From house to house, from street to street,
The rapid rumor flies;
Incredulous ears it found, and hands
Are lifted in surprise;
And tongues through all the astonish'd town
Are busier now than eyes.
" So sudden and so strange a change!
A Freedman, too, the choice!
The shame, — the scandal, — and for what?
A vision and a voice!
" Had she not chosen the strait gate, —
The narrow way, — the holy state, —
The Sanctuary's abode?
Would Heaven call back its votary
To the broad and beaten road?
" To carnal wishes would it turn

Look at yon silent dwelling now!
A heavenly sight is there,
Where Cyra in her Chamber kneels
Before the Cross in prayer.

She is not loath to leave the world;
For she hath been taught with joy
To think that prayer and praise thenceforth
Will be her life's employ.

And thus her mind hath she inclined,
Her pleasure being still
(An only child, and motherless)
To do her Father's will.

The moonlight falls upon her face,
Upraised in fervor meek,
While peaceful tears of piety
Are stealing down her cheek.

Shunning human sight, like a thief in the night,
Eleimon made no delay,
But went unto a Pagan's tomb
Beside the public way.
Enclosed with barren elms it stood,
There planted when the dead
Within the last abode of man
Had been deposited.
And thrice ten years those barren trees,
Enjoying light and air,
Had grown and flourish'd, while the dead
In darkness moulder'd there.
Long had they overtopp'd the tomb;
And closed was now that upper room
Where friends were wont to pour,
Upon the honor'd dust below,

A youth hath enter'd the Sorcerer's door,
But he dares not lift his eye,
For his knees fail, and his flesh quakes,
And his heart beats audibly.

" Look up, young man! " the Sorcerer said;
" Lay open thy wishes to me!
Or art thou too modest to tell thy tale?
If so, I can tell it thee.

" Thy name is Eleimon;
Proterius's freedman thou art;
And on Cyra, thy Master's daughter,
Thou hast madly fix'd thy heart.

" But fearing (as thou well mayest fear!)
The high-born Maid to woo,
Thou hast tried what secret prayers, and vows,

Rosy as a waking bride
By her royal lover's side,
Flows the Sorgia's haunted tide
Through the laurel grove, —
Through the grove which Petrarch gave,
All that can escape the grave —
Fame, and song, and love.

He had left a feverish bed
For the wild flowers at his head,
And the dews the green leaves shed
O'er his charmed sleep:
From his hand had dropp'd the scroll
To which Virgil left his soul
Through long years to keep.

Passion on that cheek had wrought,
Its own paleness had it brought;

What more? 'Twas Rupert's fate to wed the maiden:
The weary wanderer, from his trouble free,
Bore her, upon his manly breast love-laden,
To pass their honeymoon beside the sea.
O sweet young girl, fit raiment white arrayed in!
O mystic hours of love! Untouched by me
Those days delicious of the early bridal,
Too delicate for song or sweetest idyl.

A night for love. Sir Rupert of the Sword
Saw a young maiden trip the terrace over,
Who saw not him. Whom once he had adored
Now held no empire o'er the war-stained rover.
The merry girl with joyous fancies stored
Danced gaily by: to watch her was to love her.
Grim Rupert to discern it was not slow:
He kissed her eyes and mouth, and let her go.

He kissed her in those woodland haunts, and she
Clung to his lip with that which love resembled.
O the sweet hours they spent beside the sea!
O on his breast how the sweet lady trembled
With love's divine delirium! Can it be
That she, so stately and so calm, dissembled?
" No," thought young Rupert — yet the diamond ring
Shone on his finger, an unaltered thing.

Miss Plumpness did not faint — she only tittered:
Where was the girl who would not like a kiss
From Vandyke-bearded Rupert, whose eyes glittered
With most mysterious meaning? But there is
In love's own sweet lip-contact an embittered
Ecstasy, making laughter all amiss.
Girl, trust no love, however strangely sweet,
If you can laugh, or he, when your lips meet.

Then — if she loves you — at the touch of lips,
The white light of the diamond has fled,
Not as a star which suffers strange eclipse
When in the wild blue sky its life is dead,
But with a marvellous apocalypse —
The virgin diamond blushes passionate red;
Sudden its icy pureness must depart;
It reddens like a rose's amorous heart.