Puslapio vaizdai
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That siffles at the sedgy rim,

Recalling days of former bliss,

And the death-drops, that fall in showers, Seem honied dews from shady flowers.

There is a rustle of the breeze

And twitter of the singing bird;
He snatches at the melodies

And his faint lips again are stirred :
The olden sounds are in his ears;
But still the snake its crest uprears.

His eyes are swimming in the mist

That films the earth like serpent's breath: And now, - as if a serpent hissed,

The husky whisperings of Death Fill ear and brain - he looks around Serpents seem matted o'er the ground.

Soon visions of past joys bewitch

His crafty soul; his hands would set Death's snare, while now his fingers twitch The tasselled reed as 't were his net.

But his thin lips no longer fill

The woods with song; his flute is still.

Those lips still quaver to the flute,
But fast the life-tide ebbs away;
Those lips now quaver and are mute,
But nature throbs in breathless play:
Birds are in open song, the snakes
Are watching in the silent brakes.

In sudden fear of snares unseen

The birds like crimson sunset swarm,
All gold and purple, red and green,
And seek each other for the charm.

Lizards dart up the feathery trees
Like shadows of a rainbow breeze.

The wildered birds again have rushed
Into the charm, — it is the hour
When the shrill forest-note is hushed,
And they obey the serpent's power,
Drawn to its gaze with troubled whirr,
As by the thread of falconer.

As 't were to feed, on slanting wings
They drop within the serpent's glare:
Eyes flashing fire in burning rings
Which spread into the dazzled air;
They flutter in the glittering coils;
The charmer dreads the serpent's toils.

While Music swims away in death

Man's spell is passing to his slaves: The snake feeds on the charmer's breath, The vulture screams, the parrot raves, The lone hyena laughs and howls,

The tiger from the jungle growls.

Then mounts the eagle

flame-flecked folds

Belt its proud plumes; a feather falls: He hears the death-cry, he beholds

The king-bird in the serpent's thralls, He looks with terror on the feud,

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And the sun shines through dripping blood.

The deadly spell a moment gone

Birds, from a distant Paradise,

Strike the winged signal and have flown,

Trailing rich hues through azure skies:

The serpent falls; like demon wings

The far-out branching cedar swings.

The wood swims round; the pool and skies Have met; the death-drops down that cheek Fall faster; for the serpent's eyes

Grow human, and the charmer's seek. A gaze like man's directs the dart Which now is buried at his heart.

The monarch of the world is cold:
The charm he bore has passed away:
The serpent gathers up its fold

To wind about its human prey.
The red mouth darts a dizzy sting,
And clenches the eternal ring.

AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

FROM 'SISTER ANNUNCIATA.'1 16

BUT ah the long ascent! It was enough At first to learn the patience that subdued My throbbing heart to its new quiet rule, The hope of Heaven that bore down earth's despair But these were comfort, and the craving grew

As natural for them as the sick man's

For the pain-soothing draught he learned perforce
To school his palate to. But then the effort

To be another self, to know no more

The fine-linked dreams of youth, the flying thoughts
Like sparkles on the wave-tops changing place
And all one scattered brightness, the high schemes
And glorious wild endeavors after good,
Fond, bubble-soaring, but how beautiful!

The sweet unreal reveries, the gush

Of voiceless songs deep in the swelling heart,
The dear delight of happy girlish hopes-
Of, ah my folly! some hopes too strange sweet
That I dare think of them even to rebuke -
Ah, not to be forgotten though they lie
Too deep for even memory. Alas!
Even if I would, how could I now recall
To their long-faded forms those phantasies
Of a far, other, consciousness which now
Beneath the ashes of their former selves

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Lie a dead part of me, but still a part,

Oh evermore a part.

I do not think

There can be sin in that, in knowing it.

I am not nursing the old foolish love
Which clogged my spirit in those bitter days.

Ah no, dear as it was even in its pain,

I have trampled on it, crushed its last life out.
I do not dread the beautiful serpent now;

It cannot breathe again, not if I tried

To warm it at my breast, it is too dead

And my heart has grown too cold; the Lord himself,

I thank Him, has renewed it virgin-cold

To give to Him. I do but recognize

A simple truth, that that which has been lived,
Lived down to the deeps of the true being,
Even when past for ever, has become
Inseparable from the lifelong self:

But yet it lives not with the present life.

So, in this wise, I may unshamed perceive

That the dead life, that the dead love, are still
A part of me.

Have I slept? But no, I think I was in prayer
The whole time that I knelt unless indeed

A little heavy moment at the last;

It is too chill for sleep. How strange and gray
The morning glimmers! What an awful thing,
Although one feels not why, the silence is
When the new creeping light treads on the dark
Like a white mist above it, and beside
Its leaden pallor hollow blacknesses
Lurk, shifting into limp uncertain shapes.
No place so long familiar but it seems
Weird and unwonted in such eery hours.

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