Be sure that each renewed the vow, But next day passed, and next day yet, And still, as love's brief morning wore, They thought it would work infallibly, Meantime they could profit, in winter's dearth, And to press a point while these oppose Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate, And she-she watched the square like a book Which daily to find she undertook : When the picture was reached the book was done, And she turned from the picture at night to scheme Of tearing it out for herself next sun. So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream; Which hovered as dreams do, still above: One day as the lady saw her youth The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,- Fronting her silent in the glass- "Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, "Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange "Make me a face on the window there, "And let me think that it may beguile "To say, 'What matters it at the end? "I did no more while my heart was warm "Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.' "Where is the use of the lip's red charm, "Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace, (And, leaning out of a bright blue space, Eyeing ever, with earnest eye And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes- "John of Douay shall effect my plan, 66 Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, "In the very square I have crossed so oft: "That men may admire, when future suns "Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, "While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze— "Admire and say, 'When he was alive "How he would take his pleasure once ! ' "And it shall go hard but I contrive "To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb "At idleness which aspires to strive." So! While these wait the trump of doom, How do their spirits pass, I wonder, Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder Only they see not God, I know, The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upward each to his point of bliss Since, the end of life being manifest, He had burned his way thro' the world to this. I hear you reproach, “But delay was best, "For their end was a crime.”—Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test, As a virtue golden through and through, And prove its worth at a moment's view! Must a game be played for the sake of pelf? The true has no value beyond the sham: When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. Stake your counter as boldly every whit, If you choose to play !— is my principle. The counter, our lovers staked, was lost Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, How strive you? De te, fabula! LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. I WHERE the quiet coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles, On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince, Ages since, Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. II Now, the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires |