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O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,

Twelve abreast.

III.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass

Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone-

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

IV.

Now, the single little turret that remains

On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time

Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced

As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames

Viewed the games.

V.

And I know-while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away-

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there.

In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb

Till I come.

VI.

But he looked upon the city, every side,

Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,-and then,

All the men !

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace

Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech

Each on each.

VII.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth

South and North,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high

As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force

Gold, of course.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best.

TIME'S REVENGES.

I've a Friend, over the sea ;

I like him, but he loves me.

It all grew out of the books I write ;
They find such favour in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don't admire my books.

He does himself though,—and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,

Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land

To be my nurse in this poor place,

And make my broth and wash my face
And light my fire and, all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile
That I told him "Better have kept away
"Than come and kill me, night and day,

66

With, worse than fever throbs and shoots, "The creaking of his clumsy boots." I am as sure that this he would do, As that Saint Paul's is striking two.

And I think I rather ... woe is me!

-Yes, rather should see him than not see,
If lifting a hand would seat him there
Before me in the empty chair

To-night, when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think nor read
Nor make these purple fingers hold
The pen; this garret's freezing cold!

And I've a Lady—there he wakes
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust and outward-borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I needs must be !

Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint
And my style infirm and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,
And not one angry word you get.
But, please you, wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that lady's foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine,

And you shall see how the devil spends

A fire God gave for other ends!

I tell you, I stride up and down

This garret, crowned with love's best crown, And feasted with love's perfect feast,

To think I kill for her, at least,

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