OF FLOWERS.

THERE were no roses till the first child died,
No violets, no balmy-breathed heart's-ease,
No heliotrope, nor buds so dear to bees,
The honey-hearted woodbine, no gold-eyed

And white-lashed daisy-flower, nor, stretching wide,
Clover and cowslip-cups, like rival seas,

Meeting and parting, as the young spring breeze Runs giddy races playing seek and hide:

For all flowers died when Eve left Paradise,
And all the world was flowerless awhile,
Until a little child was laid in earth;
Then from its grave grew violets for its eyes,
And from its lips rose-petals for its smile,
And so all flowers from that child's death took
birth.

THE CHRYSALIS OF A BOOK-WORM.

I READ, O Friend, no pages of old lore,

Which I loved well; and yet the flying days, That softly passed as wind through green spring

ways

And left a perfume, swift fly as of yore,
Though in clear Plato's stream I look no more,
Neither with Moschus sing Sicilian lays,
Nor with bold Dante wander in amaze,
Nor see our Will the Golden Age restore.
I read a book to which old books are new,
And new books old. A living book is mine-
In age, three years: in it I read no lies,
In it to myriad truths I find the clue-
A tender little child; but I divine

Thoughts high as Dante's in her clear blue eyes.

LIKE A LILAC.

LIKE a lilac in the Spring

Is my love, my lady-love; Purple-white, the lilacs fling

Scented blossoms from above:

So my love, my lady-love,

Throws soft glances on my heart;

Ah, my dainty lady-love,

Every glance is Cupid's dart.

Like a pansy in the Spring

Is my love, my lady-love;
For her velvet eyes oft bring
Golden fancies from above:
Ah, my heart is pansy-bound
By those eyes so tender-true;
Balmy heart's-ease have I found,
Dainty lady-love, in you.

Like the changeful month of Spring
Is my love, my lady-love;
Sunshine comes and glad birds sing,
Then a rain-cloud floats above:
So your moods change with the wind,
April-tempered lady-love;

All the sweeter, to my mind.
You're a riddle, lady-love.

THE ANXIOUS LOVER.

I saw a damsel in a somber room,
Laid low in beds of purple violet,

And pale sweet roses, that perfumed the gloom;
And then I thought, This is a gray sunset
Of days of loving life. Shall he who stands
Beside her bier, in sorrow for his love,
Be first in Heaven to clasp her gentle hands,—
To bow with her before the Lord above?

If love can die, let my heart be as cold
As Galatea's was before the words
Of the warm sculptor drew it from the mould
And made her hear the sound of singing birds.
Love's sunshine and love's shadows, are they all
Like April sun and shadow on the earth?
If love can die at sight of funeral-pall,
Would I had strangled it in its sad birth!

I know that the sweet Spring will surely go,
And leave no trace, except a blossom dry;

I know that life will pass as passes snow
When March winds blow and river-floods are high;

I know that all the maples on the hill
That fire the air with flames, to ashes burn;

I know that all the singing birds that fill

The air with song, to silent dust will turn.

Oh! love, my love, can it, then, ever be

That thou or I may gaze upon love's death? That thou shalt some day, sad and silently, Look on me dumb and cold and without breath? Or shall I see thee lying white and wan,

Like yonder damsel in the flower-bed, And only say, "My lady sweet has gone; She's lost to me; she's dead-what meaneth 'dead'?"

If love can die, then I will no more look

Into thy eyes, and see thy pure thoughts there, Nor will I read in any poet's book

Of all the things that poets make so fair.

If love can die, the poet's art is vain,

And thy blue eyes might well be blossoms blue, And thy soft tears be only senseless rain,

If love can die, like flowers and souless dew.

I care not for thy smile, if love can die:

If I must leave thee, let me leave thee now. Shall I not know thee, if in Heaven high

I enter and before the Holy bow? Shalt not thou know me when before the throne Thou, white-robed one, shalt enter into light? I cannot think the Lord of Love has sown His precious seed to make but one day bright.

Would I were dead, if death could be the end
Of all the loving that makes life so fair!
If love can die, I pray the sun may send

An arrow through my head, that death may tear Away my soul, and make me soon forget

The fair, sweet hope of love's eternal day, Which yet might die like purple violet

Strewn on the robe of her that passed away!

Ah, love, my love! when I look in thy eyes,

And hear thy voice, like softened village bells, Coming to one who long has sent up sighs

From foreign lands to be where his love dwells, My heart lifts up itself in ecstasy.

"Life were not life if our strong love could die. The earth may crumble, but our love and we Shall live forever. This is true!" I cry.

CYCLOPS TO GALATEA.

SOFTER than lambs and whiter than the curds,
O Galatea, swan-nymph of the sea!
Vain is my longing, worthless are my words;
Why do you come in night's sweet dreams to me,
And when I wake, swift leave me, as in fear
The lambkin hastens when the wolf is near?

Why did my mother on a dark-bright day

Bring you for hyacinths a-near my cave? I was the guide, and through the tangled way I thoughtless led you; I am now your slave. Peace left my soul when you knocked at my heart. Come, Galatea, never to depart!

Though I am dark and homely to the sight-
A Cyclops I, and stronger there are few-
Of you I dream through all the quick-paced night,
And in the morn ten fawns I feed for you,
And four young bears: O rise from grots below;
Soft love and peace with me forever know!

Last night I dreamed that I, a monster gilled,
Swam in the sea and saw you singing there:
I gave you lilies, and your grotto filled

With the sweet odors of all flowers rare;
I gave you apples, as I kissed your hand,
And reddest poppies from my richest land.

Oh, brave and restless billows of your world: They toss and tremble; see my cypress-grove, And bending laurels, and the tendrils curled

Of honeyed grapes, and a fresh treasure-trove In vine-crowned Etna, of pure-running rills! O Galatea, kill the scorn that kills!

Softer than lambs and whiter than the curds,
O Galatea, listen to my prayer!

Come, come to land, and hear the song of birds;
Rise, rise, from ocean-depths, as lily-fair
As you are in my dreams! Come, then, O Sleep,
For you alone can bring her from the deep!
And Galatea, in her cool, green waves,

Plaits her long hair with purple flower-bells
And laughs and sings, while black-browed Cyclops

raves,

And to the wind his love-lorn story tells: For well she knows that Cyclops will, ere long, Forget, as poets do, his pain in song.

SLEEPING SONG.

TEN months had passed since rosy Herakles
Had opened wondering eyes unto the sun,
When, in the sloping light of summer's eve,
Alcmena, mother of the little twins,
The hero and his brother, fair to see,
Bared her soft breasts, as all our mothers did,
In tender love, and gave her boys their food;
And having laved them in the mellow stream,
She laid them down within Amphytrion's shield-
A half sphere of bright brass by bold blows won
From slaughtered Pterelaus-then, with hands,
Like blush-rose petals, on the head of each,
In tones like cithern-echoes, thus she sang:
"Sleep, my boys, in gentle, dewy sleep,
Until the dawn in glowing beauty peep
To call the hours from out the night's dark deep
Into the light.

Sleep, for the day has sunk in the red west;
Sleep, 'neath the mother-heart that loves you best;
Sleep, sleep, and peaceful, peaceful be your rest
Till dark is light.

Anemones and roses drop their leaves
In silent night, but still the ocean heaves;
And so my heart fresh waves of love receives
Through all the night.

My other self in two, my heart in two,
Sleep happy, and wake joyous. Oh, for you
I pray the gods to give me all I sue
Through day and night!”
And as sea-nymphs soft toss a favored boat,
She rocked the buckler, singing as it moved.

CLEOPATRA.

SELECTIONS.

ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA.

I AM dying, Egypt, dying!

Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast;
And the dark, Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast.

Let thine arm, O Queen, support me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear;
Listen to the great heart-secrets,

Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
Though my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore;
Though no glittering guards surround me,
Prompt to do their master's will,

I must perish like a Roman

Die the great Triumvir still.

Let not Cæsar's servile minions

Mock the lion thus laid low; 'Twas no foeman's hand that felled him, 'Twas his own that struck the blow,— His who, pillowed on thy bosom, Turned aside from glory's rayHis who, drunk with thy caresses, Madly threw a world away. Should the base plebian rabble, Dare assail my fame at Rome, Where the noble spouse, Octavia, Weeps within her widowed home, Seek her; say the gods bear witnessAltars, augurs, circling wings— That her blood, with mine commingled, Yet shall mount the throne of kings. And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian,

Glorious sorceress of the Nile,

Light my path through Stygian darkness
With the splendor of thy smile.
Give to Cæsar thrones and kingdoms;
Let his brow and laurel twine;
I can scorn all meaner triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.

I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Hark! the insulting foeman's cry;
They are coming-quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! no more amid the battle
Shall my soul exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee-
Cleopatra-Rome-farewell!

WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE.

CLEOPATRA.

HERE, Charmian, take my bracelets,
They bar, with a purple stain,
My arms; turn over my pillows,
They are not where I have lain;
Open the lattice wider,

A gauze on my bosom throw,
And let me inhale the odors

That over the garden blow.

I dreamed I was with my Antony,
And in his arms I lay;

Ah, me! the vision has vanished-
The music has died away.

The flame and the perfume have perished,
As this spiced aromatic pastille
That wound the blue smoke of its odor
Is now but an ashy hill.

Scatter upon me rose-leaves,

They cool me after my sleep, And with sandal odors fan me

Till into my veins they creep; Reach down the lute, and play me

A melancholy tune,

To rhyme with the dream that has vanished, And the slumbering afternoon.

There, drowsing in golden sunlight, Loiters the slow smooth Nile. Through slender papyri, that cover The wary crocodile,

The lotus lolls on the water,

And opens its heart of gold,
And over its broad leaf-pavement
Never a ripple is rolled.
The twilight breeze is too lazy

Those feathery palms to wave, And yon little cloud is as motionless As a stone above a grave.

Ah, me! this lifeless nature
Oppresses my heart and brain!
Oh! for a storm and thunder-
For lightning and wild fierce rain!
Fling down that lute-I hate it!

Take rather his buckler and sword, And crash them and clash them together Till this sleeping world is stirred.

Hark! to my Indian beautyMy cockatoo, creamy white, With roses under his feathersThat flashes across the light.

Look! listen!.as, backward and forward,

To his hoop of gold he clings,
How he trembles, with crest uplifted,
And shrieks as he madly swings!
O, cockatoo, shriek for Antony!

Cry, "Come, my love, come home!"
Shriek, "Antony! Antony! Antony!"
Till he hears you even in Rome.

There, leave me, and take from my chamber That stupid little gazelle,

With its bright black eyes so meaningless, And its silly tinkling bell!

Take him; my nerves he vexes

The thing without blood or brain

Or, by the body of Isis,

I'll snap his thin neck in twain!

Leave me to gaze at the landscape
Mistily stretching away,

Where the afternoon's opaline tremors
O'er the mountains quivering play;

Till the fiercer splendor of sunset
Pours from the west its fire,
And, melted as in a crucible,

Their earthly forms expire;

And the bald blear skull of the desert
With glowing mountains is crowned,
That, burning like molten jewels,
Circle its temples round.

I will lie and dream of the past time,
Eons of thought away,
And through the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play;
When, a smooth and velvety tiger,
Ribbed with yellow and black,
Supple and cushion-footed

I wandered, where never the track
Of a human creature had rustled
The silence of mighty woods,
And, fierce in a tyrannous freedom,
I knew but the law of my moods.

The elephant, trumpeting, started,
When he heard my footsteps near,
And the spotted giraffes fled wildly
In a yellow cloud of fear.

I sucked in the noontide splendor,
Quivering along the glade,
Or yawning, panting, and dreaming,
Basked in the tamarisk shade,
Till I heard my wild mate roaring,
As the shadows of night came on,
To brood in the trees' thick branches,

And the shadow of sleep was gone;

Then I roused, and roared in answer,

And unsheathed from my cushioned feet
My curving claws, and stretched me,
And wandered my mate to greet.

We toyed in the amber moonlight,
Upon the warm flat sand,

And struck at each other our massive arms-
How powerful he was, and grand!

His yellow eyes flashed fiercely

As he crouched and gazed at me,
And his quivering tail, like a serpent,
Twitched, curving nervously.
Then like a storm he seized me,

With a wild triumphant cry,

And we met, as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly.
We grappled and struggled together,
For his love like his rage was rude;
And his teeth in the swelling folds of my neck
At times, in our play, drew blood.

Often another suitor

For I was flexile and fairFought for me in the moonlight,

While I lay crouching there,

Till his blood was drained by the desert; And, ruffled with triumph and power, He licked me and lay beside me

To breathe him a vast half-hour. Then down to the fountain we loitered, Where the antelopes came to drink; Like a bolt we sprang upon them, Ere they had time to shrink, We drank their blood and crushed them, And tore from limb to limb, And the hungriest lion doubted Ere he disputed with him.

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life,
With its frivolous bloodless passions,
Its poor and petty strife!
Come to my arms, my hero,

The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me!

Take me with triumph and power,
As a warrior storms a fortress!
I will not shrink or cower.
Come, as you came in the desert,
Ere we were women and men,
When the tiger passions were in us,
And love as you loved me then!

WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.

CLEOPATRA EMBARKING ON THE CYDNUS.

FLUTES in the sunny air,

And harps in the porphyry halls!

And a low, deep hum, like a people's prayer,
With its heart-breathed swells and falls!
And an echo, like the desert's call,

Flung back to the shouting shores;
And the river's ripple, heard through all,
As it plays with the silver oars!—

The sky is a gleam of gold,

And the amber breezes float,

Like thoughts to be dreamed of, but never told,
Around the dancing boat!

She has stepped on the burning sand-
And the thousand tongues are mute,
And the Syrian strikes with a trembling hand,
The strings of his gilded lute!

And Ethiope's heart throbs loud and high,
Beneath his white symar,"

And the Lybian kneels, as he meets her eye,
Like the flash of an Eastern star!

The gales may not be heard,

Yet the silken streamers quiver,

And the vessel shoots like a bright-plumed bird,

Away down the golden river!

Away by the lofty mount,

And away by the lonely shore,

And away by the gushing of many a fount,
Where fountains gush no more!—
Oh! for some warning vision there,
Some voice that should have spoken
Of climes to be laid waste and bare,
And glad young spirits broken!
Of waters dried away,

And hope and beauty blasted!
That scenes so fair and hearts so gay
Should be so early wasted!

THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY.

CLEOPATRA.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfuméd that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie

In her pavilion-cloth of gold, of tissue-
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper: she replied,

It should be better he became her guest;
Which she entreated: Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of "No" woman heard speak,
Being barbered ten times o'er, goes to the feast;
And for his ordinary pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. -From "Antony and Cleopatra.”

"SINCE CLEOPATRA DIED." "SINCE Cleopatra died!" Long years are past, In Antony's fancy, since the deed was done. Love counts its epochs, not from sun to sun, But by the heart-throb. Mercilessly fast Time has swept onward since she looked her last On life, a queen. For him the sands have run Whole ages through their glass, and kings have won And lost their empires o'er earth's surface vast Since Cleopatra died. Ah! Love and Pain

Make their own measure of all things that be.
No clock's slow ticking marks their deathless
strain;

The life they own is not the life we see;
Love's single moment is eternity:
Eternity, a thought in Shakespeare's brain.

CLEOPATRA'S DREAM.

Lo, by Nilus' languid waters

Fades the dreamy summer day, Where, on couch of gold and crimson, Egypt's royal daughter lay,Dreaming lay, while palm and pillar Cast their lengthening shadows now,

And the lotus-laden zephyrs

Lightly kissed her queenly brow.