I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then, a sweet cry, and last, came you—
To catch your loory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.
I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony,
(To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach)
That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear loory, may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!
Stay longer yet, for others' sake
Than mine! what should your chamber do?
-With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you
-That brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That they look dumb: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
That dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumbrously as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell,
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim Saint by Haste-thee-Luke:
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze: if the ribbon's black,
The Three are watching; keep away.
Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
Its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair;
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath.
There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we!
Only one minute more to-night with me?
Resume your past self of a month ago !
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow:
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, All thanks, Siora !—
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou art!
He is surprised, and stabbed
It was ordained to be so, Sweet,—and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, and on thy breast.
Still kiss me ! Care not for the cowards!
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so—(yet one more kiss)—can die !
SONG FROM "A LIFE DRAMA
My heart is beating with all things that are,
My blood is wild unrest;
With what a passion pants yon eager star,
Upon the water's breast!
Clasped in the air's soft arms the world doth sleep,
Asleep its moving seas, its humming lands;
With what an hungry lip the ocean deep
Lappeth for ever the white-breasted sands!
What love is in the moon's eternal eyes,
Leaning unto the earth from out the midnight skies!
Thy large dark eyes are wide upon my brow,
Filled with as tender light
As yon low moon doth fill the heavens now,
This mellow autumn night!
On the late flowers I linger at thy feet.
I tremble when I touch thy garment's rim,
I clasp thy waist, I feel thy bosom's beat-
O kiss me into faintness sweet and dim!
Thou leanest to me as a swelling peach,
Full-juiced and mellow, leaneth to the taker's reach.
Thy hair is loosened by that kiss you gave,
It floods my shoulders o'er ;
Another yet! Oh, as a weary wave
Subsides upon the shore,
My hungry being with its hopes, its fears,
My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest, Yet strong as is despair, as weak as tears,
Doth faint upon thy breast!
I feel thy clasping arms, my cheek is wet
With thy rich tears. One kiss! Sweet, sweet, another yet!
AST night my cheek was wetted with warm tears, Each worth a world. They fell from eyes divine. Last night a loving lip was pressed to mine,
And at its touch fled all the barren years;
And softly couched upon a bosom white,
Which came and went beneath me like a sea,
An emperor I lay in empire bright,
Lord of the beating heart, while tenderly
Love-words were glutting my love-greedy ears,
Kind Love, I thank thee for that happy night!
Richer this cheek with those warm tears of thine
Than the vast midnight with its gleaming spheres.
Leander toiling through the moonlight brine,
Kingdomless Anthony, were scarce my peers.
ALEXANDER SMITH
Through the churchyard old and grey,
Over the crisp and yellow leaves, I held my rustling way; And amid the words of mercy, falling on my soul like
"Mid the gorgeous storms of music-in the mellow organcalms,
'Mid the upward streaming prayers, and the rich and solemn psalms,
I stood careless, Barbara.
My heart was otherwhere
While the organ shook the air,
And the priest, with outspread hands, blessed the people
But, when rising to go homeward, with a mild and saint
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