I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 
 HM?-' W#4\a # 
 
 t ■ k 
 
 J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA f 
 
9-; 
 
CANSADO! 
 
 C^^X*'*,-^'^,-''^'^ 
 
 Love is the essence of all fashioned life. 
 
 Death is an atrophy of fainish'd love. 
 
 Delve deep down to the hidden roots of things, 
 
 Pierce thro' the armor of God's mystic plan, 
 
 View all the subtle sources of what is, 
 
 Wrest from the keeper of it Nature's key. 
 
 Unlock the secrets of all-ambient being — 
 
 The snm of all thy booty will be love : 
 
 Life, here and in the sealed hereafter — love ; 
 
 Death, now and in the dread unknown— its absence. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 1877. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S77, by 
 
 WILLIAM E. SWEET, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
As a slight 
 expression of his grat- 
 itude for a friendship to which, 
 more than to any other cause, he is in- 
 debted for the due measure of his success in 
 life, through the timely bestowal of fratei-nal aid and 
 counsel in the extremities of "outrageous 
 fortune," the author most affection- 
 ately inscribes these first 
 falterings of his 
 Muse to 
 General Rutherford B. Hayes. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Poet 1 
 
 Genive - - 10 
 
 AlLEE - - - 18 
 
 The MA(iDAi.EN 28 
 
 Basil 42 
 
 Last of the Dryades 63 
 
 Aloes 75 
 
 Alone 78 
 
 Broken Vases - - - - - - - 80 
 
 A Requiem ------- 82 
 
 To M. R. H. 84 
 
 To A Lady. On Her Wedding Day - 86 
 
 To the Same. On the Birth of Her First Boy 88 
 
 To H. L. S. 90 
 
 For Who Shall Say 91 
 
 Ambition ------- 93 
 
 Adios - - - - 97 
 
THE POET. 
 
 Tlie Sierra 3fadre Mountains. Time, Ecening. 
 
 A ynung Poet stnnding upon a lofty Peak, alone. After gazing longingly into 
 the JEds' for a time, he turns Aw face toward the West^ all aflame with fht 
 descending Sun, and thus soliloquizes .• 
 
 T fain would sing some idyl of low note 
 Would lull the singer and whoso shall list — • 
 Some " Gentle Elia's" lay in votive verse — 
 But thou, inexorable Muse, irapell'st mefro't, 
 Sweet tyrant! 
 
 Lo. mine eye doth peer afar 
 Thro' fancy's silvery mists : I see rude storms 
 Sweep o'er the pampas of perturbed souls ; 
 I see mirages, and pale beckoning forms — - 
 Eidolons of the heart; I see the waves 
 Of passion curling round their helmless lives, 
 Borne ever onward by the winds of fate ; 
 I view them break on black basaltic reefs 
 Of scorn and envy, wreck'd ; I hear each spar 
 Send up a separate love-enanguish'd cry. 
 O sweet Parnassian, pity I 
 
2 THE POET. 
 
 All, liow vain ! 
 Last night I knelt me on the tawny sands, 
 The salt surf raining from me, and there pray'd 
 A prayer for surcease of my waking dreams — 
 My waking and my sleeping dreams of them. 
 But while I knelt an unrest seized the Sea. 
 That heaped the waters height on height, and hurled 
 Them 'gainst the trembling shore, till tempest-stunn'd 
 It lay quiescent, bruised and imbecile. 
 And loud from out the storm a voice came up. 
 Or mighty whisper, as some Titaness 
 Wrapt in its toils and spent were gasping griefs 
 High Jove were impotent to heart in her — 
 Came up and bade me sing men's sorrows. Once 
 I rode where human lives fell thick as leaves 
 In autumn time — where war's red samiel swept 
 A hemisphei'e, and stripp'd proud nations bare, 
 That I might glean some instants of surcease; 
 But ever so more loud than war's wild shock 
 The voice pierced thro' the fury, crying. Sing! 
 Afar from teeming highways, where new worlds 
 Fresh-fashioned from God's hand lay hush-inisled, 
 I builded me a cot by Balboa's Sea, 
 And deemed oblivion would infold me there: 
 
 brief reprieve! the winged breezes bore 
 The message from my Muse still up to me : 
 Sing, joyless mortal ! 
 
 Vain — I know how vain ! 
 
 1 leap up startled from my troubled sleep. 
 My soul the voices of the night perturb. 
 I hear loud cries wrung out by cruelty. 
 And piteous passion's unrequited plaint. 
 
 Pale forms creep thro' the shadows near to me. 
 In men's loud midst I walk with spirit shapes, 
 
THE POET. 6 
 
 And dwell in ways eupeopled with wing'd wraiths. 
 No rest, no peace ! 
 
 [J. wagoner passes far beneath him, singing a 
 homely rustic song. 
 
 O God ! for one brief hour 
 Of quiet such as yon one Thou vouchsaf 'st — 
 One in whose little round of duties done 
 Doth dwell repletion of a large content. 
 My brain is scorched with thought, hot blinding thought, 
 That burns up from my soul. O quench it, Thou 
 That kindled'st it, or kill me ! I would give 
 Ambition's all to be as this man is, 
 Tho' dwari'd of mind, and shut within a scope 
 Whose limit is but room to house him in. 
 Wherewith to feed upon, a bed, a wife : 
 'Tis all, the sum of all, for 'tis content. 
 
 lA pause. 
 
 While other men are patient, 
 Plodding thro' each day's alloted tasks. 
 Building the lowly years with little cares 
 And little duties done, content, I live 
 An hundred lives in their each drowsy day; 
 For every passion of the larger world 
 Without their paltry own me seizes 'pon, 
 And stamps its image on my heart of hearts. 
 When other men lie down at night to sleep, 
 Unhaunted by eidolons, nor perturb'd 
 Unceasingly by phantoms of unrest, 
 Consuming thoughts within me ever burn. 
 And people darkness with their ghostly shapes. 
 
4 THE POET. 
 
 AVhile other men live inly with themselves, 
 
 Each living his own separate cycled life, 
 
 I live not only my own life but theirs, 
 
 And think the thoughts of every sentient brain. 
 
 And weep the sorrows of all instinct hearts, 
 
 And revel in the joys of every soul : 
 
 I have no instant for large quietude, 
 
 No leisure for surcease of ample thought. 
 
 \_The twilight creeps up the mountain-side. 
 Voices from the mining-camp? far below 
 are borne up to him on the cool Paci- 
 fic breezes. Baring his brow, his yel- 
 low curls driven across it like raveled 
 gold, a calm settles upon him, and Hope 
 enters in and sits a ivhile ivith hi? spirit, 
 while Sadness sleeps. 
 
 Man, omnipresent man. thou part of God, 
 Where art thou not upon ihis circling world! — 
 Man, my sublimest theme, grand egotist, 
 Th' iraperial-reason'd autocrat of rahid. 
 That holds his tenure by divinest right. 
 And feels his royalty in lofty thought. 
 And reads his majesty in high resolve 
 And aspirations tow'rd the infinite — • 
 That knows himself the king of Nature's all. 
 The crown of God's accomplished universe! 
 
 Time was — far in the forenoon-tide of time — 
 When men wei'e bullied by the carping priest 
 To self-abasement, when an upright man, 
 Instinct with soul and fine intelligence. 
 Fell prone upon the round earth, even a thing 
 
•THE POET. O 
 
 The sliiuy worm he likenVl him unto 
 
 Was loftier and nu^re worthy. Past that time : 
 
 Base authropomorphism served it well 
 
 And worthily ; but came a time when man — 
 
 I thank God hourly with my might of soul 
 
 I lived not in the baser time, but this — 
 
 When man was deified up to himself, 
 
 A being whom God might not blush to own. 
 
 O glorious later time! I sit not down 
 Dejected in the shadows of the Past, 
 And mourn the memory of a better. Who, 
 With chosen speech and set invective, rails 
 Against the temper of his time, is false 
 To God, his fellows and himself. Each time, 
 Each age, each generation is more fine, 
 More full, more proximate to God's design. 
 
 A lofty-imaged soul of this new age 
 
 Climbed up the steep where bloom the flow'rs of thought 
 
 And pluek'd this bud from ofiJ' its pendent bough : 
 
 " O would that it had been vouchsaf'd to me 
 
 To dwell my destined cycle here with men 
 
 In man's last generation, finished, full. 
 
 Perfected, rounded, when its sons shall step, 
 
 Accomplished spirits, to the higher life." 
 
 An earthier-fiber'd soul stepp'd lower down 
 And gleaned this thistle from the weeds of thought: 
 " O give me back the good old time, when there 
 Were giants on the earth ! — that I had lived 
 When demigods and heroes ruled the age ! " 
 When demigods and heroes ruled, forsooth ! 
 Who had been hero in that elder age. 
 Or demigod, or giant, is in ours 
 
6 THE POET. ■ 
 
 Of larger reason and of ampler soul. 
 O little spirit! in that age thou niourn'st, 
 Thou hadst been less by just so much as time 
 Hath ripened man's intelligence, and schooled 
 Him in humanity to fellow-man. 
 
 Turn I not backward ? Ay, in retrospect. 
 As one who husbands should turn ever back, 
 Nor scan his furrow for its sole defects, 
 But strive the next time for a perfecter. 
 Who reads the maxim by the letter errs, 
 And deems his furrow faultless, and so ne'er 
 May turn a truer. Turn I ever back, 
 Mark well the excellences of my thought — 
 The imperfections view not overmuch — 
 And toil to temper them with finer touch : 
 So each year's furrow is a worthier : 
 So each new age builds better than the last. 
 
 theme of themes, O man ! I burn with thee. 
 Thou fiU'st me to repletion, and no space 
 
 Is in me for another : emperor 
 Thou of my spirit and intelligence. 
 
 1 love thee as ne'er lover loved, revere 
 God first, thine Origin, then only thee. 
 And Woman, O supreinest man ! thou art 
 My shrine ; tiiou sittest in the inner temple, 
 The Holy of Holies of my reverence, 
 
 Aud thee I bow down to and worship. Proud 
 
 Am I of mine idolatry. Thine image — 
 
 Last, best thought of God — is God revealed 
 
 In most essential bodiment — in love. 
 
 Thou dost idealize the baser man. 
 
 And thro' thy wondrous love he doth himself 
 
 Idealize, and so thou boldest him 
 
THE POET. 
 
 Bound unto nobler action. Thee i name 
 Crown -jewel of Creation. 
 
 [.4 pause. 
 
 " Frailty, 
 Thy name is Woman ! "' Nay, sweet autocrat, 
 Divine dictator, sovereign of the realm — 
 And tyrant we adore — of Literature, 
 The woman of my time I hail thy schism. 
 3fy woman, Shakespeare, is of ampler soul, 
 Of godlier stature and of purpler heart. 
 I am an Optimist? Ay, utterly — 
 In faith in man's high destiny, in trust 
 In large preponderance of fine earth in him. 
 In these no fiber of my being, no 
 .Sole element of all I am, but is 
 Wrought Optimism, warp and weft inwov'n. 
 I am no Pessimist when man is named. 
 I claim a balance for the good in him ; 
 Maintaining this, I am an Optimist, 
 Proud of the title and deserving it. 
 
 O I would shape mankind a finer man : 
 
 Seek not for evil but for good alway ; 
 
 When found a virtue, crown it an exalt, 
 
 (Or wanting one, " assume it," and so build,) 
 
 Praise, honor, magnify, clothe on, complete. 
 
 Transmute the iron to fine gold in him. 
 
 Assay the presence of no base alloy — 
 
 Till conscious of no ill, an atrophy 
 
 Would seize on vice, and virtue would prevail. 
 
 No beauty else is wrought from negatives — 
 
 From what it should not be : can man be wrought 
 
 By such an art ? by holding up to him 
 
THE POET. 
 
 Some grotesque effigy — not of hiaiself, 
 But what he should 7iot be, some paragon 
 Of vice and evil, till inured to it, 
 (Forgetful of another) he must needs 
 Grow self-transfigured to the loathsome thing? 
 Nay, flatter, praise, augment all good in man. 
 Exaggerate the germ until it Sfem 
 Self-ambient, and so choke all evil out. 
 
 Ay, even so. Thou canst not harmony 
 
 Create of discord, quiet of unrest, 
 
 Or joy of sorrow, love of hate. Can good 
 
 Come out of evil, right of wrong? Does beauty 
 
 Spring from hideousness ? A child has caught 
 
 Some unclean syllables of sewer-speech, — 
 
 How whiten you the stain? by deep'ning it? 
 
 By signing o'er and o'er the thing you loathe. 
 
 To school his memory to its loathsomeness? 
 
 Nay, rather seek oblivion of the thing 
 
 With thoughts and signs of beauty, paint the stain 
 
 All out with symbols of the beautiful. 
 
 The brutal Pessimist has been unthroned. 
 The glorious age of Optimism dawns — 
 Our golden new and gentler, kindlier age. 
 The apotheosis on earth of man by ruth. 
 Hail, happy age! hail twilight-time, all hail! 
 Humanity's new day now streaks the East, 
 Burns thro' the darkness of the elder night. 
 And gives large promises of future noon. 
 
 [T/ie wind rises; it is a spent storm at sea. 
 The sob-like moans of the dying tem- 
 pest are borne up to the Poet, low, 
 plaintive, almost human in their an- 
 
THE POET. y 
 
 gulsh. He listens, and the old long- 
 ing look comes hack into his eyes : 
 Mope departs out of his spirit, and 
 Sadness wakes. 
 
 Her voice — it calls me ! — O how sweet it was — 
 
 That quiet iustant ! But 'tis past — a flash — 
 
 A heart-pulse of heart's ease — aud then a cycle 
 
 Of fever; this is life — and death ? . . . I come, 
 
 O plaintive Muse ; lend me thy lyre a while, 
 
 So I may sing my songs else worthily. 
 
 [fle plunges into the darkness and disappears. 
 
GENIVE. 
 
 A Bakojiy oifi-loohmg It (hirden. Time, Eiening. iiEmxK alone. 
 GENIVE. 
 
 I am very happy to-night. Across 
 
 The temple of tiiy soul a cool hand passes, 
 
 Soft as the silk palm of an angel. 
 
 Under the lattice of my heart a lute 
 
 Reveals such treasures of unlyr'd music 
 
 As Jsrafel the heart-stringed harper makes. 
 
 A prayer-eyed stranger came into my conscience 
 
 When the round sun slid down the bevel'd west, 
 
 And all the sullied walls wash'd white as opal. 
 
 Mine eye, as yon lac-lighted star of space 
 
 Snatch'd burning from the breast of Night had lit 
 
 Its leaden iris, like a god's in love 
 
 Burns dazzlingly. Into my pulses now 
 
 I feel new ichor leaping from their fount, 
 
 As some Olympian jove to succor me 
 
 Had tapp'd his purple heart, transfusing it 
 
 Hot-hurrying to my shrunken veins. My lips, 
 
 Red as the red pomegranate's core with wine 
 
 Dropped on them from his lips all swoln with love, 
 
GENIVE, 11 
 
 Burning a blessed scar there, smait with bliss. 
 Unconsciously his hot hand rested here 
 A little instant on my scarlet neck : 
 I swear more joy was cramra'd in that one touch 
 Than twenty painless years sum up my life 
 Have measured. O I'm very, very happy ! 
 The stars creep out upon the edge of night, 
 And peeping down love-sighful, onvy me. 
 The troubled winds toil by me enviously, 
 Murmuring a plaintive plaint 'gainst my large joy. 
 The jealous angels fret their hours in heaven 
 Over the measure of my faultless joy — 
 I am so happy. 
 
 [(S/te hears a noise In the garden beneath. 
 
 'Tis he, 'tis Jason ! 
 He has relented. In ray heart I hoped 
 He would return, and in my soul I wish'd 
 The life appointed us might all run out 
 In partings and returnings to part over. 
 But since this so sweet sorrow is denied me, 
 I would have all his life poured out in one 
 Supreme all-kiss, so I might smother me 
 In cloyment of excesses, and so die. 
 Jason, hist ! is't thee ? 
 
 \_She calls down in a low voice; there is no 
 answer. 
 
 I was deceived. 
 'Twas but the mockery of the envious winds. 
 They gibe me from their covert in the pines — 
 Yon ragged wood of gnarled pines fretting them 
 Like gray ghosts 'gainst the darkness ; they are wroth 
 
12 GENIVE. 
 
 And acrid in the lees of their spent lives : 
 
 Being prick'd with memories of their prime, they moan 
 
 And cry out bitterly — I hate the pines! 
 
 winds ! O pines ! why do ye mock me so ? 
 
 Jason, come back to me and give the lie 
 
 To these leagued jealousies ! 
 
 [Enter Jason below, so/fly. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 Genive! Genive! 
 
 gp:nive. 
 
 'Tis he! They s»id you would not come else, darling. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 Who spoke this treas-on of me? 
 
 OENIVE. 
 
 Voices 
 That haunt the shadows of the trailing night. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 They lied — spoke wanton lies of me, Genive. 
 I come not back ! I — had they said the stars 
 Will sparkle no more on the breast of Night ; 
 
OENIVE. 13 
 
 The moon — yon opal moon up in the lieavens 
 To-night will mother more nevv-worlded loves 
 Than yon bent sea-beach boasts of yellow sands- 
 Will melt and wash out all the shining spheres ; 
 God is not merciful and Hope is dead — 
 They had not lied ; but saying this they spoke, 
 They lied most wantonly. 
 
 GENiVE [musing']. 
 
 Ye pines, ye winds. 
 For that ye mocked me with your wanton lies 
 I pity you — I cannot hate you : all 
 The limit of my soul is gorged with love 
 So full it doth run over, and no thing 
 'Mid all earth's lovelessuess I would not give 
 Some share of it : 
 In all my being is no room for hate. 
 
 JA80N. 
 
 Genive. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Thou didst come back to me. O Jason ! 
 I told the Voices of the night thou would'st. 
 Poor plaintive Voices! — are they not the moans 
 Of spirits dying loveless plaintively 
 Bewailing all the atidness of hearts 
 Whose fallow bore but rank and poisonous weeds 
 For lack of husbandry? 
 
14 GENIVE. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 A most fair thought, 
 And tempered with sweet sadness ; but are weeds 
 Not nature's levied tribute from the heart? 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Nay, nay. The sweet green grasses, banks of fiow^^T--, 
 And four-leafed clover spring up ere 'tis tilled : 
 'Tis only fallow hearts have borne a breast 
 Of shining sheaves, then, left neglected, bear 
 The stinging thistle and the barbed burr. 
 Is't not so ? 
 
 JASON. 
 
 Ay. I did but jest, Genive, 
 And echo the stern creed of moralists, — 
 Men aged in lovelessness, and matrons sere 
 And yellow with the frosts of nipping time. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Shall we grow old and acrid like the rest? 
 May not the grasses grow in hearts are old 
 As green, the flowers as freshly bloom, the leaves 
 Put out luxuriantly, as when they donned 
 Their first spring's gala garb to welcome Love? 
 
 JASON. 
 
 In ours, Genive. We shall grow old in years. 
 And Time will set his sallow seal on me. 
 
GENIVE. 15 
 
 Aud oil thy radiance ; he shall touch uor age 
 Our hearts with his gray wrinkled hand at all. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 What if the fountain of our loves dry up, 
 Or turned into another channel, leave 
 Our hearts all parch'd and arid ? 
 
 JASON. 
 
 Seest thou yon 
 Bright river threading like a thrum of light 
 The chasm of Palisades? 
 
 God set it there ! 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 'Twill flow on so forever. 
 So runs the river Love between our hearts ; 
 They are the barriers shall wall its flood 
 And shape its course for aye. 
 
 GENIVE [abstractedly']. 
 
 I somewhere read, 
 Or fancied, or I dreamed, a maiden sat 
 Beside a noble river in some far land. 
 Bold mountains stretching cloudward till the clouds 
 
16 GENIVE. 
 
 Stooped down to kiss them, set their basalt breasts 
 
 'Gainst the great river's sides and held them. " Ever," 
 
 The maiden mused—" thou 'It flow on thus forever, 
 
 Pent in the chasm basaltic cloven of God." 
 
 When the ripe seasons rounding wrought a lustrum, 
 
 The maiden came to muse by the river else, 
 
 Loving its nearness to graud nature's God. 
 
 Lo ! in the chasm were sands, and warty toads 
 
 Hopped where argosies had ridden, and snails 
 
 Hung on the ribb'd rocks slimily ; where drooped 
 
 Long locks of Nature's loosed down-trailing hair, 
 
 Lizards slid and braided adders hissed : 
 
 One skilled in cunning whereby towers are built 
 
 That stretch to heaven, and huge-arched bridges wrought 
 
 And hooked on dizzy air, had cleft the rocks. 
 
 And cloven the mountain down to its iron heart. 
 
 Pouring the river into the yawning wound, 
 
 And thence by other shores to its goal the sea ; 
 
 The shores it watered erst were dead and waste. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 What ghoul of heart'sease hath stol'n on thy peace, 
 To gnaw it this life's night? 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 I am so happy ! — 
 I think not disembodied spirit, freed 
 From all the doubts and achings of this life, 
 Pardon 'd of Christ, washed white of sin, and throned 
 On God's right hand is happier than I — 
 Yet a dim vague something haunts me like a Fear, 
 
GENIVE. 17 
 
 And darkens my large joy as drops of ink 
 Dropped in a tankard of white milk do cloud it. 
 
 JASON. 
 
 On this seventh night of Paradise, Genive ! 
 Surely the serpent hath not entered here ; 
 Yet I had guessed it from thy sombre speech, 
 And guessed thy large temptation and my fall. 
 Our banishment, and Cain's red-reekino; hand — 
 Guessed — 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 No, no, Jason ! Draw no such 
 Dark etching on the walls of ray glad heart. 
 Climb up here nearer to me. 
 
 [ He ascends to the balcony and they embrace. 
 
 Let me feel 
 Your hear^ beat echoing all my own heart's joy, 
 Your breath sweet on my cheek, your yellow hair 
 Wrapt 'bout my neck and mingling with mine own 
 Like woof of sunshine with a warp of night, 
 Your lips grown on my lips — come closer — so. 
 The shadow passes. 
 
AILEE. 
 
 A Sea View ; Evening. Genive antl Ailee, 
 GENIVE. 
 
 The Sea moans piteously to-night ; I think 
 Some keen pain must have gashed his very heart. 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 Nay, 'tis remorse ; on such a night as this 
 The spirits of slain myriads walk the deep, 
 And goad his memory to an agony. 
 robber Sea ! 
 
 \_A pause. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Remorse! I think it is. 
 It comes up like the hoarse and hollow roar 
 Of some deep-chested Titan agonized : 
 It is the blended groans of stalwart men, 
 His victims in unnumbered battle-storms, 
 Wringing the hoar ruffian's ruthless heart. 
 
AILEE. 19 
 
 Listen ! 'tis shriller new, and pierces through 
 
 The white beards of the breakers nmrmurously : 
 
 'Tis the merg'd cry of babes from mothers torn 
 
 (Like their own pulseful hearts wrench 'd out) and toss'd 
 
 All suppliant, pleading, to the whetted waves. 
 
 Softer and more low and anguish'd now, 
 
 Till 't seems a Titaness' great dying sob : 
 
 This is the mingled sighs of women clasped 
 
 Close in his chill embrace and kissed to death ; 
 
 They wear out all their grief in stifled moans. 
 
 O thou remorseful Sea. 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 O cruel Sea! 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Yet I have ever had a strange wnld longing 
 To die drowned in the wrathful vast, to feel 
 The huge waves tighten round me loverly, 
 The Sea's cold kisses on my lips, my breast 
 White-shrouded in his tangled hair, my limbs 
 Swathed all in cerements of frozen froth. 
 
 1 think I could lie so quietly 
 Down in the deep vast waters ! 
 
 \_A pause. 
 
 Kissed to death ! 
 Ailee, didst ever have a kiss full on thy lips? — • 
 
 1 mean uot brothers' kisses, cold as dew, 
 Nor sisters', tepid, nor yet fathers', tame, 
 
20 AILEE. 
 
 Friends', given at random on thyneck or cheek, 
 Nor mothers', chaste as ice is, on thy brow — 
 I mean a lover's kiss burnt on thy lips. 
 Leaving a blissful scar. 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 O Madam ! 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Ah, but thou hast. 'Tis stamped all over thee : 
 
 It hangs red on thy lips, and breaking hues 
 
 Thy cheeks, thy neck, thy breasts — white hemisphercn 
 
 Half hid in mists of spun gold hair. Nay, more; 
 
 If thou shouldst die to-uight, and one should cut 
 
 Thee deep down to the crimson core, and pluck 
 
 Thy heart out quivering, 'twould be stamped on it. 
 
 AILEE [^sadly']. 
 He is dead- 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Poor heart ! where is he buried ? 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 Here in my memory. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Then he is not dead ? 
 
A I LEE. 21 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 To me — or was it I who died? There was 
 A death. 
 
 GENIVE [aside]. 
 
 So youug, so fair, so like a child ! 
 So late was womanhood stamped on her life! 
 Yet a foul tragedy is woven of it ! 
 O God ! I think e'en feeble sucklings' lives 
 Hold histories of great griefs and large unrest, 
 So full of tragedy is this fair world. 
 
 \_To AILEE. 
 
 Wilt thou not tell me thy heart's history, Ailee ? 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 'Twould weary thee ; the very thought of it 
 Doth make me O so weary, O so tired ! 
 
 GENIVE. ■ 
 
 Nay. 'twould not tire me, Ailee, and 'twould rest 
 Thy poor tired heart to lay it here a while ; 
 Here on my own pour it all trembling out. 
 
 AILEE [_after a pause]. 
 He was veiy fair. 
 
22 AILEE. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 Ay, all lovere are. 
 
 But mine was peerless. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 None had ever peer, 
 
 I ween that lover never 
 
 Was half so fair as mine is. 
 
 O lover mine, nor is nor ever 
 Was love so true as thine is. 
 
 Mine is peerless too. Was yours a fisher? 
 
 AILEE \_proudly']. 
 
 Nay, he was a gentleman, and hither 
 
 Came one summer from a city lying 
 
 A thousand leagues there mountainward — a grand 
 
 Old city, built by Cortes' knights, and isled 
 
 In fastnesses of hushed primeval steep. 
 
 [.4 pause. 
 
 O, he was brave as fair. One day a ship, 
 Blown on this rugged coast by adverse winds, 
 
AILEE. 23 
 
 Struck a low-lying ledge of rocks — you line 
 
 O'er which the breakers climb in frothy rage — 
 
 And shivered to atoms in our very teeth. 
 
 Who there so stout of heart as risk his life 
 
 I' the storm-infuriate vast ? The fishers stood 
 
 Blanched on the shore, or wandered up and down, 
 
 Calling each on each to join him, impotent. 
 
 Then, all unused to battling with wild waves, 
 
 He leapt into a boat, cast off the line, 
 
 Turned his pale face a moment seaward, shut 
 
 His hands hard on the bent oars, crying to me, 
 
 " Pray, Ailee ! " then, caught on a heaven-high wave. 
 
 Hurled by wroth Ocean 'gainst the pelted shore 
 
 And bounding back far reefward, hung a speck 
 
 'Gainst the black sky, sunk, and — 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 O, he was lost ! 
 
 ailep: labstractedly'\. 
 
 Ay, so he was — yes, he was lost — he died. 
 I prayed for him soul-suppliant, yet he died, 
 Yet he was lost there in that hell of yeast; 
 One toiled him, drowning. 
 
 O rash noble soul ! 
 Why pit his life 'gainst such exceeding odds? 
 How could he, loving you ? 'Twas the last time 
 You looked upon him ? 
 
24 AILEE. 
 
 The last? Would it had been, 
 For then his memory had been white with rae. 
 And lived a passion-flower within my heart, 
 Which I had nursed, and watered with my tears— 
 Not a barbed thorn growing up thro' it, as grows 
 The germ of sin up through the souls of men, 
 Dwarfintj and maiming: them. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 He was not drowned 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 no. I think the mermaids, envying me, 
 Buoyed him to, venge them for that I had been 
 Too happy in his love some little hours ; 
 
 For when the fishers, seeing him sink, and all 
 
 The feted ship's souls deeming lost, toiled up 
 
 The steep lead-hearted to their homes, while I 
 
 Knelt on the wet sands praying a prayer of peace 
 
 For his freed spirit — lo, a mighty wave, 
 
 That seemed half irate Ocean's flood up-swoln, 
 
 Broke on the trembling shore leviathan-like, 
 
 Groaned a great sigh of rage, reel'd backward spent, 
 
 Snarling its impotence at howling feres, 
 
 Leaving him prone upon the salt sands swooning. 
 
 Christ! how my heart swell'd when I saw him there! 
 
 1 crept to him, the froth'd surf raining from him, 
 And could have fal'n upon his white fair face, 
 And kissed the Sea's moist kisses from his lips, 
 And called his fled life back, or mine transfused, 
 
AILEE. 25 
 
 (^uick with the pulse of love, in his all hush'd — 
 But fell down stunned. 
 
 l^A long pause. 
 
 I saw a face more fair, 
 More beautiful I thought than angels' faces. 
 Turned in mute pallidness to his, her cheek. 
 From which the heart-tide had not yet all ebbed, 
 Lying against his, all her midnight hair 
 Mingled with his, her arms white as an infant's 
 Braided about his neck, her breast quiescent, 
 From which the rude Sea had torn off the veil, 
 Bedded upon his breast and touching it. 
 Fondling it thro' the tatters rent by the storm. 
 I thought her dead, yet I did envy her 
 Her place there — O I envied her as woman, 
 Torn by the fangs of Jealousy and Hate, 
 And goaded by Despair, ne'er envied rival, 
 Viewing her empress of her own heart-realm. 
 Living, I could have killed her ; dead, I envied : 
 And I swooned . . . Yet she "was not dead — lived. 
 
 [_A pause. 
 
 I saw her radiant as a spirit, bending 
 Her great black prayerful eyes on him, 
 Thanking him o'er and asking him, "O Basil, 
 What can I do or say or give to reward thee? 
 Thanks are so dumb !" And he her answering — 
 Had I been Basil and Basil I, then Basil 
 Had said that, being Basil. Basil said — 
 (I'd scorn him in my very soul who would not. 
 Yet an he had not, I had loved him triply!) — 
 
26 ■ AILEE. 
 
 " Thee — give me thyself, thyself, thou brightest 
 Star in the constellation of Woman! " 
 I saw him kiss the words from off her lips 
 As they came tremulously, " Ay, myself." 
 
 [-4 pause. 
 
 I saw them at the altar kneeling, I 
 Veiled as a mourner, for my heart was dead. 
 Coffined in Basil's ; and I heard her swear 
 To love, to cherish, and to honor him, 
 And him heard echo huskily the words 
 Scarce audibly, " Ay, till death us do part." 
 
 [J. pause. 
 
 I saw them — O they were the fairest two 
 
 E'er made in Allah's image — saw them pass, 
 
 Each on each eyes bending sheen with love, 
 
 Down the long stair-like street all clamorous 
 
 With plaudits of good will and peace and blessings. 
 
 I, standing there upon the beach alone, 
 
 Saw, heard, suffered in silence, making 
 
 No sign — saw while a desolation 
 
 That wrapp'd my soul came up from the Sea's unrest. 
 
 [TAe shadotvs of night enfold them. With a 
 look of unutterable loigivf/, she peers 
 out into the gloom broods over the 
 Ocean. After a long pause — 
 
 I saw their ship sail by and watched it praying 
 Glide far out to Sea — I watched it praying 
 
AILEE. 27 
 
 He might go thro' his life all shadowless, 
 Hatiug him cursing him not, loving him — 
 And so go down, bearing him out forever. 
 
 GENIVE. 
 
 And yet you did not die ! 
 
 AILEE. 
 
 I could not — Basil lived. 
 
 \_They descend the cliff and disappear in the 
 darkness. 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 By the Sea — Night. 
 
 A maydaleii with rJisonted dress and disheveled hair standing on a cliff, alone. 
 
 MAGDALEN [soAi]. 
 
 the capacity of human hearts for woe ! 
 
 1 marvel if they never break with it. 
 Is tliere no limit to life's agony? 
 There seems no form of it unagonized. 
 Hear now the 8eat's sad unrequited moan ! 
 It comes up to me like a woman's sob, 
 The first wild impulse of her sorrow past, 
 
 And she all spent with tears poured on a grave. 
 
 Calling upon him sleeping there to let 
 
 Her lie down quietly and rest by him, 
 
 For she must surely die since he is dead. 
 
 What great pain gnaws thy heart to-night, O Sea? 
 
 how I pity thee in thy large grief! 
 
 1 would lie down with thee and list to it. 
 And tell thee all the measure of my own. 
 I could lull thee with my dole, I think, 
 
 And thou couldst soothe me with thy larger woe. — 
 (Sad waves, I know ye would not harass me 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 29 
 
 A?: man hath baited me here in this life: 
 The sad are always gentle.) — I would lie 
 Quiescent in thy breast, content. — (O waves, 
 Reach up and clasp me to thy liege, the Sea!) 
 
 [_She draws nearer to the cliff's edge, where 
 the surf breaks over her in rainy 
 7nists. Kneeling as in prayer, her 
 eyes up-east, she continues : 
 
 Alone, alone, alone ! 
 
 'Mid all the myriads not one 
 
 Genive can call her own. 
 
 Alone, alone, alone ! 
 
 The last to call me friend is gone ; 
 
 Hence I am banned, unknown. 
 
 No roof shall shelter me. 
 
 No tongue condone my fault's degree, 
 
 None veil my infamy. 
 
 Of all earth's millions who 
 Genive dare give his friendship to. 
 Or own he ever knew ? 
 
 Driven from heart and home, 
 Unfriended to the Sea I come. 
 Bearing my error's sura. 
 
 Even the stars of night 
 
 A little year since shone so bright. 
 
 Me now deny their light. 
 
 When I was white they vied 
 To light me to my lover's side. 
 Nor ever me denied. 
 
30 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 O stars ! I am not quite 
 
 All stained — I've still some weft of white : 
 
 Give me one look to-night ! 
 
 Give me, since all has died — 
 All else — a look to ruth allied, 
 And I am satisfied ! 
 
 Oh ! I can better dare 
 
 The mien of scorn all mortals wear 
 
 Than thy oblivion bear. 
 
 If but to chasten, why 
 
 One last sign give me ere I die — ■ 
 
 Look where I pleading lie ! 
 
 Vain ! — ruth died when I fell. 
 Is there no pity but in hell, 
 Where I am doomed to dwell? 
 
 Ay, thou wilt pity me, 
 
 waves, O unrequited Sea ! 
 
 1 come, I come to thee ! 
 
 \_She rises, and with a wild look backward 
 mto the darkness, bends her body for- 
 * ward for the death-leap. A figure — - 
 
 that of a woman — dad in white ap- 
 pears and clasps her hard to her bosom. 
 A struggle ensues, in ivhich the Mag- 
 dalen is drawn away from the brink 
 of the precipice, and falls down in 
 terror to the earth. A flash of light- 
 ning reveals the pale features of a 
 beautiful girl. Clasping the fallen 
 woman's head to her heart, she whis- 
 pers : 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 31 
 
 Not all friendless, sister. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Art thou a spirit ? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Nay, only a woman like you. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Like me ! 
 Hush ! — thou know'st not what 1 am. 
 
 A sister 
 I know you are, stricken ; T ask no more. 
 
 MAGDALEN [^asidel. 
 
 She dne-! not guess the measure of my shame. 
 I'll tell her, and so banish her, that I 
 May lie down letless in my warm wide bed 
 With ray new-wedded liege and lover, Death. 
 
 [To the 3fai(hii. 
 
 Come closer — put the hollow of thine ear 
 Against these scarlet lips, so none may hear — 
 
32 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 Not even God — my purple secret — so : 
 I am — a wanton ! 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 And yet my sister. 
 MAGDALEN [recoUing from her]. 
 Know'st thou the fearful import o ' that word ? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 I guess it, and still say — my -lister. 
 
 MAGDALEN- 
 
 Child !— 
 Thou art a very child — thou canst not guess it. 
 Thy ruth, thy gentleness, thy very presence 
 Impeach thy words. Daughter of Eve, a wanton 
 Is woman wrested from her high estate 
 And dragged thence downward to a man's low level. 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Why, surely then this thing you are is noble. 
 I have — 
 
 MAGDALEN. - 
 
 A lover ? 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 83 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 How could you guess it? — 
 My Ulrich is not low, not base^a man 
 Like other men — that is, some other men 
 Are like my Ulrich — yet not quite like him. 
 O you should see how manly a man he is — 
 Tall and frank and true, — 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 * Tall and frank and true ' ! 
 
 \_Aside. 
 
 Ah, what an egotist is babbling Love! 
 
 Like other men — yet stay, not quite like them ! 
 
 Thou lily-bell of womanhood, God grant 
 
 He may not be quite like them ! Frank and true ! 
 
 How frank was mine, how true — how manly true! 
 
 She prattles of nobility, sweet infant, 
 
 And says the thing I am is noble eke, 
 
 Being like the idol man she bows down to ! 
 
 If I were half her arch-god Ulrich seems. 
 
 There were no other being in Allah's guise 
 
 One twentieth tithe as perfect — save her Ulrich. 
 
 I too once held men less than angels are 
 
 But by the utt'rest monad floats in space, 
 
 Because forsooth my Jason was a man ! 
 
 Nay, Genive, an thou'ldst have this novice learn 
 
 The utter import of the thing thou art, 
 
 Thou needs must teach from text-books else than man. 
 
34 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 [To the Maiden. 
 I am — dost ever read thy bible, child? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Surely ; all read the bible. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Ay, ay— all ! 
 Rememberest thou the story of a woman 
 Who came for refuge to the side of Christ — 
 So vile a thing her sisters spat on her, 
 And men — true, noble men like Ulrich — stoned her? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Yes, yes — a piteous tale of cruelty 
 
 Has ever made my heart run out in tears- 
 
 MAGDALEN, 
 
 She was a wanton, no more vile than I. 
 
 [J. pause. 
 Not shrink from me as from a naked Sin 1 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 35 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Nay, love you still. Had I been flesh wheu Christ 
 
 Built up the cordun of His mercy twixt 
 
 The Magdalen and man's hard cruelty, 
 
 I had stooped down and kissed His mantle's hem, 
 
 And twin'd my arras about her whom He whiten'd, 
 
 Ev'n as I now twine them around you, loving. 
 
 MAGDALEN [shrinking from her, aside], 
 
 I marvel if the angels visit earth 
 
 And take on forms of flesh for ministry, 
 
 Or if there still be spirits ministrant 
 
 Who hover near this troubled world of ours 
 
 To succor whom God's every image scorns. 
 
 Surely 'tis no form of sensate flesh 
 
 Doth fold a purple Sin hard on her heart 
 
 And whisper piteously, ' I love you still.' 
 
 [ To the Maiden, 
 
 Spirit or what thou art so more than human, 
 I would I might look on thy sinless face, 
 All free from sin's dark lines and cruelty's, 
 And read in thy two eyes thy history — 
 A life unsullied with an evil thought ! 
 I think 'twould make me whiter by some jot, 
 And leave my soul less dappled ere I die. 
 An thou art not an angel, heaven is wronged. 
 And earth made holier by thy presence here. 
 
 [A flash of lightning reveals the features of 
 the Maiden. 
 
36 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 That face! I saw it in a dream last night. 
 
 It hovered o'er me suppliant then, pursued 
 
 By some dark-visaged Danger — some strange shape 
 
 That — first a shadow void and changeful e'er — 
 
 Grew up thro' all the unseen forms of things 
 
 To something somewise human, toiling thee; 
 
 Then forth from out the shadow whilst thou pray'd 
 
 Grew dark and sinister a bearded man, 
 
 Who vanishing in mists revealed thee prone 
 
 Stretched on the bare earth pale as Death's white face. 
 
 Save on thy cheek a sole deep scarlet mark, 
 
 Which ev'n thy tears could not wash out or dim : 
 
 And then the heap'd waves touching me, I woke . . . 
 
 What art thou? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Only a woman. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 A woman — 
 Only a woman ! Ah, how slight a thing! 
 Frail after-thought of God for man's caprice ; 
 A pale excrescence on fair Nature's face ; 
 A dream — light fancy set to soul and sense ; 
 A faint white flame, lit now and now anon 
 To guide men heavenward, puffed out with a breath ; 
 An ampler puppet which the larger child 
 E'er wearying of like children turns him from 
 To seek some other toy yet unpossess'd ! 
 Why earnest thou here? 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 37 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 To hear what messages 
 The waves bore up from Ulrich. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Messages ! 
 The language of the Sea is ever sad. 
 And illy suits the light soft mood of love. 
 What messajjes? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 T nightly list me here 
 At the still hour of twilight to low words 
 Come up o'er — whisper'd by the courier waves. 
 This was our compact when he kissed me there 
 Five long years gone — there on the dimpled sands, 
 His mates all clamorous (for the sails were set): 
 ' Here list, Dolores, for my soft good night ; 
 Whatever clime, whatever seas I roam, 
 I'll whisper it to the waves and they to you.' 
 I listen and I hear, ' Good night, my sweet;" 
 I answer and the waves repeat, ' Good night.' 
 
 MAGDALEN [aSl'cZe]. 
 
 O brightest jewel in the crown of life, 
 
 A heart's full faith ! O opal of gemmed heaven, 
 
 Dropped in this night, of earth to be its sun! 
 
88 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 The heart can boast thee for its dowry, tho' 
 The rude dark-dappled hand of Treason sack 
 Its cities and lay waste its fair demesnes, 
 Is Croesus-rich. Thou art the talisraan 
 Doth touch a lie, and lo ! it beams a truth, 
 Doth gild a treason till it stands a liege. 
 Bridge o'er the chasms of despair and doubt, 
 Dam up the rivers of suspicion, stair 
 The steep where gleams the temple of content, 
 And thence hew rundles up to God. But woe — • 
 Black damning woe— is any poor heart faithless. 
 
 [To the Maiden. 
 
 Thou said'st the waves brought messages to thee. 
 Do they ne'er fail thee? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Days and nights have come, 
 And lengthened to the weeks, and weeks to months 
 Have joined them, till the many-numbered score 
 Doth tell a lustrum of memorial years, 
 Yet never day they brought no benediction. 
 Sometimes 'tis plaintive, fraught with eager sighs 
 For home and me; anon 'tis joyous, glad, 
 And wakes the winds with laughter; else the waves 
 Toiled with the tempest lisp it thro' the storm 
 In trembling whispers : but 'tis always gentle, 
 And tempered sweet with love and constancy. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 To-night — what said the waves to-night, sweet houri ? 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 39 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Their speech was utter aod set all to love: 
 
 At first 'twas broken, like the timid tongue 
 
 Of recent lovers ; soon it grew more bold, 
 
 And swelled up musically to full notes 
 
 Of larger joy ; then overmastering bopnds, 
 
 It broke into a grand refrain of passion 
 
 Thrilled the fibers of my soul till they 
 
 Caught up leoliau-like the symphony 
 
 And echoed and re-echoed it — 'I love thee!' 
 
 Then sinking — sinking — sinking — died 
 
 In sighs of perfect rhythm, whence 'good night' 
 
 Came floating like a thought scarce audibly. 
 
 Did you not hear it? 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Yes — yes — I heard it. 
 \^Aside. 
 
 O Sea, e'en thou art James— languaged like 
 That other form of nature, sovereign man ! 
 
 [To the Maiden. 
 
 Maiden — but stay. I turn iconoclast, 
 
 Whom Fate hath shown the true unglamour'd faith I 
 
 The Hindu I have heard is happy till 
 
 Some nomad saint, some wan evangelist, 
 
 Creeps in the temple of his ancient trust 
 
40 THE MAGDALEN. 
 
 And glooms it with a newer, till he doubts 
 If either be the true one : thou art joyed 
 With thine idolatry, and thou wilt be 
 Till some evangelist of withered love, 
 Herself imquiet, gloom thy heart with doubt. 
 Yes — yes — I heard it. 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Yet you would have — 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 List! 
 Dost thou not hear the loud Sea calling me? 
 He's angered with my loitering. — Yes, I come, 
 I come, Sea! — One touch, sweet, ere I pass. 
 So I may bear a charm — so I may show 
 The pallid pressure when ill spirits toil 
 My soul in passing — so : whom ang-els touch 
 The demons may not harass .... Sweet, good-bye- 
 A last, unending, agonized good-bye. 
 Bless thee Christ ! — my sins are paler for it, 
 And thou — thou art not purpled with the touch, 
 So white as opal Purity art thou. — 
 I come — I come ! 
 
 \_She rushes away from the Maiden s embrace 
 and leaps from the precipice into the 
 sea. The Maiden, dumb, hurries to 
 the edge of the cliff. Peering down 
 into the dark waves, a flash of light- 
 
THE MAGDALEN. 41 
 
 ning reveals the Magdalen risen from 
 the depths. A smile lights up her 
 pale features for an instant, then she 
 sinks forever into the deep, murmuring 
 back to the Maiden : 
 
 Weep not, sweet spirit — smile — I rest. 
 
BASIL. 
 
 High on a headland, where huge waves 
 Beat thundering from a thousand leagues 
 'Gainst gray basaltic battlements, 
 A sole woe-withered pilgrim stands,' 
 Bare-browed, his blank locks driven far. 
 Like shreds of sea-foam tempest-swept. 
 He seems the oldest, saddest man 
 Time ever blanched or sorrow bruised. 
 Lo ! answering now his moan with moan. 
 He fronts the Sea, while seas of siwf 
 Rain on his desert-darkened face : 
 
 Purposeless, drifting 
 
 Over the desert 
 
 Of the Journey of Life, 
 
 Ev'n as the sands drift 
 
 Over the desert 
 
 Of the Journey of Death ;* 
 
 Weary of living 
 
 And fearing to die, 
 
 Death e'er beguiling 
 
 * A desert in Mexico, called Jornada del Mueita— Journey of Death. 
 
BASIL. 43 
 
 And clinging to life, 
 I follow the phantom— 
 The fleeing eidolon — 
 The spirits name Hope. 
 Ever the phantom is 
 Beckoning, ever 
 The eidolon lures me 
 Over the desert. 
 
 With nothing to hope for, 
 I journey aweary, 
 And follow the phantom 
 Of Nothing named Hope, 
 Knowing I may not 
 Realize aught, 
 I cling to the eidolon 
 Phantom called Hope- 
 Vanishing mirage 
 (Form evanescent} 
 Magical Hope — 
 Shade of a shadow, 
 Soul of a spirit. 
 Tragical Hope — 
 The beautiful siren 
 The demons name Hope- 
 Eidolon, fanciful 
 Phantom-fiend Hope. 
 
 Beckons the phantom, 
 And whispers a fair lie — 
 Fair and so perfectly 
 Set to my passion, 
 I listen, believing, 
 Knowing so surely 
 ■Still 'tis a foul lie. 
 
44 BASIL. 
 
 Fatal as Upas. 
 But 'tis so beautiful. 
 Rare and syraphonic 
 A lie, that I uever 
 Grow weary of beiug 
 Under its spell. 
 
 'Tis no harsh dutiful 
 Measure, this beautiful 
 False and rare story 
 Hope is e'er whispering 
 In my charm'd ear. 
 Could you but listen to — 
 Do you not, weary one? — 
 Words so enchantingly 
 Low, soft and tender spoke. 
 You, even as I do, 
 Would her importunate 
 False protestatious love 
 Better than Truth's. 
 
 For Truth is so drearily, 
 Wearily circumspect, 
 Crooning of treasures lost. 
 Past opportunities ; 
 Now for what might have been 
 Sighing, and now for what 
 Should have been : 
 Truth is so dutiful ! 
 
 Truth is a jilted jade, 
 Acrid and jealous. 
 Hope is a plighted maid. 
 Trustful and tender — O 
 
BASIL. 45 
 
 Wondrously trustful — 
 Viewing all humaukiud 
 Thro' the fair eidolon 
 Lens of a lover. 
 
 Whispers the phantom Hope: 
 
 Come unto me, all 
 
 Ye who are weary 
 
 And heavy laden, 
 
 Rest I will give ye. 
 
 Whispers the phantom Hope 
 
 Softly to me — O 
 
 So softly, I fancy 
 
 Her love it lies tenderly 
 
 Here in my breast — 
 
 So sweetly, I fancy 
 
 Her love it lies trustfully 
 
 Here in the haven 
 
 Of its natural rest, 
 
 Whispering to me 
 
 The unspoken passion 
 
 Of a passionate life. 
 
 Truth whispers : Not for thee 
 
 Burns the rare passion 
 
 Of passionate Ailee. 
 
 Thy passion for Ailee 
 
 Is evil, comporting 
 
 111 with thy duty. 
 
 Duty ! O saturnine 
 
 Omen of weariness, 
 
 Un uttered dreariness 
 
 Deep in my heart! 
 
 Out of my memory 
 
46 BASIL. 
 
 Burn I all trace of thee 
 Now with the pa.ssion 
 That burns in my heart — 
 With the passion for Ailee 
 That glows in ray hear.. 
 
 Hope whispers : Only 
 For thee burns the passion 
 Of passionate Ailee. 
 Duty is dutiful, 
 Worshipping Faith — 
 Faith is a beautiful 
 Passionless wraith : 
 Cold as the marble is, 
 Duty and Faith. 
 
 So, to the fair lie — 
 Fair and so perfectly 
 Set to my passion — 
 I listen, believing, 
 Knowing so surely - 
 Still 'tis a foul lie, 
 Fatal as Upas. 
 But 'tis so beautiful. 
 Rare and symphonic 
 A lie, that I never 
 Grow weary of being 
 Under its spell : 
 Hopelessly hoping 
 Ailee may rest 
 (Knowing she may not) 
 Here in my breast — 
 Hoping she one day 
 May lie in my breast — 
 
BASIL. 47 
 
 Trustfully refuge seek 
 Here in the haveu 
 Of her natural rest — 
 I listen, believing, 
 Knowing she may not. 
 
 [An old man in the garb of a hunter appears. 
 HUNTER laside']. 
 
 How sad, how desolate, how agonized ! 
 
 A hunter? Nay, he seems not of our guild. 
 
 If his wild eager eyes be any sign, 
 
 He's hunted more than hunter: I have seen 
 
 The same look in a netted ocelot's eye. 
 
 When the toiled beauty spent lay pain-unnerved, 
 
 Quiescing to despair, yet hope unyielding. 
 
 I'll speak to him. Good morning, stranger. 
 
 BASIL \_startled']. 
 
 Who said good morning? \_Sees the hunter. 
 
 Why do you steal upon my reverie like 
 
 An Indian stalking foes? I sought this steep 
 
 Because I hate the ways of man, believing 
 
 I might here shut me from his peering eye. 
 
 Pray leave me. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 I would not any wise intrude — 
 
48 BASIL 
 
 Then leave rae. 
 
 BASIL 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 As you will ; but ere I go 
 It were but courteous — 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Spare your courtesy- 
 ril take it fj)r granted — go. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 Unwittingly 
 I overheard some fragments of your speech, 
 And— 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Thou ! what if thou didst? I spoke in runes 
 To such as thou : my speech was of the heart. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 I have a heart. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Thou! — a red-arteried heart? 
 
BASIL. ^9 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 It bleeds when prick' d — is that assurance? 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Has't ever bled? has't scars gashed deep iu it 
 That baffle surgery? 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 One. 
 
 Then we are brothers. 
 Prithee sit down and tell me in what war 
 Thou 'st wounded. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 I' the War of Hearts. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 I fought in that war — 'twas a sanguine fight 
 How wast thou wounded ? 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 Mortally i' the soul, 
 
50 BASIL. 
 
 lu this wise : 
 
 A maiden exquisite 
 
 As the brides in Asgard are 
 
 Crept in ray heart of hearts 
 
 And lay with my soul one night — ■ 
 
 Crept in so silently 
 
 I had not guessed she came, 
 
 But Peace, my soul's mistress, 
 
 Finding her there. Unrest 
 
 Bribed to abide with me 
 
 In the guise of the maiden e'er, 
 
 And she was divorced for aye 
 
 From my infatuate soul. 
 
 A year and a day crept by — 
 A cycle of pain to me — 
 Still the maiden slept 
 E'er in my heart of hearts, 
 Fro'ward her cruelty 
 Had banished my darling Peace. 
 Wan and exceeding old, 
 Hoar in a year and day. 
 Worn and aweary, I 
 Questioned the maiden why 
 She had beleaguer'd me. 
 Then, with an arch surprise. 
 Answered she in this wise : 
 "Why ? 'Twas no fault of mine ; 
 There was no fault but thine — 
 Sin culpa de mia. 
 
 "Thou camest unbidden," I — 
 " Thou didst not banish me" — 
 "Thou banished my darling Peace' 
 
BASIL. 51 
 
 *' Thou didst not bid her stay" — 
 
 " Thou fettered my reason with 
 
 Thy passion-compelling eyes" — 
 
 " Then in them the error lies" — 
 
 " Thy nectarine wine-red lips" — 
 
 " Then whoe'er their nectar sips 
 
 Doth drink of the error's fount" — 
 
 "Thy bosom of madding mould" — 
 
 " Let it the error hold" — 
 
 " Thine infinite tenderness" — 
 
 " Ah ! therein the true fault is" — 
 
 " Thy touch as a torch of fire 
 
 Doth kindle a mad desire" — 
 
 " I had not touch'd thee e'er, 
 
 Knowing the fault was there" — 
 
 " Thy sighs when our lips were blent" — 
 
 " In sighs is much error pent" — 
 
 " Thy glances eloquent of 
 
 Indies of voiceless love" — 
 
 " Guile in a maiden's glance 
 
 Dwelleth by some ill chance" — 
 
 " Thy silence and drooping eyes" — 
 
 " Abode of the silent lies, 
 
 Woman's ally in love. 
 
 Dower, and treasure-trove" — 
 
 " Thf^ spell in thy driven hair 
 
 Dipp'd in the swart midnight" — 
 
 " Certes, I grant thee there 
 
 Dwelleth a mickle might ; 
 
 Many a' weening wight 
 
 Hath found in a lady's hair 
 
 Blown by the wanton winds 
 
 In tempests across his cheek 
 
 Yearnings I may not speak : 
 
 Thus did the primal Eve 
 
52 BASIL. 
 
 Adam's error achieve, 
 And millions the apple o'er 
 Have thus to the apple's core 
 Tasted, and some I hear 
 Have died of the serpent there"— 
 " The amaranth in thy cheek" — 
 " I did not set it there" — 
 " The bobolink in thy laugh" — 
 " Nay, 'twas a mocking bird" — 
 " Thou didst not tell me so"— 
 " Did e'er a maiden thee ?" — 
 " Not what thy passion hath 
 Spoken, but what thou ne'er 
 Uttered, save with a look, 
 Sign, or so eager clasp : — 
 Yet 'twas no fault of thine, 
 Yet 'twas no fault but mine, 
 I did my darling Peace 
 Exile, and worship thee 
 With damning idolatry ! " 
 
 " Nay " — with her bobolink's 
 Laugh, that enchanted me 
 E'en in my agony — 
 " Say 'twas my bosom's fault. 
 Or my so erring eyes'. 
 Lips', or my tenderness.' — 
 Say 'twas my madding touch — 
 Say 'twas my swooning sighs, 
 Glances so eloquent, 
 Silence and driven hair — 
 Say 'twas the amaranth. 
 Laugh of the bobolink. 
 Voice in each passionate 
 Pressure of breast and thigh, 
 
BASIL. 53 
 
 Warm cheek and pulse aflame- 
 Held the grave error ; 
 Not that 'twas thine or mine — 
 We were unwitting. 
 But thou hast loved me well 
 Now for a year and day — 
 Long for a love to live ! — 
 And I'm aweary. 
 Woo and wed Peace again — 
 One who can love a year 
 Meriteth Hymen's realm — 
 Pass, and be happy else, 
 Plodding and dutiful." 
 
 \_A long pause. 
 
 Aged aeons I journey'd 
 
 Over the hemispheres 
 
 In quest of my darling Peace, 
 
 Asking in every zone 
 
 From Thule to Farther Ind, 
 
 Meeting afar with none 
 
 Knowing her, till one day, 
 
 Deep in a quiet vale. 
 
 Far from the haunts of men, 
 
 Out of the ways of strife, 
 
 One my darling said 
 
 Now was another's wife: 
 
 Faith, my ancient foe, 
 
 Woo'd and won her when 
 
 I had banished her. 
 
 Deep in the valley's fold 
 
 I found her sitting by 
 
 Her liege in the calm twilight, 
 
 Children twain — Surcease 
 
54 BASIL. 
 
 And Joy — upon her knee, 
 
 My own first-born, Content, 
 
 (Grown to a rosy boy, 
 
 Fair and frank and brave 
 
 As the sons of the Southland are,) 
 
 Waking the echoes with 
 
 A song I had taught hira ere 
 
 I was divorced from Peace. — 
 
 O 'twas a scene to wring 
 
 The soul of a man perturb'd. — 
 
 Veiled in the shadows, I 
 
 Crept to my darling's side. 
 
 Touching her mantle's hem ; 
 
 But as a stranger she 
 
 Bent her soft eyes on me, 
 
 Knowing me not, I'd grown 
 
 So palsied, sear and so wan. 
 
 Chastened, I neared my boy. 
 
 Asking, "Who taught thee that 
 
 Song?" " My father," he. 
 
 "Who is thy father?" I. 
 
 " He " — with a distant look 
 
 Afar in the past — " is dead." 
 
 " T am thy father," I 
 
 Whispered the singer. " Nay, 
 
 He was a youth as fair 
 
 As the knights of the Holy Grail ; 
 
 Thou art a bent old man. 
 
 Bowed with thy weight of years, 
 
 And over thy ancient brow 
 
 Furrows are chased of woe. 
 
 Wrong to another done, 
 
 Care, and a keen remorse. 
 
 My father was good and true, 
 
 My mother says, and died 
 
BASIL. 55 
 
 One night of a fever far 
 In the South — a fever named 
 Unrest — remaining so." 
 Blessing my darling then 
 That she my memory white 
 Had kept with him, I crept 
 (Kissing her mantle's hem) 
 Out in the shadows, out 
 Alone in the silent night, 
 Bearing my burden, but 
 Bearing a braver heart 
 And better. 
 
 \_A pause. 
 
 The years are born 
 And die, and I wander still 
 Over the hemispheres. 
 Haunted by phantoms of 
 The maiden false as fair 
 Who crept in my heart of hearts 
 That night of woe, who e'er 
 Whisper in voices loud 
 As the voice of Conscience is — 
 " Sin culpa de mia." 
 
 [^Basil rising approaches the hunter. The 
 hunter brooding gazes out through the 
 mists to the blue vast beyond. After 
 a long pause, with a great sigh that 
 seems by memory up-wrung Jrom his 
 heart's depths, moanfully he repeats 
 the words — 
 
 Sin — culpa — de mia ! 
 
56 BASIL. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Christ! is there aught but agony in life? 
 I hear it from the lips of men, see women 
 Weep it from out their hearts in molten drops ; 
 Babes borne into the world on wails of it, 
 And spent souls groping graveward moaning it. 
 I marvel if the grave will echo it. 
 Hunter, why do you live? 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 Alas !— Why die ? 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Ah, why ! — that you may gain immortality ? 
 Then live — cling to life — fight for it, 
 Immortality — what is it? Another 
 Degree of anguish, some larger eternity 
 Of pain. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 Then why die? 
 BASIL [bitterly']- 
 
 So that thine agony 
 May not pall — 'tis keener there. 
 
BASIL. 57 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 In death ? 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Ay, in the Hereafter men call 
 Death — in the illimitable Hereafter. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 But my darling lives. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 She is dead to thee; 
 She can never more be thine. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 In Heaven ? 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Heaven ! Have stout men turned to children? 
 
 Have iron-will'd men falFn to imbeciles ? 
 
 Babbling of Heaven ! Heaven — what is it ? 
 
 A place of peace. Hast thou a thing called conscience? 
 
58 BASIL, 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 Alas ! yes. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 And thou dost babble of Heaven ! 
 The immortal spark in man named conscience 
 Can never die, can never rest, lives ever 
 'Tis the imperishable curse of nature's God, 
 8ent down tl>ro' all time's dolorous mutations 
 From the Garden of Eden. 'Twas the ban God-spoken 
 'Pon Eve, 'pon Adam, and their sons and daughters — 
 " Go, and bear with ye evermore a conscience ! " 
 O that 1 might crush it out of me! 
 It haunts me ever like a pallid Fear. 
 Some grand heroic souls have conquered it, 
 And chained it to a rock where break the tides 
 That roll up ceaseless from the sea Unrest. 
 They were the mightiest spirits born of woman. 
 By whom the Alexanders of this earth 
 Were less than Liliputs — they were content, 
 For they had compassed conscience — more than worlds! 
 O enviable, O heroic, happy souls! .... 
 An thou canst quell thy conscience, thou canst rest; 
 An thou canst kill thy conscience. Heaven is thine: — 
 Thou canst not quell or kill it. 
 
 HUNTER [^aj'ter a long pause]. 
 I heard you sing of hope — 
 
BASIL. 59 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 'Twas a memory — 
 A phautom^nothiug more — a mirage 
 Of the braiu — the puny offspring 
 Of Imagery — a sickly child 
 Of distorted Thought — a miscarriage 
 Of Mind in her nonage. 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 It touch'd my heart. 
 
 BA.SIL. 
 
 Because we are feres in adversity. 
 The outcast loves the outcast — are we not 
 Outcasts of fate? Ours is common cause. 
 Do you dwell in the city yonder ? 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 I am a hunter. My home is the world, 
 
 My abiding-place where the shadows 
 
 Of night enfold me, my shelter 
 
 The vault of heaven, my companions 
 
 The mute white stars. In the city 
 
 I chafe and fret like a caged ocelot. 
 
 I hate the faces of men, they are so hard, 
 
 Like the hard coin they stamp their souls with. 
 
 I hate the faces of women, they mock me so. 
 
 Do you dwell down in the city ? 
 
60 BASIL, 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 I tarry there, bound : I am a convict, 
 
 HUNTER \_scornfully']. 
 A felon ! 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 Mine was no common theft. 
 That you should shrink from nie, spurn me. 
 I was no vulgar thief; I was a genius 
 In the art of felony, and aimed at heights 
 Towering above the herd. I was 
 The Csesar of felons, the Antony 
 Of robbers, the Napoleon, of thieves. 
 I sacked the fairest life God ever builded. 
 My booty was a maiden's ravished heart. 
 Stol'n from her, pinioned, borne in triumph 
 Thro' all the journeyiugs of ray crazed caprice, 
 Bearing the impress of my ownership, 
 So none should seeing this e'er covet it, 
 I grew aweary, carried it back to her, 
 Sitting disconsolate, waste, in the ruins 
 Of her young life, and cast it at her feet, 
 A broken, a sullied thing ev'n beggars scorn'd, 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 You said you were a convict. 
 
BASIL. 61 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 So I am : 
 Impeached by Memory, and arraigned l)efore 
 The high court of Conscience, I was judged 
 Guilty, condemned, and sentenced 
 To life-imprisonment with one I loathe — 
 Sentenced to drag thro' the years with her 
 Chained to me, bound to me with bands 
 Indissoluble — Hymen's bands. 
 Now, as I toil up and down the earth. 
 Men point the finger of scorn at me, 
 Crying, Basil, the Cardicide ! 
 
 HUNTER. 
 
 How just, how terrible a sentence ! 
 
 I pity you. Adieu. Our ways have crossed. 
 
 And we have gloomed eachother's lives an instant, 
 
 Not unprofitably, I fancy, each 
 
 Having in each discovered agonies 
 
 As keen as his, and having forgotten his 
 
 In pity a little instant. Adios. 
 
 \_The hunter descends the cliff and disappears. 
 BASIL [ctjter a pause']. 
 
 Gone, bearing his anguish away with him ! 
 'Tis the old, old story oft-repeated. 
 O Conscience, thou austere accuser, 
 Thou inexorable foe of human peace, 
 
62 BASIL. 
 
 Thou clamorous censor of men's tragedies, 
 None can escape thee ! 
 
 \_A storm bursts upon him. 
 
 God — if there be a God — 
 Doth speak to his fallen daughter. 
 His speech — how grandly it breaks and echoes 
 Across the expanse of heaven ! how grandly 
 The hexameters of thunder, the spondees 
 Of tempest, utter his wrath sublime ! — 
 His speech is of Paradise — of Eden — 
 The serpent — Eve's large temptation — 
 The fall and the banishment. 
 Eve, dost thou hear the impeachment? — 
 Thou didst eat of the tree of Conscience ! 
 
 [ife stands breasting the storm. A thunder- 
 bolt shatters a venerable pine at his 
 feet, and it falls moaning to the earth. 
 
 Broken like a reed ! So is the life of man 
 Broken bv the bolts of Conscience. 
 
 [ The storm passes away.. Basil descends the 
 cliff and disappears. 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADES 
 
 Far from the fret of the breaker, 
 
 Far from the wrinkled steeps, 
 
 Far from the reef where the wrecker 
 
 Nightly his vigil keeps ! 
 
 Far from the ways of traffic, 
 
 Out of the trader's toils 
 
 Into the ways seraphic. 
 
 Out of my demon's coils ! 
 
 Far from the mills of Mammon, 
 
 Far from the wiles of woman, 
 
 Far and away from the aching 
 
 Of human hearts that are breaking ! 
 
 Far from the toiling city, 
 
 Out of the babylon 
 
 Of mimes in the pitiless town 
 
 Into the ways of pity ! 
 
 Far from the passion-fever 
 
 Burning, burning ever 
 
 My soul, consuming never 
 
 My soul — an ill that neither 
 
64 LAST OF THE DRYADES. 
 
 Kills nor dies — O fever! 
 Far from a civilization 
 Aging a man in youth, 
 Out of the desolation 
 Wrought of a dearth of ruth I 
 Out of the passion-gleam, 
 Past the frontier of steam, 
 Where nor click of the car yet 
 Sounds, nor the telegraph 
 Dins in my ear the scarlet 
 Sum of the nations' grief, 
 Nor sickles a cosmosheaf 
 Of broken faith, and o'erbroken 
 Plights of a troth o'erspokeu. 
 Loves that are dead in a day, 
 Hearts in a little hour 
 Wrecked by the subtle power 
 Held by a maiden o'er 
 Bearded and bronzed clay, 
 Hopes that are withered and sear 
 All in their natal year — 
 Out of the teeming high-ways 
 Into the quiet by-ways ! 
 
 IL 
 
 Lulled by the bobolink 
 And robin, I lie, nor think, 
 Idling my life away 
 In my hammock a many day. — 
 Nor think ! ah that is nepenthe. 
 That is the sole surcease, 
 The only abiding peace, 
 God in his mercy sent the 
 Toilers of earth — nor think ! 
 Think of it, baited one. 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADES. fio 
 
 Ho earger, so pale and wan, 
 iStriving to win a fame 
 Prouder than others won, 
 Htriving to carve a name 
 Higher than any can, 
 Striving to gain a love 
 Ever more constant than 
 Maiden to mortal gave — 
 Striving ever in vain ! 
 Think of the days and nights 
 Of thought that charred your brain 
 Down to a shriveled pain I 
 Think of the brazen nights, 
 Think of the leaden days, 
 That builded the bitter years. 
 Barren of any tears, 
 Bearing but thistle-thoughts, 
 Barbed, tigerish yearnings. 
 Turbulent passion-burnings: 
 Think — and nevermore think ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Here is an euthanasy 
 Of toil and the strivings vain — 
 (Ever the raomus Gain 
 Shunneth the timid daisy) 
 Never the mammoth dailies. 
 Moist with the mingled tears 
 Of hearts in the hemispheres. 
 Pour in my ear a tale is 
 Burdened with woman's sighs, 
 Laden with orphans' cries, 
 Printed in blood, till Justice 
 Veils her face at the lust is 
 Rife, and the agony 
 
66 I-AST OF THE DRYADES. 
 
 Wrung from his fellow-man 
 By man in his cruelty. 
 Never the fever comes 
 Here in the quietude. 
 Peace in the highest seems 
 Ever the perfect clays 
 Here in the leafy ways. 
 Never the churlish, rude, 
 Clamorous voice of Strife 
 Chastens my charmed life 
 Here in the solitude. 
 Only a lulling voice 
 Sighing a song of peace 
 Under the twining trees 
 Maketh my heart rejoice; 
 Low and as magical 
 As the voice of a woman is, 
 Stilling the tragical 
 Voice of my demon — 'tis 
 The voice of a" spirit dwells 
 Only in leafy vales, 
 Only in silent ways 
 Far from the diu of drays, 
 Far from the rush of mills 
 Near to the hush of rills, 
 Far from the thoroughfare 
 Near to the plashing mere, 
 Out of the babylon 
 Deep in the way unknown : 
 Spirit of Passion's-ease, 
 Last of the Dryades ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis the lotus-land 
 
 Of the age of Steam : I stand 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADE8. 
 
 Isled in the midst of seas 
 
 Of clover and twining trees, 
 
 And oceans of rolling corn 
 
 Fretting the reefs of thorn, 
 
 Marged with a continent 
 
 Of primeval wood, content. 
 
 Care is forgotten here. 
 
 Far the receding near. 
 
 All in the hectic past 
 
 Lies in a memory-raist : 
 
 Wife of my aged youth, 
 
 Ambition ; children. Toil, 
 
 Strife and the wan Turmoil ; 
 
 Friends — what friends ! I never 
 
 Honored a friend who ever. 
 
 Tried in the crucible 
 
 Of friendship, served me well ; 
 
 Home — fiiir eidolon 
 
 To many a homeless one, 
 
 To me an eidolon 
 
 Unlovely, having none 
 
 Save in a hollow name, 
 
 Save in a shallow fame 
 
 Void of a meager truth. 
 
 Better a vagabond 
 
 On the face of the arid earth. 
 
 Than home and a fatherland 
 
 Where love is a waning dearth. 
 
 And Faith is a fickle queen 
 
 With a dragon's eye of green, 
 
 And Trust unbidden waits 
 
 Weeping without the gates 
 
 Of a heart forever shut, — 
 
 Not unremembered, but 
 
 Never regretted, all 
 
()8 LAST OF THE DRYADES. 
 
 I cherished so long aud well, 
 Cherished so long ago, 
 Cherished so well in woe: 
 Perish the memory o'er 
 Cherish I nevermore ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Idling now by the sea 
 Quiescent, and listlessly 
 Viewing the clover-surf 
 Fretting the stubble-turf, 
 Messages come up to me. 
 Come from over the sea, 
 Come from an alien gone, 
 Come from a world unknown 
 Hitherto unto me, 
 Come up so silently 
 Out of the voiceless sea. 
 Low must I beud my ear 
 Lest the refrain they bear 
 Die on the languid air : 
 
 1. 
 
 " Out of the realm of the Dutiful, 
 Here in the realm of the Beautiful, 
 
 Dwell with me ever ; 
 Dwell with me here in my Dreamland, 
 Out of the strife of thy ISteamland, 
 
 Turbulent never. 
 
 " Dwell with me out of resentment. 
 Here in the vale of Contentment 
 Languorous lying 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADES. 69 
 
 Far from a futile ambition, 
 Near to the rill of Fruition, 
 Where is no vying. 
 
 3. 
 
 " Here in the heart of the wild wood 
 Dear to the heart of thy childhood 
 
 Standeth a Palace, 
 Built for me by the builder 
 Of dreams at the forge of the gilder 
 
 Of Borealis. 
 
 " Dwell with me here in my Palace ; 
 Never the arrows of Malice 
 
 Or Envy shall wound thee. 
 Dwell with me here as my lover; 
 Ever my spirit shall hover 
 
 An aigis around thee." 
 
 Lo ! 'tis the voice of the Spirit — 
 Spirit of Passion 's-ease — 
 Seeming more low as I near it 
 Now in my ecstasies. 
 Lo ! from the fairest of valleys 
 Towers her stately Palace ; 
 She from the open portal 
 Beckons her lover-mortal. 
 Spirit, I come, and never 
 Shall demon our souls dissever I 
 
70 LAST OF THE DRYAD KS. 
 
 VL 
 
 Wound in my love's enibrace.s 
 Tightly, as twining laces 
 Vine e'er its lover oak, 
 Time burns no cruel traces 
 Into my heart, or effaces 
 Aught that my love awoke. 
 Days that were ages are instants, 
 Nights that were cycles are flashes. 
 Nights to my conscience were lashes 
 Now to my conscience are min'strants. 
 All the day long, never thinking, 
 I with my love — ever drinking 
 Nepenthe she holds to my lips — 
 I with'my love in her Palace 
 Drain the nepentheline chalice. 
 All the night long, intertwining 
 Her love with my love, and reclining 
 My soul on her soul, I am lying, 
 Lulled by her languorous sighing. 
 Stilled by the blisses outvying 
 I fancy the blisses of dying. 
 O 'tis the rest of repletion ! 
 The days are but days of mutations 
 Of blisses as perfect as this is ; 
 For here are no ordered gradations 
 Of rest and no temperate blisses. 
 My heart is so lulled I can scarcely 
 Measure its leisure pulsations — 
 Heart but now pulsing so fiercely ! 
 The turbulent sun of my Steamlaud 
 Drowsily over my Dreamland 
 Idles the afternoon. 
 The loitering love-lorn moon 
 Lies in a long love-swoon. 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADES. 71 
 
 ^'or sphere iu the sky nor a sta-r is 
 
 But charni'd with the idoleiice tarries 
 
 Where rest ever stills, never wearies. 
 
 The wrens in the bramble-thicket 
 
 Whisper their loves, the cricket 
 
 Under the Palace walls 
 
 Scarce iu a whisper calls. 
 
 Out of the pine its groan. 
 
 Out of the wind its moan, 
 
 Out of the leaf its tremor. 
 
 Out of the rill its murmur. 
 
 O ! 'tis a very Eden 
 
 Of quiet dropped from heaven, 
 
 And I and my love content 
 
 Will idle forever here — 
 
 Never the demon Steam 
 
 Shall banish us . . . 
 
 VIL 
 
 Again — 
 It comes — the ringing 
 Turbulence here, the stinging 
 Turbulence here in my brain ! — 
 Clasp me, beloved Spirit 
 Nearer to thee — I hear it 
 Now like a tempest coming 
 Swift through the lurid gloaming. 
 Hark ! how it shrieks, till Terror 
 Trembles aghast as nearer. 
 Loud as the crash of battles 
 Swiftly the monster rattles ! 
 Up and away, or perish ! 
 
72 LAST OF THE DRYADF:;i. 
 
 For 'tis the locomotive, 
 Thing of the trader votive, 
 Thing the perturbed cherish. 
 Hear in the monster's hisses 
 Knells of thy lavish blisses. 
 Lo ! in the teeming train is 
 Traffic, and wanton Pain is 
 There, and the hectic Vices, 
 Ay, and the wan Unrest ; 
 Crime and the foul Excesses ; 
 Anguish and Agony, 
 Feres of the Cruelty 
 Of cities — Strife is there. 
 Grief and surceaseless Care, 
 Gain, and the harlot bold. 
 Ambition, grown o'er-old ; 
 Avarice, leashed to his beagles, 
 Want and the gaunt Diseases, 
 (Ghoul that no gorge appeases,) 
 Counting his lioarded eagles. 
 Lo ! in the gilded coaches 
 Too the malign Reproach is ; 
 There are her sisters Toil, 
 Envy and pale Turmoil. 
 Murder, the grim Remorses, 
 Theft, and the triple Curses, 
 Self and her Greed, and Malice; 
 Lust and the wanton Follies; 
 Pride in her scorn, and Fashion, 
 Hate, and unrighteous Passion, 
 Slander, whose glance but sullies. 
 Sorrow is there a guest 
 Of Death, and I see a face 
 Veiled, and her fettered hand 
 Bearing; a shattered wand : 
 
LAST OF THE DRYADES. 73 
 
 Lo ! 'tis the form of Peace. 
 These are the dwellers newly 
 Come to the happy valleys, 
 Come to the Ultime Thule. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Vanished, my castles gilded, 
 Buried, the hopes I builded, 
 O'er, the ecstatic instant, 
 Banished, my angel min'strant ! 
 Teem the enchanted valleys 
 With men in the quest of Mammon, 
 Children o'er-old ; and woman, 
 Aged in her youth with pain. 
 Toils in the mills of Gain. 
 Strangers are in the Palace : 
 Traders, whose ribald laughter 
 Echoes from sill to rafter. 
 Sit in the gilded halls 
 Decking their tawdry stalls. 
 Luring the passers by 
 To list with the oily lie 
 That.baffles truth — a stable 
 'Tis for the iron horses 
 Drink at its fountains' sources. 
 Lo ! from the gilded babel 
 View I a something pallid 
 Seeming a-swoon — I near it : 
 Woe! 'tis my stricken Spirit — 
 Dead ! by the demon slain, 
 Prone on the gleaming rails. 
 Crushed by the iron heels, 
 
74 LAST OF THE DRYADE8. 
 
 Fleck'd with the sable foam 
 Of Steam's swift horse! 
 
 IX. 
 
 I come 
 Now to the ways of Mammon, ► 
 Back to the wiles of woman, 
 Else to the toils are human, 
 Out of the leafy by-ways 
 Into the teeming high-ways, 
 Into the hectic fever 
 Here by the dual river. 
 Loud is the solitude 
 With strife and the din of traffic- 
 Loud are the ways seraphic, 
 Voiced with the loud invader, 
 Vexed with the sordid trader 
 Come to the land but newly — 
 Come to the Ultime Thule. 
 Ocean is joined to ocean, 
 Gulf to the Arctic ices 
 Firm with an iron fetter. 
 Far to earth's utter sources 
 Trade on his charger courses. 
 Bearing his ill devices : 
 Not in the land of Thule 
 Now is a happy valley, — 
 Now is a way of pity. 
 
ALOES. 
 
 I have drained to its dregs the gilt chalice 
 of pleasure ; 
 I have quaffed to its lees the full 
 flagon of life ; 
 I have drank at the Fountain of Youth a 
 full measure ; 
 In the harvest of love I have gleaned 
 a fair sheaf. 
 
 I have tasted the temperate fruits are 
 forbidden ; 
 I have eaten the apple 'neath tropical 
 skies ; 
 I have felt the keen edge of the axe that 
 lies hidden 
 In the innocent mask of a pair 
 of soft eyes. 
 
 I have climbed up the steep of Parnassian 
 mountains ; 
 I have drank till I reeled the Cas- 
 talian wine ; 
 
76 ALOES. 
 
 I have loved in the crystalline Lethean 
 fountains ; 
 I have dreamed the sweet dream of a 
 
 fame that was mine. 
 
 I have had the full love of the one perfect 
 woman ; 
 I have felt the high thrill of a father's 
 first joy : 
 I have turned her full love to the hate of 
 a demon ; 
 I have banished the love of my 
 
 passionate boy. 
 
 And at thirty T stand on the edge of the 
 evening, 
 And peer with a shudder far into 
 the night — 
 In the past but a pang, nor the present 
 reprieving. 
 In the future no gleam of a bea- 
 coning light. 
 
 — There is hope? What is hope but a beau- 
 : tiful wraith ? 
 
 I would give all the hope man e'er 
 
 had or may boast 
 For one seon of youth — I would barter the 
 
 faith 
 Of the cycles of time for the love I 
 have lost. 
 
 Nevermore ! — I have lavished my day, and the 
 gloaming, 
 
ALOES. 77 
 
 As it creeps o'er the heights whispers 
 low, and it saith, 
 " Art thou ready ? — the Fieud of the Future is 
 coming, 
 
 The inscrutable Fiend, the white Uhlan 
 of death ! " 
 
 I am ready. — What matter if dead or if 
 living? 
 There is nothing in life but its 
 
 aloes for me. 
 And is death not of life but a kindly de- 
 priving ? 
 Then why should I fear to forget 
 and be free ? 
 
ALONE. 
 
 Alone! — ear hath not heard, 
 Tongue hath not spoken word 
 So fraught with perfect moan 
 As this sad word Alone. 
 
 Alone! — Lara alone, 
 Apart from men, unknown : 
 'Mid myriads of my kind 
 I count no man my friend. 
 
 Alone ! — men pass me by ; 
 I ask, I question why ; 
 'Twas thus from infancy. 
 Thus will it ever be. 
 
 Alone ! — I have no thought 
 In league with human aught 
 There is no beating heart 
 Gives me some only part. 
 
 78 
 
ALONE. 79 
 
 Aloue ! — alone with life, 
 Alone with mother, wife, 
 With daughter and with son, 
 And with myself alone. 
 
 Alone ! — I marvel me 
 If in the life To Be 
 I shall be so alone 
 As in this teeming zone. 
 
 I marvel, and I dream 
 Beyond the silent stream 
 One waits whom God hath given 
 To be my friend in heaven — 
 
 A sad soul floating e'er 
 Since time from sphere to sphere, 
 Me seeking, I have sought : 
 O satisfying thought ! 
 
BROKEN YASES. 
 
 1. 
 
 A friend gave me one day 
 A vase of vSevres clay. 
 His name vvas written on — 
 His portrait graven 'pon 
 The vase, and this legend : 
 " A token from a friend." 
 
 My hand in anger swept 
 The vase I long had kept. 
 I culled the fragments fine 
 And gave them one to join — 
 One skilled: he joined them well 
 But left a scar to tell. 
 
 A maid gave me one day 
 
 Her heart to keep alway. 
 
 My name was written on — 
 
 My portrait graven 'pon 
 
 The gem, and this : " ' Twixt thee 
 
 And me a bond for aye." 
 
 80 
 
BROKEN VASES. 81 
 
 But I with ruffian stroke 
 Ei'e long the jewel broke. 
 I gleaued the fragments fine 
 And gave them her to join : 
 She joined them wondrous well, 
 But left a scar to tell. 
 
 3. 
 
 My Marguerite, my wife, 
 Gave me her whole white life. 
 Her soul was stamped upon — 
 Her -spirit graven on 
 The gift, and this : " For me 
 'Tis for eternity." 
 
 But I with passion rife 
 Dissevered her blent life. 
 I culled the splinters fine 
 And gave them her to join : 
 She joined them well — alas 
 A scar each splinter has. 
 
A REQUIEM. ' 
 
 I loved, and lived a year and a day 
 In my faith in my love Marie, 
 
 And my love Marie a year and a day 
 Loved, living in faith in me. 
 
 But one wrought out of a coarser clay, 
 
 And envying her and me 
 Our faith in our living loves, one day 
 
 Tempted my love Marie, 
 
 Whispering, "Hollow the faith of him 
 Thou deemest so true to thee ; 
 
 Yestereve in the mists he came 
 And pledged his faith to me, 
 
 Saying, ' Thou wast ray love alway ; 
 
 Never I loved but thee ; 
 A fancy, dead in a year and day, 
 
 My passion for my Marie.' " 
 
A REQUIEM. §3 
 
 And hearing, heeding the lie of me 
 
 She spake of the coarser clay, 
 The faith died out of my love Marie 
 
 Had lived a year and a day- 
 Died in an instant . . . Well, ah me! 
 
 How frail a thing is a faith !— 
 Soul of a spirit, dream of a joy, 
 
 Fay of a phantom wraith ! 
 
TO M. K. H, 
 
 Aud thou ! — I oue day said, 
 
 " Her friendship true will last 
 A little year has past, 
 And it is dead. 
 
 How slight a thing to thee! — 
 A kindly word, some store 
 Of sympathy — no more ; 
 'Twas much to me. 
 
 Mine is the loss — I know 
 
 Not why you passed me by ; 
 I will not question why — 
 You willed it so. 
 
 A pang, an unwept tear, — 
 
 I view slain Friendship lie. 
 Pierced unexpectant by 
 Scorn's iron spear. 
 
TO M. R. H. 85 
 
 By memory cherished, rest, 
 
 Dream of a perished year, — 
 Rest iu memoriam here — 
 Here in my breast. 
 
 So one by one they pass: 
 Each year a tetter less 
 Binds me to life's duress — 
 And yet, alas ! 
 
 So one by one they fall, 
 
 Cut down — I cannot say 
 Wherefore, years, ye slay 
 My friendships all. 
 
TO A LADY. 
 
 On Her Wediliii;/ Ihui. 
 
 One dark December day 
 A maiden crossed my way. 
 The lamp burned fitfully 
 Within my heart, but she 
 Poured oil upon the flame 
 And gave it added gleam. 
 
 A year went by, and yet 
 The flame her presence lit 
 Burned steadily, and I 
 Dreamed 'twas not lit to die — 
 It burned so loyally 
 I thought 'twould burn alway. 
 
 December rounding brought 
 The maid fe'er nigh in thought) 
 Again one wintry day 
 Athwart my lighten'd way. 
 
TO A LADY. 87 
 
 The flame leapt up anew . . . 
 And died — how, none e'er knew. 
 
 A friend told me just now 
 She'd taken Hymen's vow. 
 A pang— I smiled, and said 
 To me, " An she has wed 
 Another for this life. 
 Her memory is my wife." 
 
TO THE SAME. 
 
 Oil Ihi' Biilh iifher Firal licii. 
 
 A dreary year to inauy, 
 A cheery year to mau}' — 
 
 To thee, Estelle? 
 
 To nie — ah, well I 
 Some (lays are dreary, 
 Some dttys are cheery, 
 And some are chill. 
 And some are ill. 
 
 As the years go by : 
 A little more dreary, 
 A little less cheery, 
 A little more chill, 
 A little more ill 
 
 Each year, as the years flow by 
 
 I hear from some fair other, 
 Estelle, thou art a mother — 
 
 A first-born boy, 
 
 A wife's chief joy ! 
 
TO THE SAME. 89 
 
 A thrill — I whisper, 
 " The tiny lisper, 
 The little life, 
 My memory-wife, 
 
 Is ours ! " And ever, 
 As the days go brightly 
 I say it lightly, 
 And I say it soft, 
 And repeat it oft, 
 
 And over, aweary never. 
 
 Bright beauty — will he know me? 
 Slight beauty — will he know me? 
 
 His eyes are thine ; 
 
 His hair is mine. 
 So fine and yellow ; 
 His laugh as mellow 
 As the bobolink's, 
 Is thine, one thinks 
 
 Who has felt its powers ; 
 But mine his sadness, 
 And thine his gladness ; 
 His lips as wine — 
 Ah, they are thine ! — 
 
 This beautiful boy of ours. 
 
TO H L S . 
 
 Why do I love thee? For thy beauty. Which 
 
 Fair part of thee is fairest? When you laugh, 
 
 I say, " It is her lawgh," and when you weep, 
 
 " Nay, 'tis her tears," and when your heart is touch'd 
 
 With pity of some sorrow, then I say, 
 
 " It is her heart," and when you joust with man 
 
 In tourney of the mind and vanquish him, 
 
 " Ah, 'tis her mind ;" anon I view thee bathed 
 
 In some pure psychic glow of lofty thought. 
 
 And then I whisper to me, " 'Tis her soul ! " 
 
 I know not which is fairest — can I guess 
 
 Of twenty opals which alone is first, 
 
 If none be second ? Thou art fair as light 
 
 (Tho' men proclaim thee plain) in all to me — 
 
 Within, without alway ; but if one part 
 
 Be fairer than another, 'tis, I think, 
 
 Thy spirit's lattice, thy divine plain face. 
 
 The crowning thought of God was mortal woman : 
 
 Thou art His better after-thought of her. 
 
 90 
 
FOl^ WHO SHALL SAY? 
 
 For who shall say those subtle essences 
 Give man his prowess o'er the lesser beasts, 
 Were not before man was? Was Dante's soul 
 A thing of Dante's years? Was Byron's spirit, 
 With all its stores of knowledge at an age 
 When little men are infants— with its vast 
 And varied intimacies with all things, 
 Coeval with that part of him which died? 
 Think ye the marvellous boy, whose genius 'mazed 
 The savans of a nation, prison'd a soul 
 Too in its teens ? Was mortal Keats, who fell 
 At four and twenty, pierced with Malice's dart — ■ 
 Who life achieving lived to death so young — 
 The bridewell of a spirit no more old ? 
 Was mighty Csesar's soul but fifty-six ? 
 I think it had lived ages ere Rome was. 
 I think the finished spirits of this earths- 
 Rare, enviable and immortal few— 
 
 91 
 
92 FOR WHO SHALL SAY. 
 
 Were fashioned in the glow of God's full youth. 
 When He intoxicate with new creation 
 Wrought some essence of Himself in each : 
 For they are gods of men 
 
AMBITION. I 
 
 Sempoalla — nigltt. A room in the Palace of the Cacique; Hernando Curlea within. 
 CORTES [solus]. 
 
 Now doth my purpose ripen to rare fruit. 
 
 I've played a game at hazards with the jade 
 
 Men christen Fortune, and have paired her oft, 
 
 Till odds are in my favor. Velasquez, 
 
 Thou fortune-fashioned pawn, I've taken thee. 
 
 When all hung on the hazard of a move, 
 
 I played it cautiously, nor risked a chance ; 
 
 But since I've centered all upon the king, 
 
 I'll play it boldly, for a desperate game 
 
 Will brook no caution, and whoso doth win 
 
 Doth silence cavil at the manner of 't. 
 
 There's virtue in success and vice in failure. 
 
 Rebellion when achieved is revolution. 
 
 And any patriot laurel-crown'd and loved 
 
 Had losing been an upstart and a traitor : 
 
 There's but a narrow chance 'twixt faith and treason. 
 
 Gold is the key shall open wide the door 
 
 93 
 
94 AMBITION. 
 
 'Twixt me and Carlos' favor, and the Pope 
 I'll win with piety and proselytes : 
 With Rome to aegis me, who dare impeach, 
 Tho' twenty treasons lurked in my adventure ! 
 
 [^Rising, he paces the floor feverishly. Alva- 
 rado enters to announce the arrival of 
 an embassy frovi Montezuma. Alva- 
 rado, naming the rich presents sent by 
 the Aztec emperor to Cortes, mentions 
 twenty noble virgins — one the emper- 
 or's own daughter; whereupon their 
 conversation takes an amorous bent, 
 and they recount their amours, Alva- 
 rado's passing m number and bold- 
 ness those of Cortes. At last Cortes 
 exclaims in extenuation and self-de- 
 fense — 
 
 Ah, well, well, 
 
 Opportunity was something niggard with me. 
 
 AI.VARADO. 
 
 'Tis- opportunity doth shape all fames : 
 
 The clown who dangled at a harrow's tail, 
 
 And died the clod he coaxed base being from. 
 
 Had haply been great Csesar, circumstanced 
 
 Like Csesar, and th' imperial One a clod 
 
 Of man-guised earth, but for supreme occasion. 
 
 {_Exit Alvarado. 
 
AMBITION. 95 
 
 CORTES [^Solusl- 
 
 ' Tis opportunity doth shape all fames' ! 
 
 Ah, Alvarado, iu thine airy speech 
 
 Thou utter'dst all unwitting weighty truth. 
 
 Now is the handle of supreme occasion 
 
 Thrust out by Fate, beseeching I shall grasp it. 
 
 Nor sues in vain, for I'll lay hold of it 
 
 With the firm and constant grip of stout Ambition. 
 
 Cortes, thou dangler at the strings of Fortune, 
 
 Thou clod hast coaxed base being from existence. 
 
 Thou 'rt franchised by large opportunity. 
 
 Now shalt thou climb to fame's high eminence — 
 
 Hew'ng rundles with thy sword — and carve thy name 
 
 Level with the immortal minority — 
 
 Or die a surer death with headlong pitch 
 
 Down in the abysm of the unremember'd. 
 
 () tantalizing thought ! — to die unborne 
 
 I' the memories of the men come after me. 
 
 Man — what is he but a name? a sign 
 
 Of something sensate, tangible, instinct ? 
 
 And if he die uncrowned, and bear his name 
 
 Down into the dank, worm-peopled, noisome grave. 
 
 For what fit purpose hath he lived his life? 
 
 Far better have been a patient plodding beast. 
 
 Content with housing from the winter's blast 
 
 And feed to appease keen hunger's gnawing. 
 
 [J pause. 
 
 O 
 
 Thou patient little soul, live out thy space, 
 
 And dying mingle thy juices with the earth's, 
 
 And men shall turn the whites o' their eyes to heaven, 
 
 And sigh. Ah me! and whisper. He did his duty : 
 
96 AMBITION. " 
 
 Another 'II glide into thy place and fill it 
 As thou hadst never been, O mighty mote! 
 Living, you fatted 'pen the rankness of the soil ; 
 Dead, you shall nourish fodder for men else, 
 And fat a cabbage with your festering carcass. 
 Bah ! what an end of all man's aspirations ! 
 What price too dear for full absolvement from it? 
 I'd barter hope, and peace, and conjugal love, 
 And all the lesser deities men worship. 
 To compass it — Ay, I would pledge my soul. 
 My absolving faith from sin, and all save honor, 
 And leap down in the abyss o' the dread hereafter, 
 Godless, Christless, to win a deathless name. 
 Having it, what need I of a god ? I'd be 
 A god myself, apotheosized of men. — 
 But peace ! possess thyself, O mine ambition, 
 Against th' achievement of thy victory. 
 
 \_ExiL 
 
ADIOS 
 
 Once I thought 'twould me dissever 
 
 From myself to sever us. 
 Once I deemed your life could never 
 
 Bear dissev'rance, dare my loss. 
 By how frail a thread is friendship 
 
 Joined to beating human hearts! 
 Touched, it snaps, and dead is friendship. 
 
 Broken in many-anguished parts. 
 Thou and I were friends, and boasted 
 
 We should be so evermore : 
 Lo ! a touch I thought had tested 
 
 But not taxed our friendship o'er — 
 Thou, whose heart here on mine rested. 
 
 Shall rest hereon nevermore — 
 Thou didst view the hand uplifted. 
 
 Thou didst view it swift descend, 
 Nor thine own free hand uplifted 
 
 To withhold it, or forefend. 
 
98 ADIOS. 
 
 II. 
 
 Well, 'tis ended : we unblended 
 
 Who so solely deemed us blent, 
 Hence are strangers, I unfriended, 
 
 Thou to other friendships lent — 
 For thou canst not give thee to them, 
 
 But, possessing, must renew them. 
 Adios. — I love thee, view thee 
 
 As a dead far more than wife, 
 And thy memory mingles newly 
 
 With my new unfriended life. 
 Groping down the years, I builded 
 
 Phantom-friendships by the way: 
 Night o'er-palled them — morning gilded 
 
 Splendid wrecks of yesterday. 
 Deep then in the vale of manhood — 
 
 All my youth's fair friendships dead- 
 Thiue I built, where never man should 
 
 Enter, or despoil, I said. 
 Lo ! the sun went down — I slumbered 
 
 In this frendship aye of mine: 
 Lo ! the sun came up — it numbered 
 
 With the slain thine, even thine. 
 
 III. 
 
 Lo! the reed growing by the river 
 
 Plucked out ieaveth scarce a trace ; 
 But the oak uprooted, never 
 
 Time the void can quite efface. 
 Youth may love to-day, to-morrow 
 
 View its frail love borne afar. 
 Leaving a little hour's sorrow, 
 
 Leaving ne'er a sign or scar. 
 Man may love — his love is ever, 
 
 Rooting deep down round his soul ; 
 
ADIOS. 99 
 
 Stricken, it leaves a chasm never 
 
 Surgery of the years can heal. 
 Adios. — I kiss thy memory 
 
 Now at eventide and morn, 
 As of yore I kissed the, Marie, 
 
 Ere from mine thy life was torn. 
 Adios. — The hurt abides on 
 
 In the silence of my heart 
 Better and less grievous is than 
 
 Never to have known thou wert. 
 
KRRATA. 
 
 On page 24. In line 10, omit comma after " to." 
 
 On page 89. In line 15, for " James," read Janus. 
 
 On page 40. In line 5, for " imquiet," read unquiet. 
 
 On page 61. In line 11, for '• Cardicide," read Cordi- 
 
 cide. 
 
 On page QQ. In line 5, for •' .seems," read sums. 
 
 On page 68. In line 12, for "gone," read zone. 
 
 On page 71. In line 2, for •' idolenee," read indolence. 
 
 On page 76. In line 1, for " loved," read laved. 
 
 On page 99. In line 5, for " the," read thee. 
 
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