 This is the sweet life casts away, 
 
 When on a day 
 
 Of pallid grey 
 We pass, with sorrow heavy-laden, 
 To that mist-land — our spirit's Aiden. 
 
327 
 
 LOVE'S LAMENTATION. 
 
 'TwAS in the days 
 
 Of youth's sweet ways 
 My heart grew flushed with love ; 
 
 But jealous noon 
 
 Made ripe too soon 
 The fruits of bitter love. 
 
 Then fully shamed, 
 
 My heart exclaimed, 
 Ah cursM be the morrow 
 
 That makes my foe 
 
 A lovely woe 
 That lurks behind to-morrow. 
 
 When sunny hours, 
 
 And blooming flowers 
 Burst forth from darkest night, 
 
 What hallowed pain 
 
 Makes us again 
 Resume the shades of dismal night ? 
 
 IS— 2 
 
228 ' LOVE'S LAMENTATION. 
 
 By azure streams 
 
 Where silence teems 
 Its solemn pleasure o'er us, 
 
 Ix)ve's fainting hope 
 
 Shall soon elope 
 With days that glide before us. 
 
 If that beyond 
 
 Death's murky pond 
 We blend in mortal kiss 
 
 The baiTen lust 
 
 That cast the dust 
 Of discord on our kiss, 
 
 Or if we there 
 
 In rapture share 
 The sweets of luscious lips, 
 
 I'll wait on death 
 
 With bated breath 
 That I may press my beauty's lips. 
 
 A phantom rout 
 I sadly doubt 
 Are all these after joys ; 
 
LOVES LAMENTATION. 229 
 
 For earth in strength 
 Shall waste the length 
 Of these ethereal joys. 
 
 Put life's degree 
 
 Is sympathy 
 That shrifts at dawn of youth, 
 
 Until too soon 
 
 Love lights at noon, 
 And dims the fire of youth. 
 
 Ah cloudy day 
 
 That made me prey 
 To woman's tears and graces, 
 
 Where art thou now. 
 
 When sad hearts bow 
 Beneath thy flaunting graces ? 
 
 Hid in the gloom 
 
 Of memory's tomb ; 
 To waken — when ? Ah, never : 
 
 For chilly Death 
 
 Withholds the breath 
 That would make mock of Never. 
 
230 LOVE'S LAMENTATION. 
 
 How shall I sing 
 The joys that bring 
 
 A thrill to every soul ? 
 How hold the erst 
 Made vows that cursed 
 
 The secret of my soul ! 
 
 I'll wait on time 
 And sorrow's rhjTne 
 
 To chaunt the hymn of heaven, 
 Thus waiting here 
 Shall bring me near 
 
 The mystic love of heaven. 
 
 Upon the wave 
 That leeks the grave 
 
 Shall treacherous love be drowned, 
 And the short breath 
 That cooleth death 
 
 Must pause when love is drowned. 
 
 Yet still 'mid fears 
 And fruitless years 
 Our hearts will pine for love, 
 
L VES LAMENT A TION. 23 1 
 
 Till in the glades 
 Of spectral shades 
 We blend in mystic love. 
 
232 
 
 AN INVITATION. 
 
 Come, lisp the love that brought me bliss, 
 And stung me with a passioned kiss — 
 
 Long, long ago ; 
 When you were belle and I was beau ; 
 For then, my love, you loved me so, 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 Come kiss again that same old way. 
 And cheat old Time once more to-day. 
 
 Come, whisper me the first sweet word 
 That pierced me like a kindly sword 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 When you were belle and I was beau ; 
 For then that old love stung me so, 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 Come, tell it me the same old way. 
 And cheat old Time once more to-day. 
 
AN INVITA TION. 233 
 
 Come, murmur why I plighted you, 
 And told you why my love was true 
 
 Long, long ago, 
 When you were belle, and I your beau 
 Loved you so well — how well — you know — 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 Come, whisper this,, and we will play 
 At making jealous. Time, to-day. 
 
 Come, sing me, sweet, the quaint old song 
 You sang me when your voice was strong 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 When you were belle, and I a beau 
 Would love you— with what love you know — 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 Come, sing it me, and I will tune 
 A new love-ditty to the moon. 
 
 Come, tell me with your laughing voice 
 How my desire made you rejoice 
 
 Long, long ago, 
 When you, my belle, and I, your beau. 
 Told each our loves in kisses — O 
 
 So long ago. 
 
234 AN INVITATION. 
 
 Come, laugh it forth, and I will tell 
 The art that bound me with love's spell 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 Thou canst not, love : Ah chilling age 
 Hath quenched the fire of passion's rage 
 
 Long, long ago- 
 But I, sweetheart, am still your beau, 
 And ev'n in heaven I shall be so 
 
 Ere long I know. 
 Then Love, disrobed of flesh and sin, 
 Its reign immortal shall begin. 
 
 Come, lay that head upon my breast, 
 Whose sunny hair my hands caressed 
 
 Long, long ago, 
 When you were belle and I was beau ; 
 For then my hand caressed you so : 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 And though our hair be silver grey 
 We'll cheat old Time in Love's old way. 
 
235 
 
 THE WOOING OF LOVE AND HOPE. 
 
 A MADRIGAL. 
 
 Love, a fair youth went a-wooing, a-wooing 
 Hope, a fair maiden, to chase away 
 
 With sweet caresses, and far sweeter kisses, 
 April's showers, and sunshine in May. 
 
 Hope was a maiden a-longing, a-longing 
 
 For a fair youth to woo for a day, 
 And with caresses and honey-sweet kisses 
 
 Chase the slow hours of life-time away. 
 
 Love saw this maiden so lovely and gentle 
 By the gold rays of the setting sun. 
 
 " O," whispered Love to his soul in eve's silence, 
 " There is the maiden my heart hath won." 
 
 Hope, as she stood in the golden sun's shadows. 
 Saw this fair youth watch her tenderly. 
 
 " Ah !" murmured she to her soul in eve's silence, 
 " Would that that youth my lover would be." 
 
236 THE WOOING OF LOVE AND HOPE. 
 
 Then the gods kind to them gave a meeting : 
 
 Hope, ever first at her trysting place, 
 Chafed her true soul with new-wakened doublings 
 
 Lest her fair love should strange lovers chase. 
 
 But her love came, and they wooed, and they wedded 
 When April's showers gave rose-buds to May, 
 
 And they each, wreathed with a mystical garland. 
 Chase with their kisses life's sad hours away. 
 
237 
 
 ALLEGRIA. 
 
 Laugh when the light winds laugh with the sea, 
 Laugh when my true love laugheth with me, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When the new moon on a starry night 
 Kisses the waves witli her liquid light. 
 And the pale stars are a-twinkhng bright, 
 Then let my true love laugh with me 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
 Laugh when the freshening breeze of the morn 
 Laughs with the laugh that of Love is born, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When the grey sky is robing in blue. 
 And the soft breeze breathes a love so true 
 Over the orient waves to you, 
 Then let my true love laugh in the morn 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
238 ALLEGRIA. 
 
 Laugh when the skylarks their ditties sing, 
 Skimming the heavens with an ether wing, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When their sweet notes in a smiling June 
 Enter the portals of heaven at noon 
 On the light airs of their dainty tune, 
 Then let my true love laugh with me 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
 Laugh when the sun-down reddens the sea, 
 Sinking to sleep for eternity, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When golden gates in the crimson skies 
 In the soul-depths of my dazzled eyes 
 Shut in the glories of Paradise, 
 Then let my true love laugh with me 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
 Laugh when the shades of the evening grey 
 Smile with the hope of to-morrow's day. 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When o'er the crest of the western wave 
 Golden shadows with purple lave 
 
ALLEGRIA. 239 
 
 As sunlight sinks to its daily grave, 
 Then let my true love laugh away, 
 
 Merrily, meixily, merrily. 
 
 Laugh when the nightingale soars at even 
 Bearing her vesper-song towards heaven. 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When the low murmurs of stilly night 
 Float on the rays of the pale moonlight 
 Into the land that with dreams are dight, 
 Then let my true love laugh at even 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
 Laugh when the lightning shivers the sky, 
 Heralding the thunder's melody, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 When the sea leaps into billowy foam 
 Out of the depths of its ocean home 
 Kissing the clouds of its skiey dome. 
 Then let my true love laugh with me 
 
 Merrily, merrily, merrily. 
 
240 
 
 TWO SONGS. 
 
 THE nightingale's SONG. 
 A NIGHTINGALE Sat Oil a Spray, 
 
 And she chirmpt the whole night long, 
 A melody ever so sad 
 
 That the old owl screeched to her song, 
 Ever so sad was the song she sang, 
 And through and through the woods it rang. 
 And Echo 'woke from his slumbers in fright 
 And whispered her song in the ears of Night. 
 
 The Song as sung by Echo. 
 
 Ye fretful winds of the mournfiil night 
 Awake to my heart's sad strain. 
 
 Ere the daylight drawn by roseate Dawn 
 Make ye forgetful again. 
 
TiVO SONGS. 241 
 
 Bereft by him for whom all my soul 
 
 Was poured into songs of love, 
 Beguiling my throat of its sweetest note 
 
 On a spray in the myrtle grove. 
 
 He heard my song's most impassioned strain, 
 And chirrupt a kiss on my breast, 
 
 Then with chirpings soft he allured me aloft 
 To his own high down-built nest, 
 
 Where all the night long I sang him love's song, 
 And hearkened to his behest. 
 
 O fret, ye breezes of mournful night, 
 Weep, weep, ye winds, and wail. 
 
 For my mate has taken my song and forsaken 
 His lover the nightingale. 
 
 That night the nightingale fell from her spray, 
 Still leaving the Echo ringing ; 
 
 But it ne'er again shall wake to her strain, 
 For she broke her heart with singing. 
 
 t6 
 
242 TIVO SONGS. 
 
 The Maiden. 
 A maiden sat in a castle tower 
 
 And she told to her soul her woe ; 
 Her youthful heart was ever so sad, 
 
 And the dog at her feet whined low. 
 Ever so sad was the tale she told, 
 And to her heart like a billow it rolled : 
 Then her soul's sigh woke from their hidden tomb, 
 And her woful tale told the midnight gloom. 
 
 The Song as sung byher Soul's Sigh. 
 Ye mystic strains that incite to love, 
 
 Awake to my lorn heart's strain. 
 Ere the morrow cloys with its passing joys 
 
 Your sorrow for my love's pain. 
 
 Bereft by him for whom all my soul 
 
 Was steeped in a guilty love ; 
 For whom my desire wasted all its fire 
 
 Adown in the myrtle grove. 
 
 He told me his soul's most impassioned hope, 
 And pledged his heart in a kiss ; 
 
TIVO SONGS. ^ 243 
 
 And kissing he stole the gem of my soul, 
 
 And banqueted love with bliss ; 
 While the trees did weep in their midnight sleep, 
 
 And the viper wakened to hiss. 
 
 O hearts that grieve for a spoiled hope, 
 
 Weep, weep to my spirif s sigh ; 
 For my mate has taken my love, and forsaken 
 
 Me now to languish and die. 
 
 That night the lorn maiden lay on her couch. 
 And seemed or slumbering or sleeping ; 
 
 But when day did break she did not awake, 
 For she broke her heart with weeping. 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 
 
 LINES. 
 
 Forget not that ye lingered 
 
 By Gandolfo's tranquil lake, 
 When the halcyon calm of spring-time 
 
 Did sweet inspiration wake, 
 When the lull of moments shadowed 
 
 O'er the distant marge of years. 
 The rest of labouring mortals 
 
 In this vale of hopes and fears, 
 When the breeze in fragrant breathings 
 
 Whispered ever soft and low 
 Through the myrtles and the olives, 
 
 In the lovely sunset glow, — 
 " Be your lives like this with pleasures 
 
 And fair joyance alway full, 
 Ere the murmurs of life's tempests 
 
 Waste in death's eternal lull. 
 Be your lives with peace made fruitful 
 
 By true friendship's cunning ways, 
 And the light of faith illumine 
 
 Life with pure empyreal days." 
 
245 
 
 THE BURDEN OF DECEIVED LOVE. 
 
 Two young lovers were we, fairly fashioned for love, 
 
 And we mingled our favours in kisses and vows, 
 And we thought that our souls stole their joys from above 
 As our lips hung on lips, and our brows pressed on 
 brows. 
 Now love through my soul in its woe looks aghast, 
 As memory sorrowing mirrors the past. 
 To think that she lied and deceived me at last. 
 
 How she swore that the passion which welled in her 
 veins 
 Would increase with love's years to a holier heat ! 
 How that years red and withered with sorrows and 
 pains 
 Could never make bitter her life's sweetest sweet ! 
 Now love through my soul in its woe looks aghast, 
 As memory sorrowing mirrors the past. 
 To think how she lied and deceived me at last. 
 
246 THE BURDEN OF DECEIVED LOVE. 
 
 But she lied to encompass her secret desire ; 
 
 With her words she beguiled me to ask her to wed 
 For meseemed that her love was a terrible ire 
 That became ten-fold fiercer in love's nuptial bed. 
 Now love through my soul in its woe looks aghast, 
 As memory sorrowing visions the past, 
 To think that she lied and deceived me at last. 
 
 We are fools : not that man is a whit the less frail ; 
 
 But we hazard a life's peace on phantoms of truth. 
 And we vainly imagine that love is a veil 
 By the angels enwoven to glorify youth. 
 Now love through my soul in its woe looks aghast, 
 As memory sorrowing visions the past, 
 To think how she lied and deceived me at last. 
 
 We were wed in the month when the leaves crisp and red 
 On the autumn-struck boughs rustled low in the 
 wind : 
 We were wed — would to God that the day saw me dead, 
 Or that never we twain at the altar were twinned ! 
 Now love stricken sore in my soul looks aghast, 
 As memory sorrowing visions the past, 
 To think she beguiled and deceived me at last. 
 
THE BURDEN OF DECEIVED LOVE. 247 
 
 But the fruits of our lives are but dust at the core, 
 
 And the harvests thereof are the gleanings of sin ; 
 Yet we nurture desire until Death through the door 
 Of our spirits' dark future would usher us in, 
 As love stricken sore in Our souls looks aghast, 
 While memory sorrowing visions the past, 
 And thinks how love lies and deceives us at last. 
 
 Now my sunshine of life is all darkened with clouds, 
 And the hopes that were dazzling have lost all their 
 glow J ■ 
 For the vows that she plighted are wrapt in death's 
 shrouds, 
 And are driven before the chill tempests of woe, 
 While love smote to death in my soul looks aghast, 
 And memory sorrowing dreams on the past. 
 To think that she lied and deceived me at last 
 
 I'll nor curse her, nor bless her — I'll leave her to God : 
 
 Unto him I consign her requital and shame ; 
 Yet the hoof of my vengeance, with fierce hatred shod, 
 On the pavement of hell shall betrample her name. 
 For love smitten sore in my soul looks aghast. 
 And memory sorrowing dreams on the past. 
 To think how' she lied and deceived me at last. 
 
248 
 
 PANTHEISTIC IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Cast me no more, ye ruthless spirits, back 
 Upon those mystic dreams that mock the will 
 With vain and shadowy bUss, until 
 
 Desire faints travelling this beaten track. 
 
 Nor urge me forward where my hopes, made black 
 By sable doublings, strive to kill 
 With double death the lives that souls instil 
 
 With deathless joys or pains that never lack. 
 
 Fearful I wait my dissolution here. 
 
 Sadly uncertain of hereafter bliss ; 
 For verily I wot this earthly sphere '■ 
 
 Revolves no more for me when life doth cease. 
 Albeit I trow death makes us one with God 
 By blending soul in air and flesh with sod. 
 
249 
 
 SIENA. 
 
 Who founded thee upon those sun-kissed hills 
 That rise from out the valleys like green towers, 
 Steeped in the crimson hue of evening's hours 
 
 When heaven's dew trickling silvers all thy rills ? 
 
 Who breathed on thee the spirit that instils 
 Life with love's fancies, and which dowers 
 Thy youth with peace in rich acacia bowers, 
 
 Whose leafy mantled boughs shade all thine ills ? 
 
 'Twas love who whispered to the glowing skies 
 Thy praise, while zephyrs wafted soft and low 
 
 Through earth the varied joys of paradise 
 Thy hOls of living green possessed, and so 
 
 Man, envious of the gods, with love combined, 
 And lovely Siena rose on high enshrined. 
 
250 
 
 AREZZO. 
 
 Arezzo, to thy memories I wreathe 
 
 The passioned pleasures of my veriest soul ; 
 And these I garland round thy cloud-bound goal 
 
 Which kisseth the bright blue of heaven : beneath 
 
 Thine ether canoj)y, pavilioned in a breath, 
 I caught the sweet that holds me in control, 
 Till my life's joys shall with the sin-blurred scroll 
 
 Of old delights be blotted out by death. 
 
 Cradle of many a songster that hath sung 
 With rapture the old melodies of love ! 
 Here peerless Sgricci swept the tragic lyre, 
 And Redi, and Petrarca rose among 
 Their kindred like to beacons from above 
 Dazzling the world with their celestial fire. 
 
251 
 
 TOMMASO SGRICCI. 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 Spirit divine ! What magic did inspire 
 
 The theme from whence thy poesy was drawn ? 
 For, like the mystic splendours of the dawn, 
 
 Or some new meteor fashioned with strange fire, 
 
 Thou cam'st to feed Melpomene's desire, 
 
 Fretting -with life's keen soul that heavenly on£ 
 Who taught thy tongue earth's prismic words whereon 
 
 To cast thy burthen of poetic ire. 
 
 Genius incomprehensible ! to thee, 
 Whose song still in thy city's memory's green, 
 I wreathe a chaplet in my country's rhyme. 
 And wake dead days to quickening sympathy ; 
 Not dead — the glory of their dazzling sheen 
 Sheds lustre o'er the billows of revolving time. 
 
252 
 
 THE SPEAKERS. 
 
 The flesh saith : 
 We're bom of love, the foaming must 
 Of life, to prove that We are dust. 
 
 The heart saith : 
 We're formed by God and human lust 
 That we may breathe and turn to dust. 
 
 Wisdom saith : 
 Primed well for death with hope, life's leaven. 
 We rest beneath the sod — that's heaven. 
 
 Love saith : 
 We woo and kiss to be partaker 
 Of carnal bliss — that's God, our maker. 
 
 Truth saith : 
 We chafe our souls with death's drear spell 
 Till fear ferments our will — that's hell. 
 
THE SPEAKERS. 253 
 
 Doubt saith : 
 We dim life's path with sorrow's wraith, 
 Damn souls and pray, and call that — faith. 
 
 Death saith : 
 We favour sin and nourish hate 
 To make love gins on God's estate. 
 
 Priests say : 
 That faith and love are but the price 
 Of joy above, yet call love — vice. 
 That man is bom of love and God ; 
 And yet they scorn the thing they laud — 
 That is, would seem make light the treasure 
 Whereof they dream — their carnal pleasure. 
 
254 
 
 IF? 
 
 When the night of life is falling 
 
 O'er our once all-glorious years, 
 And the shades of death are palling 
 
 Time with wild tempestuous fears, 
 When dark shadows dim our vision, 
 
 And the memories of the past 
 Gather force from dire precision, 
 
 And our spirits look aghast 
 With faint hopes into that region 
 
 Whither longings come and go, 
 Where our kindred peers are legion, 
 , Where abides or joy or woe. 
 One sweet thought shall with its spell 
 Gladden more tlian tongues can tell 
 As by time's desponding cliff 
 Hope divests itself of — ^if. 
 
 Haply, sweet shall be our meeting 
 After travel through dark ways, 
 
IFf 2SS 
 
 And our earth-bound souls with greeting 
 
 Shall break forth in melloW lays, 
 Then our hearts shall know not sorrow, 
 
 Whispering fears not spoil our trust, 
 And the robes we wear we borrow 
 
 Nor from sin nor mouldering dust. 
 Then shall we commune together 
 
 Wandering round the throne of God, 
 With eternity our tether, 
 
 Fearless of death's vengeful rod. 
 Come not this earth's joys are dull, 
 Waste with hope made terrible, 
 As we see oiir spirit's skiff 
 Wrecked upon the shoals of— if. 
 
2;6 
 
 WHO? 
 
 Who shall dispense to us sorrow, 
 Who give us earnest of pain, 
 
 Who gather tears to replenish 
 The fruits that make our lives twain ? 
 
 Who shall despoil our to-morrow 
 With fears that tarnish and stain ? 
 
 Who shred our hopes with new terrors 
 Ere pleasure come to us again ? 
 
 Who shall from misery borrow 
 
 The dregs of life's raptures that strain 
 
 Through the sieve of regrets to empoison 
 The fair fruits of peace in the grain ? 
 
 Who shall dare sow in the furrow 
 Of years the old seeds of disdain 
 
 To reap in the harvest of life-time 
 The tares of discomfort and gain ? 
 
WHOf 2S7 
 
 Who shall drive forth the barbed arrow 
 That smites us to death on Time's plain, 
 
 That with our life's-blood maketh bloody 
 The stream that is lost in years' main ? 
 
 Who shall consume us with sorrow, 
 
 Sorrow oppressed with our tears, 
 And then shall betray us with waiting, 
 
 And slay us with pestilent years ? 
 
 Who shall upbraid us to borrow 
 Their joy for our death-smitten fears, 
 
 And mock our soul's woe with shrill laughter. 
 And eye us with scornful leers ? 
 
 Who shall then say on the morrow. 
 
 When the mist of the dark morrow clears, 
 ' We have requited with reason 
 
 The songs of the minstrels and seers ?' 
 
 Who shall avenge in Time's furrow 
 
 The avenger of life with the spears 
 That pierce through the blackness of darkness 
 
 To the glory of brightness that cheers ? 
 
 17 
 
25 8 WHO ? 
 
 Who shall pursue the winged arrow 
 
 That bears to eternity's ears 
 The cries of our soul's desolation 
 
 As the gold-sand of life disappears ? 
 
 Who shall purloin from life's sorrow 
 The laughter of visions made true 
 
 By light that out-travels night's phantoms, 
 And shadows that gather anew ? 
 
 Who shall make peace with that morrow 
 Whose mornings are drenched with the dew 
 
 Of grief for years of old yesterdays 
 
 Emblazoned with Love's brightest hue ? 
 
 Who shall pawn lifetime to borrow 
 From death its full harvest of rue, 
 
 While thp seasons of sunshine and moonshine 
 Do ripen Love's harvest for you ? 
 
 Who shall "shed tears in the furrow 
 Of mirth, where its furrows are few, 
 
 Where the songs of the nightingale echo 
 The weird night-note of the kiou ? 
 
IVHQ f 259 
 
 Who'll in his heart sheathe the arrow 
 That bears on its barb Hope's adieu, 
 
 And welcome the kiss of the traitor 
 Thatpoisoneth life's pleasures — Who? 
 
 17- 
 
26o 
 
 FAITHFUL. 
 
 I. 
 We both slumbered in the noontide, 
 
 And the light winds breathed a song 
 To the memories of withered years, 
 To the thrilling hopes that wrung 
 From my soul the sweets of pleasure 
 With a blithe and lissome measure, 
 
 As I thought when we among 
 Mystic Druids' groves did wander, 
 
 In love's springtime, years ago, 
 When our hearts were full of peace, love, 
 
 And were strangers unto woe. 
 Then I loved you as the moon loves 
 
 The placid stream at night, 
 And I dreamt of joy that veileth 
 Passing sorrow from our sight ; 
 For you, love, 
 Were true, love, 
 
FAITHFUL. 261 
 
 Through the ever-changing years ', 
 
 But, although our summer's past, 
 And old age brings other fears, 
 
 I will love you to the last, 
 Till the shades of Time shall be 
 
 In the twilight of our lifetiine 
 Merged in immortality. 
 
 Until then, my sweet, with this — \Tfiey kiss. 
 Shall our spirits bask in bliss. 
 
 II. 
 
 As you slept the pine-trees murmured 
 
 In a low and plaintive strain : 
 But my heart eVn gathered pastime 
 
 From the mournful sound, and fain 
 Would my soul in silent pleasure 
 With a blithe and lissome measure 
 
 Whisper softly to my paim, 
 ' Time shall blossom and be fruitful, 
 
 Reft of all its transient woe.' 
 Then you and I shall hope, love, 
 
 As we once did years ago ; 
 And I'll love you as the breeze loves 
 
 The stilly hours of night 
 
;262 I-AiTHFUL. 
 
 When it wooes the sighing branches 
 
 With an amorous dehght. 
 Then you, love. 
 Still true, love, 
 To your ancient plighted faith, 
 
 Shall make ca.lm the surging fears 
 That with unabated breath 
 
 Swell the billows of the years, 
 Till the doubts of Time shall be 
 
 In the gloaming of our lifetime 
 Merged in immortality. 
 
 Until then, sweetheart, with this — They kiss. 
 Our true souls shall bask, in bhss. 
 
263 
 
 MARAH. 
 
 Tell me who shall confide in the mercy of God — 
 
 If mercy it be to embitter our days 
 With love that is treacherous, cruel, and shod 
 
 With leasing to gallop o'er foul-trodden ways. 
 I have loved, and have served with true love in my 
 youth ; 
 
 But the scourge of deception hath stricken me sore : 
 I have lived to bewail the sweet kisses of ruth. 
 
 And curse the sad moment when Love played me 
 whore. 
 
 Ah this season of sorrow hath pierced my lorn soul. 
 
 And hath filled my Ufe's cup overflowing with tears ; 
 Yet the moment shall come when love in control 
 
 Shall fathom the depths of Time's measureless years. 
 She swore that the days of her love had not end ; 
 
 She swore j but her oath was the foam of a lie : 
 She swore to beguile me to more than a friend, 
 
 And wrecked all my hopes with false sympathy. 
 
264 MARAH. 
 
 But the years of requital must surely be hers 
 
 Ere her blood has consumed the fierce fevers of lust, 
 And the demons shall cling to her foul soul-like burs 
 
 Till the flesh of her loins be commingled with dust. 
 For a lustrum and moon did we husband and wive, 
 
 And I nourished the phantom that now strikes me 
 low ; 
 Howbeit, in her hate she did shuffle and strive 
 
 To bring my soul sorrow and heart-rending woe. 
 
 In my memory still bides the terrible oath 
 
 Wherewith she dispelled all my feelings of doubt, 
 And she weeping in anguish me plighted her troth, 
 
 And all passions sinister in me blotted out. 
 But she lied ; for her tongue spoke a treacherous lie, 
 
 While her heart was all putrid with sin and deceit : 
 'Twas for this that I hazarded true love — and why ? 
 
 To be poisoned and ruined by life's bitter-sweet. 
 
 By her side have I lain breathing peace from her love 
 But the dream of my spirit was hollow and vain — 
 
 For she bartered her body to me but to prove 
 That the fiendish desire of union is gain. 
 
MARAH. 261 
 
 And. I loved her, believing her earthly desires 
 Concentred in me with a sanctified trust ; 
 
 But the spirit of man is composed of false fires, 
 And the spirit of woman the foul dres[s 01 Just. 
 
 By her side have I lam through the long wmter nights, 
 
 Her head on my bosom lulling love into rest. 
 As I tutored to words my rapt spirit's delights, 
 
 And whispered to heaven my soul's choice behest — 
 To be crowned with the laurel of love in my death, 
 
 The laurel of love such as hers seemed to be. 
 To pass to that shadowy land with her breath, 
 
 And to mate with her Soul for eternity. 
 
 I have slept by her side when the warm summer breeze 
 
 Through the curtains of night softly fanned our hot 
 brows, 
 As I told her in whispers my visions of peace, 
 
 And with kisses most keen taught love to carouse. 
 O my God ! how the foulness of all her deceit 
 
 Lies in heaps at the threshold of memory's gate, 
 Making festered the air, when the touch of love's^feet 
 
 Crushes oaths and foul troths with a pestilent hate ! 
 
266 MARAH. 
 
 When the wreck of my life is complete on the sea 
 
 That casteth its surf on the quick-sands of years, 
 I shall curse that dire day when she uttered to me 
 
 The words of her hatred in cold alien ears. 
 But the thoughts of the heart often give the tongue 
 speech, 
 
 Outwitting the treason it fain would conceal, 
 Thus it is we encompass the secrets of each. 
 
 And fathom love's shallows for woe or for weal. 
 
 In the land where the olive and vine yield their fruit. 
 
 Where the nightingale sings to the stars her sad song. 
 Where the kiou's weird note quells the voice of the lute, 
 
 There my spirit first tasted its desolate wrong. 
 How I loved her ! O God ! — but that passion is lost 
 
 In the dreary abyss of my silent despair : 
 Yea, I loved with true love till a summer-sent frost 
 
 Chilled the flame of my love in its tenement there. 
 
 Who can tell if the union of lives be a shame ? 
 
 If the raptures of youtji be for anguish or bliss ? 
 For the darkness of doubts cast a slur on love's name, 
 
 And the night-shade of hatred makes deadly its kiss. 
 
MARAH. 267 
 
 There be terrors that sever our hopes with dismay, 
 And terrors that flutter round days of regret ; 
 
 But no fear so despoils the sweet joys of life's way 
 As the treason that teaches our loves to forget. 
 
268 
 
 ALICE. 
 
 If our love were like that river 
 By whose banks we have sat for hours, 
 
 It would flow with easy motion 
 
 Unto a boundless ocean 
 Where the spangly spray wreathes bowers 
 Rich with bright fantastic flowers, 
 Making this short life of ours 
 A long love-dream. 
 
 Yea, and it shall glide for ever 
 
 In a solemn silent strain ; 
 And its murmurless sad flowing 
 Shall swell high when passion's glowing 
 
 With our love's delicious pain, 
 
 Till in Time's exhaustless main 
 
 It o'erfloods our souls again 
 With life's love-dream. 
 
269 
 
 VAIN DESIRES. 
 
 The silent breath of evening sadly fills 
 
 My heart with many a feverish fear 
 
 Which draws from hidden wells the poisoned tear 
 That with a solemn dread my soul instils. 
 Borne on Night's sighs from yonder purple hills 
 
 The beacon of my future wafts to cheer 
 
 The fainting hopes that pant for waters clear 
 From heavenly founts, and life's love-flooding rills. 
 
 O for the sweet delicious draught of power 
 That quenches parching thirst for fame. 
 
 That sprinkled on the heart's decaying flower 
 Refreshes with a bright and glowing name ! 
 
 O for the spell that holds in thrall the hour 
 Which lights my future with a lasting flame ! 
 
27° 
 
 AN IDYLL FROM MOSKHOS. 
 
 When winds breathe softly o'er the bright green sea. 
 
 My timid spirit then pavilions me; 
 
 The tranquil waters lure to their shore, 
 
 And earth for me hath not enjoyments more. 
 
 But when the white sea furiously resounds, 
 
 And on itself in foaming wrath rebounds, 
 
 When countless waves in rage the deep brine spurn. 
 
 To land and trees mine eager eyes I turn ; 
 
 Then from the sea I hasten in my fears, 
 
 Since earth to me, securer, far, appears, 
 
 Where to thick forests I in rapture wing, 
 
 To hear the light winds through the pine-trees sing. 
 
 Surely the fisher leads a toilsome life, 
 
 His house a ship now tossed by billowy strife, 
 
 On fickle seas he toils firom day to day, 
 
 Wherein the fish are but deceitful prey. 
 
 For me sweet sleep, let that my portion be, 
 
 Beneath the broad leaves of the plantain tree, 
 
 Where to rejoice with unaffrighted ear 
 
 In listening to the' spring that murmurs near. 
 
i^l 
 
 LINES WRITTEN NEAR TORRE-DI-QUINTO, 
 
 O HOW the skylarks sing their melodies of praise, 
 And hallow nature's work in spring-tjme's opening 
 
 days! 
 Would that our lives for aye could breathe such floods 
 
 of bliss, 
 And raise our sinking souls with such sweet joy as this ! 
 Delights with magic power from this entrancing calm 
 Creep o'er my surging thoughts and lend to life a balm. 
 The fitful air, in sighs, fans on its ether wings 
 The hum of distant life, the toil of mortal things, 
 The hopeful pleasure lent to every throbbing breast, 
 And the small voice that saith, ' The wearied shall 
 
 have rest.' 
 
 Sweet are the hopes of earth instilled in human kind 
 Made fruitful with desire to nourish every mind. 
 Thus drawing man to God by doubt's usurping power, 
 Hope lends fair faijh tiie strength that mocks life's 
 fleeting houj;. 
 
272 LINES. 
 
 Alas that such strange fear so sadly soon departs, 
 Despoiled by vengeful death, to give us barren hearts ! 
 Alas that we of earth, the offspring of an hour, 
 Are like the tender bud that's nipped by winter's 
 
 shower, 
 The shadow of a cloud that fades in sunlight's beam. 
 Or as the evening's breath, or as a sleeper's dream. 
 
 We're like the faint-like smile that heralds morning 
 
 tears, 
 The clasp of death-damp hands that welcomes but not 
 
 cheers ; 
 E'en as the dust that time makes of a conqueror's bays 
 When tolls the passing-bell for life's accomplished days. 
 Such, such are we of earth, the spoil and wreck of fears, 
 Cast here upon a strand that shelves to endless years. 
 O may we pause in death by heaven's expansive sea. 
 And guide our bark of love safe to eternity. 
 
273 
 
 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 To forget that bright day and that hour 
 
 Unto me it were bliss ; 
 But the draught of remembrance is sour, 
 
 And bitter the kiss. 
 The kiss that still tingles my lips 
 
 Till my blood foams and seethes, 
 And the visions of pleasure eclipse 
 
 Love while life's spirit breathes. 
 
 Come, soul ! fashion forth thine old joys, 
 
 TeU them once and again. 
 Till I chafe the dire moment that cloys 
 
 My spirit with pain. 
 Tell them low; lest the winds waft them far. 
 
 And I faint for their fires ; 
 Tell them low ; lest their old pleasures mar 
 
 New-fashioned desires. 
 
 Remember ! O God ! not remember 
 
 The j oys that were mine 
 
 When my soul, fire-flushed like an ember, 
 
 Was drunk as with wine ! 
 
 i8 
 
274 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 Not remember that day when our union 
 
 Made our spirits seem one, 
 And our bloods in love's holy communion 
 
 Sang love's sweetest song ! 
 
 In that paeadow where passion commingled 
 
 The sweets of desire, 
 My lips pressed her lips as joy tingled 
 
 My heart with new fire. 
 
 she clasped me right close to her bosom ! 
 
 Bound my soul with her arms ! 
 And fell like a frost-bitten blossom, 
 Laying waste all her charms. 
 
 1 have seen in autumn the bowers 
 
 Made bare of their leaves ; 
 I have seen in the summer the flowers 
 
 Mowed down with the sheaves 
 I have seen the regrets of the morrow 
 
 Fall fast on to-day ; 
 But never the joys that we borrow 
 
 From love pass away. 
 
 We murmured the sweet notes of pleasure 
 As our hearts sang of love, 
 
REMEMBRANCE. 275 
 
 And fathomed its depths with a measure 
 
 Of peace from above. 
 We dallied with sunshine till even, 
 
 Mocking fears with light laughter ; 
 For finding on earth our life's heaven, 
 
 We forsook life's hereafter. 
 
 Should I live till years wither hope, 
 
 I will think of that day ; 
 Till the pastimes of memory elope 
 
 With the sun's latest ray ; 
 On the margin of ages I'll whisper 
 
 The anthems of peace, 
 And passing away sing the vesper 
 
 Of love's lorn decease. 
 
 What ! forget the rapt moment of love. 
 
 When in eyes of soft grey 
 I sounded her soul-depths to prove 
 
 If lust were at play ! 
 When passion beguiled me to suck 
 
 From her rose-lips their dew, 
 Till the vision of fancy was struck 
 
 With love's mystical view, 
 
276 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 Then clasping her forehead, I smote it 
 
 With kisses delirious and keen, 
 With kisses whose fervour denoted 
 
 Her love was my queen. 
 Her white neck I flecked in love's wrath, 
 
 Until sparks seemed to rise : 
 Thus in passion we plighted our troth, 
 
 With fire leaping forth from our eyes. 
 
 O God ! if it sin be to nourish 
 
 Such a love upon earth, 
 Smite my body with death till it perish 
 
 For giving sin birth. 
 The shades of false love shall cry out 
 
 To their God in despair, 
 When the demons in laughter shall shout, 
 
 Making feast on such fare. 
 
 If e'er I forget thee, day 
 
 Most sublime of my youth, 
 
 Let my tongue cleave in speechless dismay 
 To the roof of my mouth. 
 
 Or ever remembrance thereof 
 Be shred with regret, 
 
REMEMBRANCE. 277 
 
 Let my loins, forsaken by love, 
 Their cunning forget. 
 
 Ye dreams that lend beauty to life 
 
 With intensified power, 
 With your burthens of splendours make rife 
 
 Time with love's joys an hour. 
 With memory chasten new sorrows 
 
 Till grief speed away. 
 And the peace of sufficient to-morrows 
 
 Bury love's yesterday. 
 
 Ah ! why doth love live to be slain 
 
 By the serpent of hate ? 
 Why suffer the wrath of disdain 
 
 To be vanquished by fate ? 
 )Vhen the dire cruel pangs of remorse 
 
 Shall consume my lone heart. 
 What song shall memory rehearse. 
 
 Ere from earth I depart? 
 
 O God ! how my heart pants to drink 
 
 Of those virginal springs, 
 Whose fountains were full to the brink 
 
 Of earth's transient things j 
 
278 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 How I thirst for a draught of that bowl. 
 
 That was strange to my hps, 
 Till drunk with its nectar, my soul 
 
 From the bonds of grief slips. 
 
 She seemed when her burthen of love 
 
 She oped to desire, 
 A being immortal that strove 
 
 With time to conspire 
 'Gainst the terirors that fall from delusion 
 
 And sin-smitten breath, 
 The fears that with black-winged intrusion 
 
 Make poisoned love's faith. 
 
 How we gathered delight in our laughter, 
 
 Overreaching the hours 
 Of the present with hopes of hereafter. 
 
 When love in his bowers 
 Would sing to the night-winds a chant 
 
 For pleasure's increase, 
 As our souls on love's pastures would pant 
 
 For the waters of peace. 
 
 Call it back from the tomb of dead years, 
 That love-laden July ! 
 
REMEMBRANCE. zj<) 
 
 Call it back from oblivious spheres, 
 
 Till its sad spirit sigh ! 
 Call it back till its glory dispel, 
 
 With its raptures intense. 
 Hate's phantoms arisen from hell, 
 
 Alluring each sense ! 
 
 Call it back, lest the tempests of wrath 
 
 Blast its robings with fire ! 
 Call it back tiU our soul's plighted troth 
 
 Re-awake our love's ire ! 
 Call it back in a vision or dream. 
 
 In a mirage of tears ! 
 But, O God ! call it back till love seem 
 
 The old love of dead years ! 
 
 How the fleet-wingfed moments were bathed 
 
 In the sunlight of smiles. 
 And the dreams of our spirits were swathed 
 
 With the love that beguiles ! 
 How the luscious faint airs of delight 
 
 Filled those amorous hours, 
 Ere its harvest were stricken with blight. 
 
 By unspeakable powers ! 
 
28o- REMEMBRAACE. 
 
 Alas, that our loves had a birth ! 
 
 Or that ever man sinned ! 
 Spreading desolate woe on the earth 
 
 Like a pestilent wind. 
 A wind laden heavy with lust, 
 
 And pollution, and death ; 
 A wind that turns beauty to dust 
 
 With its pestilent breath. 
 
 Or ever the days saw love mated 
 
 With flesh and desire, 
 To be wasted with treason and sated 
 
 To death on lust's pyre. 
 Or ever we garland love's summer 
 
 With chaplets of truth. 
 For it wains with the song of the hummer. 
 
 And they wither with youth. 
 
 Could I cull those sweet blossoms of passion 
 
 That bloomed in my heart, 
 I would wreath the new years in old fashion. 
 
 With love's cunning art. 
 From the joys of the past I would bonow 
 
 My burthen of bliss, 
 
REMEMBRANCE. 281 
 
 And implant on the brow of my sorrow 
 A rapturous kiss. 
 
 Mouldered long in the past are the joys 
 
 That gladdened my years ; 
 For a pleasure forgotten destroys 
 
 Life, ere time disappears. 
 Still my old love shaU slumber and linger 
 
 As memory's dower, 
 Till Death with his lank withered finger 
 
 Beckon life to his bower. 
 
 E'en there shall I vision earth's love, 
 
 If my spirit still be 
 A soul in the shadowless grove 
 
 Of eternity. 
 There, too, shall remembrance regret 
 
 That love-surcharged day. 
 When the keen edge of youth^tide was whet 
 
 With passion to slay. 
 
 When my heart burthened heavy with love 
 
 Found a rest in release, 
 And the kisses with which she did prove 
 
 Her soul's joy gave me peace ; 
 
282 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 For we lingered with love for a season, 
 Trammelled Hope with sweet days, 
 
 And, with rapture tliat knoweth no treason, 
 Taught our loves to wake praise. 
 
 How I loved her, sure, God wotteth well ; 
 
 For His spirit was by 
 When r told all my heart fain would tell 
 
 In its ecstacy, 
 When my vision of life was made full 
 
 With the beauty of truth. 
 And my soul in its joyance did cull 
 
 The choice harvest of youth. 
 
 Come the Spoiler of time soon or late, 
 
 I will hold by that day. 
 Till I see through the mystical gate 
 
 Of death ghde away 
 The phantom of life and of love. 
 
 Robed in sheen of new birth, 
 As the angels that watch from above 
 
 Pine for love that's of earth. 
 
 Then the soul of Extasia shall guide 
 My faint spirit to bliss, 
 
REMEMBRANCE. 283 
 
 And we clothed as a bridegroom and bride 
 
 Shall salute with a kiss, 
 And we'll pause by the tomb of dead years 
 
 Till their waste spirits sigh, 
 And we ?ee in a mirage of tears 
 
 That love-laden July. 
 
284 
 
 TO EXTASIA SLEEPING. 
 
 Sleep, beauty, sleep ! the peace of earthly love 
 
 Envelope all thy spirit's phantasies. 
 
 And the empyreal bliss of heaven absorb 
 
 The fears that fain would vanquish all thy hopes ! 
 
 Extasia, love, for thee no hoHer name 
 
 Could shroud itself in speech to tell thy joys. 
 
 For thee the yearnings of my heart are full 
 
 And throbbing to be blent with thine, sweetheart. 
 
 Extasia, loved one, thou for whom my soul 
 
 Hath chased its varied elements to love. 
 
 For thee fair Hope bedecks itself with faith. 
 
 And the bright days of future years do fringe 
 
 Our love's horizon, viewed o'er billowy time, 
 
 With their ethereal splendour, as the night 
 
 Of our live's time, clothed in its purple robes. 
 
 For ever sinks to' its eternal rest. 
 
 Sleep softly, sleep ! May thou, whose sunny smiles 
 
 Hallow the byeways of my every care, 
 
 Find in the dream-land, whither thou hast fled, 
 
TO EXTASIA SLEEPING. 28S 
 
 New pleasures on the which to feast thy soul, 
 And conjure with the magic of their joys 
 Some new delights wherewith to trellis life — 
 Thy life and mine, a double life made one. 
 Rest, sweetheart, be thy slumbers calm and sweet, 
 And all thy dreams a reflex of that love 
 Which thou didst plight me in the Druid's Grove. 
 
286 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD. 
 
 SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN SUNG BY THE HEBREW YOUTHS, AS 
 THE VIRGINS OF ISRAEL, ACCORDING TO A YEARLY CUS- 
 TOM, WERE ON THEIR WAY TO LAMENT THE DAUGHTER 
 OF JEPHTHAH. 
 
 Fair as the valley's pale lily 
 
 Ripe for the harvest of love, 
 Ripe for a sacrifice holier 
 
 Than ever the priests dreamt of ; 
 Full as the fruit of the pomegranate, 
 
 Blooming with fulness of days ; 
 Seasoned with passionate longings 
 
 For love and its mystical ways. 
 
 Virgin and daughter of Israel, 
 
 Virgin well-favoured for joy. 
 Whose laughter made merry our sorrow, 
 
 And our lives lacking sorrow's alloy. 
 O for the days of her beauty, 
 
 That glowed with a transient fire 
 Of love that's eternal and mighty, 
 
 A love that with God did conspire 
 
THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD. 287 
 
 To yield her to woe sprung from folly, 
 
 Dire folly made bitter by death, 
 From a vow that encompassed her pleasure 
 
 And poisoned her sweet-savoured breath ! 
 Our judge and her father, well harnessed 
 
 For all the proud glories of war, 
 Thus vowed to the God of our fathers : 
 
 " Whoso in peace-offerings are 
 First in their welcomes to greet me. 
 
 First in their favours to pay, 
 These will I yield for oblation, 
 
 For sacrifice meet will I slay, 
 If without fail thou'lt deliver 
 
 The Ammonites into mine hands, 
 Spreading dismay through their armies. 
 
 And making us lords of their lands.'' 
 
 And it came unto pass in the harvest 
 
 That Israel's warriors strove 
 With the sons of the daughters of Ammon, 
 
 And the priests of the gods of the grove. 
 And they smote them ; o'ercoming in battle 
 
 The lords of their race and their kin, 
 
288 THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD. 
 
 Smote them sorely with death and despoiled them 
 From dawn until evening set in. 
 
 Jephthah, our judge, rose and smote them : 
 
 The son of the Gileadite 
 Arose and scattered their armies, 
 
 And put our oppressors to flight ; 
 For had he not pledged to the Lord 
 
 The joyous first-fruits of his peace, 
 If Jehovah would overcome Chemosh 
 
 And the might of our land would increase ? 
 So the children of Ammon were stricken 
 
 From Minndth's wheaten fields to Aroer, 
 Ev'n to Abel, the plain of the vineyards. 
 
 With death and discomfiture sore. 
 For forth in the name of Jehovah 
 
 Went the war-men of Israel, 
 Lead by Jephthah, the son of the harlot, 
 
 And the king of the Ammonites fell. 
 
 Then she who was Jephthah's sole daughter, 
 With timbrels and dances came out 
 
 From Mizpeh, the home of her father, 
 To greet him with song and with shout, 
 
THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD. 289 
 
 To greet him with love and with laughter 
 For peace through our land sent abroad, 
 
 By the swords and the spears of our armies, 
 By the might of our judge and our God. 
 
 But the vow which he vowed to Jehovah 
 
 Made bitter the joy of his soul, 
 The oath which he sware in his rashness, 
 
 Should Israel Ammon control. 
 For a vow to the God of our fathers, 
 
 A pledge for a peace made in strife, 
 Must be quitted ; for who durst forswear him 
 
 When the altars are thirsting for life ? 
 
 On Jier doorstead in Mizpeh stood Seila, 
 
 Made one with the secret of death. 
 As the sweet song of maiden rejoicing 
 
 Empoisoned the low sighing breath 
 Of that evening that bowered the morrow 
 
 With passionate pleasure and gloom, 
 The morrow that brought forth a sorrow, 
 
 Enwrapt in eternal gloom. 
 
 19 
 
290 THE SONG OF THE SONS OF GILEAD. 
 
 Bring ye forth, O ye daughters of Gilead, 
 
 Your cymbals to gladden the years, 
 Sing a song to Jehovah with dances, 
 
 And mingle your joy with your tears ; 
 For a virgin made full the oblation 
 
 Of a war-vow in Israel, 
 When Jephthah, our judge, o'ercame Ammon, 
 
 And woe on our enemies fell. 
 
zgi 
 
 ALLON-BACHUTH.* 
 
 I. 
 We stood by an oak in the moonlight, 
 
 My lips were pressed close to her brow — 
 O the love that then fettered my spirit 
 
 Waketh bitteir remembrance now. 
 But love like the moonlight soon fadeth 
 
 When the dawn of strange morrows is shed 
 O'er the shadows of mutable longings, 
 
 That waste when our life's hopes are dead ; 
 For the changes of night bring the morrow. 
 
 And the changes of love bring us woe 
 Ere ever we garner the first-fruits 
 
 Of the seeds that in youth-tide we sow. 
 
 II. 
 We met there to sweeten our parting ; 
 But grief made our young hearts feel sad, 
 
 * :ni33 pVx The Oak of Weeping. ' 
 
 19 — 2 
 
12 ALL ONrBA CHUTH. 
 
 And with kisses and vows we made wanton, 
 
 TUl our souls for a short span felt glad. 
 And we pictured the future as glorious 
 
 With all the bright splendours of trust, 
 Never dreaming that life hath its changes. 
 
 And time turneth all things to dust ; 
 .''^'or the changes of love bring us sorrow, 
 
 And the changes of life bring decay. 
 And the hopes that make gladsome our lifetime 
 
 Fast fade like the shadows of day. 
 
 III. 
 'Tis sad that the breathings of Winter, 
 
 Wafting o'er the new buddings of Spring, 
 Nip the flower-flushed bud ere it blossom. 
 
 And blight to the flower-fields bring. 
 Tis sad that the clouds of deception 
 
 So soon pall our new-plighted vows, 
 And the look that made holy the compact 
 
 Fades away with the lifting of brows. 
 But the tfothings of yesterdays borrow 
 
 A treasure from years gone before. 
 And the kisses that beautify youth-tide 
 
 Have a butterfly's glory — ^no more. 
 
ALLON-BACHUTH. 293 
 
 IV. 
 
 She wept, whispering low, ' O, I love thee.' 
 
 Then vowed that though years should glide by 
 Her heart to her words should prove faithful ; — 
 
 But she wot well she uttered a lie. — 
 Then I kissed her in rapture believing 
 
 The passionate power of her love, 
 And I cherished awhile the sad parting 
 
 That showed me the treasures thereof. 
 But hope that doth flatter the morrow 
 
 Oft poisons the draught our soul sips, 
 And the goblet that holds the choice potion 
 
 May fall from our grasp near our lips. 
 
 v. 
 
 I thought, surely, love, such as hers is, 
 
 Gains strength in the fulness of days, 
 Till hallowed with mystical glory 
 
 It is wreathed with emp)T:eal bays. 
 I said, ' If the future divide us, 
 
 The tryst of our loves shall be death.' 
 And she answered ' twixt sobbings and kisses, 
 
 ' My love shall endure with my breath.' 
 
14 ALLON-BACHUTH. 
 
 But the vows that we utter in sorrow 
 
 Trickle fast from our tongues, like our tears : 
 
 When the anguish of moments hath vanished, 
 Then our vows with our love disappears. 
 
 VI. 
 
 We knew with the light of the morning 
 
 Our lives should be parted a spell ; 
 But Hope buoyed our hearts with sweet visions 
 
 As with kisses we bade each Farewell. 
 The kisses with which I did chasten 
 
 The doubtings that palled on my soul 
 Were as spray to the billows of passion 
 
 When the tempest of Love's in control. 
 But the tempests of time waste with surging ; 
 
 To a storm succeedeth a calm : 
 So, forsooth, to the wound of my spirit 
 
 A strange love will heal it with balm. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And I looked in her eyes of soft hazel, 
 Those eyes through which memory gleams, 
 
 And meseemed that they flashed with faith's glory, 
 And caught their bright glow from Love's beams 
 
ALLON-BACHUTH. 29S 
 
 Ah vain was that last dream at parting 
 
 That taught my sad soul there to see 
 A light that illumined them never, 
 
 At least ne'er illumed them ior me ! 
 But the wish that the heart most desireth 
 
 Hope phantoms, eclipsing our fears, 
 As the gloom of despondency darkens 
 
 The twilight of fast-fading years. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Tis a year since we stood here and parted — 
 • By this oak of weeping and vows — 
 And I think, was our parting a vision, 
 
 Our kisses the birds in the boughs ? 
 Ah no ; for I hear them still singing 
 
 The theme of their last year's tune. 
 And I see through the leaves and the branches 
 
 The pale liquid hght of the moon. 
 But the moon she doth change in her season, 
 
 And the birds change their mates in the spring, 
 And the troths that we plight in our youth-tide 
 
 With the dawn of new morrows take wmg. 
 
296 
 
 TO SIR ROBERT PRESCOTT STEWART, Knt 
 
 For many years we have not spoken ; 
 
 Belike may never speak again ; 
 Still this my song shall be a token 
 
 That honoured merit never brings disdain, 
 And with this melody is broken 
 
 The last false spell that gave me pain. 
 
 The sun's more glorious in the even, ' 
 
 More glorious ere it sink to rest, 
 That it may gild the morrow's heaven 
 
 With all the ambient splendours of the west ; 
 So do new honours aptly given 
 
 Relume with beauties long possest. 
 
 A sweeter theme I might have taken 
 
 Whereon to try my Muse's skill ; 
 But none more worthy to awaken 
 
 The withered did years and the mystical 
 
.TO SIR R. P. STEWART. 297 
 
 Sweet music of a lyre, forsaken 
 That I another harp might trill. 
 
 Since first I lisped I have been singing : 
 Two heavenly songs have been my theme : 
 
 Still as I sing my heart is clinging 
 
 To those old days long vanished as a dream, 
 
 Thus to my memory's vision bringing 
 
 Hopes that have foundered in Life's stream. 
 
 Forego awhile that bitter feeling, 
 
 That feeling of antipathy ; 
 For autumn's years o'er you are stealing 
 
 And summer's years for me soon cease to be. 
 Now as the echoes of this song are pealing 
 
 Let Peace be memory's alchymy. 
 
 Thy country's honoured in bestowing 
 On thee a gift — less than thy due \ 
 
 For Genius' like to thine in glowing 
 
 Honours thy country, not thy country you. 
 
 Ev'n as a fount in sunshine flowing 
 A rainbow intercepts the view. 
 
i8 TO SIR R. P. STEWART. 
 
 Thy country's gift lasts but a season, 
 
 Endures while life's endowed with breath, 
 
 It mocks then with an untoward treason 
 When Time and Hope are swallowed up in death; 
 
 But what thou giv'st endures while reason 
 Thy country's weal encompasseth. 
 
 Be thy life's days full fraught with pleasure : 
 
 A hoary head thy laurels be ! 
 Would I could give thee thy fuU measure 
 
 Of praise! for thou, Stewart, once wert just to me ; 
 Therefore, as pastime in my leisure, 
 
 I trellis these few lines for thee. 
 
299 
 
 LO-AMML* 
 
 INSCRIBED TO CITIZEN ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE. 
 I. 
 
 Shall the red hand of hot revolution 
 Rear the banner of schism and death, 
 
 And the daemon of faithless delusion 
 Reek on us the dregs of his breath. 
 
 IL 
 
 Scourge thus bitterly sons oi a nation 
 That would cut off a worthless crew 
 
 Who would spread o'er our land desolation, 
 Would build up to ruin anew ? 
 
 III. 
 Bound with shackles of fraud and deception. 
 
 Saturated with hate and distrust, 
 Blind to right through distorted perception 
 
 They exalt wrong with libertine lust. 
 
 * !'SI> ah Not my People. 
 
3CX} LO-AMMI. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Their bloody berretto and banner 
 With impious hands they would raise, 
 
 Stamping out of our land truth and honour, 
 And the pride of omnipotent days. 
 
 V. 
 
 As a vulture o'er carrion doth flutter 
 
 To rend it with cowardly swoops, 
 So ye at our Albion would utter 
 
 Black treason through innocent dupes. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Justice — Death crush such radical ravings 
 They are prompted by maniac wit : 
 
 They'd have blood-draughts to satiate their 
 cravings- 
 Let them drink till they're drunk with it ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Pour it forth till a new reign of terror 
 Shall succeed to the notes of such chaunts 
 
 Whose reasonless rhymes do make error 
 Stand rampant 'mid holier haunts ! 
 
LO-AMMI. 301 
 
 Let the leal iron-shod heel betrample 
 
 The heart of inflated design ! 
 Make the deadly distortion a sample 
 
 For fools fed on offal of swine ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 We are Celts, ye are Norman or Saxon : 
 'Tis we pay delusion's dire debt 
 
 While ye smile on our deeds, as we wax on 
 In wrath — your ambition to whet. 
 
 We are free, and freeborn was our mother, 
 
 The Mother of Liberty she ; 
 But ye would set brother 'gainst brother. 
 
 Making bondsmen of those that are free. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Back, ye flaunting intruders ! Ye goad us 
 Picturing ills that ne'er had a birth, 
 
 And with desperate grievances load us 
 That for us ne'er had being on earth. 
 
302 LO-AMMI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But perchance ye deluders may perish 
 By the halter which hangs in the gloom ; 
 
 And the fate that ye preach we should cherish 
 Awaits you — a martyr's your doom. 
 
 November 23, 1867. 
 
303 
 
 MANIE TENZIE. 
 
 'Tis much, 'tis little, 'tis enough 
 
 For this our peace to know we're loved j 
 
 And yet 'tis more than love is worth 
 
 To love where Love has faithless proved. 
 
 'Tis'much to ask, 'tis more to have 
 The faith that binds two hearts in one ; 
 
 But faith is frail, and hope is strong, 
 And Hope will bide when Faith is gone. 
 
 'Tis little when we hazard all 
 
 The wealth of time and worth of fame 
 For such a phantom joy as love, 
 
 A joy in nought save in the name. 
 
 It is enough for man to hold 
 In trust for life a part of God : 
 
 'Tis little, much, ay 'tis enough 
 To bow beneath so kind a rod. 
 
304 MANIE TENZIE. 
 
 I loving lost a love — from what ? 
 
 From loving over-well I ween : 
 Ah, Mary, you can sympathize 
 
 From all that your bright eyes have seen. 
 
 From all your ears have heard me speak — 
 Vows full of earnest, full of truth, 
 
 Sincerely uttered unto her 
 Whose heedlessness made bitter youth. 
 
 Dear heart ! when Fancy bears my thoughts 
 To thee and thy sweet smile to-day, 
 
 I bear the sorrows of the past. 
 And chase malignant hopes away. 
 
 Aspiring peace bums fiercely here — 
 O God ! but peace 'twill never be; 
 
 For all my hopes lie as a wreck 
 Upon life's boisterous billowy sea. 
 
 Ah, Manie, you are young and gay. 
 Too young to be despoiled of love ; 
 
 For you are jocund as the May, 
 And gentle as the turtle-dove. 
 
MANIE TENZIE. 305 
 
 I loved you once j I love you still : 
 We were not born for spouse or wife ; 
 
 But this I trow shall bring me bliss, 
 I'll love you while God gives me life. 
 
 You're budding, sweet j I've bloomed and bled 
 
 In ardent love's most direful fray. 
 God grant that when Love blooms for you 
 
 'Twill blossom till your dying day. 
 
 The leaves are green, they shall be red 
 
 And canker-eaten ere they fall ; 
 But then that closes their sad year 
 
 As closes life's sad year for all. 
 
 She whom I loved beguiled me sore : 
 
 Well — pleasure's days for her shall gloom — 
 
 E'en ere the noontide of life's sun 
 Her love shall find a living tomb. 
 
 Could I dispel the future's clouds 
 
 That gather darkly on my ways, 
 Forsooth, mine eyes would weep to see 
 
 The desolation of those days. 
 
 20 
 
3o6 MANIE TENZIE. 
 
 Days when her heart oppressed with grief 
 
 Shall bitterly repent in tears 
 The shame she cast upon our' love 
 
 When it was robed in virgin years. 
 
 Perchance when we shall meet at compt 
 
 A secret voice reproaching her 
 Shall shew the burthen of her soul, 
 
 And cast her forth a perjurer. 
 
 Then shall my spirit clasp her soul, 
 Impress it with the kiss of heaven, 
 
 ^Vhile voices chant the thrilling song 
 That shews earth's perjured love's forgiven. 
 
 You, Mary, knew our holy pledge. 
 
 You knew that promise brought me bliss. 
 
 And you remember how she broke 
 The oath she plighted in a kiss. 
 
 I wot the lustrum of her love 
 Shall waste itself with other fires : 
 
 Then shall she looking back regret 
 The slighted joys of old desires. 
 
MANIE TENZIE. 307 
 
 I once had thought to feast revenge 
 
 In working out some bitter hest ; 
 But now that dire desire is dead, 
 
 And all my wrath's for aye at rest. 
 
 Come, trust me, if one fear you have, 
 Ev'n one, if but a shadowy doubt, — 
 
 Though he9,ven contend, and hell array 
 The pain that wounds you I'll blot out. 
 
 You well remember how the tongue 
 
 Of lying slander blurred my fame ! 
 'Twas heralded in hate about 
 
 To blast a fair unstained name. 
 
 I ne'er forgave an injury — 
 
 But one wherein your love I ween 
 Partook a part to vanquish hate 
 
 And dire revenge that reigned supreme. 
 
 I ne'er forgave an injury — 
 
 Save that — because my spirit knew 
 Your heart would fain have given me peace — 
 
 Then for her sin why visit you ? 
 
3o8 MANIE TENZIE. 
 
 As long as life shall be my dower, 
 
 Though memory should be crisp and sere, 
 
 The alien tongue that slanders me 
 
 I'll hunt through Winter's marsh and mere. 
 
 The springtime comes on zephp's wings 
 To scatter joy broadcast o'er earth ; 
 
 But I have seen in joy the seed 
 Of sorrow have a bitter birth. 
 
 The valleys and the mountains sing 
 When summer stealeth from the south,. 
 
 As sang my heart when kisses bloomed 
 For me upon her luscious mouth. 
 
 Consider how the hlies grow, 
 They toil not, neither do they spin ; 
 
 Yet loves as fair as lilies are 
 
 Do weave themselves a robe of sin. 
 
 - Tell me, can your memory stray 
 
 Back to those long, sweet summer nights, 
 When you, and she, and I beguiled 
 
 The hours away with love's delights % ; 
 
MANIE TENZIE. 309 
 
 Enough ! enough ! the past is o'er 
 
 For aye, whate'er be sung or said 
 Old years consume old memories, 
 
 And dead men lie beside their dead. 
 
 How youth with hopes doth flatter us ! 
 
 Yet who would change those flattering hours 
 With all their cunning sympathies 
 
 For days we durst not think as ours ? 
 
 Ah, Mania Tenzie, you are young. 
 
 You wear not yet an aged heart, 
 Hope wreathes for you a garland fair, 
 
 More beautiful than human art. 
 
 If, when the winter of your life 
 
 Hath chilled your blood with icy fears. 
 
 You think upon those yesterdays 
 
 Your soul, perchance, will thaw to tears. 
 
 Then shall a joy intense, supreme 
 
 A moment flutter round your heart, 
 And you will fashion in your dreams 
 
 Those buried loves ere you depart. 
 
3IO MANIE TENZIE. 
 
 Alas ! Time ever leads us on 
 
 To lands where hope is lost in gloom, 
 And love forsakes the sweets of earth 
 
 To waste within the silent tomb. 
 
 Mayhap when Death shall smite our lives, 
 The loves of earth shall side by side 
 
 Assume the mystic robes of peace, 
 Each with its empyrean bride. 
 
 'Tis comely to esteem man's work ; 
 
 'Tis comely — so are sin and love ; 
 But sin despoils the aspiring soul, 
 
 And love shews man the dross thereof. 
 
 'Tis years since I have shed such tears 
 As now flow from my throbbing eyes : — 
 
 Remembrance is the bitter cause — 
 The dream of olden memories. 
 
 To-day with sunny smiles you warmed 
 My heart, as only such smiles can, 
 
 And by the beams that glowed therefrom 
 Was fired the wish that made me man. 
 
MANIE TENZIE. 311 
 
 Now let the. past be sepulchred 
 
 Deep in the abyss of old deeds done, 
 
 Where all the joys of youthful hopes 
 Are blurred by blank oblivion. 
 
 Or let it rest beyond the spheres, 
 
 Beyond the power of ruthless time. 
 Where angels bury earth's regrets 
 
 ' Mid all the flowerets of that clime. 
 
 Where sunlight ever shining gives 
 
 Eternal splendour to the days, 
 Where hope despoiled gives place to peace 
 
 In Paradise's mystic ways. 
 
 Where halcyon breezes fan the brow 
 Of mortals who o'er treacherous seas 
 
 Have fluttered past the gates of hell 
 To feast on immortalities. 
 
 There, hallowed by a bondage sweet. 
 
 Our old delights and old desires 
 Shall murmur to the eternal stars 
 
 The raptures of love's passioned fires. 
 
312 MAN IE TENZIE. 
 
 POSTSCRIPTUM. 
 
 I thank the tongues that perjured me ; 
 
 For. though keen sorrows came thereof, 
 I hid them in Extasia's heart, 
 
 And lost them in her boundless love. 
 
313 
 
 BETRAYED. 
 
 Confiding love e'en at the best 
 Is but a sad and sorry jest. 
 
 And so thought May when last we met, 
 Poor May ! in long dead years my pet ; ■ 
 The sweetest, prettiest, little maid 
 That ever in the hayfield played ; 
 Her sunny curls and hazel eyes 
 Beamed with the glow of paradise. 
 How often in her baby bliss 
 She has raised her lips to me to kiss ! 
 How oft the boy in manly strife. 
 Who conquered, claimed her for his wife ! 
 But that was fifteen years ago. 
 And time it changes mortals so. 
 Some steadfast hearts it breaks with pain. 
 And some grief-rent it heals again. 
 
314 BETRAYED. 
 
 The heart to-day that knows not sorrow 
 May be an aching heart to-morrow, 
 And the sweet smile that is love's token 
 May flutter round a heart thaf s broken. 
 
 I thought that when we met last night 
 I had passed beyond her memory's flight, 
 That care and shame, and surging years 
 Had drowned the past in floods of tears. 
 And that those days of youthful bliss 
 Were lost in lorn forgetfulness. 
 Though robed in many a silken woe 
 To me she seemed when long ago 
 I kissed her lips and called her ' sweet,' 
 As many now do in the street, 
 To me she seemed the same fair thing 
 As when she round my neck would cling. 
 And ask me for another kiss 
 In her ingenuous simpleness, 
 As fire danced in her hazel eyes 
 With all the sheen of paradise. 
 She seemed the same, yet, ah, so pale- 
 But then the flesh is very frail. 
 Though the heart be strong the body's weak. 
 
BETRAYED. 3 IS 
 
 And soon paints sorrow on the cheek, 
 And though our lips in laughter lave 
 We may be yearning for the grave. 
 
 I had heard that love had led astray 
 My pretty, gentle, little May, 
 That such a sinful life she led 
 'Twere better, far, that she were dead. 
 Her shame 'twas told me half in scorn, 
 With pit)dng words that like a thorn 
 Probes to the heart and stings to death. 
 And poisons with its virtuous breath, 
 Such pity as proclaims the shame. 
 And blasts the frail one's earthly fame. 
 Such as would say, " Behold and see 
 How pure I am ! — a sinner she." 
 Then pitying still their sister's fate. 
 They 'gainst her shut shame's refuge gate 
 O would that ye of Christian name 
 Would Christ-like pardon such sad shame, 
 Or ere ye think to scorn your kin 
 Look well if ye be free from sin ! ' 
 Last night was foggy, wet, and dull, 
 But May, though pale, was beautiful ; 
 
3i6 BETRAYED. 
 
 And when I spoke a smile serene 
 Lit up her face with hallowed sheen. 
 And as a rose-leaf stains when crushed 
 With much caressing, so she blushed 
 As if her heart's-blood, spent with pain, 
 Resumed its wonted fires again ; 
 For still beneath that front so pale 
 Lay arts to tempt love to assail 
 The barriers of her secret blisses 
 With liquid speech and luscious kisses, 
 And through the pallor of disgrace 
 Love still illumed her lovely face, — 
 The same old face of years ago ; 
 But time hath changed it sadly so. 
 O God, 'tis painful when we look 
 On those who vice's ways rebuke. 
 Not by a cruel word or sneer, 
 But by a sunken eye and tear, 
 A mud-splashed dress, a hidden sigh. 
 The tell-tales of true misery, 
 A downcast look, a vacant laugh. 
 The draughts that only sorrows quaff. 
 And the heart's prayer by anguish set, 
 ' God teach us only to forget.' 
 
BETRAYED. 317 
 
 May's soul seemed as she spoke to me 
 Full of the springs of sympathy, 
 And round her mouth there played a smile 
 Pure as a soul that knows not guile, 
 Pure as the new-born light of dawn 
 That wakes from sleep the wakeful fawn, 
 Pjare as the tears the angels shed 
 To deck the greenhouse of the dead. 
 
 I asked her, if through memory's tears 
 Shone the bright glow of early years, 
 And whispered softly, Life's a stray, — 
 Is it not, pretty, sweetest May ? — 
 Her name — she started from her lull, 
 Her eyes with tears all-beautiful, 
 Then answering not from hidden fears, 
 She cried, ' O God !' and burst to tears. 
 Ah, bitter hour ! ah, sad, sad day 
 When love mocked poor, confiding May ! 
 Ah, cruel tongue, worse than inhuman. 
 That wrecks with vows ingenuous woman ! 
 
 She sobbed as if her heart would break — 
 O that men saw the wrecks they make ! 
 
31 8 BETRAYED. 
 
 Good God ! to think that erst sweet child, 
 Pure as the dew-drop, was beguiled 
 Into a sin by love-weaved lies, 
 Enslaved by hollow sympathies, 
 To satiate lust that seeks strange fires 
 To whet its passionate desires. 
 O base, unphilosophic crew. 
 Hell fain its sin-paved floors would strew 
 With souls like yours with treachery laden 
 Who ruin thus each trustful maiden, 
 And blight for aye with untoward shame 
 A virtuous and unsullied name. 
 
 May smitten by lust's treacherous dart 
 Yielded her love's divinest part, 
 Made of her life by hallowed trust 
 The spectre of despised dust. 
 And by the gift which heaven did send 
 Was ta'en from her her truest friend. 
 The majesty of maiden bliss, — 
 Virtue — none other equals this — 
 This maiden's hope, this maiden's dower, 
 O'er which love hath a conqueror's power, 
 In May was as a full-blown flower 
 
BETRA YED. 319 
 
 That having reached life's fickle hour, 
 When amorous winds its beauty frays, 
 It droops in sorrow and decays. 
 All that she had in love she gave 
 To him who made her a living grave, 
 Who in return for all her love 
 Left her to reap the tares thereof, — 
 The callous heart, and sullied name 
 By which man calls the spouse of shame. 
 The dire reward of holy vice 
 Thrust headlong out of paradise, 
 The wasted frame, the ruined mind. 
 And the fierce tongues of scorn combined 
 To quench with scandal's vicious breath 
 Virtue's frail spark that lighteneth 
 In every soul while life survives 
 To guide to peace our straying lives. 
 If mankind would but heap their wrath 
 On him who breaks his plighted troth, 
 If upon him were heaped such shame, 
 The fires of woe would lose their flame, 
 And the fierce scourge that stings the soul 
 Would seldom fall in scorn's control. 
 Why spurn thy sister for love's sin ? — 
 
320 BETRAYED. 
 
 The frailest of the frail's thy kin. 
 
 Ah, May, how came you, sweet, to this ?- 
 But here there's far more woe than bliss, 
 More pain to mar life's dreams of pleasure 
 Than we with all our skill could measure, 
 More biting words in lifetime spoken, 
 To make our distraught spirits broken, 
 Than all your fancy dreameth of. 
 Or can be soothed by human love. 
 To troublous ways that lead to death 
 Is each man born to ; for the breath 
 Of man is as the light of day 
 From golden morn to evening grey 
 It changes, then with sudden flight 
 It passeth into sable night. 
 
 Come, tell me. May, your sorrows, love, 
 I'll pity you, and not reprove, 
 I know too well that your poor heart 
 Bleeds, aches, and yeameth to depart 
 Where all earth's foulness is made fair, 
 And deathless pleasure ranges; there 
 Grief enters not to mar our joy. 
 
nETRA YED. 321 
 
 And its sweet pastimes never cloy. 
 There winter comes not to make chill 
 The heart with many a sickening ill ; 
 There, I have heard the angels say, 
 'Tis ever sunshine, ever May, 
 And night ne'er blinds the eyes of day. 
 
 Come, tell me. May, your spirit's woes. 
 In me your sorrows all repose. 
 And I will strive with pit/s balm 
 The tempests of your soul to calm. 
 Cease weeping, sweet, your heart will break. 
 
 O that men saw the wrecks they make ! 
 With which the strand of life is strewn 
 Day after day; lives that are hewn 
 By God to bear immortal souls 
 Over Time's sin-encumbered shoals. 
 
 Her tale of love, a story old. 
 To me in tears she sadly told. 
 And as she spoke, I well remember 
 Her face seemed as a half-burnt ember 
 Which ever as a kind breath blows 
 
322 BETRA YED. 
 
 Resumes its fires and brightly glows, 
 And then becoming pallid grey 
 With unseen fire it wastes away. 
 And so with May ; when as she spoke 
 Old passions in her re-awoke 
 Lighting her cheeks with those same fires 
 That burned away her old desires. 
 Then did the winds of memory bleak 
 Make pale her passion-glowing cheek. 
 O fertile, ever fruitful bloom. 
 You blossom but on virtue's tomb ; 
 Like palms that flourish fed with dust, 
 You only bloom when steeped in lust. 
 If men would study to be wise 
 Then poets need not moralize, 
 Not picture to mankind the pain 
 Of tears that water earth like rain, 
 Not hold to man that kindless glass 
 That shews earth's sorrows as they pass 
 Down the steep cliff of ruthless time 
 Unto that land of dismal clime. 
 
 Two years ago in youth's full pride 
 ^i; i:Gne wooed her to make her his bride; 
 
BETRA YED. 323 
 
 And told her that without her love, 
 And the rapt sweets that are thereof^ 
 He could not bear to be alive, 
 Therefore he asked the maid to wive 
 With that impassioned speech which stirs 
 Confiding hearts such as was hers. 
 So spoke he, and poor May believed, 
 Alas, but to be sore deceived, — 
 Not knowing that a trust so pure 
 As she reposed in him, was sure 
 Ere many months had passed away 
 To turn her golden pleasures grey, 
 Ere autumn's leaves were crisp and red 
 That she would mourn her love as dead. 
 'Ah cruel, base, designing tongue. 
 That from her gentle body wrung 
 Her honour's pledge, her only all. 
 That such as she their own can call. 
 How that such men as these are — base- 
 Can gaze upon a virtuous face, 
 And not in its ingenuous look 
 Find for their thoughts a calm rebuke, 
 I wot not ; for to me it seems 
 As if from Virtue's eye there teems 
 
 21 — 2 
 
324 BE7RA YED. 
 
 On every thought of false pretence 
 A pure condemning influence. 
 He who this tale of sorrow tells 
 A thousand times has heard the bells 
 Of virgin laughter thrill the breeze, 
 And wept in soul that such as these 
 Should be betrayed by human kind 
 Whose words are kindred to their mind, 
 Words such as these, Poor maids are bred 
 For rich man's lust, not to be wed. 
 And these be they who soon or late 
 For England's poor shall legislate, 
 And some of these by birthright are 
 At once a peer and senator. 
 Amongst this noble titled crew 
 The truly noble are but few : 
 'Tis sad that such as these should be 
 Dispensers of morality. 
 
 'Twas such an one who did betray 
 Poor trustful, loving, gentle May. 
 On such an one's love-treacherous vow 
 She cast her faith, — more than enow 
 For twenty high-bom maidens' love 
 
BpTRA YED. 325 
 
 Such as we now-a-days hear of, 
 
 And on whose bfow is daily set 
 
 That worthless thing — a coronet, 
 
 'Neath which, perchance, there's hid more vice 
 
 Than e'er was hurled from Paradise. 
 
 I dare not sing that noble love 
 
 Dwells not in noble maids to move 
 
 The passions of their souls' desires 
 
 To pure, absorbing, amorous fires ; 
 
 For well I know such love as theirs 
 
 Surpasses all things, even dares 
 
 Compete with angels in its faith, 
 
 A love that's stronger, far, than death, 
 
 A love that braves oppressing wrong, 
 
 A love that hallows life among 
 
 The shoals of hope and rocks of woe — 
 
 A love such women only know. 
 
 Nathless to her who is my theme 
 The song of love was as a dream 
 That wreathes our hopes with many a smile. 
 And only woos us to beguile. 
 Thus he, whose wiles her heart enmeshed. 
 Forgot the floweret he had crushed, 
 
326 BETRA YED. 
 
 E'en slighted the delusive sin 
 
 That brought on May the sickening din 
 
 Of scandal's tongues, that pitying shame, 
 
 Blighting her only dower — ^her name. 
 
 For thus it is such pity shews 
 
 Its sorrow for a sister's woes. 
 
 O ye who spit from jealous spleen 
 Upon a frail one's gabardine ! 
 If that ye scorn to touch its hem. 
 In all your ways why follow them. 
 Assume their vices with their dress. 
 Yet seem to scorn their wickedness ? 
 Be sure of this, more sin is hid 
 From mortal eyes, than e'er is chid. 
 More vice beneath an ermine cloak 
 Than prayers and aim-gifts can revoke. 
 More sin fermenting in their hearts 
 Than ever such as May imparts 
 By touch or speech, by kiss or curse, 
 Or gold from her polluted purse. 
 Ye love the sin your tongues despise, 
 She hates the sin her hunger buys ; 
 But yet with lust she bartereth " 
 
BETRA YED. 327 
 
 Lest life should be consumed with death. 
 Truly, to all men, rich and poor. 
 The love of days doth e'er endure : 
 For man lives on in hope of bliss, 
 Uncertain if succeeding this 
 Fair world with all its sin and pain, 
 The soul shall taste such bliss again. 
 Let Poets picture in their dreams 
 Those fairer lands where pleasure teems 
 Like pearly dew or crystal rain 
 On souls seraphic ; still I fain 
 Would hazard all such joys as these 
 For earthly, living sympathies ; 
 For to my tearful-laden eyes 
 Earth doth appear a paradise, 
 Sweeter, O sweeter, far, since love 
 Dwells in all things that are thereof. 
 And, but for envy's chilling sneer, 
 And kindless hate that bideth here. 
 And jealousy, and hate that's bom of love, 
 And all the base desires that move 
 Our natures to unrighteous ways. 
 Marring the beauty of fair days, 
 And all foul things that do estrange 
 
3z8 BETRA YEL). 
 
 Men's hearts from good, the awful change 
 
 To after-life would be an hour 
 
 Fraught with weird fancies, and the power 
 
 That holpeth hope to bear us up 
 
 Would be a bitter, bitter cup 
 
 Filled with the poison of regret, 
 
 The which, not anything as yet 
 
 More fearful comes to man in life ; 
 
 It feeds upon the pangs of strife 
 
 Hid in the breast to season pain 
 
 While man sails o'er Time's billowy main, 
 
 Until with death our spirits be 
 
 Havened in immortaUty, 
 
 Where mists of sorrow never fall, 
 
 And all is love ambrosial. 
 
 Hither we fain would journeying go 
 
 When grief makes weary life below ; 
 
 But that our souls to time are thrall, 
 
 And we abide Death's noiseless call, 
 
 Fearful if it can truly tell 
 
 Unto our hearts our soul's farewelL 
 
 Farewell — O word of sacred token, 
 
 The sweetest wish by mortal spoken. 
 
BETRAYED. 329- 
 
 When as May's heart with life was full, 
 And Love's sweet notes were audible, 
 When youth in blushing joyance swayed 
 The sceptre of her hopes, and made 
 The hours of time with rapture glide, 
 Then she became a wedless bride 
 To traitorous sin ; and, oh, since then 
 Sorrow pursued her ways, and when 
 I saw her on that dreary night 
 Lorn was her mien and sad her plight ; 
 But still for all her past disgrace 
 Love did illumine her sad face. 
 Pure love's disgrace — O cruel word ! 
 Would that thy voice were never heard ! 
 Would that the tongue that gives thee speech 
 Were smitten in the mouths of each 
 Who dares to mock such sorrow's shame, 
 And call it by a slighting name. 
 But there be some whom scandal sets 
 To utter biting epithetSj 
 Some who draw life from hate and lies, 
 Subsisting on antipathies, 
 Ay, some who find in one's distress 
 The acme of their happinesSi 
 
330 BETRA YED. 
 
 Alas, that such as these should find 
 A resting-place amongst mankind. 
 But 'tis a mortal's proud estate 
 To ever find on earth his mate, 
 Unsought he finds his spirit's kin 
 Since life was made the wage of sin ; 
 For sin gives man his life's first breath, 
 And sin consumes the same in death. 
 
 What May had lost, was bartered — sold 
 On virtue's threshold as of old ; 
 For the same woe that broke her heart 
 Has ever had its counterpart 
 Since e'er our mother Eve partook 
 The fiiiit that brought on man rebuke, 
 Or ever love presumes to be 
 The offspring of our sympathy. 
 
 The same false tongue that did betray 
 May's love, now crieth out to-day 
 Against those sins that mar our lives, 
 And against honour's ways contrives ; 
 E'en calls on man, till voice is spent, 
 In synod, senate, parliament. 
 
EETRA YED. 331 
 
 To assuage the sufferings of the poor, 
 
 And lead to right the evil doer, 
 
 Teach those fair ones — those dupes of love — 
 
 That pardon cometh from above. 
 
 Succour those frail ones whose dire grief 
 
 Springs from a love at best but brief, 
 
 A love that dulls those radiant eyes 
 
 That speak the soul's strange mysteries. 
 
 That bends the haughty spirit low 
 
 With an unsatisfying, ruthless woe. 
 
 Would that these men who thus-wise speak 
 
 Could only study to be meek. 
 
 Would first, ere they with false intent 
 
 Call on their brethren to repent. 
 
 Repent themselves for evil done. 
 
 And ever vice's pathways' shun. 
 
 Not so : the thoughts that prompt to this 
 
 Urge such to spoil a virgin's bliss. 
 
 In hearts that's false, false deeds are meet. 
 
 They alway feast upon deceit. 
 
 Thinking, What boots it if maids be 
 
 The dupes of our duplicity ? 
 
 They need must be themselves impure 
 
 If they permit us to allure 
 
332 BETRA YED. 
 
 Them from the sacred ways of good — 
 Upon their own heads be their blood ! 
 An adder's poison whets such lips — 
 God help the maid who kissing sips 
 Such deadly pleasures to her soul 
 And qusiflFs in faith love's treacherous bowl. 
 What mystic power hast thou, O Love, 
 That thou canst thus our passions move, 
 At once dispel our burning fears, 
 And buoy, us with fantastic years. 
 Making with thy delicious spell 
 A paradise or living hell ? 
 
 Lorn May, wherefore, I cannot tell. 
 Believed in nought, was infidel. 
 Perchance it was that suffering much 
 Without true pity made her such ; 
 Belike it was she thought that God 
 Chastened with too severe a rod, 
 Since that her ,only sin was love. 
 Forgetting him who 'gainst her strove. 
 Thus spoke she to a Christian once, 
 Who with low voice made this response, — ^ 
 ' The wicked flourish as a bay : 
 
BETRA YED. 
 
 So sang the Psalmist, dearest May/ 
 Then, with a Christian's wonted tact, 
 Thrust in her hands a holy tract. 
 But May in her most secret heart 
 Wished she had played a sinner's part, 
 Ay, wicked too, I trow would May 
 Have been that she might as a bay 
 Have flourished, and the world traduce, 
 Foiling its pity and abuse. 
 These thoughts were out of May's control. 
 They sprang from her rebellious soul ; 
 For the flesh rather loves the faith 
 That giveth pleasure after death, 
 Loves the sweet hope that slays our fears 
 With joys enduring through all years— 
 That timeless spell divined by man, 
 To measure which no mortal can. 
 That season when the soul shall be 
 Partaker of eternity — 
 Eternal joy, eternal peace — 
 The thraldom of our soul's release. 
 
 Poor May, poor May, how hard her fate ! 
 Thrust from her virtuous estate — 
 
 333 
 
334 BETRA YED. 
 
 Think of her -wrecked and wasted bliss- 
 By many a blood-entrancing kiss 
 Charged with accursed artifice. 
 With tears in those large hazel eyes 
 She waked my secret s)Tnpathies 
 By telling ine the sad, sad story 
 That robbed her of her honour's glory, 
 Leaving her truly poor, indeed ; 
 For virtue is a holy mead 
 The rich and poor alike possess 
 In all its pristine loveUness. 
 
 As slowly chimed the midnight bell, 
 I sorrowing bade lorn May — Farewell. 
 If well in life one e'er could fare 
 Whose days were wasting in despair. 
 
33S 
 
 JOB'S SOLILOQUY. 
 
 In all the mystic dreams of this my life 
 The fear of death makes bitter all their joys. 
 In all the hopes that doubtful shadows cast 
 On the drear marge of depthless Aftertime, 
 Doubt, gaunt and horrid, penetrates my soul, 
 And leaves the phantom of desire despoiled 
 Of all the trancing ways that fashion peace — 
 Peace in the dreamland of despair and night, 
 Peace in the desert of eternal drouth. 
 Peace in the inner peace that mocks our lives 
 With the fantastic gleam of Paradise. 
 In this the wildering spectres of my brain 
 Gather fatuity and fashion forth 
 In airy mistiness the sickening spell 
 That makes infatuate our life-day's sport 
 And casts mid bitter fears the joy of Time. 
 For my fair soul's completeness do I waste 
 The treasured hours of life's short-mated years 
 In casting hope upon that quickening strand 
 
336 yOB'S SOLILOQUY. 
 
 Where Death usurps its unresisting power, 
 
 And smites my blindfold Fancy that makes tryst 
 
 With peace eternal when its reign begins. 
 
 Elohim, Thou, whose favourless designs 
 
 Shatter the temple of our earthly bliss 
 
 With the keen poison of heart-fretful years, 
 
 And the delusive spoil of withering days, 
 
 Thou who consumest with aspirings vain 
 
 The days of time that garner joys from youth, 
 
 Thou who combinest 'gainst our lives with death 
 
 That thou may'st feast upon our soul's desires 
 
 And fashion us according as thy will doth Ust, 
 
 Upon thine all-absorbent soul, which gives 
 
 Omnipotence to hidden shades, shall fall 
 
 The flattering vision of such recompenseless years 
 
 To harness Thee, the Lord of Hosts, with that dire 
 
 hour 
 When futile days shall darken with our shame. 
 And Future's glowing joys be profileless. 
 Yet well I know that my Redeemer lives. 
 And in the latter days upon the earth 
 He'll stand, to teach us that our inane hopes 
 Are but the transient phantoms of despair ; 
 For, surely, He. will gather us into His fold, 
 
JOB'S SOLILOQUY. 33; 
 
 And shew us, that though worms this body spoil, 
 Tis in our flesh, alone, we can see God. 
 Thus fade in Time the fleeting hours away 
 To mock our spirits with a phantom day. 
 
 32 
 
338 
 
 ELEGIACS ON CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 I. 
 
 The light of laughter in this vale of tears 
 Must pause awhile with sudden smitten breath, 
 
 And sorrow lend to life's surviving years 
 
 The anguish brought by dire avenging death. 
 
 II. 
 
 And he is dead ! our youth's own dearest friend, 
 The choice companion of our lonely hours, 
 
 Snatched from the bosom of our loves to rend 
 
 Our hearts in twain with griefs most mystic powers. 
 
 III. 
 And he is dead ! ah, dead to Ufe and love ; 
 
 Dead to the grief of sympathetic hearts. 
 Emotionless to all life's pangs ; above 
 
 He sits enthroned beyond death's poisoned darts. 
 
ELEGIACS ON CHARLES DICKENS. 339 
 
 IV. 
 
 And he is dead ! O could he hear the wail 
 
 Of bitter woe and uncontrolled grief 
 That his dull ears in misery assail, 
 
 Our solitary anguish would be brief. 
 
 And he is dead ! he whose divining soul 
 
 Caught from the depths of darkly shadowed life 
 
 The elements that sweep with curbless roll 
 The surging wrath of heart's rebellious strife. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Drawn by tlie melody of early love 
 
 Into the visionary vale of Truth, 
 He struck with ire the thrilling chords thereof, 
 
 And stilled the passion of despotic youth. 
 
 VII. 
 
 He is not dead ; for his life's soul sublime, 
 Which took its flight ere we could say farewell, 
 
 Casteth a radiant glow o'er endless time, 
 Throned on the empyrean of death's spell. 
 
340 ELEGIACS ON CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Still the low voice that whispers in the breeze 
 Murmurs in its rapt solitude his magic name, 
 
 And the birds chirping in the summer trees 
 Echo throughout the world his deathless fame 
 
 IX. 
 
 He is not dead ; for still his spirit lives 
 Breathing the purer airs of lovers' sighs ; 
 
 He cannot die, for that which heaven gives 
 Can never taste of death — it never dies. 
 
341 
 
 ALBA'S PARTING. 
 
 I WOULD much rather not have told you of it. 
 But since you will that I should tell it — Listen ! 
 Our parting was in suchwise sad, that still 
 Its memory hangeth heavy on my heart. 
 And I would thus much say ere I begin : 
 You know to me, who loved exceeding well. 
 How well, my heart, alone, can ever know. 
 Each look, each sigh and tear, each syllable 
 Was as a volume of sweet poetry. 
 However, such they cannot be to you ; 
 Nor would I be so vain as think them so ; 
 Still if you knew my love in life, I'm sure 
 That you would give me all your sympathy 
 In this my heaviest grief, and, truly, you 
 Would say my sorrow's very hard to bear. 
 But then, perchance, I overrate the pain : 
 Still every man doth think his own woe sorest. 
 I dare not vaunt my anguish to such bounds 
 As hope to thrill the fibres of your heart 
 
343 ALBA'S PARTING. 
 
 As it thrills mine ; for you, my dearest friend, 
 
 Must hold some things in more esteem than I, 
 
 And some contemn that T esteem most worth. 
 
 'Tis thus we barter lives for differences. 
 
 So if in aught I weary you, forgive my fault ; 
 
 For Love its sorrows doth so magnify 
 
 That oft we seem to find a woe where none abides 
 
 Meanwhile, if I grow heavy in my tale. 
 
 Remember that I told you every look 
 
 Of her I loved and cherished in my life, 
 
 Each sigh and tear, and every syllable, 
 
 Were volumes of sweet poetry to me. 
 
 After our honeymoon in Italy, 
 We both returned to Ireland, there to pass 
 The best part of our lives beneath the roof 
 Where my grandmother's sire was born, and died. 
 Leaving the Hall and all its rich domains 
 Unto his heiress, Blanche, his only child, 
 With this express condition in his will. 
 That he who married her should take his name. 
 One honoured in the land for centuries. 
 The which my grandsire did, maintaining it 
 Through civil strife with honour till his death. 
 
ALBA'S PARTING. 343 
 
 But I had nigh forgot you have not seen 
 The dear old place since you and I were boys. 
 You spent your last vacation there, before 
 You went to Sandhurst, I to Trinity. 
 Since then, some eighteen years, we have not met. 
 Oh how the time flies by ! What changes come ! 
 Old memories pall new hopes, and Sorrow sits 
 Weeping with widow's tears the buried past. 
 The house is much the same as when you saw it, 
 Save those small changes which new fashions make. 
 The village, church, and rectory alone 
 Discard the mocking ways of varied change — 
 True, true, I see you have forgotten it,] 
 But I will strive and picture it to you. 
 
 The river's broken by an old grey weir, 
 O'er which in wintertime the water falls 
 In billowy foam, then eddying at the base, 
 Forming a thousand whirlpools, hurries on 
 Beneath an iron battlemented bridge 
 Through shallows and through rapids to the sea. 
 And by the weir there stands a broken arch 
 Moss-grown and covered o'er with weeds, 
 Which in the olden time did span the stream. 
 
344 ALBA'S PARTING. 
 
 O'er which they say the heiress Blanche had driven 
 While yet it tottered on its buttresses, 
 Now's but a mouldering relic of the past. 
 Here in the silence of a midday dream 
 Lies Lucan straggling by the Liffey's bank. 
 
 'Twas in the village church Norah and I 
 Were wed — surely, you recollect the church 
 With its tall pointed spire and fickle vane, 
 And our square pew with curtains of blue silk, 
 And the large iron gates, the village school 
 In front, with jasmine trellising its walls. 
 And roses peeping through the snow-drop shrubs. 
 You don't ? Well, it's the only thing that's changed, 
 Roses and jasmine long have ceased to bloom. — 
 'Twas in that self-same church I married Norah — 
 In love we called her Alba ; for her hair 
 In golden tresses on her shoulders, fell 
 Like sunbeams breaking through a southern dawn. 
 And like the dawn she passed to eve and night 
 To shine in other lands with brighter glow. 
 
 I will not tell you of the house, for you 
 Will see it for yourself to-morrow night. 
 I^ut let me tell you of our last farewell. 
 
ALBA'S PARTING. 345 
 
 A summer's night full of sad memories 
 Was that when Alba whispered, me adieu, 
 When her sweet lips in kisses clung to mine, 
 Her arms clasped round my neck as if to bind 
 Her fluttering soul a longer while to earth. 
 How vainly struggle we for life when death 
 Doth beckon us to keep with him our tryst ! 
 And as she looked upon me with her glassy eyes — 
 Good God ! eyes that once sparkled like a gem — 
 She on my shoulder laid her heavy head. 
 And weeping, kissing and caressing me, 
 As if we first time met after long years. 
 Said softly, " O 'tis hard, 'tis very hard to part, 
 To say farewell — to say a long good-bye. 
 Perchance we'll never meet : ah, yes, we'll meet 
 Beyond — ^beyond — " : then fell she back as dead. 
 And my heart leaped in awful fear, as leaps 
 The heart betimes when woes expected come. 
 
 You know we loved each other wondrous well. 
 From letters I wrote you while we were wooing. 
 I'll not say better than e'er others loved ; 
 But full as well as those who love their best. 
 Yet, you would scarce believe it, there were some 
 
346 ALBA'S PARTING, 
 
 Who said we lived unhappily, they spake, 
 
 And well they knew it, base, unfounded lies — 
 
 But let that pass — scandal must feast itself. 
 
 Well, when I thought her dead I wept aloud. 
 
 And leaning over her to kiss her lips, 
 
 A burning tear fell on her face. It seemed 
 
 As if it called her soul to earth again, 
 
 For opening her dull eyes she gazed on me, 
 
 And said, " Why weep ? We part a little while 
 
 Ere long to meet again ; 'twill seem to me 
 
 A night's rest ; for my soul shall slumber, love, 
 
 Until thy voice shall waken it — until 
 
 Thy loving voice shall waken it. Yes, yes, 
 
 My soul shall sleep till then." O had you seen. 
 
 Even amid these hopes, the tears flood down her cheeks. 
 
 Then had you known, if God had willed it so. 
 
 How she would fain have tarried with us still j 
 
 For life is certain, but succeeding life 
 
 There's nought but hope, perchance a cruel hope. — 
 
 She then in her damp hand caught mine, and said, 
 
 " You know, sweetheart, you wooed me with a song, 
 
 And in a song our souls first met in love, 
 
 Now I would say farewell even while you sing 
 
 That same old song the which you won me with. — 
 
ALBA'S PARTING. 3 
 
 No, no, not sing — I know your heart, like mine, 
 Is far too full of grief to sing ; but sit 
 You down and play me that sweet melody 
 Which both of us did love to hear. There, there, 
 A kiss, sweetheart, another kiss, my love. 
 Now play the song : — my soul awaits to hear." 
 And then as one who dreams doth play, I played 
 That sweetest song of Mendelssohn's^ " O hft 
 Thine eyes unto the mountains from whence comes 
 Thy help." The last chord seemed a dying song 
 Whose lingering strain wings to the distant spheres. 
 And as I paused to hear my Alba speak 
 And tell me how she liked the melody, 
 I heard the green leaves rustle and the low 
 Winds sigh close by the open oriel. 
 'Twas her soul winging to her heavenly tryst 
 Made the leaves flutter in its mystic flight. 
 
 Forgive me if I weep — ah, you weep too. 
 How sweet a thing, dear friend, is sympathy ! 
 
348 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 You remember the day when we wedded, 
 
 That day full of rapturous love, 
 When with kisses we hailed our souls' union, 
 
 And God heard our vows from above. 
 
 You remember the words that you uttered. 
 And the passionate speech that was yours ; 
 
 For your hopes were unburthened of doubtings 
 And your heart beat with joy that endures. 
 
 How you told me 'mid tears and embraces 
 
 Your vision of life was divine ; 
 For the summer had brought you love's harvest 
 
 And I was none other's but thine. 
 
 And you looked on the fields heavy-laden 
 With the gold of the fruits of increase, 
 
 And you smiling impressed on my forehead 
 The seal of your pleasure and peace. 
 
DEDICATION. 349 
 
 Then my soul was so full I could speak not ; 
 
 But touching your lips in my joy, 
 I murmured within me in gladness, — 
 
 This triumph of love lacks alloy. 
 
 Then I laid you, love, close to my bosom. 
 And watched your soul beam in your eyes 
 
 Till their luminous splendour bedazzled 
 The lustre of stars in the skies. 
 
 And I saw you would fain make confession 
 
 Of the mystic desires of your soul ; 
 But the tempest of passions conflicting 
 
 Held the thoughts you would speak in control. 
 
 And I saw by the. bloom and the blossom 
 
 Of love, that the vintage of years 
 Should beguile our youth's fancy with pastime, 
 
 And nourish our souls for their spheres. 
 
 Then I said, surely earth is a heaven, 
 
 And love is the jewel of life, 
 And woman's the star that illumines 
 
 The darkness of sorrow and strife. 
 
35° DEDICATION. 
 
 Such a woman as you are, my darling, 
 The world sees but seldom and few ; 
 
 Though a mother and wife still we're wooing, 
 Yea, and till' our lives' severance we'll woo. 
 
 Still your harvest of love I am reaping ; 
 
 But I gather and garner in vain : 
 For the fruit of your love e'er increases, 
 
 And faithfulness ripens the grain. 
 
 Though we've parted a season, our spirits 
 Commingle in slumbers and dreams ; 
 
 With the dawn comes the hope of love's message, 
 And sunset brings peace on its beams. 
 
 On that day— that old day of Love's glory — 
 Did I consecrate joyance and song, 
 
 And the mystical pleasures of life-time, 
 And the hopes that bear youth-tide along. 
 
 And the suns of new morrows that hallow 
 The sombre and grief-burthened nights. 
 
 And ambition that leadeth to honour, 
 And Jove and its myriad delights. 
 
DEDICATION. 351 
 
 And the beauties that tremble reflected 
 
 In eyes that are jewelled with tears, 
 And the season that travails with anguish — 
 
 The end and beginning of years. 
 
 These are flowers that I've culled from this garden 
 
 To garland the days that are fleet ; 
 So I bring them to you ere they wither, 
 
 And lay them in love at your feet. 
 
 Rome, May, 1872. 
 
353 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page II. 
 
 Wandered to Nemi, where a raging fire. 
 
 The Lake of Nemi, which tradition says was once a volcano, 
 is close to the village of Genzano, and but a short drive from 
 Albano. It is one of the loveliest spots near Rome. When I 
 visited it last year it appeared to be the very emblem of peace ; 
 the sheet of water looked like a mirror in a frame of wooded 
 hills. Although it was the month of February, the sky was a 
 bright blue, and the sun deliciously warm. There is on its. 
 borders a charming vUla belonging to the Duke Sforza Cesarini. 
 
 Page 132. 
 
 Come batte il mio cuore! e come lento. 
 
 I have written these few lines in Italian simply from caprice. 
 But that they may be understood by all, I here will translate 
 them : — 
 
 How my heart beats ! and, O, with what slow tread 
 
 Passes the time that waiteth upon love ! 
 
 O how this ire doth torture me !^He comes — 
 
 He comes— O joy ! Thou'rt welcome, Cardinal. 
 
 23 
 
354 NOTES. 
 
 Page 139. 
 
 An offshoot of the house of Ar agon, 
 
 Alfonzo, Duke of Bisceglie, natural son of Alfonzo II., King 
 of Naples. 
 
 Page 139. 
 
 He was a man whose upright mien bespoke 
 His mind. 
 
 Muratori speaking of him says, " He was a prince famous in 
 the world, who in sense and valour had few equals in- his time.'' 
 (Un Principe glorioso nel mondo che in senno e valore ebbe 
 pochi pari al suo tempo). I, however, make Lucrezia give him 
 not altogether so glowing a character. 
 
 Page 139. 
 
 But speak, my daughter j if thou ever loved. 
 
 I have here adopted the Italian mode of address. Here, for 
 the first time, Bembo addresses Lucrezia in the second person 
 singular, although she has done so from the commencement of 
 the scene. The second person singular is only used in Italian, as 
 in French, when the speakers are on terms' of intimacy. 
 
 Page 140. 
 
 My husband died by the assassin's hand. 
 
 According to Guicciardini and Muratori, Csesar Borgia, Lu- 
 crezia's brother, was his murderer. 
 
 Page 153. 
 
 Amensis, 
 By tradition amongst the Mohammedans the wife of Potiphar 
 
NOTES. 355 
 
 is said to liave been named Zuleikha. (Vide note to verse 21 
 sura xii., of Monsieur Kasimirski's French translation of the 
 Koran). I, however, preferred to call her by a historical Egyp- 
 tian name, and therefore chose that of the daughter of Thotmes 
 I., vfho afterwards became queen of Egjrpt. 
 
 Page 162. 
 
 Nay, lady ; such a place we wot not of. 
 
 I maintain that throughout the Old Testament there is not a 
 passage that can be quoted which clearly justifies us in thinking 
 that the ancient Jews believed in the Immortality of the Soul. 
 On the contrary, there are many which warrant us in believing 
 they entertained no such hope. It is a fact, also, which may 
 not be generally known among theologians, that some years ago 
 Rabbis, deputed by the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, went about 
 Egypt selling a sort of indulgence called, Helek le golam aba, 
 (The Hope of a future state), the proceeds of which were to 
 have been set .apart for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. 
 Whether they ever came to England I cannot tell. 
 
 Page 164. 
 Who is Elohim, Adonai, God. 
 The various Hebrew appellations of the Almighty. 
 
 Page 167. 
 Molten by An, she overflows to floods. 
 The Egyptian god An, in Hebrew On, was supposed to repre- 
 sent the sun. The chief seat of his worship was Heliopolis. It 
 was the daughter (Asenath) of the Priest of this God whom 
 Pharaoh gave Joseph to wife. See Genesis, chap. xli. 45. 
 
 23—2 
 
356 NOTES. 
 
 Page l68. 
 To tell in liquid strains the hallowed love of El. 
 Py EJ, Joseph means Jehovah. 
 
 Page, 1 84. 
 Wherefore did he choose you, Apuriu. 
 The Egyptians called the Jews Apuriu (Hebrews). 
 
 Page 190. 
 
 O sweeter, far, than choice Anthylla wine. 
 
 According to Athenseus this was one of the choicest of Egyp 
 tian wines. It was also one of those used in the sacrifices. The 
 city of Anthylla, from whence the celebrated wine came was re- 
 quired to supply the wife of the reigjiing king .of Egypt with 
 shoes. See flerodotus ii. 98. 
 
 Page 198. 
 For, truly, man's desire is woman's love. 
 It is Samuel Taylor Coleridge, if I remember rightly, says, 
 " The desire of man is for woman ; but the desire of a woman is 
 for the desire of a man." How true this is I 
 
 Page 199. 
 
 Touching the cat faced goddess' festival. 
 
 The goddess, Pasht, who, according to Herodotus (Book ii., 
 
 59), was the same as Diana, was represented as having the 
 
 face of a cat, which animal was held sacred by the Egyptians. 
 
 It was death to any person who was known to have killed one. 
 
NOTES. 357 
 
 Page 200. 
 It was not Set's device this sympathy. 
 Set was the Egyptian God of Evil. He was synonymous with 
 our Satan or Devil. 
 
 Page 2o5. 
 " Post Mortem Nulla Voluptas. 
 My learned reader will permit me to translate this for those who 
 do not understand Latin. After death there are no pleasures. It 
 is a portion of the Epicurean Maxim — " Bibamus, mauducamus, 
 post mortem nulla Voluptas." It is alluded to by Saint Paul in 
 his first epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 32) : — "Let us eat, drink 
 and be merry, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 Page 223. 
 For that mist-land — the spirifs Aiden. 
 The invisible world, or Hades, whither our spirit is supposed 
 to fly after the breath hath forsaken that insensate and corruptible 
 part of us called— the body. 
 
 Page 250. 
 
 Arezzo, to thy memory I wreathe. 
 
 I believe Arezzo has been the birthplace of more poets than 
 any other city in Italy. Here Michele Donate Guido, commonly 
 called Era Guittone, Petrarch, Redi, Aretino, Sgricci the Impro- 
 visatore, and many other minor poets were bom. It was also 
 the birthplace of Guido Monaco the inventor of musical notes. 
 
 Page 251. 
 Genius incom.prehensible ! to thee. 
 Tommaso Sgricci, an Aretian noble, was one of the most ex- 
 
358 NOTES. 
 
 traordinary men who ever lived. His power of improvisation 
 was marvellous. He improvised no less than one hundred tra- 
 gedies. There are, however, but a few extant, having been 
 saved from oblivion by the aid of stenography. Of these, which 
 I believe are extremely scarce, being long out of print, I possess 
 Crisfo, improvised November 3rd, 1827 ; Tieste, improvised the 
 evening of November loth, 1827 ; and Two Acts of Samson, 
 improvised November 20th, 1827 ; also The Fall of Missolonghi, 
 (La Caduta di Missolunghi), improvised in Paris on the evening 
 of the 23rd of November ; and Charles I. of England, which 
 was improvised in the same city, before the Acad^mie Frangaise 
 in the Theatre Loubois, April 2Sth, 1824. The above I ob- 
 tained from his only surviving descendants, two grand-nephews, 
 one is a printer, and the other a tobacconist, still resident in 
 Arezzo. 
 
 Page 270. 
 When winds breathe softly o'er the bright green sea. 
 This is a translation of the Fifth Idyll of Moskhos, begin- 
 ning :— 
 
 TAv SXa rav yXavnav irav &v(iioe Arpsfia /SaXXy. 
 
 Page 289. 
 On the doorstead of Mispeh stood Seila. 
 The Jewish historian, Philo, tells us that Seila was the name 
 of Jephthah's daughter.