Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope ! What is the issue ? let us see! VII. I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ! My heart seemed full as it could hold; There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So hush, I will give you this leaf to keep : See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! You will wake, and remember, and understand. MEMORABILIA. AH, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new! But you were living before that. And also you are living after , And the memory I started at My starting moves your laughter ! III. And a certain use in the world, no doubt, Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 'Mid the blank miles round about : , For there I picked up on the heather And there I put inside my breast Well, I forget the rest. APPARENT FAILURE. “We shall soon lose a celebrated building.” Paris Nervspaper. No, for I 'll save it! Seven years since, I passed through Paris, stopped a day To see the baptism of your Prince ; Saw, made my bow, and went my way : Walking the heat and headache off, I took the Seine-side, you surmise, Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, So sauntered till—what met my eyes ? II. Only the Doric little Morgue ! The dead-house where you show your drowned : Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one's debt in such a case; I plucked up heart and entered, -stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked : Let them! No Briton 's to be baulked ! III. First came the silent gazers; next, A screen of glass, we 're thankful for ; Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves : and now, enthroned Fronting me, waiting to be owned. IV. Poor men, God made, and all for that! The reverence struck me; o'er each head Religiously was hung its hat, Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, Sacred from touch : each had his berth, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. How did it happen, my poor boy? You wanted to be Buonaparte And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart ? Were, red as blood, a socialist, You 've gained what no Republic missed ? Be quiet, and unclench your fist ! VI. And this—why, he was red in vain, Or black,-poor fellow that is blue ! What fancy was it, turned your brain ? Oh, women were the prize for you ! Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill-luck gets just The copper couch and one clear nice Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, The right thing to extinguish lust! VII. It's safer being meek than fierce : My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. |