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On, chariot—on, soul,

Ye are all the more fleet—

Be alone at the goal

Of the strange and the sweet!

Love as, God! love us, man! We believe, we achieve— Let ns love, let us live, For the acts correspond— We are glorious—and Dik! And again on the knee of a mild Mystery

That smiles with a change,

Here we lie!

O Death. O Bevond,
Thou art sweet, thou art strange!

THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS.

I Would build a cloudy House

For my thoughts to live in: When for earth too fancy-loose,

And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud—

I build it bright to see,—
I build it on the moonlit cloud

To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey.

Faced with amber column. Crowned with crimson cupola

From a sunset solemn I May-mists, for the casements, fetch,

Pale and glimmering; With a sunbeam hid in each,

And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,

Darkening and then brightening. Of a riven thunder-cloud,

Veined by the lightning. Use one with an iris-stain

For the door within; Turning to a sound like rain

As we enter in.

Build a spacious hall thereby:

Boldly, never fearing.
Use the blne place of the sky

Which the wind is clearing;
Branched with corridors sublime,

Flecked with winding stairs—

I Such as children wish to climb.
Following their own prayers.

In the mutest of the house,

I will have my chamber: Silence at the door shall use

Evening's light of amber, Solemnising every mood,

Softening in degree, Turning sadness into good

As I turn the key.

! Be my chamber tapestried

With the showers of summer, Close, but soundless,—glorified

When the sunbeams come here; Wandering harper, harping on

Waters stringed for such, Drawing colour for a tune,

With a vibrant touch,

Bring a shadow green and sti'.l

From the chestnut forest, Bring a purple from the hill.

When the heat is sorest; Spread them out from wall to wall,

Carpet-wove around, Whereupon the foot shall fall

In light instead of sound.

Bring the fantastic cloudlets home

From the noontide zenith; Range for sculptures round the room

Named as Fancy weeneth: Some be Junos, without eyes;

Naiads, without sources; Some be birds of paradise.

Some, Olympian horses.

Bring the dews the birds shake off,

Waking in the hedges,— Those too, perfumed for a proof,

From the lilies' edges: From our England's field and moor.

Bring them calm and white in; Whence to form a mirror pure

For love's self-delighting.

Bring a grey cloud from the east
Where the lark is singing;

Something of the song at least,
Unlost in the bringing:

That shall be a morning chair.
Poet-dream may sit in.

When it leans out on the air,
Unrbymed and unwritten.

Bring the red cloud from the sun!

• While he sinketh, catch it. That shall be a couch,—with one

Sidelong star to watch it,—
Fit for poet's finest thought

At the curfew-sounding.
Things unseen being nearer brought

Than the seen, around him.

Poet's thought,—not poet's sigh*-.

'Las, they come together! Cloudy walls divide and fly.

As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud.

Structure bright to see—
Gone !—except that moonlit cloud,

To which I looked with thee!

Let them! Wipe such visionings

From the Fancy's cartel— Love secures some fairer things

Dowered with his immortal. The sun may darken, — heaven be bowed—

But still unchanged shall be,— Here in my soul,—that moonlit cloud.

To which I looked with Thee!

CATARINA TO CAMOENS.

Dying in his absence abroad, and referring to the poem in tvhich he recorded the sweetness of her eyes.

On the door you will not enter,

I have gazed too long—adieu! Hope withdraws her peradventure— Death is near me,—and not you! Come, O lover! Close and cover These poor eyes, you called, I ween, 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

When I heard you sing that burden

In my vernal days and bowers,
Other praises disregarding,
I but hearkened that of yours,—

Only saying

In heart-playing, 'Blessed eyes mine eyes have been. If the sweetest, His have seen!'

But all changes. At this vesper,

Cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper * Love, I love you,' as before,— Death pervading Now, and shading Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, As the sweetest ever seen?

Yes! I think, were you beside them,

Near the bed I die upon,— Though their beauty you denied them, As you stood there looking down, You would truly Call them duly. For the love's sake found therein,— 'Sweetest eyes were ever seen.'

And if you looked down upon them,

And if they looked up to you. All the light which has foregone them Would be gathered back anew! They would tndy Be as duly Love-transformed to Beauty's sheen,— 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

But, ah me! you only see me

In your thoughts of loving man,
Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy
Through the wavings of my fan,—
And unweeting
Go repeating,
In your reverie serene,
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

While my spirit leans and reaches

From my body still and pale.
Fain to hear what tender speech is
In your love to help my bale—
O my poet
Come and show it!
Come, of latest love to glean
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

O my poet, O my prophet.

When you praised their sweetness so. Did you think, in singing of it.

That it might be near to go?

Had you fancies

From their glances,
That the grave would quickly screen
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen?"

No reply! The fountains warble
In the court-yard sounds alone:
As the water to the marble
So my heart falls with a moan,
From love-sighing
To this dying!
Death forerunneth Love, to win

* Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

Will you come? when I'm departed

Where all sweetnesses are hid—
When thy voice, my tender-hearted.
Will not lift up either lid,
Cry, O lover,
Love is over!
Cry beneath the cypress green—
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

When the angelus is ringing.

Near the convent will you walk. And recall the choral singing

Which brought angels down our talk? Spirit-shriven I viewed Heaven, Till you smiled—' Is earth unclean, Sweetest eyes, were ever seen?'

When beneath the palace-lattice.

You ride slow as you have done, And you see a face there—that is Not the old familiar one,— Will you oftly Murmur softly, 'Here, ye watched me morn and e'en. Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!'

When the palace ladies sitting

Round your gittern, shall have said,

* Poet, sing those verses written

For the lady who is dead,'

Will you tremble,

Yet dissemble,— Or sing hoarse, with tears between, 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen V

Sweetest eyes! How sweet in flowings,

The repeated cadence is!
Though you sang a hundred poems,

Still the best one would be this.

I can hear it

'Twixt my spirit
And the earth noise intervene—
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

But the priest waits for the praying,
And the choir are on their knees.
And the soul must pass away in

Strains more solemn high than these!
Miserere
For the weary—
Oh, no longer for Catrine,
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!'

Keep my rihand, take and keep it,
I have loosed it from my hair ;*
Feeling, while you overweep it.
Not alone in your despair,
Since with saintly
Watch, unfaintly,
Out of Heaven shall o'er you lean
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

But—but now—yet unremoved

Up to Heaven, they glisten fast:
You may cast away, Beloved,
In your future all my past;
Such old phrases
May be praises
For some fairer bosom-queen—
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!'

Eyes of mine, what aie ye doing?

Faithless, faithless—praised amiss
If a tear be of your showing.
Drop for any hope of HtS!
Death hath boldness
Besides coldness.
If unworthy tears demean
'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.'

I will look out to his future—

I will bless it till it shine:
Should he ever be a suitor
Unto sweeter eyes than mine.
Sunshine gild them,
Angels shield them.
Whatsoever eyes terrene
Be the sweetest His have seen!

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WINE OF CYPRUS.

Given to me by H. S. Boyd, Esq., author of " Select Passages from the Greek Fathers" etc., to whom these stanzas are addressed.

If old Bacchus were the speaker

He would tell you with a sigh, Of the Cyprus in this beaker

I am sipping like a fly,— Like a fly or gnat on Ida

At the hour of goblet-pledge, By Queen Juno brushed aside, a

Full white arm-sweep, from the edge.

Sooth, the drinking should be ampler

When the drink is so divine; And some deep-mouthed Greek exemplar

Would become your Cyprus wine; Cyclops' mouth would plunge aright in,

While his one eye over-leered— Nor too large were mouth of Titan,

Drinking rivers down his beard.

Pan might dip his head so deep in
That his ears alone pricked out;

Fauns around him, pressing, leaping.
Each one pointing to his throat:

While the Naiads like Bacchantes,
Wild, with urns thrown out to waste,

Cry—' O earth, that thou wouldst grant us

Springs to keep, of such a taste!'

But for me, I am not wortby
After gods and Greeks to drink;

And my lips are pale and eartby
To go bathing from this brink I

Since you heard them speak the last time.

They have faded from their blooms; And the laughter of my pastime Has learnt silence at the tombs.

Ah, my friend! the antique drinkers Crowned the cup and crowned the brow:

Can I answer the old thinkers

In the forms they thought of, now?

Who will fetch from garden closes Some new garlands while I speak?

That the forehead, crowned with roses, May strike scarlet down the cheek 1

Do not mock me! with my mortal.

Suits no wreath again, indeed! I am sad-voiced as the turtle

Which Anacreon used to feed: Yet as that same bird demurely

Wet her beak in cup of his. So, without a garland, surely

I may touch the brim of this.

Go !—let others praise the Chian !—

This is soft as Muses' string—
This is tawny as Rhea's lion.

This is rapid r.s its spring.
Bright as Paphia's eyes e'er met as.

Light as ever trod her feet!
And the brown bees of Hymettus

Make their honey not so sweet.

Very copious are my praises,

Though I sip it like a fly !— Ah—but, sipping—times and places

Change before me suddenly— As Ulysses' old libation

Drew the ghosts from every part, So your Cyprus wine, dear Grecian,

Stirs the Hades of my heart.

And I think of those long mornings,

Which my Thought goes far to seek. When, betwixt the folio's turnings,

Solemn flowed the rbythmic Greek. Past the pane the mountain spreading.

Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise, While a girlish voice was reading,

Somewhat low for az's and oi's.

Then what golden hours were for us !—

While we sate together there, How the white vests of the chorus

Seemed to wave up a live air! How the cothurns trod majestic

Down the deep iambic lines: And the rolling anapaestic

Curled like vapor over shrines!

Oh, our /Escbylus, the thunderous!

How he drove the bolted breath Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous

In the gnarled oak beneath. Oh, our Sophocles, the royal,

Who was born to monarch's place— And who made the whole world loyal,

Less by kingly power than grace.

Our Euripides, the human—

With his droppings of warm tears; And his touches of things common.

Till they rose to touch the spheres! Our Theocritus, our Bion,

And our Pindar's shining goals!— These were cup-bearers undying,

Of the wine that's meant for souls.

And my Plato, the divine one.

If men know the gods aright By their motions as they shine on

With a glorious trail of light! And your noble Christian bishops,

Who mouthed grandly the last Greek: Though the sponges on their hyssops

Were distent with wine—too weak.

Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him

As a liberal mouth of gold; And your Basil, you upraised him

To the height of speakers old: And we both praised Heliodorus

For his secret of pure lies ;— Who forged first his linked stories

In the heat of lady's eyes.

And we both praised your Synesius,

For the fire shot up his odes: Though the Church was scarce propitious

As he whistled dogs and gods. And we both praised Nazianzen,

For the fervid heart and speech: Only I eschewed his glancing

At the lyre hung out of reach.

Do you mind that deed of Ate,

•Which you bound me to so fast,— Reading "De Virginitate,"

From the first line to the last? How I said at ending, solemn,

As l turned and looked at you. That St. Simeon on the column

Had had somewhat less to do?

For we sometimes gently wrangled

Very gently, be it said.
For our thoughts were disentangled

By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions

On the nobler fames of old— Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons

Stained the purple they would fold.

For the rest—a mystic moaning,

Kept Cassandra at the gate, With wild eyes the vision shone in

And wide nostrils scenting fate. And Prometheus, bound in passion

By brute Force to the blind stone. Showed us looks of invocation

Turned to ocean and the sun.

And Medea we saw burning

At her nature's planted stake: And proud OZdipus, fate-scorning

While the cloud came on to break— While the cloud came on slow—slower

Till he stood discrowned, resigned! But the reader's voice dropped lower

When the poet called him Blind!

Ah, my gossip! you were older.

And more learned, and a man! Yet that shadow—the enfolder

Of your quiet eyelids—ran Both our spirits to one level;

And I turned from hill ana lea And the summer-suns green revel,

To your eyes that could not see.

Now Christ bless you with the one light

Which goes shining night and day! May the flowers which grow in sunlight

Shed their fragrance in your way! Is it not right to remember

All your kindness, friend of mine, When we two sat in the chamber.

And the poets poured us wine?

So, to come hack to the drinking

Of this Cyprus !—it is well—
But those memories, to my thinking,

Make a better cenomel:
And whoever be the speaker.

None can murmur with a sigh That, in drinking from that beaker,

I am sipping like a fly.

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