FROM THE GREEK OF JULIAN ,

PREFECT OF EGYPT .

As a garland once I made,
In a bed of roses laid
Love I found; with eager joy,
By the wings I seiz'd the boy;
Crowning then an ample cup,
In a bumper drank him up.
Now along my veins he swims,
Fluttering, tickling through my limbs.

When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odors sweet,
I see my love, in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.

She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end I know is death.

But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew thrill
The vigor of Hippomenes.

O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,

With jealous tears your eyes are wet,
You kiss and squeeze, you gaze and sigh:
But when I say, " I'm waiting yet,"
Behold Love's flood falls strangely dry.

I would have died to win her:
I loved her past a dream.
Ah! hand in hand we wandered
Beside the mountain-stream.
I kissed her raven tresses:
I kissed her gentle hand:
I was the proudest lover
In all the wide wide land.

But ah! the rich man sought her;
He bribed her with his gold.
He changed her heart. He bought her.
Her love for me grew cold.
And now my life is over —
In vain the sun may rise;
I never loved the sunshine,
I only loved her eyes!

Ah! my lost love, my darling,
Will your heart one day see

Why seek for love beyond the sky,
In stars that swim through space?
Behold! sweet love is very nigh,
And very close his face.
On purple fells, by forest-wells,
By our blue ocean's side,
Love lives and smiles, and dreams and dwells;
He lords it far and wide.

Not in the shining distant space
Where faint star-clusters gleam
Does Love reveal his sovereign face, —
Nay, here he loves to dream.
Our dim old earth can hear his mirth
Through forest-arches ring;
Aye, English lake and Scottish firth

By love's great Queen who rides the ocean swell,
My Bella's beauty makes her beauty's belle.

I.

You sing with voice, I sing with words:
But both are one
In loving music like the birds
And loving flowers and sun.

II.

The voice of radiant youth is thine;
Youth's glance supreme,
Most sweet of all things, most divine,
That makes all life a dream.

III.

Mine only this — the while I may
Before thy throne
To bend, and call the dawn of day
Within thy heart my own.

Once did I weepe, and grone,
Drinke teares, draw loathed breath,
And all for loue of one
Who did affect my death:
But now, thankes to disdaine,
I liue relieu'd of paine;
For sighs, I singing goe,
I burne not as before, no, no, no, no.

A thought of her always
stayed in my head, at the back of it,
lardered there, like a berry
in a squirrel's cheek. Those days
that was my amulet
against every adversary —

loneliness, weltschermerz, dull
age and its self-mockery
in presence of anything
buoyant and beautiful.
I would think of her, you see,
young, lovely and welcoming ...

Now I am not so sure —
with her gone — that " Man's love
is of man's life a thing
apart." Unless hid failure
and the slow dissolution of
all purpose be worth husbanding.

God as love ...
I can go with that
Isn't love the ultimate?
Wouldn't I die
For what I love?

Or kill — couldn't I —
what menaced it? —
Given the above
and not to underrate
God as hate ...











By permission of the author.