it; Better this present than a past like that ; None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Back therefore to my darkening path Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves again! the Turk Jews. there ! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, A sudden little river cross’d my path Or brake, not wheel that harrow fit to As unexpected as a serpent comes. reel Nosluggish tide congenial to the glooms ; | Men's bodies out like silk ? with all the This, as it froth'd by, might have been a air bath Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, steel. Then came a bit of stubb'd ground, once a wood, So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now Low scrubby alders kneel'd down over mere earth Desperate and done with ; (so a fool finds Drench'd willows flung them headlong mirth, in a fit Makes a thing and then mars it, till his Of mute despair, a suicidal throng : mood The river which had done them all the Changes and off he goes !) within a rood wrong, Bog, clay, and rubble, sand and stark Whate'er that was, rollid by, deterr'd black dearth. no whit. Now blotches rankling, color'd gay and grim, Which, while I forded, - good saints, how Now patches where some leanness of the I fear'd soil's Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Nought in the distance but the evening, nought Now for a better country. Vain pre To point my footstep further! At the thought, Who were the strugglers, what war did A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend, Whose savage trample thus could pad the Sail'd past, nor beat his wide wing dragondank penn'd Soil to a plash ? Toads in a poison'd tank, That brush'd my cap— perchance the Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage — guide I sought. The fight must so have seem'd in that fell For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, cirque. Spite of the dusk, the plain had given What penn'd them there, with all the place plain to choose ? All round to mountains · with such No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, name to grace sage! they wage htend Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surpris’d me, - solve it, you ! How to get from them was no clearer There they stood, ranged along the hill sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture ! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew “ Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." case. RESPECTABILITY Yet half I seem'd to recognize some trick when — then, den. DEAR, had the world in its caprice Deign’d to proclaim “I know you both, Have recogniz'd your plighted troth, Am sponsor for you : live in peace ! ” How many precious months and years Before we found it out at last, Burningly it came on me all at once, the right, horn in fight, Dunce, After a life spent training for the sight ! fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counter part In the whole world. The tempest's mockPoints to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start. Not see ? because of night perhaps ? why, day The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: the heft!” How much of priceless life were spent With men that every virtue decks, And women models of their sex, Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine, And feel the Boulevart break again Allows my fingers to caress Your lips' contour and downiness, Guizot receives Montalembert ! flare : ing elf MEMORABILIA Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, How strange it seems, and new! Not hear ? when noise was everywhere ! it But you were living before that, tollid And also you are living after ; Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears And the memory I started at Of all the lost adventurers my peers, My starting moves your laughter! How such a one was strong, and such was bold, I cross'd a moor, with a name of its own And such was fortunate, yet each of old And a certain use in the world, no doubt, Lost, lost ! one moment knell'd the woe Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone of years. 'Mid the blank miles round about : For there I picked up on the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! Well, I forget the rest. 1 You and I will never read that volume. the treasure !" Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanishid. ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves. prove may I still can say, ONE WORD MORE Dante once prepar'd to paint an angel : Whom to please ? You whisper “ Bea trice." While he mus'd and traced it and retraced it, (Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipp'd for, When, his left-hand i' the hair o'the wicked, Back he held the brow and prick'd its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, Loos’d him, laugh'd to see the writing rankle, Let the wretch go festering thro' Flor ence) — “ Certain people of importance (Such he gave his daily, dreadful line to) Ènter'd and would seize, forsooth, the poet. Says the poet “ Then I stopp'd my paint ing." You and I would rather see that angel, Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not ? — than read a fresh In ferno. structs you. Rafael made a century of sonnets, the volume. painter's, Rafael's cheek, her lov'd had turn'd a You and I will never see that picture. tance : poet's ? We and Bice bear the loss forever. “How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us ?" Guesses what is like to prove the sequel “ Egypt's flesh-pots -nay, the drought was better." Oh, the crowd must have emphatic war rant ! Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven bril liance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet. Did he love one face from out the thou sands, (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Æthiopian bondslave,) He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert ; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be open'd) Hoard and life together for his mistress. This : no artist lives and loves that longs not Once, and only once, and for One only, (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient Using nature that's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turn'd his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry, Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, Does he write ? he fain would paint a pic ture, Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Once, and only once, and for One only, So to be the man and leave the artist, Save the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! He who smites the rock and spreads the water Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, his mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing, While he smites, how can he but remem ber, So he smote before, in such a peril, When they stood and mock'd 66 Shall smiting help us?” When they drank and sneer'd—“A stroke is !” When they wip'd their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks “But drought was pleasant. Thus old memories mar the actual tri umph ; Thus the doing savors of disrelish ; Thus achievement lacks a gracious some what ; O'er-importun'd brows becloud the man date, Carelessness or consciousness, the gesture. For he bears an ancient wrong about him, Sees and knows again those phalanx'd faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'custom'd prelude I shall never, in the years remaining, statues, Love ! Yet a semblance of resource avails us — Shade so finely touch'd, love's sense must seize it. Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. He who blows thro’ bronze, may breathe thro' silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. He who writes, may write for once, as I do. Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fashion'd by my fancy, bet Te) peat Enter each and all, and use their service, Proves she like some portent of an ice- Swimming full upon the ship it founders, tals ? I am mine and yours - the rest be all Proves she as the pav’d-work of a sapphire men's, Seen by Moses when he climb'd the moun- tain ? Climb'd and saw the very God, the High- est, sentence Stand upon the pav'd-work of a sapphire. Pray you, look on these my men and wo Like the bodied heaven in his clearness men, Shone the stone, the sapphire of that pav'dTake and keep my fifty poems finish'd ; work, also ! What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know. Not but that you know me! Lo, the Only this is sure — the sight were other, moon's self ! Not the moon's same side, born late in Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice trans Dying now impoverish'd here in London. figur'd. God be thank'd, the meanest of his creaCurving on a sky imbrued with color, tures Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world Came she, our new crescent of a hair's with, breadth. One to show a woman when he loves her. of but think of you, Love! Now, a piece of her old self, impoverish’d, This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! Hard to greet, she traverses the house Ah, but that's the world's side there's roofs, the wonder Hurries with unbandsome thrift of silver, Thus they see you, praise you, think they Goes dispiritedly, - glad to finish. What, there's nothing in the moon note There in turn I stand with them and praise worthy ? you, Nay – for if that moon could love a Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. mortal, But the best is when I glide from out them, of, Where I hush and bless myself with si- lence. Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, tal- Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it, heaven, Drew one angel — borne, see, on my Opens out anew for worse or better? bosom. This I say know you. man |