Then worse again. He tried to dress;

He trimmed his tragic mane;

Announced at length (to our distress)

He had not "lived in vain ;

Thenceforth his one prevailing mood

Became a base beatitude.

And O Jean Paul, and Fate, and Soul !

We met him last, grown stout,

His throat with wedlock's triple roll,—

"All wool,"-enwound about;

His very hat had changed its brim ;

Our course was clear,-WE BANISHED HIM!

THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE

TO CIRCE.

HUDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of

mire,

With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'er

turned,―

With wrinkling snouts, yet eyes in which desire
Of some strange thing unutterably burned,—
Unquenchable; and still where'er She turned
They rose about her, striving each o'er each,
With restless, fierce impórtuning that yearned

Through those brute masks some piteous tale to

teach,

Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of

speech.

For these Eurylochus alone escaping—

In truth, that small exploring band had been,

Whom wise Odysseus, dim precaution shaping,
Ever at heart, of peril unforeseen,

Had sent inland ;-whom then the islet-Queen,—

The fair disastrous daughter of the Sun,—

Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean,

With evil wand transforming one by one
To shapes of loathly swine, imbruted and undone.

But "the men's minds remained," and these for ever
Made hungry suppliance through the fire-red eyes;
Still searching aye, with impotent endeavour,
To find, if yet, in any look, there lies

A saving hope, or if they might surprise

In that cold face soft pity's spark concealed,

Which she, still scorning, evermore denies ;

Nor was there in her any ruth revealed

To whom with such mute speech and dumb words they

appealed.

What hope is ours-what hope! To find no mercy
After much war, and many travails done?—-
Ah, kinder far than thy fell philtres, Circe,

The ravening Cyclops and the Læstrigon!

And O, thrice cursèd be Laertes' son,

By whom, at last, we watch the days decline
With no fair ending of the quest begun,

Condemned in styes to weary and to pine

And with men's hearts to beat through this foul front of

swine!

For us not now,—for us, alas! no more

The old green glamour of the glancing sea;

For us not now the laughter of the oar,—

The strong-ribbed keel wherein our comrades be;

Not now, at even, any more shall we,

By low-browed banks and reedy river places,

Watch the beast hurry and the wild fowl flee;

Or steering shoreward, in the upland spaces

Have sight of curling smoke and fair-skinned foreign faces.

Alas for us!-for whom the columned houses

We left afore-time, cheerless must abide ;

Cheerless the hearth where now no guest carouses,—

No minstrel raises song at eventide;

And O, more cheerless than aught else beside,

The wistful hearts with heavy longing full ;

The wife that watched us on the waning tide,— The sire whose eyes with weariness are dull,— The mother whose slow tears fall on the carded wool.

If swine we be,—if we indeed be swine,
Daughter of Persé, make us swine indeed,
Well-pleased on litter-straw to lie supine,-
Well-pleased on mast and acorn-shales to feed,
Stirred by all instincts of the bestial breed;

But O Unmerciful! O Pitiless!

Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed!

To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress

And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness !