DEAF AND DUMB.

A GROUP BY WOOLNER.

ONLY the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise :

Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak
Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,
Only by Dumbness adequately speak

As favored mouth could never, through the eyes.

PROSPICE.

FEAR death? to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The

power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go :

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so

The best and the last!

one fight more,

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute 's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS.

A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON.

BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now

Will lap me round forever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:
Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,

no past is mine, no future: look at me!

YOUTH AND ART.

I.

IT once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

II.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

Then laughed "They will see some day
Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

III.

My business was song, song, song;

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, "Kate Brown 's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered!

IV.

I earned no more by a warble

Than you by a sketch in plaster;

You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

V.

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,

For air, looked out on the tiles,

For fun, watched each other's windows.

VI.

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse. - nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.

VII.

And I soon managed to find

Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind

And be safe in my corset-lacing.

VIII.

No harm! It was not my fault

If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt.,

Or ran the chromatic scale up:

IX.

For spring bade the sparrows pair,
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and watercresses.

X.

Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power

Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

XI.

I did look, sharp as a lynx,

(And yet the memory rankles,) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

Could you say so, and never say,

"Suppose we join hands and fortunes,

And I fetch her from over the way,

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"?

XIV.

No, no: you would not be rash,

Nor I rasher and something over: You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But

XV.

you meet the Prince at the Board, I'm queen myself at bals-paré,

I've married a rich old lord,

And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A.

XVI.

Each life unfulfilled, you see;

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,

XVII.

been happy.

And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever :
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it forever.

A FACE.

IF one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's
Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver on the pale gold ground
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb

Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb :
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

A LIKENESS.

SOME people hang portraits up
In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,
And her cousin, he stirs his cup,
Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?
""T is a daub John bought at a sale,"
Quoth the wife, looks black as thunder.
"What a shade beneath her nose!

Snuff-taking, I suppose,"

Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail.

Or else, there's no wife in the case,
But the portrait's queen of the place,
Alone 'mid the other spoils

Of youth, masks, gloves and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine,
But my master's, the Tipton Slasher "),
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,

And the chamois-horns (" shot in the Chablais"),
And prints Rarey drumming on Cruiser,
And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,
And the little edition of Rabelais :

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets,
May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,
"But the eyes are half out of their sockets;
That hair's not so bad, where the gloss is,
But they 've made the girl's nose a proboscis :
Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!
What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?"