To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear lory, may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain,

As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had mark'd their thief to know again.
Stay longer yet, for others' sake

Than mine! What should your chamber do?

With all its rarities that ache

In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you

Who brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur, wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on

And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that rob'd counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he sign'd a document
That got him murder'd! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up: so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say, Is used to tie the jasmine back

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX"

[16-]

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I gallop'd, Dirck gallop'd, we gallop'd all three;

"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ;

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we gallop'd abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turn'd in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shorten'd each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chain'd slacker the bit,

Nor gallop'd less steadily Roland a whit.

'T was moonset at starting; but while we drew near

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawn'd clear;

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stood up in the stirrup, lean'd, patted his

Lost all the others she lets us devote; They, with the gold to give, dol'd him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allow'd; How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had lov'd him so, follow'd him, honor'd him,

Liv'd in his mild and magnificent eye, Learn'd his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declin'd, one more footpath untrod,

One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,

Forced praise on our part - the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,

Pardon'd in heaven, the first by the throne!

YOUTH AND ART

IT once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumb'd, thrust, patted and polish'd, Then laugh'd, "They will see, some day, Smith made, and Gibson demolish'd."

My business was song, song, song;

I chirp'd, cheep'd, trill'd and twitter'd, "Kate Brown 's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embitter'd!"

I earn'd no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster;
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipp'd each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, look'd out on the tiles,

For fun, watch'd each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse - nay, a bit of beard too ;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adher'd to.

And I — soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind

And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault

If you never turn'd your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt,

Or ran the chromatic scale up :

For spring bade the sparrows pair,
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street look'd rare
With bulrush and watercresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power

Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush he sings each song twice over

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower, Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

A FACE

IF one could have that little head of hers!

Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless
mould

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft

In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,

For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, lean'd its

staff's

Burthen of honey-color'd buds to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

By the many hundred years red-rusted,
Rough iron-spik'd, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands

To the water's edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,
And says there 's news to-day- the king
Was shot at, touch'd in the liver-wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:

- She hopes they have not caught the felons. Italy, my Italy!

Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice

Lost her Calais)

Open my heart and you will see
Grav'd inside of it, “Italy.”

Such lovers old are I and she:
So it always was, so shall ever be.