Sarcophagi, urns, were all covered with lifelike scenes,
fauns dancing with girls from a Bacchanalian choir,
paired-off, goat-footed creatures puffing their cheeks,
forcing ear-splitting notes from the blaring horns.
Cymbals and drumbeats, the marble is seen and is heard.
How delightful the fruit in the beaks of fluttering birds!
No startling noise can scare them, or scare away love,
Amor, whose torch waves more gladly in this happy throng.
So fullness overcomes death, and the ashes within
seem still, in their silent house, to feel love’s delight.

Many are good and wise; yet all for one only reckon,
For 'tis conception, alas, rules them, and not a fond heart.
Sad is the sway of conception,--from thousandfold varying figures,
Needy and empty but one it is e'er able to bring.
But where creative beauty is ruling, there life and enjoyment
Dwell; to the ne'er-changing One, thousands of new forms she gives.

I
A HAPPY MAN
(Carphyllides)

When these graven lines you see,
Traveler, do not pity me;
Though I be among the dead,
Let no mournful word be said.

Children that I leave behind,
And their children, all were kind;
Near to them and to my wife,
I was happy all my life.

My three sons I married right,
And their sons I rocked at night;
Death nor sorrow ever brought
Cause for one unhappy thought.

Now, and with no need of tears,
Here they leave me, full of years,—
Leave me to my quiet rest

My tangoing seemed to delight her;
With me it was love at first sight.
I mentioned That I was a writer:
She asked me: "What is it you write?"
"Oh, only best-sellers," I told her.
Their titles? . . . She shook her blonde head;
The atmosphere seemed to grow colder:
Not one of my books had she read.

Oh, she was a beauty ensnaring,
And I was an author of note;
But little I saw she'd be caring
If never a novel I wrote.
Alas for the caprice of Cupid!
Alack for the phantom of Fame!
I thought her just homely and stupid:

Pass by citizen
don't look left or right
Keep those drip dry eyes straight ahead
A tree? Chop it down- it's a danger
to lightning!
Pansies calling for water,
Let 'em die- queer bastards-
Seek comfort in the scarlet, labour
saving plastic rose
Fresh with the frangrance of Daz!
Sunday! Pray citizen;
Pray no rain will fall
On your newly polished
Four wheeled
God

Envoi

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Get it out with Optrex

IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,

(In memory of William Vaughn Moody)

I

Uriel, you that in the ageless sun
Sit in the awful silences of light,
Singing of vision hid from human sight, --
Prometheus, beautiful rebellious one!
And you, Deucalion,
For whose blind seed was brought the illuming spark,
Are you not gathered, now his day is done,
Beside the brink of that relentless dark --
The dark where your dear singer's ghost is gone?

II

Imagined beings, who majestic blend
Your forms with beauty! -- questing, unconfined,

IT fell in the ancient periods
   Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
   Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
   Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
   A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
   Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
   Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
   In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;

Stay lusty blood! where canst thou seeke
So blest a seat as in her cheeke?
How dar'st thou from her face retire
Whose beauty doth command desire?
But if thou wilt not stay, then flowe
Downe to her panting pappes belowe:
There take thou glory to distayne
With azure blewe each swelling veyne,
From thence run boyling through each part
Till thou hast warm'd her frozen hart,
Which, if from love thou find'st entire,
O martyr it with gentle fire.