Trembling about a pale arbutus bell,

Probing to wildering depths its honeyed cell,-
A noonday thief, a downy sensualist!

Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath,
Strikest ambrosia from the cool-cupped flowers,
And flutterest through the soft, uncounted hours,
To drop at last in unawaited death; ·

'T is something to be glad! and those fine thrills
Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile
Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills,
If ill have any part in thee; erewhile

May the pent force - thy bounded life
Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy!

-set free,

Emily Pfeiffer (1827-1890).

TO NATURE

BLIND Cyclops, hurling stones of destiny,
And not in fury!-working bootless ill,

In mere vacuity of mind and will

Man's soul revolts against thy work and thee!
Slaves of a despot, conscienceless and nil,

Slaves, by mad chance befooled to think them free,
We still might rise, and with one heart agree
To mar the ruthless grinding of thy mill!

Dead tyrant, tho' our cries and groans pass by thee,
Man, cutting off from each new "tree of life"
Himself, its fatal flower, could still defy thee,
In waging on thy work eternal strife,
The races come and coming evermore,
Heaping with hecatombs thy dead-sea shore.

Emily Pfeiffer.

AD MATREM

MARCH 13, 1862

OFT in the after-days, when thou and I Have fallen from the cope of human view, When, both together, under the sweet sky We sleep beneath the daisies and the dew, Men will recall thy gracious presence bland, Conning the pictured sweetness of thy face; Will pore o'er paintings by thy plastic hand, And vaunt thy skill, and tell thy deeds of grace. Oh may they then, who crown thee with true bays, Saying, "What love unto her son she bore!" Make this addition to thy perfect praise, "Nor ever yet was mother worshipped more!" So shall I live with thee, and thy dear fame Shall link my love unto thine honoured name. Julian Henry Fane (1827-1870).

A SONNET IS A MOMENT'S MONUMENT1

A SONNET is a moment's monument,

Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To the one deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral right or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The soul, its converse to what Power 't is due:
Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve: or 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882).

The eight sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti are reprinted from his Complete Poetical Works, published by Little, Brown & Company.

LOVE SIGHT

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

THE DARK GLASS

NOT I myself know all my love for thee:
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?

Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;
And shall my sense pierce love, the last relay
And ultimate outpost of eternity?

Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, -
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.

Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call
And veriest touch of powers primordial

That any hour-girt life may understand.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

THE SONG-THROE

By thine own tears thy song must tears beget,
O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none
Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own
Anguish or ardor, else no amulet.

Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet

Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry

Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh, That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet.

The Song-god He the Sun-god

is no slave

Of thine: thy Hunter he, who for thy soul

Fledges his shaft: to no august control

Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave:
But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart,

The inspir'd recoil shall pierce thy brother's heart.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

THE HEART OF THE NIGHT

FROM child to youth; from youth to arduous man;
From lethargy to fever of the heart;

From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart;
From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;
Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran
Till now. Alas, the soul! → how soon must she
Accept her primal immortality, -

The flesh resume its dust whence it began!
O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life!
O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late,
Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath:
That when the peace is garnered in from strife,
The work retrieved, the will regenerate,
This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

SOUL'S BEAUTY

UNDER the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,

The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw,
By sea or sky or woman, to one law,

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.
This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise

Thy voice and hand shake still long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem, - the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,

How passionately and irretrievably,

In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

LOST DAYS

THE lost days of my life until to-day,

What were they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway?
I do not see them here; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see,

Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
"I am thyself, what hast thou done to me?"
"And I and I thyself," (lo! each one saith,)

"And thou thyself to all eternity!"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.