English

THE STORY

Where the hoarse billows of the Northland Sea
Sweep the rude coast of rock-bound Brittany,
Dwelt, ages since, a knight, whose warrior-fame
Might well have struck all carpet-knights with shame;
Vowed to great deeds and princely manhood, he
Burgeoned the topmost flower of chivalry;
Yet gentle-hearted, nursed one delicate thought
Fixed firm in love: with anxious pain he sought
To serve his lady in the noblest wise,
And many a labor, many a grand emprise

PROEM .

Truth wed to beauty in an antique tale,
Sweet-voiced like some immortal nightingale,
Trills the clear burden of her passionate lay,
As fresh, as fair, as wonderful to-day,
As when the music of her balmy tongue
Ravished the first warm hearts for whom she sung.

Thus, when the early spring-dawn buds are green,
Glistening beneath the sudden silvery sheen
Of glancing showers; while heaven with bridegroomkiss
Wakens the virgin earth to bloom and bliss,

XXIV

We walk by Shelley's sea, upon the sands
Where he was cast, whom Air, and Earth, and Brine
Gave up to Flame — their brother more divine —
Who held him in his hundred fluttering hands;

And gaze where in the cloudless heaven stands
Carrara's jagged purple mountain line,
Snow-sprinkled, over tufted woods of pine
That stretch away in bright green sunlit bands.

The children with their sunburnt naked feet,

XIX

We search the darkness from the villa's height,
Guessing where cupola and dome and spire
Of Florence lie; till eyes begin to tire
'Mid the illusive shadows of the night.

Then suddenly there sparkles into sight
A mighty dome, rimmed round in points of fire,
Its segments outlined as by glowing wire;
And fairy towers follow, fiery bright.

An evanescent city built of stars,

XII

Mantled in purple dusk, Imperial Death,
Thy throne Time's mist, thy crown the clustered stars,
Thy orb the world; — did Nature's countless wars
Yield insufficient incense for thy breath?

Hadst not enough with all who troop beneath
Thy inward-opening gates, whose shadowy bars
Give back nor kings in their triumphal cars,
Nor the worn throngs that old age hurrieth?

O sateless Death, most surely it was thou,

X

'Tis Christmas, and we gaze with downbent head
On something that the post has brought too late
To reach thee, Mimma, through the narrow gate,
From one who did not know that thou art dead;

A picture-book, to play with on thy bed;
And we, who should have heard thee laugh and prate
So busily, sit here at war with Fate,
And turn the pages silently instead.

O that I knew thee playing 'neath God's eyes,

VIII

Where Mimma lies, some nameless children sleep,
Whose graves, in the obliterating grass,
Sink slowly, as the empty seasons pass,
And look like waves on Time's slow-heaving deep.

No tears, no flowers; save when spring-clouds weep
Upon them; or the breeze with faint " Alas! "
Brings them stray petals from the flowery mass
Upon some grave that Love and Sorrow keep.

IV

If we could know the silent shapes that pass
Across our lives, we should perchance have seen
God's Messenger with dusky pinions lean
Above the cot, and scan as in the glass.

Of some clear forest water, framed in grass,
The likeness of his own seraphic mien;
And heard the call, implacably serene,
Of Him Who is, Who will be, and Who was.

O Azrail, why tookest thou the child

III

'Tis March; and on the hills that stretch away
In misty furrows in the growing night
The peasants keep their old Etruscan rite,
And wave strange fires, like will-o'-wisps at play;

Chanting an incantation that shall lay
The spirits that bring drought and hail and blight,
And keeping with the sheaves and straw they light
In the green wheat all demon spite at bay.

Ah me! this spring we have no seed to shield

II

Two springs she saw — two radiant Tuscan springs,
What time the wild red tulips are aflame
In the new wheat, and wreaths of young vine frame
The daffodils that every light breeze swings;

And the anemones that April brings
Make purple pools, as if Adonis came
Just there to die; and Florence scrolls her name
In every blossom Primavera flings.

Now, when the scented iris, straight and tall,