The sense that every struggle brings defeat

Because Fate holds no prize to crown

success;

That all the oracles are dumb or cheat Because they have no secret to express;

That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain

Because there is no light beyond the curtain;

That all is vanity and nothingness.

Titanic from her high throne in the north, That City's sombre Patroness and Queen, In bronze sublimity she gazes forth

Over her Capital of teen and threne, Over the river with its isles and bridges, The marsh and moorland, to the stern rockridges,

Confronting them with a coeval mien.

The moving moon and stars from east to

west

Circle before her in the sea of air; Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest.

Her subjects often gaze up to her there : The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance,

The weak new terrors; all, renew'd assur

ance

And confirmation of the old despair.

LIFE'S HEBE

IN the early morning-shine
Of a certain day divine,
I beheld a Maiden stand
With a pitcher in her hand;
Whence she pour'd into a cup,
Until it was half fill'd up,
Nectar that was golden light
In the cup of crystal bright.

And the first who took the cup
With pure water fill'd it up;
As he drank then, it was more
Ruddy golden than before :
And he leap'd and danced and sang
As to Bacchie cymbals' clang.

But the next who took the cup With the red wine fill'd it up;

What he drank then was in hue
Of a heavy sombre blue :
First he reel'd and then he crept,
Then lay faint but never slept.

And the next who took the cup
With the white milk fill'd it up;
What he drank at first seem'd blood,
Then turn'd thick and brown as mud:
And he mov'd away as slow
As a weary ox may go.

But the next who took the cup
With sweet honey fill'd it up;
Nathless that which he did drink
Was thin fluid black as ink:
As he went he stumbled soon,
And lay still in deathlike swoon.

She the while without a word
Unto all the cup preferr'd;
Blandly smil'd and sweetly laugh'd
As each mingled his own draught.

And the next who took the cup
To the sunshine held it up,
Gave it back and did not taste;
It was empty when replaced :
First he bow'd a reverent bow,
Then he kiss'd her on the brow.

But the next who took the cup
Without mixture drank it up;
When she took it back from him
It was full unto the brim:
He with a right bold embrace
Kiss'd her sweet lips face to face.

Then she sang with blithest cheer:
Who has thirst, come here, come here!
Nectar that is golden light

In the cup of crystal bright,
Nectar that is sunny fire

Warm as warmest heart's desire:
Pitcher never lacketh more,
Arm is never tir'd to pour :
Honey, water, milk, or wine
Mingle with the draught divine,
Drink it pure, or drink it not ;
Each is free to choose his lot;
Am I old? or am I cold?
Only two have kiss'd me bold!

She was young and fair and gay As that young and glorious day.

FROM "HE HEARD HER SING"

AND thus all-expectant abiding I waited not long, for soon

A boat came gliding and gliding out in the light of the moon,

Gliding with muffled oars, slowly, a thin dark line,

Round from the shadowing shores into the silver shine

Of the clear moon westering now, and still drew on and on,

While the water before its prow breaking and glistering shone,

Slowly in silence strange; and the rower row'd till it lay

Afloat within easy range deep in the curve of the bay;

And besides the rower were two: a Woman, who sat in the stern,

And Her by her fame I knew, one of those fames that burn,

Startling and kindling the world, one whose

likeness we everywhere see; And a man reclining half-curl'd with an indolent grace at her knee, The Signor, lord of her choice; and he lightly touch'd a guitar;

A guitar for that glorious voice! Illumine the sun with a star!

She sat superb and erect, stately, all-happy,

serene,

Her right hand toying uncheck'd with the hair of that page of a Queen; With her head and her throat and her bust like the bust and the throat and the head

Of Her who has long been dust, of her who shall never be dead,

Preserv'd by the potent art made trebly potent by love,

While the transient ages depart from under the heavens above,

Preserv'd in the color and line on the canvas fulgently flung

By Him the Artist divine who triumph'd and vanish'd so young:

Surely there rarely hath been a lot more to be envied in life

Than thy lot, O Fornarina, whom Raphael's heart took to wife.

There was silence yet for a time save the

tinkling capricious and quaint, Then She lifted her voice sublime, no longer tender and faint,

Pathetic and tremulous, no! but firm as a column it rose,

Rising solemn and slow with a full rich swell to the close,

Firm as a marble column soaring with noble pride

In a triumph of rapture solemn to some Hero deified;

In a rapture of exultation made calm by its stress intense,

In a triumph of consecration and a jubilation immense.

And the Voice flow'd on and on, and ever it swell'd as it pour'd,

Till the stars that throbb'd as they shone seem'd throbbing with it in ac

cord;

Till the moon herself in my dream, still Empress of all the night,

Was only that voice supreme translated into pure light:

And I lost all sense of the earth though I still had sense of the sea;

And I saw the stupendous girth of a tree like the Norse World-Tree ; And its branches fill'd all the sky, and the deep sea water'd its root,

And the clouds were its leaves on high and the stars were its silver fruit; Yet the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon was the voice of the

song,

Through the vault of the firmament ring

ing and swelling resistlessly strong; And the whole vast night was a shell for that music of manifold might,

And was strain'd by the stress of the swell of the music yet vaster than night. And I saw as a crystal fountain whose shaft was a column of light

More high than the loftiest mountain ascend the abyss of the night;

And its spray fill'd all the sky, and the clouds were the clouds of its spray, Which glitter'd in star-points on high and fill'd with pure silver the bay; And ever in rising and falling it sang as it rose and it fell,

And the heavens with their pure azure walling all puls'd with the pulse of its swell,

For the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon was the voice of the

song

Through the vault of the firmament ringing and swelling ineffably strong;

And the waves of its blood seem'd to dash on the shore of the sky to the cope With the stress of the fire of a passion and yearning of limitless scope, Vast fire of a passion and yearning, keen torture of rapture intense,

A most unendurable burning consuming the soul with the sense :

"Love, love only, forever love with its torture of bliss;

All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one kiss:

Love, and ever love wholly; love in all time and all space ;

Life is consummate then solely in the death of a burning embrace."

PALERMO

FROM THE DISCIPLES "

Whosoe'er

Had look'd upon the glory of that day
In Sicily beneath the summer sun,
Would not have dream'd that Death was
reigning there

In shape so terrible ;- for all the road
Was like an avenue of Paradise,

Life, and full flame of loveliness of life. The red geraniums blaz'd in banks breasthigh,

And from the open doors in the white walls
Scents of magnolia and of heliotrope
Came to the street; filmy aurora-flowers
Open'd and died in the hour, and fell away
In many-color'd showers upon the ground;
Nebulous masses of the pale blue stars
Made light upon the darkness of the green,
Through openings in the thickets over-
arch'd;

Where roses, white and yellow and full

From the green sheath, till all the green was hid

By the white spread of giant-blowing wings.
In the cool shadow heaps of tuberose
Lay by the fountains in the market-place,
Among the purple fruit. The jalousies
Of the tall houses shut against the sun
Were wreath'd with trails of velvet-glossy
bells:

And here and there one had not been unclos'd

Yesterday, and the vivid shoots had run
Over it in a night, and seal'd it fast
With tendril, and bright leaf, and drops of
flower.

And in and out the balconies thin stems Went twisting, and the chains of passionflowers,

Bud, blossom, and phantasmal orb of fruit Alternate, swung, and lengthen'd every hour.

And fine-leav'd greenery crept from bower to bower

With thick white star-flakes scatter'd ; and

down

White waves forever over whitest limbs, That shine in multitudes amid the spray And sound of silver waters without end, Rolling and rising and showering suddenly.

There standing where the fig-trees made a shade

Close in the angle, he beheld the streets Stretch fourways to the beautiful great gates;

With all their burnish'd domes and carven

stones

In wavering color'd lines of light and shade.

And downwards, from the greatest of the gates,

Porta Felice, swept the orange-groves;
And avenues of coral-trees led down
In all their hanging splendors to the
shore ;

And out beyond them, sleeping in the light,
The islands, and the azure of the sea.
And upwards, through a labyrinth of
spires,

And turrets, and steep alabaster walls,
The city rose, and broke itself away
Amidst the forests of the hills, and reach'd
The heights of Monreale, crown'd with all
Its pinnacles and all its jewell'd fronts
Shining to seaward; - but the tolling bells
Out of the gilded minarets smote the

ear:

Until at last, through miles of shadowy air, The blue and violet mountains shut the

sky.

Thick and dewy and waxen-white,

Thou seest me golden, O golden Sun!