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A CHILD'S NOONDAY SLEEP.

Because you sleep, my child, with breathing light

As heave of the June sea,

Because your lips' soft petals dewy-bright

Dispart so tenderly ;

Because the slumbrous warmth is on your cheek

Up from the hushed heart sent,

And in this midmost noon when winds are weak

No cloud lies more content;

Because nor song of bird, nor lamb's keen call

May reach you sunken deep,

Because your lifted arm I thus let fall

Heavy with perfect sleep;

Because all will is drawn from you, all power,

And Nature through dark roots

Will hold and nourish you for one sweet hour

Amid her flowers and fruits;

Therefore though tempests gather, and the gale

Through autumn skies will roar,

Though Earth send up to heaven the ancient wail

Heard by dead Gods of yore;

Though spectral faiths contend, and for her course

The soul confused must try,

While through the whirl of atoms and of force

Looms an abandoned sky;

Yet, know I, Peace abides, of earth's wild things

Centre, and ruling thence;

Behold, a spirit folds her budded wings

In confident innocence.

IN THE GARDEN.

I. THE GARDEN.

Past the town's clamour is a garden full

Of loneness and old greenery; at noon

When birds are hushed, save one dim cushat's

croon,

A ripen'd silence hangs beneath the cool

Great branches; basking roses dream and drop
A petal, and dream still; and summer's boon
Of mellow grasses, to be levelled soon
By a dew-drenched scythe, will hardly stop
At the uprunning mounds of chesnut trees.
Still let me muse in this rich haunt by day,
And know all night in dusky placidness

It lies beneath the summer, while great ease
Broods in the leaves, and every light wind's stress
Lifts a faint odour down the verdurous way.

II. VISIONS.

Here I am slave of visions.

When noon heat

Strikes the red walls, and their environ'd air

Lies steep'd in sun; when not a creature dare
Affront the fervour, from my dim retreat

Where woof of leaves embowers a beechen seat,
With chin on palm, and wide-set eyes I stare,
Beyond the liquid quiver and the glare,

Upon fair shapes that move on silent feet.

Those Three strait-robed, and speechless as they

pass,

Come often, touch the lute, nor heed me more

Than birds or shadows heed; that naked child

Is dove-like Psyche slumbering in deep grass; Sleep, sleep,-he heeds thee not, yon Sylvan wild Munching the russet apple to its core.

III. AN INTERIOR.

The grass around my limbs is deep and sweet;
Yonder the house has lost its shadow wholly,
The blinds are dropped, and softly now and slowly
The day flows in and floats; a calm retreat

Of tempered light where fair things fair things

meet;

White busts and marble Dian make it holy,

Within a niche hangs Durer's Melancholy

Brooding; and, should you enter, there will greet
Your sense with vague allurement effluence faint
Of one magnolia bloom; fair fingers draw
From the piano Chopin's heart-complaint;
Alone, white-robed she sits; a fierce macaw
On the verandah, proud of plume and paint,
Screams, insolent despot, showing beak and claw.

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