Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean

Upon the dusky brushwood underneath

Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,

New from its silken sheath.

The dim red morn had died, her journey done,

And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,

Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun,

Never to rise again.

There was no motion in the dumb dead air,

Not any song of bird or sound of rill;

Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre Is not so deadly still.

As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd

Their humid arms festooning tree to tree,

And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd

The red anemone.

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew

The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn

On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench'd in dew,

Leading from lawn to lawn.

The smell of violets, hidden in the green,

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame

The times when I remember to have been

Joyful and free from blame.

And from within me a clear undertone

Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime,

"Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own.

Until the end of time."

At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there;

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise

Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face

The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, Spoke slowly in her place.

"I had great beauty: ask thou not my

name:

No one can be more wise than destiny.

Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came

I brought calamity."

"No marvel, sovereign lady: in fair field.

Myself for such a face had boldly died,"

I answer'd free; and turning I appeal'd To one that stood beside.

But she, with sick and scornful looks

averse,

To her full height her stately stature draws;

"My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse :

This woman was the cause.

I was cut off from hope in that sad place,

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears:

My father held his hand upon his face; I, blinded with my tears,

"Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs

As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,

Waiting to see me die.

"The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat;

The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore;

The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat,

Touched; and I knew no more." Whereto the other with a downward brow:

"I would the white cold heavyplunging foam,

Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below,

Then when I left my home."

Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear,

As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping

"Nay-yet it chafes me that I could not bend

One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye

That dull cold-blooded Cæsar. Prythee, friend,

Where is Mark Antony ?

"The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime

On fortune's neck; we sat as God by (od:

The Nilus would have risen before his time

And flooded at our nod.

"We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit

Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life

In Egypt the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife,

And the wild kiss, when fresh from

war's alarms,

My Hercules, my Roman Antony, My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arins, Contented there to die!

And there he died: and when I heard my name

Sigh forth with life I would not brook my fear

Of the other with a worm I balk'd his fame.

What else was left? look here!"

(With that she tore her robe apart, and half

The polish'd argent of her breast to sight

Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,

Showing the aspick's bite.)

"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier

found

All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts

Of captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard

A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,

And singing clearer than the crested bird,

That claps his wings at dawn.

"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,

Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,

Far-heard beneath the moon. "The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:

All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell

With spires of silver shine."

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves

The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the door

Hearing the holy organ rolling waves Of sound on roof and floor

Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied

To where he stands,- -so stood I,

when that flow

From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light,

With timbrel and with song.

My words leapt forth: "Heaven heads the count of crimes

With that wild oath." She render'd answer high:

"Not so, nor once alone: a thousand times

I would be born and die.

"Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root

Creeps to the garden water-pipes bcneath,

Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit

Changed, I was ripe for death.

"My God, my land, my father-theso did move

Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,

Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love

Down to a silent grave.

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy

Shall smile away my maiden blame

among

The Hebrew mothers'-emptied of all joy,

Leaving the dance and song.

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below, Leaving the promise of my bridal bower.

The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow

Beneath the battled tower.

"The light white cloud swam over us. Anon

We heard the lion roaring from his den;

We saw the large white stars rise one by one,

Or, from the darken'd glen, "Saw God divide the night with flying flame,

And thunder on the everlasting hills. I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became

A solemn scorn of ills. "When the next moon was roll'd into the sky.

Strength came to me that equall'd my desire.

How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire!

"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,

That I subdued me to my father's will;

Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell Sweetens the spirit still.

Moreover, it is written that my race, Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from

Aroer

On Arnon unto Minneth." Here her face

Glow'd, as I look'd at her.

She lock'd her lips: she left me where

I stood:

Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor Do hunt me, day and night."

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:

To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died!

You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust

The dagger thro' her side."

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,

Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery

Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams

Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,

Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance

Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc.

A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,

Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,

Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,

Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labors longer from the deep

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore

That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep

To gather and tell o'er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain

Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike

Into that wondrous track of dreams