I.

The sweetest love is over
This world has ever seen.
No more am I your lover!
No more are you my queen!
The stars are in the sky, love,
They glitter as of old:
Starless are you and I, love, —
Our heavens are dark and cold.

Oh, if you had been true, love,
We could have conquered pain!
My whole soul trusted you, love
— It will not trust again.
The flowers again will brighten

Sylvia! see yon wanton turtles,
Ever billing, ever gay,
Perch'd on Venus ' verdant myrtles,
Ev'ry month the month of May!
All the day,
Love and play;
O how happy, happy they!

Mark the bliss of ev'ry creature,
The delights of ev'ry grove;
All, one jubilee of nature,
All, one gen'ral feast of love!
All the day,
Love and play;
O how happy, happy they!

Mark the shepherd in yon alley,
On his mistress' lap reclin'd;
Lambkins, straying on the valley,
Never, never touch his mind!
All the day,

( " Orphee au bois du Caystre. " )

Orpheus, in Cayster's tangled
Woodways, 'neath the stars' pale light,
Listened laughters weird and jangled
Of the viewless ones of night.

Phtas, the Theban sibyl, dreaming
Nigh the hushed Phygalian heights,
Saw on far horizon streaming
Ebon forms 'mong silvery lights.

Æschylus, soft hazes threading
Of sweet Sicily, soul-subdued
Wandered beneath moonbeams shedding

If power of warre had yeelded to renowne,
Of curteous hartes, the Gods had then agreede:
Disgraded S ATVRNE had not tumbled downe,
Nor loue had durst in Goldlike Artes proceede.
O cowardly Gods against your kinde to see,
Your selues, your sonnes, the slaues of loue to bee.

Could loue take league with I OVE against his will,
Or staine the streame of N EPTVNES water Springs:
And could not P LVTO keepe his honor still,
But giue the Heauens and Hilles to other kings?
In faith the face amongst sweete soules should dwell,

God having given Love, it cannot be
That he should take it. I am calm to wait
Till as a rosebud at his palace-gate
That unforgotten face of her I see, —
For this and nothing else shall come to me,
In this life or the next, or soon or late: —
I fall into the outspread arms of fate,
And — find they are the pleasant arms of thee!

Does God in heaven seek love and sigh for praise?
Neither is his from me, being left forlorn.
For so the double heart of God is torn
Asunder; and for any song I raise,

DAWN TO SUNSET

Beneath the high majestic morning gleaming
Once field and mount and moor and forest lay:
O'er joyous vale and hill I wandered, dreaming
That all life's hours were as the dawn of day.

The sun's touch woke the golden daffodilly;
His clear beam drew the snowdrop from repose:
Then first love said, " My heart is like the lily! "
And passion said, " My soul is as the rose! "

But France, fair France, that held her stedfast way
Mocked, cursed or preached at, — France that ever knew
That deep in Beauty's form lay hid the true
Secret that gives its golden life to day
And sends the blue waves leaping through the bay
And on the rose bestows its passionate hue, —
Shall not the Power whose eyes are dawns renew
Her force, and grant her Art's domains to sway?

No voice replies. This only is grandly sure, —
Where God and Love and Beauty and Woman are
There also shines the sun, there flower and star

WITHOUT AND WITHIN

Iron outside. — To face the world and fate
Strength as of finely-woven subtle steel.
Strength which can conquer time and never kneel
Till the last foe has passed outside the gate.
Strength as of iron to encounter hate
And snap the arrows of the world piecemeal.
A strong brave heart that in no wise doth feel
The shock of spears that strike the blue breast-plate.

Is not love sweeter in that we have dared
To look upon the very face of death?
That we have trembled at his icy breath
Yet have not faltered, but have bravely shared
With him the chaplets laughing love prepared
When life was like one ever-fragrant wreath? —
Is love not sweeter in that underneath
Lurks the grim eyeless terror, serpent-haired?

Is love not sweeter when two souls have said,

That pains me so! To think the sunlight knew,
The blossoms knew (or how could they have bloomed!)
The sunsets knew thee, wild and crimson-plumed,
Spreading their plumage over ceaseless blue.
I was the one heart in the world untrue!
That saddens me; for now so many entombed
Sweet thoughts of thine may never be resumed.
Can Nature's hand repeat one sunset's hue?

I cannot penetrate with fiery speed
The far star-spaces, — search the silent night
For thoughts of thine that made dark spaces bright