TO EVA.

O FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes
Were kindled in the upper skies

At the same torch that lighted mine;
For so I must interpret still
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,
A sympathy divine,

Ah! let me blameless gaze upon
Features that seem at heart my own;

Nor fear those watchful sentinels,
Who charm the more their glance forbids,
Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids,
With fire that draws while it repels.

THE AMULET.

YOUR picture smiles as first it smiled; The ring you gave is still the same; Your letter tells, O changing child! No tidings since it came.

Give me an amulet

That keeps intelligence with you,-
Red when you love, and rosier red,
And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas! that neither bonds nor vows
Can certify possession;

Torments me still the fear that love
Died in its last expression.

HERMIONE.

ON a mound an Arab lay,
And sung his sweet regrets,

And told his amulets:

The summer bird

His sorrow heard,

And, when he heaved a sigh profound,

The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.

'If it be, as they said, she was not fair,
Beauty's not beautiful to me,

But sceptred genius, aye inorbed,
Culminating in her sphere.
This Hermione absorbed

The lustre of the land and ocean,

Hills and islands, cloud and tree,

In her form and motion,

'I ask no bawble miniature,
Nor ringlets dead

Shorn from her comely head,
Now that morning not disdains
Mountains and the misty plains
Her colossal portraiture;
They her heralds be,
Steeped in her quality,
And singers of her fame

Who is their Muse and dame.

'I am of a lineage

That each for each doth fast engage;
In old Bassora's schools, I seemed
Hermit vowed to books and gloom,—
Ill-bested for gay bridegroom,
I was by thy touch redeemed;
When thy meteor glances came,
We talked at large of worldly fate,
And drew truly every trait.

'Once I dwelt apart,
Now I live with all;

As shepherd's lamp on far hillside
Seems, by the traveller espied,
A door into the mountain heart,
So didst thou quarry and unlock
Highways for me through the rock.
'Now, deceived, thou wanderest
In strange lands unblest;

And my kindred come to soothe me.
Southwind is my next of blood;

He is come through fragrant wood,
Drugged with spice from climates warm,
And in every twinkling glade,
And twilight nook,

Unveils thy form.

Out of the forest way

Forth paced it yesterday;

And when I sat by the water-course, Watching the daylight fade,

It throbbed up from the brook.

'River, and rose, and crag, and bird, Frost, and sun, and eldest night, To me their aid preferred, To me their comfort plight;"Courage! we are thine allies, And with this hint be wise,— The chains of kind

The distant bind;

Deed thou doest she must do,
Above her will, be true;
And, in her strict resort
To winds and waterfalls,
And autumn's sunlit festivals,

To music, and to music's thought,
Inextricably bound,

She shall find thee, and be found.
Follow not her flying feet;
Come to us herself to meet.'

INITIAL, DÆMONIC, AND

CELESTIAL LOVE.

I.

THE INITIAL LOVE. VENUS, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces, and parks, And told the truant by his marks,

Golden curls, and quiver, and bow.
This befell how long ago
1
Time and tide are strangely changed,
Men and manners much deranged;
None will now find Cupid latent
By this foolish antique patent.
He came late along the waste,
Shod like a traveller for haste;
With malice dared me to proclaim him,
That the maids and boys might name him.

Boy no more, he wears all coats,
Frocks, and blouses, capes, capotes;
He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand,
Nor chaplet on his head or hand.
Leave his weeds and heed his eyes,-
All the rest he can disguise.
In the pit of his eye's a spark

Would bring back day if it were dark;
And, if I tell you all my thought,
Though I comprehend it not,
In those unfathomable orbs
Every function he absorbs.

He doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot,
And write, and reason, and compute,
And ride, and run, and have, and hold,
And whine, and flatter, and regret,
And kiss, and couple, and beget,
By those roving eyeballs bold.

Undaunted are their courages,
Right Cossacks in their forages;
Fleeter they than any creature,-

They are his steeds, and not his feature;
Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting,
Restless, predatory, hasting;
And they pounce on other eyes
As lions on their prey;
And round their circles is writ,
Plainer than the day,
Underneath, within, above,-
Love-love-love-love.
He lives in his eyes;

There doth digest, and work, and spin,
And buy, and sell, and lose, and win;
He rolls them with delighted motion,
Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean.
Yet holds he them with tortest rein,
That they may seize and entertain
The glance that to their glance opposes,
Like fiery honey sucked from roses.
He palmistry can understand,
Imbibing virtue by his hand
As if it were a living root;

The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise, thrilling palms.

He spreads his welcome where he goes,
And touches all things with his rose.
All things wait for and divine him,
How shall I dare to malign him,
Or accuse the god of sport?
I must end my true report,
Painting him from head to foot,
In as far as I took note,
Trusting well the matchless power
Of this young-eyed emperor
Will clear his fame from every cloud,
With the bards and with the crowd,
He is wilful, mutable,
Shy, untamed, inscrutable,
Swifter-fashioned than the fairies,
Substance mixed of pure contraries;
His vice some elder virtue's token,
And his good is evil-spoken.
Failing sometimes of his own,
He is headstrong and alone;
He affects the wood and wild,
Like a flower-hunting child;
Buries himself in summer waves,

In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,
Loves nature like a horned cow,

Bird, or deer, or caribou.

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses!
He has a total world of wit;

O how wise are his discourses!
But he is the arch-hypocrite,

And, through all science and all art,
Seeks alone his counterpart.

He is a Pundit of the East,
He is an augur and a priest,
And his soul will melt in prayer,
But word and wisdom is a snare;
Corrupted by the present toy
He follows joy, and only joy.
There is no mask but he will wear;
He invented oaths to swear;

He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays,
And holds all stars in his embrace.

He takes a sovran privilege

Not allowed to any liege;

For Cupid goes behind all law,

And right into himself does draw;
For he is sovereignly allied,-

Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,-
And interchangeably at one
With every king on every throne,
That no god dare say him nay,
Or see the fault, or seen betray:
He has the Muses by the heart,
And the stern Parcæ on his part.
His many signs cannot be told;
He has not one mood, but manifold,
Many fashions and addresses,
Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses;
He will preach like a friar,
And jump like Harlequin;
He will read like a crier,
And fight like a Paladin.
Boundless is his memory;

Plans immense his term prolong;
He is not of counted age,

Meaning always to be young
And his wish is intimacy,
Intimater intimacy,

And a stricter privacy;

The impossible shall yet be done,
And, being two, shall still be one.

As the wave breaks to foam on shelves,

Then runs into a wave again,

So lovers melt their sundered selves,

Yet melted would be twain.

II.

THE DÆMONIC LOVE.

MAN was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth,
Tethered by a liquid cord

Of blood through veins of kindred poured.
Next his heart the fireside band
Of mother, father, sister, stand;
Names from awful childhood heard
Throbs of a wild religion stirred;-
Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice;
Till dangerous Beauty came, at last,
Till Beauty came to snap all ties;
The maid, abolishing the past,
With lotus wine obliterates
Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,
And, by herself, supplants alone
Friends year by year more inly known.
When her calm eyes opened bright,
All else grew foreign in their light.
It was ever the selfsame tale,
The first experience will not fail;
Only two in the garden walked,
And with snake and seraph talked.
Close, close to men,

Like undulating layer of air,
Right above their heads,

The potent plain of Dæmons spreads.
Stands to each human soul its own,
For watch, and ward, and furtherance,
In the snares of Nature's dance;
And the lustre and the grace
To fascinate each youthful heart,
Beaming from its counterpart,
Translucent through the mortal covers,
Is the Dæmon's form and face.
To and fro the Genius hies,-
A gleam which plays and hovers
Over the maiden's head,

And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.
Unknown, albeit lying near,

To men, the path to the Dæmon sphere;
And they that swiftly come and go
Leave no track on the heavenly snow.
Sometimes the airy synod bends,
And the mighty choir descends,
And the brains of men thenceforth,
In crowded and in still resorts,
Teem with unwonted thoughts:
As, when a shower of meteors
Cross the orbit of the earth,
And, lit by fringent air,
Blaze near and far,

Mortals deem the planets bright
Have slipped their sacred bars,
And the lone seaman all the night
Sails astonished amid stars.

Beauty of a richer vein,
Graces of a subtler strain,
Unto men these moonmen lend,
And our shrinking sky extend.
So is man's narrow path
By strength and terror skirted;
Also (from the song the wrath

Of the Genii be averted!

The Muse the truth uncoloured speaking),
The Dæmons are self-seeking:
Their fierce and limitary will

Draws men to their likeness still.

The erring painter made Love blind,-
Highest Love who shines on all ;

Him, radiant, sharpest-sighted god,
None can bewilder;

Whose eyes pierce
The universe,

Path-finder, road-builder,
Mediator, royal giver;

Rightly seeing, rightly seen,

Of joyful and transparent mien.

'Tis a sparkle passing

From each to each, from thee to me,
To and fro perpetually;
Sharing all, daring all,
Levelling, displacing

Each obstruction, it unites

Equals remote, and seeming opposites.
And ever and for ever Love
Delights to build a road:

Unheeded Danger near him strides,
Love laughs, and on a lion rides.
But Cupid wears another face,
Born into Dæmons less divine:
His roses bleach apace,

His nectar smacks of wine.
The Dæmon ever builds a wall,
Himself encloses and includes,
Solitude in solitudes :

In like sort his love doth fall.
He doth elect

The beautiful and fortunate,
And the sons of intellect,
And the souls of ample fate,
Who the Future's gates unbar,-
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor;
And, seeing his eye glare,

They drop their few pale flowers,
Gathered with hope to please,
Along the mountain towers,-
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,-
Pitiless, will not be stayed;
His hot tyranny

Burns up every other tie.

Therefore comes an hour from Jove

Which his ruthless will defies,

And the dogs of Fate unties.

Shiver the palaces of glass;

Shrivel the rainbow-coloured walls,

Where in bright Art each god and sibyl dwelt

Secure as in the zodiac's belt ;.

And the galleries and halls,

Wherein every siren sung,

Like a meteor pass.

For this fortune wanted root
In the core of God's abysm,-
Was a weed of self and schism;
And ever the Dæmonic love
Is the ancestor of wars,
And the parent of remorse.

III.

THE CELESTIAL LOVE.

But God said,

I will have a purer gift;

There is smoke in the flame;

New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,
And love without a name.
Fond children, ye desire
To please each other well;
Another round, a higher,

Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,

And selfish preference forbear;
And in right deserving,

And without a swerving
Each from your proper state

Weave roses for your mate."

Deep, deep are loving eyes,
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet;
And the point is Paradise
Where their glances meet;

Their reach shall yet be more profound,
And a vision without bound;
The axis of those eyes sun-clear
Be the axis of the sphere:
So shall the lights ye pour amain
Go, without check or intervals,
Through from the empyrean walls,
Unto the same again.

Higher far into the pure realm,
Over sun and star,

Over the flickering Dæmon film,
Thou must mount for love;
Into vision where all form

In one only form dissolves;

In a region where the wheel
On which all beings ride

Visibly revolves;

Where the starred eternal worm

Girds the world with bound and term;
Where unlike things are like;
Where good and ill,

And joy and moan,

Melt into one.

Their Past, Present, Future shoot
Triple blossoms from one root;
Substances at base divided
In their summits are united;
There the holy essence rolls,
One through separated souls;
And the sunny Æon sleeps
Folding Nature in its deeps
And every fair and every good,
Known in part, or known impure,
To men below,

In their archetypes endure.

The race of gods,

Or those we erring own,

Are shadows flitting up and down
In the still abodes.

The circles of that sea are laws

Which publish and which hide the cause.

Pray for a beam

Out of that sphere,

Thee to guide and to redeem.

O, what a load

Of care and toil,

By lying use bestowed,

From his shoulders falls who sees

The true astronomy,

The period of peace.

Counsel which the ages kept

Shall the well-born soul accept.
As the overhanging trees
Fill the lake with images,-

As garment draws the garment's hem,
Men their fortunes bring with them.
By right or wrong,

Lands and goods go to the strong.
Property will brutely draw
Still to the proprietor;
Silver to silver creep and wind,
And kind to kind.

Nor less the eternal poles
Of tendency distribute souls.
There need no vows to bind

Whom not each other seek, but find.
They give and take no pledge or oath,-
Nature is the bond of both:

No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,-
Their noble meanings are their pawns.
Plain and cold is their address,
Power have they for tenderness;
And, so thoroughly is known
Each other's counsel by his own,
They can parley without meeting;
Need is none of forms of greeting;
They can well communicate
In their innermost estate;
When each the other shall avoid,
Shall each by each be most enjoyed.

Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves
Do these celebrate their loves;
Not by jewels, feasts, and savours,
Not by ribbons or by favours,
But by the sun-spark on the sea,
And the cloud-shadow on the lea,
The soothing lapse of morn to mirk,
And the cheerful round of work.
Their cords of love so public are,
They intertwine the farthest star :
The throbbing sea, the quaking earth,
Yield sympathy and signs of mirth;
Is none so high, so mean is none,
But feels and seals this union;
Even the fell Furies are appeased,
The good applaud, the lost are eased.

Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,
Bound for the just, but not beyond;
Not glad, as the low-loving herd,
Of self in other still preferred,
But they have heartily designed
The benefit of broad mankind.
And they serve men austerely,
After their own genius, clearly,
Without a false humility;
For this is Love's nobility,-
Not to scatter bread and gold,
Goods and raiment bought and sold:
But to hold fast his simple sense,
And speak the speech of innocence,
And with hand, and body, and blood,
To make his bosom-counsel good.
For he that feeds men serveth few ;
He serves all who dares be true.

SEA-SHORE.

I HEARD or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
Am I not always here, thy summer home?
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
Was ever building like my terraces?
Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
A little hut suffices like a town.

I make your sculptured architecture vain,
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home,
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
Lo! here is Rome, and Nineveh, and Thebes,
Karnak, and Pyramid, and Giant's Stairs,
Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea,
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;"
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
Giving a hint of that which changes not.

Rich are the sea-gods-who gives gifts but they? They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:

They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
For every wave is wealth to Dædalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O

waves !

A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
Strewing my bed; and, in another age,
Rebuild a continent of better men.

Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
The exodus of nations: I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main

I too have arts and sorceries;
Illusion dwells for ever with the wave.
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal
With credulous and imaginative man;
For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
To distant men, who must go there, or die.

MERLIN.

THY trivial harp will never please

Or fill my craving ear;

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze

Free, peremptory, clear.

No jingling serenader's art,

Nor tinkle of piano strings,

Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic springs.

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest tone

When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned flood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;

And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.
Great is the art,

Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb

For his rhyme.

'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say,
'In to the upper doors,

Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise

By the stairway of surprise.'
Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Things more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind
Sings aloud the tune whereto
Their pulses beat,

And march their feet,

And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,

He shall no task decline;
Merlin's mighty line

Extremes of nature reconciled,-
Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mould the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.
He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;-
Wait his returning strength.
Bird, that from the nadir's floor

To the zenith's top can soar,

The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that

journey's length.

Nor profane affect to hit

Or compass that, by meddling wit,

Which only the propitious mind

Publishes when 'tis inclined.

There are open hours

When the God's will sallies free,

And the dull idiot might see

The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;Sudden, at unawares,

Self-moved, fly-to the doors,

Nor sword of angels could reveal

What they conceal.