Quest' anima gentil che si diparte.

ON LAURA DANGEROUSLY ILL.


    That graceful soul, in mercy call'd away
Before her time to bid the world farewell,
If welcomed as she ought in the realms of day,
In heaven's most blessèd regions sure shall dwell.
There between Mars and Venus if she stay,
Her sight the brightness of the sun will quell,
Because, her infinite beauty to survey,
The spirits of the blest will round her swell.
If she decide upon the fourth fair nest
Each of the three to dwindle will begin,
And she alone the fame of beauty win,
Nor e'en in the fifth circle may she rest;
Thence higher if she soar, I surely trust
Jove with all other stars in darkness will be thrust.

MACGREGOR.

Under the stars, when the shadows fall,
    Under the stars of night;
What is so fair as the jeweled crown
Of the azure skies, when the sun is down,
    Beautiful stars of light!

Under the stars, where the daisies lie
    Lifeless beneath the snow;
Lovely and pure, they have lived a day,
Silently passing forever away,
    Lying so meek and low.

Under the stars in the long-ago--
    Under the stars to-night;
Life is the same, with its great unrest
Wearily throbbing within each breast,
    Searching for truth and light.

Under the stars as they drift along,
    Far in the azure seas;
Beautiful treasures of light and song,
Glad'ning the earth as they glide along,
    What is so fair as these?

Under the stars in the quiet...

Ecstasy.


    I cannot sing to thee as I would sing
    If I were quickened like the holy lark
    With fire from Heaven and sunlight on his wing,
    Who wakes the world with witcheries of the dark
    Renewed in rapture in the reddening air.
    A thing of splendour do I deem him then,
    A feather'd frenzy with an angel's throat,
    A something sweet that somewhere seems to float
    'Twixt earth and sky, to be a sign to men.
    He fills me with such wonder and despair!
    I long to kiss thy locks, so golden bright,
    As he doth kiss the ...

He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room below, his floor her ceiling,
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,

His watch, the same he has heard these cycles of ages,
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clock, upon her mantelpiece, strikes nine.
The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.
The world whirs on. . . .New stars come up to shine.

His youth, far off, he sees it brightly walking
In a golden cloud. . . .Wings flashing about it. . . . Darkness
Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.
Old age, far off, her death, what do they matter?
Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.

Sylph was it? or a Bird more bright
Than those of fabulous stock?
A second darted by; and lo!
Another of the flock,
Through sunshine flitting from the bough
To nestle in the rock.
Transient deception! a gay freak
Of April's mimicries!
Those brilliant strangers, hailed with joy
Among the budding trees,
Proved last year's leaves, pushed from the spray
To frolic on the breeze.

Maternal Flora! show thy face,
And let thy hand be seen,
Thy hand here sprinkling tiny flowers,
That, as they touch the green,
Take root (so seems it) and look up
In honour of their Queen.
Yet, sooth, those little starry specks,
That not in vain aspired
To be confounded with live growths,
Most dainty, most admired,
Were only blossoms dropt from twigs

        They drift down the hall together;
    He smiles in her lifted eyes;
        Like waves of that mighty river,
    The strains of the "Danube" rise.
        They float on its rhythmic measure
    Like leaves on a summer-stream;
        And here, in this scene of pleasure,
    I bury my sweet, dead dream.

        Through the cloud of her dusky tresses,
    Like a star, shines out her face,
        And the form his strong arm presses
    Is sylph like in its grace.
        As a leaf on the bounding river
    Is lost in the seething sea,
        I know that forever and ever
    My dream is lost to me.

        And still the viols are playing
    That grand old wordless rhyme;
        And still those two ate swaying
    In perfect ...

It is told, in Buddhi-theosophic schools,
        There are rules.
By observing which, when mundane labor irks
One can simulate quiescence
By a timely evanescence
From his Active Mortal Essence,
        (Or his Works.)

The particular procedure leaves research
        In the lurch,
But, apparently, this matter-moulded form
    Is a kind of outer plaster,
    Which a well-instructed Master
    Can remove without disaster
        When he's warm.

And to such as mourn an Indian Solar Clime
        At its prime
'Twere a thesis most immeasurably fit,
    So expansively elastic,
    And so plausibly fantastic,
    That one gets enthusiastic
        For a bit.

The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,
A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,
A thrill in my heart,--and--my sweetheart's hand.

She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,
And the light fell soft on her upturned face,
And I thought of the flood-tide of infinite bliss
That would flow to my heart from a single kiss.

But my sweetheart was shy, so I dared not ask
For the boon, so bravely I wore the mask.
But into her face there came a flame:--
I wonder could she have been thinking the same?

Thou who wert born of Psyche and of Love
And fondly nurst on Poesy's warm breast
                    Painting, oh, power adored!
                    My country's sons have poured
To thee their orisons; and thou hast blest
Their votive sighs, nor vainly have they strove.

Thou who art wont to soothe the varied pain
That ceaseless throbs at absent lover's heart,
                    Who first bestowed thine aid
                    On the young Rhodian maid [FN#19]
When doomed, from him whose love was life, to part,
From a lone bard accept an humble heartfelt strain.


[FN#19]    I do not positively recollect whether the incident, here described is supposed to have transpired at Rhodes, Corinth, or some other place, and have not, at present, the means for ascertaining....

Oh, I could let the world go by,
Its loud new wonders and its wars,
But how will I give up the sky
When winter dusk is set with stars?

And I could let the cities go,
Their changing customs and their creeds,
But oh, the summer rains that blow
In silver on the jewel-weeds!

I shall never see your tired sleep
In the bed that you make beautiful,
Nor hardly ever be a dream
That plays by your dark hair;
Yet I think I know your turning sigh
And your trusting arm's abandonment,
For they are the picture of my night,
My night that does not end.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.

What though I dreamed of mountain heights,
    Of peaks, the barriers of the world,
Around whose tops the Northern Lights
    And tempests are unfurled.

Mine are the footpaths leading through
    Life's lowly fields and woods, - with rifts,
Above, of heaven's Eden blue, -
    By which the violet lifts

Its shy appeal; and holding up
    Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine,
Along the hillside, cup on cup,
    Blooms bright the celandine.

Where soft upon each flowering stock
    The butterfly spreads damask wings;
And under grassy loam and rock
    The cottage cricket sings.

Where overhead eve blooms with fire,
    In which the new moon bends her bow,
And, arrow-like, one white star by her
 ...