cord;

FROM "HE HEARD HER SING"

Pathetic and tremulous, no! but firm as a

column it rose,
And thus all-expectant abiding I waited not Rising solemn and slow with a full rich
long, for soon

swell to the close,
A boat came gliding and gliding out in the Firm as a marble column soaring with
light of the moon,

noble pride
Gliding with muffled oars, slowly, a thin In a triumph of rapture solemn to some
dark line,

Hero deified;
Round from the shadowing shores into the In a rapture of exultation made calm by its
silver shine

stress intense,
Of the clear moon westering now, and In a triumph of consecration and a jubila-
still drew on and on,

tion immense.
While the water before its prow breaking | And the Voice flow'd on and on, and ever
and glistering shone,

it swellid as it pour’d,
Slowly in silence strange ; and the rower Till the stars that throbb'd as they shone
row'd till it lay

seem'd throbbing with it in ac-
Afloat within easy range deep in the curve
of the bay ;

Till the moon herself in my dream, still
And besides the rower were two: a Wo-

Empress of all the night,
man, who sat in the stern,

Was only that voice supreme translated into
And Her by her fame I knew, one of those

pure light :
fames that burn,

And I lost all sense of the earth though I
Startling and kindling the world, one whose

still had sense of the sea ;
likeness we everywhere see ;

And I saw the stupendous girth of a tree
And a man reclining half-curld with an in-

like the Norse World-Tree ;
dolent grace at her knee,

And its branches fill'd all the sky, and the
The Signor, lord of her choice ; and he deep sea water'd its root,
lightly touch'd a guitar;

And the clouds were its leaves on high and
A guitar for that glorious voice ! Illumine the stars were its silver fruit;
the sun with a star!

Yet the stars were the notes of the singing
She sat superb and erect, stately, all-happy,

and the moon was the voice of the
serene,

song,
Her right hand toying uncheck'd with the Through the vault of the firmament ring-
hair of that page of a Queen ;

ing and swelling resistlessly strong;
With her head and her throat and her bust And the whole vast night was a shell for
like the bust and the throat and the

that music of manifold might, head

And was strain'd by the stress of the swell
Of Her who has long been dust, of her who of the music yet vaster than night.
shall never be dead,

And I saw as a crystal fountain whose shaft
Preserv'd by the potent art made trebly was a column of light
potent by love,

More high than the loftiest mountain ascend
While the transient ages depart from under the abyss of the night ;
the heavens above,

And its spray fill'd all the sky, and the
Preserv'd in the color and line on the can-

clouds were the clouds of its spray,
vas fulgently flung

Which glitter'd in star-points on high and
By Him the Artist divine who triumph'd fill’d with pure silver the bay ;
and vanish'd so young :

And ever in rising and falling it sang as it
Surely there rarely hath been a lot more to rose and it fell,
be envied in life

And the heavens with their pure azure
Than thy lot, O Fornarina, whom Raphael's walling all puls'd with the pulse of
heart took to wife.

its swell,

For the stars were the notes of the singing
There was silence yet for a time save the

and the moon was the voice of the
tinkling capricious and quaint,

song Then She lifted her voice sublime, no

Through the vault of the firmament ringing longer tender and faint,

and swelling ineffably strong;

at bow, e bror.

1

And the whole vast night was a shell for

that music of manifold might, And was straip'd by the stress of the

swell of the music yet vaster than

night : And the fountain in swelling and soaring

and filling beneath and above, Grew flush'd with red fire in outpour

ing, transmuting great power into

love, Great power with a greater love flush

ing, immense and intense and su

preme,
As if all the World's heart-blood outgush-

ing ensanguin'd the trance of my
dream;

And the waves of its blood seem'd to dash

on the shore of the sky to the cope With the stress of the fire of a passion and

yearning of limitless scope, Vast fire of a passion and yearning, keen

torture of rapture intense, A most unendurable burning consuming the

soul with the sense : — “ Love, love only, forever love with its

torture of bliss ; All the world's glories can never equal two

souls in one kiss : Love, and ever love wholly ; love in all

time and all space ;. Life is consummate then solely in the death

of a burning embrace."

was hid

FROM

bells ;

Harriet Eleanor Hamilton king
PALERMO

From the green sheath, till all the green
THE DISCIPLES”

By the white spread of giant-blowing wings.

In the cool shadow heaps of tuberose

Whosoe'er Lay by the fountains in the market-place, Had look'd upon the glory of that day Among the purple fruit. The jalousies In Sicily beneath the summer sun,

Of the tall houses shut against the sun Would not have dream'd that Death was Were wreath'd with trails of velvet-glossy

reigning there In shape so terrible ; for all the road And here and there one had not been unWas like an avenue of Paradise,

clos'd Life, and full flame of loveliness of life. Yesterday, and the vivid shoots had run The red geraniums blaz'd in banks breast Over it in a night, and seal'd it fast high,

With tendril, and bright leaf, and drops of And from the open doors in the white walls

flower. Scents of magnolia and of heliotrope And in and out the balconies thin stems Came to the street; filmy aurora-flowers Went twisting, and the chains of passionOpen'd and died in the hour, and fell away flowers, In many-color'd showers upon the ground; Bud, blossom, and phantasmal orb of fruit Nebulous masses of the pale blue stars Alternate, swung, and lengthen'd every Made light upon the darkness of the green,

hour. Through openings in the thickets over And fine-leav'd greenery crept from bower arch'd ;

to bower Where roses, white and yellow and full With thick white star-flakes scatter'd ; and rose,

the bloom Weigh'd down their branches, till the Of orient lilies, and the rainbow-blue ground was swept

Of iris shot up stately from the grass ; By roses, and strewn with them, as the air

And through the wavering shadows crimShook the thick clusters, and the Indian son sparks reeds

Pois'd upon brittle stalks, glanced up and Bowd to its passing with their feathery

down; heads;

And shining darkness of the cypress clos’d And trumpet-blossoms push'd out great The deep withdrawing glades of evergreen, white horns

Lit up far off with oleander pyres.

HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON KING

389

Out of the rocky dust of the wayside

THE CROCUS
The lamps of the aloes burn'd themselves
aloft,

Out of the frozen earth below,
Immortal ; and the prickly cactus-knots Out of the melting of the snow,
In the hot sunshine overleant the walls, No flower, but a film, I push to light ;
The lizards darting in and out of them ; No stem, no bud, - yet I have burst
But in the shadier side the maidenhair The bars of winter, I am the first,
Sprung thick from every crevice. Passing O Sun, to greet thee out of the night !

these,
He issued on to the Piazza, where

Bare are the branches, cold is the air, The wonder of the world, the Fountain Yet it is fire at the heart I bear, streams

I come, a flame that is fed by none : From height to height of marble, dashing The summer hath blossoms for her delight, down

Thick and dewy and waxen-white,
White waves forever over whitest limbs, Thou seest me golden, O golden Sun !
That shine in multitudes amid the spray
And sound of silver waters without end, Deep in the warm sleep underground
Rolling and rising and showering sud Life is still, and the peace profound :
denly.

Yet a beam that pierced, and a thrill
There standing where the fig-trees made

that smote
a shade

Call'd me and drew me from far away; —
Close in the angle, he beheld the streets I rose, I came, to the open day
Stretch fourways to the beautiful great I have won, unshelter'd, alone, remote.

gates ;
With all their burnish'd domes and carven No bee strays out to greet me at morn,
stones

I shall die ere the butterfly is born, In wavering color'd lines of light and I shall hear no note of the nightingale ; shade.

The swallow will come at the break of And downwards, from the greatest of the

green,
gates,

He will never know that I have been
Porta Felice, swept the orange-groves ;

Before him here when the world was
And avenues of coral-trees led down

pale. In all their hanging splendors to the

They will follow, the rose with the thorny And out beyond them, sleeping in the light,

stem,
The islands, and the azure of the sea. The hyacinth stalk, - soft airs for them ;
And upwards, through a labyrinth of They shall have strength, I have but
spires,

love :
And turrets, and steep alabaster walls, They shall not be tender as I, -
The city rose, and broke itself away Yet I fought here first, to bloom, to die,
Amidst the forests of the hills, and reach'd To shine in his face who shines above.
The heights of Monreale, crown'd with all
Its pinnacles and all its jewell’d fronts O Glory of heaven, O Ruler of morn,
Shining to seaward ; – but the tolling bells O Dream that shap'd me, and I was born
Out of the gilded minarets smote the In thy likeness, starry, and flower of

flame;
Until at last, through miles of shadowy air, I lie on the earth, and to thee look
The blue and violet mountains shut the Into thy image will grow my cup,
sky.

Till å sunbeam dissolve it into the same.

shore ;

ear:

up,

POETS OF THE RENAISSANCE

Ford Mhador Brown

FOR THE PICTURE, “THE LAST

0. M. B. OF ENGLAND"

(DIED NOVEMBER, 1874) “ The last of England ! O'er the sea, my dear,

As one who strives from some fast steamer's Our homes to seek amid Australian fields,

side Us, not our million-acred island yields To note amid the backward-spinning foam The space to dwell in. Thrust out! Forced And keep in view some separate wreath to bear

therefrom, Low ribaldry from sots, and share rough That cheats him even the while he views it cheer

glide With rudely-nurtur'd men. The hope (Merging in other foam-tracks stretching youth builds

wide), Of fair renown, barter'd for that which So strive we to keep clear that day our shields

home Only the back, and half-form'd lands that First saw you riven

a memory thence to

roam, The dust-storm blistering up the grasses

A shatter'd blossom on the eternal tide! wild.

O broken promises that show'd so fair ! There learning skills not, nor the poet's O morning sun of wit set in despair ! dream,

O brows made smooth as with the Muse's Nor aught so lov'd as children shall we see.” chrism ! She grips his listless hand and clasps her O Oliver ! ourselves Death's cataclysm child,

Must soon o'ertake — but not in vain Through rainbow tears she sees a sunnier

not where gleam,

Some vestige of your thought outspans the She cannot see a void, where he will be.

abysm !

rear

Sir Joseph Roel Paton
REQUIEM

From some fount of splendor, far

Beyond or moon or sun or star
WITHER'D pansies faint and sweet,

And can it be that he is dead ?
O'er his breast in silence shed,
Faded lilies o'er his feet,

Ay! his breast is cold as snow :
Waning roses round his head,

Pulse and breath forever fled ; Where in dreamless sleep he lies

If I kiss'd him ever so, Folded palms and sealed eyes

To my kiss he were as lead ; Young Love, within my bosom -dead. If I clipp'd him as of yore

He would answer me no more Young Love that was so fond, so fair, With lip or hand — for he is dead.

With his mouth of rosy red, Argent wing and golden hair,

But breathe no futile sigh ; no tear And those blue eyen, glory-fed

Smirch his pure and lonely bed.