III.

She took the little ivory chest,

With half a sigh she turn'd the key,
Then raised her head with lips comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.
And gave the trinkets and the rings,

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please; As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I look'd on these.

IV.

She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar;
She talk'd as if her love were dead,

But in my words were seeds of fire.
"No more of love; your sex is known:
I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone,
The woman cannot be believed.

V.

"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell
(And women's slander is the worst),
And you, whom once I lov'd so well,
Thro' you, my life will be accurst."
I spoke with heart, and heat and force,
I shook her breast with vague alarms-
Like torrents from a mountain source
We rush'd into each other's arms.

VI.

We parted: sweetly gleam'd the stars,
And sweet the vapor-braided blue,
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars,
As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appear'd to smile,

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells; "Dark porch," I said, "and silent aisle,

There comes a sound of marriage bells."

THE VISION OF SIN.

I

I.

HAD a vision when the night was late:

A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips-

As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,

Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes

Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes

II.

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd,
Panted hand-in-hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail;
Then the music touch'd the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale;

Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,

As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,

Caught the sparkles, and in circles,

Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,

Flung the torrent rainbow round:

Then they started from their places,

Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,

Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew:
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody

Flutter'd headlong from the sky.

III.

And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn,
Unheeded: and detaching, fold by fold,

From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near,
A vapor heavy, hueless, formless, cold,

Came floating on for many a month and year,
Unheeded: and I thought I would have spoken,
And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late:
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken,
When that cold vapor touch'd the palace gate,
And link'd again. I saw within my head
A grey and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath,
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said:

IV.

"Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!

Here is custom come your way;
Take my brute and lead him in,

Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.

"Bitter barmaid, waning fast!
See that sheets are on my bed;
What! the flower of life is past:
It is long before you wed.

"Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour,

Let us hob-and-nob with Death.

"I am old, but let me drink;
Bring me spices, bring me wine;
I remember, when I think,
That my youth was half divine.

"Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,
When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.

"Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: What care I for any name?

What for order or degree?

"Let me screw thee up a peg:

Let me loose thy tongue with wine: Callest thou that thing a leg?

Which is thinnest? thine or mine?

"Thou shalt not be saved by works: Thou hast been a sinner too: Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows, I and you!

"Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn:

Every moment dies a man,

Every moment one is born.

"We are men of ruin'd blood;

Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies.

"Name and fame! to fly sublime

Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools, Is to be the ball of Time,

Bandied by the hands of fools.

"Friendship!—to be two in one-
Let the canting liar pack!
Well I know, when I am gone,
How she mouths behind my back.

"Virtue!-to be good and just— Every heart, when sifted well, Is a clot of warmer dust,

Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.

"O! we two as well can look
Whited thought and cleanly life
As the priest, above his book
Leering at his neighbor's wife.

"Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn:

Every moment dies a man,

Every moment one is born.

"Drink, and let the parties rave: They are fill'd with idle spleen; Rising, falling, like a wave,

For they know not what they mean.

"He that roars for liberty

Faster binds a tyrant's power;

And the tyrant's cruel glee

Forces on the frer hour.