-Up jumped Tokay on our table,
Like a pygmy castle-warder,

Dwarfish to see, but stout and able,
Arms and accoutrements all in order;

And fierce he looked North, then, whee!
South,

Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth, Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feathe Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, Jingled his huge brass spurs together, Tightened his waist with its Buda sash, And then, with an impudence naught abash,

Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the holder,

For twenty such knaves he should laugh the bolder:

And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, Went the little man, Sir Ausbruch, strutting

That in the mortar

you call it a gum? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!

And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly, is that poison too?

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!
Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give,
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to
live!

But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall

Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!

Not that I bid you spare her the pain;
Let death be felt and the proof remain:
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace

He is sure to remember her dying face!

Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not

morose;

It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close: The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! Whet hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me? Whin

1. there take all my jewels, gorge gold to your June All.

πI an, on my mouth if you

yne, lest horror it brings noment I dance at the.

I told the father all his schemes,

"to pray

Who were his comrades, what their dreams;
"And now make haste," I said,
The one spot from his soul away;
To-night he comes, but not the same
Will look!" At night he never came.

Nor next night: on the after-morn,
I went forth with a strength new-born.
The church was empty; something drew
My steps into the street; I knew
It led me to the market-place:
Where, lo, on high, the father's face!

That horrible black scaffold dressed,
That stapled block . . God sink the rest!
That head strapped back, that blinding vest,
Those knotted hands and naked breast,

Till near one busy hangman pressed,
And, on the neck these arms caressed . . .

No part in aught they hope or fear!

No he wen with them, no hell! - and here,
No earth, not so much space as pens
My body in their worst of dens

But shall bear God and man my cry,
Lies lies, again—and still, they lie!

While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a lifetime,

That away the rest have trifled.

Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,

Here an age 't is resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,

While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?

Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,

Deeper blisses (if you choose it),

But this life's end and this love-bliss

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether This she felt as, looking at me,

Mine and her souls rushed together?

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world's honors, in derision,
Trampled out the light forever:

Never fear but there 's provision
Of the devil's to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture!
Making those who catch God's secret
Just so much more prize their capture!

Such am I the secret 's mine now!

She has lost me, I have gained her; Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder. Life will just hold out the proving

Both our powers, alone and blended: And then, come the next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended.

THE LOST MISTRESS

ALL 's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes?

Hark, 't is the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully
-You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,- well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black
Though I keep with heart's endeavor, -
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul forever!

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

This and its companion piece were published originally simply as Night and Morning.

THE gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and
fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

SONG

NAY but you, who do not love her,
Is she no pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught speak truth above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

Because you spend your lives in praising ;
To praise, you search the wide world over:

Then why not witness, calmly gazing,

If earth holds aught-speak truth above her?

Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD

LET's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
- Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
I and thou

In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking
While we speak!

Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is
Shun the tree -

Where the apple reddens
Never pry
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought

I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow,
Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

-Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!)

And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.

EVELYN HOPE

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of gers nium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think :

The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew
And, just because I was thrice as old

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught beside ?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.