Will clear his fame from every cloud,

With the bards, and with the crowd.

He is wilful, mutable,

Shy, untamed, inscrutable,
Swifter-fashioned than the fairies,
Substance mixed of pure contraries,
His vice some elder virtue's token,
And his good is evil spoken.
Failing sometimes of his own,
He is headstrong and alone;
He affects the wood and wild,

Like a flower-hunting child,

Buries himself in summer waves,

In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,

Loves nature like a horned cow,

Bird, or deer, or cariboo.

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses!

He has a total world of wit,

O how wise are his discourses!

But he is the arch-hypocrite,

And through all science and all art,
Seeks alone his counterpart.

He is a Pundit of the east,

He is an augur and a priest,

And his soul will melt in prayer,
But word and wisdom are a snare;

Corrupted by the present toy,

He follows joy, and only joy.

There is no mask but he will wear,

He invented oaths to swear,

He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays, And holds all stars in his embrace,

Godlike, but 'tis for his fine pelf,

The social quintessence of self.

Well, said I, he is hypocrite,

And folly the end of his subtle wit,
He takes a sovran privilege

Not allowed to any liege,

For he does go behind all law,

And right into himself does draw,

For he is sovranly allied.

Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,

And interchangeably at one

With every king on every throne,
That no God dare say him nay,

Or see the fault, or seen betray;

He has the Muses by the heart,
And the Parcæ all are of his part.

His many signs cannot be told,
He has not one mode, but manifold,
Many fashions and addresses,
Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses,
Action, service, badinage,

He will preach like a friar,
And jump like Harlequin,

He will read like a crier,
And fight like a Paladin.
Boundless is his memory,
Plans immense his term prolong,
He is not of counted age,

Meaning always to be young.

And his wish is intimacy,

Intimater intimacy,

And a stricter privacy,

The impossible shall yet be done,

And being two shall still be one.

As the wave breaks to foam on shelves,

Then runs into a wave again,

So lovers melt their sundered selves,

Yet melted would be twain.

II.

THE DÆMONIC AND THE CELESTIAL

LOVE.

DÆMONIC LOVE.

MAN was made of social earth,

Child and brother from his birth;

Tethered by a liquid cord

Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Next his heart the fireside band

Of mother, father, sister, stand;

Names from awful childhood heard,

Throbs of a wild religion stirred,

Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,

Till Beauty came to snap all ties,

The maid, abolishing the past,

With lotus-wine obliterates

Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,

And by herself supplants alone

Friends year by year more inly known.

When her calm eyes opened bright,
All were foreign in their light.
It was ever the self-same tale,
The old experience will not fail,—
Only two in the garden walked,

And with snake and seraph talked.

But God said;

I will have a purer gift,

There is smoke in the flame;

New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,

And love without a name.

Fond children, ye desire

To please each other well;
Another round, a higher,

Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,

And selfish preference forbear;
And in right deserving,

And without a swerving

Each from your proper state,
Weave roses for your mate.

Deep, deep are loving eyes,
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet,