Their cancell❜d Babels; tho' the rough kex break
The starr❜d mosaic, and the beard-blown goat
Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear
A trumpet in the distance pealing news

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns
Above the unrisen morrow.'
Then to me,

'Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 'Not such as moans about the retrospect,

But deals with the other distance and the hues
Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine?'

Then I remember'd one myself had made, What time I watch'd the swallow winging south From mine own land, part made long since, and

part

Now while I sang, and maiden-like as far
As I could ape their treble did I sing.

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying south,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

O, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,

And dark and true and tender is the North.

'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light

Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,

And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

'O, were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart

Would rock the snowy cradle till I died!

Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ?

'O, tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown; Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,

But in the North long since my nest is made.

O, tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time,

Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice

'O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan

Shall burst her veil; marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass- - and this

A mere love-poem! O, for such, my friend,

We hold them slight; they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are

men,

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness,

And dress the victim to the offering up,
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise,
And play the slave to gain the tyranny.
Poor soul! I had a maid of honor once;
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one,
of canzonets and serenades.

A

rogue I loved her.

Peace be with her.

She is dead.

So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song
Used to great ends; ourself have often tried
Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd
The passion of the prophetess; for song
Is duer unto freedom, force and growth
Of spirit, than to junketing and love.

Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and

this

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats,
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered
Whole in ourselves and owed to none.

But now to leaven play with profit, you,

Enough!

Know you no song, the true growth of your

soil,

That gives the manners of your countrywomen?'

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with

eyes

Of shining expectation fixt on mine.

Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, Cyril, with whom the bell - mouth'd glass had wrought,

Or master'd by the sense of sport, began
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him,

I frowning; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook;
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows.

C Forbear,' the Princess cried; Forbear, sir,' I; And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, I smote him on the breast. He started up; There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd;

Melissa clamor'd, Flee the death;'To horse!'
Said Ida, home! to horse!' and fled, as flies
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk

When some one batters at the dovecote doors,
Disorderly the women. Alone I stood

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart
In the pavilion. There like parting hopes
I heard them passing from me; hoof by hoof,
And every hoof a knell to my desires,

Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek,

The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head !' For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom;

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd

branch

Rapt to the horrible fall. A glance I gave,

No more, but woman-vested as I was

Plunged, and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left

The weight of all the hopes of half the world,
Strove to buffet to land in vain.
A tree
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught,
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore.

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew My burthen from mine arms; they cried, She lives.'

They bore her back into the tent: but I,

So much a kind of shame within me wrought,
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes,
Nor found my friends; but push'd alone on foot -
For since her horse was lost I left her mine
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves
Of open-work in which the hunter rued