For the sad congregation of supplicants there,
That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer;
And I ceased and they utter'd a moaning so deep,

That I wept for my heart-ease,-but they could not weep,
And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry,

At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye.

Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress,

I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress,
Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm,
And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm
Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate
From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate ;
So they passively bow'd-save the serpent, that leapt
To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept
In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd
My lips in rash love,-then drew backward, and glister'd
Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright,
Dropt down, and swift started away from my sight!

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot,
Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not,
When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces,
That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places,
And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet,
And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet :

But I fled-though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled
With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled,--
Though they call'd—and perchance but to ask, had I seen
Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been:
But I stay'd not to hear, lest the story should hold
Some hell form of words, some enchantment, once told,
Might translate me in fresh to a brute; and I dreaded
To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded
With some pity, and love in that pity perchance-
To a thing not all lovely; for once at a glance,
Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder
That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under
The long fenny grass,-with so lovely a breast,
Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?

So I roam'd in that circle of horrors, and Fear Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near

Cluster'd trees for their gloom-not to shelter from heat-
But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet;

And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face
In the horrible likeness of demons (that none
Could see, like invisible flames in the sun);
But grew to one monster that seized on the light,
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night;
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south;
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest,
Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West,
Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin,

Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight
Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light;
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close,
When they rush'd on that shadowy Python of foes,
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws,
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws,
And whirls of long tails ;—I have seen the quick flutter
Of fragments dissever'd-and necks stretch'd to utter
Long screamings of pain,-the swift motion of blows,
And wrestling of arms-to the flight at the close,
When the dust of the earth startled upwards in rings,
And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their wings.

Thus they fled-not forgotten-but often to grow
Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro
In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean
I knew not, nor whether the love I had won
Was of heaven or hell-till one day in the sun,
In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky,
Half-seen and half-dream'd, in the soul of his eye.
And when in my musings I gazed on the stream,
In motionless trances of thought, there would seem
A face like that face, looking upward through mine;
With its eyes full of love, and the dim drowned shine

Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue
Serene:-there I stood for long hours but to view
Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted
Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted
Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied
Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things That once had been wonders-the fishes with wings, And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup, And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam,

Slow winding along like a tide in the stream.

Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought
Held me dear in the pearl of her eye- and I brought
My wish to that fancy; and often I dash'd
My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd
The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink,
Chill'd by watery fears, how that beauty might sink
With my life in her arms to her garden and bind me
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear,
Like a spider-caught bee,—and in aid of that fear
Came the tardy remembrance-Oh falsest of men!
Why was not that beauty remembered till then?
My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run
Into mine-like a drop-that our fate might be one,
That now, even now,-may-be,-clasp'd in a dream,
That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream,
And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother
On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear, Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one That loved me,-but oh to fly from her, and shun

E

Her love like a pest—though her love was as true
To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue;

For why should I love her with love that would bring
All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing?
Because of her rival,-even Her whose witch-face

I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place
To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank,
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank;
Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail
To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale
Of Scylla, and Picus, imprison'd to speak
His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak.

Then they ceased-I had heard as the voice of my star
That told me the truth of my fortunes-thus far
I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush
Of deep meditation,--when lo! a light crush

Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the night
Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp'd of the light
Narrow-winking, the realised nymph of the stream,
Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam
Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing
Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing
In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll'd
Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold,
Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind,
Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined
In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal
The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal
The blue that was in them ;-they oped and she raised
Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed

With her eyes on my eyes; but their colour and shine
Was of that which they look'd on, and mostly of mine-
For she loved me,—except when she blush'd, and they sank
Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank,

Or her play-idle fingers while lisping she told me
How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me
Would wing through the sun till she fainted away
Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay
In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes
In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies.

But now they were healed,-O my heart it still dances
When I think of the charm of her changeable glances,
And my image how small when it sank in the deep
Of her eyes where her soul was,-Alas! now they weep,
And none kr. ɔweth where. In what stream do her eyes
Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs
Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf

She has pluck'd with her tresses? Who listens her grief
Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet
Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat
Them together? Ah! surely her flowers float adown
To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown
For need of her mercy,- -even he whose twin-brother
Will miss him for ever; and the sorrowful mother
Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss

And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is.
Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain!

We loved, how we loved!-for I thought not again

Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that place

If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face
Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown'd

For my absence,-her arms were the arms that sought round
And claspt me to nought; for I gazed and became
Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name
For two loves, and call'd ever on Ægle, sweet maid

Of the sky-loving waters,—and was not afraid
Of the sight of her skin;-for it never could be,
Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me!

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd space, Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face Had been with me for joy,—when she told me indeed Her love was self-tax'd with a work that would need Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty, Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep Of dreams,—but their meaning was hidden too deep