English

CANTO I.

Ralph Bondly was Misfortune's child;
The gods on him but seldom smiled;
Yet he possessed the wealth men crave
As greatest boon this side the grave.
Restless as tides that come and go,
In Summer's calm or Winter's blow,
Something he sought and longed to grasp,
But ever failed its form to clasp.

In every land his feet had strayed;
He 'neath Italian skies had prayed,
And scoffed beneath the Othman's sign,
And loitered by the Seine and Rhine;

PART SECOND

I

As one who, from the sunshine and the green,
Enters the solid darkness of a cave,
Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen
May yawn before him with its sudden grave,
And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean,
Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave
Dimly below, or feels a damper air
From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;

II

So, from the sunshine and the green of love,

PART FIRST

I

Fair as a summer dream was Margaret,
Such dream as in a poet's soul might start,
Musing of old loves while the moon doth set:
Her hair was not more sunny than her heart,
Though like a natural golden coronet
It circled her dear head with careless art,
Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent
To its frank grace a richer ornament.

II

His loved one's eyes could poet ever speak,

I

The windows are barred,
And frozen the walls;
Feebly the light
Of the doorlamp falls.

Under a cover
Of gray I lie;
A point on the wall
Has fastened my eye.

I am far from myself,
Forget all I know;
Who knows? perhaps I
Was freed long ago.

And maybe I died,
And dutifully
The doorlamp was lit
In my memory.

II

Dry are the tears,
And laughter is bleak;

2

The wind is a whirl, the snow is a dance.
In the night twelve men advance.

Black, narrow rifle-straps,
Cigarettes, tilted caps.

A convict's stripes would fit their backs.
Fire marks their nightly tracks.

Freedom, ekh, freedom —
Unhallowed, unblessed!
Trah-tah-tah! ...

Fire blazes upon their track
Their rifle-straps are gleaming black.

March to the revolution's pace,
We've a fierce enemy to face.

More daring, friends, take aim, the lot!

PART II.

The Samaritans spared.

And dare ye deem God's ire must cease
In Christ's new realm of peace?
'Tis true, beside the scorner's gate
The Lord long-suffering deign'd to wait,
Nor on the guilty town
Call'd the stern fires of old Elijah down:
A victim, not a judge, He came,
With His own blood to slake th' avenging flame.

Now, by those hands so rudely rent

I

Le Panneau

Under the rose-tree's dancing shade
There stands a little ivory girl,
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl
With pale green nails of polished jade.

The red leaves fall upon the mould,
The white leaves flutter, one by one,
Down to a blue bowl where the sun,
Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.

The white leaves float upon the air,

The lily's withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech-trees in the wold
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter--hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk
Are blown into a snowy mass:
The roses lie upon the grass
Like little shreds of crimson silk.

I

Le Jardin

The lily's withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech trees on the wold
The last wood pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden-walk
The dead leaves scatter, — hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk

I. THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS

Dark in the noonday, dark as solemn pines,
A circle of dark towers above the plain,
Troy sat bereaved; her desolation seemed
To have drawn slowly down in sultry drops
The sky of gathered and contracted cloud,
Hung silent, close as is a cavern roof,
That deep in heavy forests, lost from day,
Echoes the groans of a hurt lioness
For her slain cubs; she fills her den with groans,
Stretching her hoarse throat to the flinty floor;
And with like lamentable echo, barred