cords

Unmusical, that whistle as they swing To leave on shameless backs their purple sting.

please,

'T were surely you whose humor's honied

ease

Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose generous mind

Sees Paradise regained by all mankind,

shines,

Checks the retreat, and spurs our lagging

I mount no longer when the trumpets call;

My battle-harness idles on the wall, The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust,

Not without dints, and all in front, I

trust.

Shivering sometimes it calls me as it

hears

Afar the charge's tramp and clash of

spears;

But 't is such murmur only as might be The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea, That makes me muse and wonder Where? and When?

While from my cliff I watch the waves of men

That climb to break midway their seeming gain,

And think it triumph if they shake their chain.

Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse Some days of reconcilement with the Muse?

I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, "Sing to me!"

And, as its stops my curious touch retries,

The stir of earlier instincts I surprise, Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong,

And happy in the toil that ends with

Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below!

And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide,

What sense of diminution in the air Once so inspiring, Emerson not there! But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet

Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet,

And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey's end;

For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,

A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds
arise

Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.
I muse upon the margin of the sea,
Our common pathway to the new To Be,
Watching the sails, that lessen more and

more,

Of good and beautiful embarked before; With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear

Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, Whose friendly-peopled shore I sometimes see,

By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me,
Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun,
My moorings to the past snap one by

one.

Moulded of mind-mist that broad day d.spels,

Here in these shadowy woods and brooklulled dells.

Have no heaven-habitants e'er felt a void In hearts sublimed with ichor unalloyed?

E'er longed to mingle with a mortal fate Intense with pathos of its briefer date? Could she partake, and live, our human stains?

Even with the thought there tingles through my veins

Sense of unwarned renewal ; I, the dead,
Receive and house again the ardor fled,
As once Alcestis; to the ruddy brim
Feel masculine virtue flooding every limb,
And life, like Spring returning, brings
the key

That sets my senses from their winter free,

Dancing like naked fauns too glad for shame.

Her passion, purified to palest flame,
Can it thus kindle? Is her purpose this?
I will not argue, lest I lose a bliss
That makes me dream Tithonus' fortune
mine,.

(Or what of it was palpably divine
Ere came the fruitlessly immortal gift:)
I cannot curb my hope's imperious drift
That wings with fire my dull mortality;
Though fancy-forged, 't is all I feel or see.

shown,

Of maiden rondure, like the rose halfblown.

If dream, turn real! If a vision, stay! Take mortal shape, my philtre's spell obey!

If hags compel thee from thy secret sky With gruesome incantations, why not I, Whose only magic is that I distil

A potion, blent of passion, thought, and will,

Deeper in reach, in force of fate more rich,

Than e'er was juice wrung by Thessalian

witch

Sure she hath heard my prayer and granted half,

As Gods do who at mortal madness laugh. Yet if life's solid things illusion seem, Why may not substance wear the mask of dream?

In sleep she comes; she visits me in dreams,

And, as her image in a thousand streams, So in my veins, that her obey, she sees, Floating and flaming there, her images Bear to my little world's remotest zone Glad messages of her, and her alone. With silence-sandalled Sleep she comes

And as her neck my happy arms enfold,

Flooded and lustred with her loosened gold,

She whispers words each sweeter than a kiss:

Then, wakened with the shock of sudden bliss,

My arms are empty, my awakener fled, And, silent in the silent sky o'erhead, But coldly as on ice-plated snow, she gleams,

Herself the mother and the child of dreams.

VI.

Gone is the time when phantasms could appease

My quest phantasmal and bring cheated

ease;

When, if she glorified my dreams, I felt Through all my limbs a change immortal melt

At touch of hers ill minate with soul. Not long could I be stilled with Fancy's dole;

Too soon the mortal mixture in me caught

Red fire from her celestial fame, and fought

For tyrannous control in all my veins: My fool's prayer was accepted; what remains?

Or was it some eidolon merely, sent By her who rules the shades in banishment,

To mock me with her semblance? Were it thus,

How 'scape I shame, whose will was

traitorous?