A goddess, with a siren's grace, -
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.

Wrought was she of a painter's dream, -
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.

I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned - REturned - and thus beguiled
Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde: -

"We artists live ideally:
We breed our firmest facts of air;
We make our own reality -
We dream a thing and it is so.
The fairest scenes we ever see
Are mirages of memory;
The sweetest thoughts we ever know
We plagiarize from Long Ago:
And as the girl on canvas there
Is marv...

To M. De Barillon.[1]

Can diplomatic dignity
To simple fables condescend?
Can I your famed benignity
Invoke, my muse an ear to lend?
If once she dares a high intent,
Will you esteem her impudent?
Your cares are weightier, indeed,
Than listening to the sage debates
Of rabbit or of weasel states:
So, as it pleases, burn or read;
But save us from the woful harms
Of Europe roused in hostile arms.
That from a thousand other places
Our enemies should show their faces,
May well be granted with a smile,
But not that England's Isle
Our friendly kings should set
Their fatal blades to whet.
Comes not the time for Louis to repose?
What Hercules, against these hydra foes,
Would not grow weary? Must new heads oppose
His ever-wa...

    The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
    Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
    Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
    Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we're finished with pushing a pen;
They're pumping us full of bellicose rage, they're showing us how to be men.
We're only beginning to find ourselves; we're wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, - oh, what are we going to do?

For shoulders curved with the counter stoop will be carried erect and square;
And faces white from the office light will be bronzed by the open air;
And we'll walk with the stride of a new-born pride, wit...

    A plummet of the changing universe,
    Far-cast, I flare
    Through gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind,
    And spaces bare
    That intermediate darks immerse
    By road of sun nor world confined.
    Upon my star-undominated gyre
    I mark the systems vanish one by one;
    Among the swarming worlds I lunge,
    And sudden plunge
    Close to the zones of solar fire;
    Or 'mid the mighty wrack of stars undone,
    Flash, and with momentary rays
    Compel the dark to yield
    Their aimless forms, whose once far-potent blaze
    In ashes chill is now inurned.
    A space revealed,
    I see their planets turned,
    Where holders of the heritage of breath
    Exultant rose, and sank to barren death
    Beneath the stars' unhe...

"You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
    Be to abide, then that may be."
"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
    "The way was He."

    Still must your hands withhold your loveliness?
        Is your soul jealous of your body still?
    The fair white limbs beneath the clouding dress
        Are such hard forms as you alone could fill
    With life and sweetness.    Such a harmony
        Is yours as music and the thought expressed
    By the musician: have no rivalry
        Between your soul and the shape in which it's drest.
    Kisses or words, both sensual, which shall be
        The burning symbol of the love we bear?
    My art is words, yours song, but still must we
        Be mute and songless, seeing how love is fair.
    Both our known arts being useless, we must turn
    To love himself and his old practice learn.

Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;
A wildered maze of comets and of suns;
The blood of changeless God that ever runs
With quick diastole up the immortal veins;
A phantom host that moves and works in chains;
A monstrous fiction, which, collapsing, stuns
The mind to stupor and amaze at once;
A tragedy which that man best explains
Who rushes blindly on his wild career
With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,
Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,
But is extinguished like a falling star;--
Such will at times this life appear to me
Until I learn to read more perfectly.

    Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought,
    We owe to honour all, to fortune nought;
    The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay
    Peruvian gold, but seeks the wreath of bay.
    How is the advocate the poet's peer?
    The poet's glory is complete and clear;
    He far outlives the advocate's renown,
    Patru is e'en by Scarron's name weighed down.
    The bar of Greece and Rome you point me out,
    A bar that trained great men, I do not doubt,
    For then chicane with language void of sense
    Had not deformed the law and eloquence.
    Purge the tribune of all this monstrous growth,
    I mount it, and my soul will sink, though loth,
    Will yield to fortune and will speak in prose.
    But since reform in this so slowly grows,
    Lea...

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star,
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce...

If gently falls the small, soft, lazy rain,
To indoor industries he shrewdly steals;
And in the barn from some neglected grain
The choking chaff the clattering fanner reels;
Or in the shed the sapling ash he peels
For handles for the fork with humor blithe,
Or haply lards the tumbril's heavy wheels,
Or of the harness oils the leather lithe,
Or turns the tuneless stone and grinds the gleaming scythe.

But now the sky is black; and now the Storm
Prepares his legions for the coming fray,
While murmurs low prelude the dread alarm,
As prayed the hosts, - like robèd monks who pray
Mid slumb'rous incense in a cloister gray, -
Till from yon cloud the fiery signal given
Enrages all their terrible array.
Jove's flaming car is o'er Olympus driven,
And thunders ...

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks with a whisper,
Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love.)

I’m stewing in a brick-built town;
My coat is quite a stylish cut,
And, morn and even, up and down,
I travel in a common rut;
But as the city sounds recede,
In dreamy moods I sometimes see
A vision of a busy lead,
And hear its voices calling me.

My flaccid muscles seem to tweak
To feel the windlass pall and strain,
To shake the cradle by the creek,
And puddle at the ‘tom’ again.
I’d gladly sling this musty shop
To see the sluicing waters flow
A pile of tucker, dirt on top,
And simply Lord knows what below.

’Twas lightly left, ’tis lately mourned,
The tent life up at Stop-and-See,
When shirts with yellow clay adorned
Were badges of nobility,
When Sunday’s best was Monday’s wear,
And Bennett gave us verse and book
Poor D...

Sitting alone, as one forsook,
Close by a silver-shedding brook,
With hands held up to love, I wept;
And after sorrows spent I slept:
Then in a vision I did see
A glorious form appear to me:
A virgin's face she had; her dress
Was like a sprightly Spartaness.
A silver bow, with green silk strung,
Down from her comely shoulders hung:
And as she stood, the wanton air
Dangled the ringlets of her hair.
Her legs were such Diana shows
When, tucked up, she a-hunting goes;
With buskins shortened to descry
The happy dawning of her thigh:
Which when I saw, I made access
To kiss that tempting nakedness:
But she forbade me with a wand
Of myrtle she had in her hand:
And, chiding me, said: Hence, remove,
Herrick, thou art too coarse to love.

"What are the flowers for, mamma,
    That spring up fresh and bright,
And grow on every hill and plain,
    Where'er I turn my sight?

"How do the flowers grow, mamma?
    I've pulled the leaves away,
And tried to see them blossom out,
    On many a summer's day."

"The flowers were made, my little child,
    That when our footsteps trod
Upon the green and pleasant fields,
    We then might think of God.

"We may not see how they do grow,
    And bloom in beauty fair;
We cannot tell how they can spread
    Their small leaves to the air:

"But yet we know that God's kind hand
    Creates these little flowers,
And makes the warm sun shine on them,
    And waters them with showers.

"And so we love to think that He,

I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.

In the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought.

At once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.

I approached the sitting figure, and making a respectful bow, 'O common Mother of us all!' I cried, 'of what is thy meditation? Is it of the future destinies of man thou ponderest? or how he may attain the highest possible perfection and happiness?'

The woman slowly turned upon me her dark menacing eyes. Her lips moved, and I heard a ringing voice like the clang of iron.

    Listen! if but women were
    Half as kind as they are fair,
    There would be an end to all
    Miseries that do befall.

    Cloud and wind would run together
    In a dance of sunny weather,
    And the happy trees would throw
    Gifts to travellers below.

    Then the lion, meek and mild,
    With the lamb would, side by side,
    Couch him friendly, and would be
    Innocent of enmity.

    Then the Frozen Pole would go,
    Tossing off his fields of snow,
    And would shake delighted feet
    With the girls of George's Street.

    These, if women only were
    Half as kind as they are fair.

Dear simple girl, those flattering arts,
(From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts,)
Exist but in imagination,
Mere phantoms of thine own creation;
For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance
Thou'lt there descry that elegance
Which from our sex demands such praises,
But envy in the other raises. -
Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty:
Ah! fly not from the candid youth;
It is not flattery, - 'tis truth.

Since Friendship soon must bid a fond adieu,
And, parting, wish your charms she never knew,
Dear Laura hear one genuine thought express'd,
Warm from the heart, and to the heart address'd: -
Much do I wish you all your soul holds dear,
To sooth and sweeten ev'ry trouble here;
But heav'n has yielded such an ample store,
You cannot ask, nor can I wish you, more;
Bless'd with a sister's love, whose gentle mind,
Still pure tho' polish'd, virtuous and refin'd,
Will aid your tend'rer years and innocence
Beneath the shelter of her riper sense.
Charm'd with the bright example may you move,
And, loving, richly copy what you love.
Adieu! and blame not if an artless pray'r
Should, self-directed, ask one moment's care: -
When years and absence shall their shade extend,