But lo! with the light he repented his scorning, For an earthquake had shattered the whole ere the morning; Of the pearl-coloured dome there was left but a ruin,— But an arch as a home for the ring-dove to coo in. Shaft, turret and spire-all were tumbled and crumbled; And the soul of the Caliph within him was humbled; And he bowed in the dust :-"There is none great but Allah! I will build Him a Mosque "-said the Caliph Abdallah. And the Caliph has gone to his fathers for ever, But the Mosque that he builded shines still by the river ; And the pilgrims up-stream to this day slacken sail if They catch the first gleam of the "Mosque of the Caliph." EMBLEMATA AMORIS. THE DEATH OF LOVE. En Mors Amoris !-ran the text; and lo! In marriage robes, all broidered over them With crocus-buds and stars-of-Bethlehem. Thereto (the Worker gone), comes Time in shape, THE LOVE OF DEATH. YET one more thing of Love the limner wrought. How that a brood of baby-shapes with wings Lit among laughing girls, who half-distraught, Ran here and there to catch those winsome things, In mourner's weed, and o'er her ashes spread, Who saw that sight, yet had no joy of it, But closelier drew her garment to her head. Above this one was Mortis Amor writ. "OLD CLO"." "On revient toujours WHEN I called at the "Hollies " to-day, In the room with the cedar-wood presses, Aunt Deb. was just folding away What she calls her "memorial dresses." She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,-Short-waisted, of course-my abhorrence; She'd "the loveliest "-something in "een " That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence; She'd the "jelick" she used-" as a Greek," (!) She'd the habit she got her bad fall in ; She had e'en the blue moiré antique That she opened Squire Lavender's ball in : New and old they were all of them there :- She had hung them each over a chair To the "paniers" she's taken to lately (Which she showed me, I think, by mistake). And I conned o'er the forms and the fashions, Till the faded old shapes seemed to wake All the ghosts of my passed-away "passions ;"— From the days of love's youthfullest dream, When the height of my shooting idea Was to burn, like a young Polypheme, For a somewhat mature Galatea. |