Circe's Palace

But I, Ulysses,

Sitting on the warm steps,
Looking over the valley,
All day long, have seen,
Without pain, without labor,
Sometimes a wild-haired Mænad
Sometimes a Faun with torches
And sometimes, for a moment,
Passing through the dark stems
Flowing-robed, the beloved,
The desired, the divine,
Beloved Iacchus.

Ah, cool night wind, tremulous stars!

Ah, glimmering water,

Fitful earth murmur,

Dreaming woods!

Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling Goddess,

And thou, proved, much enduring,

Wave-tossed Wanderer!

Who can stand still?

Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me

The cup again!

Faster, faster,

O Circe, Goddess,

Let the wild, thronging train,

The bright procession

Of eddying forms,

Sweep through my soul!

CIRCE'S PALACE.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

[NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: American story-writer; born at Salem, Mass., July 4, 1804; died at Plymouth, N.H., May 19, 1864. His official positions, in the customhouse at Salem and as United States consul at Liverpool, furnished him with many opportunities for the study of human nature. His literary popularity was of slow growth, but was founded on the eternal verities. His most famous novels are "The Scarlet Letter" (1850), "The House of the Seven Gables" (1851), "The Blithedale Romance" (1852), "The Marble Faun" (1860), "Septimius Felton," posthumous. He wrote a great number of short stories, inimitable in style and full of weird imagination. "Twice-told Tales," first