" The mauve summer rain
Is falling again —
It soaks through the eaves
And the ladies' sleeves —
It soaks through the leaves

That like silver fish fall
In the rountains, recall
Afternoons when I
Was a child small and shy
In the palace. . . . Fish lie

On the grass with lives darkling
Our laughter falls sparkling
As the mauve raindrops bright
When they fall through the light
With the briefest delight.

The pavilions float

20

In the hot noon — like glowing muscadine
The light seems, and the shade like golden wine —

Beneath the deep shade of the trees' arcade,
All foppish in his dressing-gown's brocade

And turban, comes the great Magnifico,
And hearkens not where the beccafico

Time taps at the lovely sylvan trees.
Now underneath the shadows fallen from these

The queen sits with her court, and through the glade
The light from their silks casts another silver shade.

The Governante

" Look not on the infinite wave,
Dream not of the siren cave,
Nor hear the cold wind in the tree
Sigh of worlds we cannot see.

(She sings)

The hot muscatelle
Siesta time fell,
And the Spanish belle
Looked out through her shutters.

Under the eglantine
Thorny and lean
A shadow was playing a mandoline, mutters

Only this: " Wave
Your fan . . . siren cave
Never was cold as the wind from the grave. "

The governante
Came walking andante —

The Princess

" Upon the infinite shore by the sea
The lovely ladies are walking like birds,
Their gowns have the beauty, the feathery
Grace of a bird's soft raiment; remote
Is their grace and their distinction — they float
And peck at their deep and honeyed words
As though they were honeyed fruits; and this
Is ever their life, between sleep and bliss.
Though they are winged for enchanted flight,
They yet remain ever upon the shore
Of Eternity, seeking for nothing more,
Until the cold airs dull their beauty

12

Now that the summer only seems the sad
Mechanical dull action of the light
And shadow playing over a dead world —
Dead as my heart — it seems too long ago
For the remembrance of the beauty and the world we used to know;

When the warm lights of afternoon were mellow
As honeyed yellow pears, the Princess played
At Troy Town in the palace garden, tossed
And through the smiling leaves of summer lost
A round compact gold ball, the smaller image
Of this hard world, grown dry of any love —

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then will I pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually
Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I'll pass
Of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass,
Feed upon apples red, and strawberries,
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees;
Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places,
To woo sweet kisses from averted faces,--
Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white

Could all this be forgotten? Yes, a schism
Nurtured by foppery and barbarism,
Made great Apollo blush for this his land.
Men were thought wise who could not understand
His glories: with a puling infant's force
They sway'd about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul'd!
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd
Its gathering waves--ye felt it not. The blue
Bar'd its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer nights collected still to make
The morning precious: beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead

And can I ever bid these joys farewell?
Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life,
Where I may find the agonies, the strife
Of human hearts: for lo! I see afar,
O'ersailing the blue cragginess, a car
And steeds with streamy manes--the charioteer
Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear:
And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly
Along a huge cloud's ridge; and now with sprightly
Wheel downward come they into fresher skies,
Tipt round with silver from the sun's bright eyes.
Still downward with capacious whirl they glide;

INSCRIPTION

When the last stir of bubbling melodies
Broke, as my chants sank underneath the wave
Of dulcitude, but sank again to rise
Where man's embaying mind those waters lave
(For music hath its Oceanides
Flexuously floating through their parent seas,
And such are these),
I saw a vision — or may it be
The effluence of a dear desired reality?
I saw two spirits high, —
Two spirits, dim within the silver smoke
Which is for ever woke

And now, thou elder nursling of the nest;
Ere all the intertangled west
Be one magnificence
Of multitudinous blossoms that o'errun
The flaming brazen bowl o' the burnished sun
Which they do flower from,
How shall I 'stablish thy memorial?
Nay, how or with what countenance shall I come