III. ANTINOUS CROWNED AS BACCHUS.

(In the British Museum.)

Who crowned thy forehead with the ivy-wreath
And clustered berries burdening the hair?
Who gave thee godhood, and dim rites? Beware
O beautiful, who breathest mortal breath,
Thou delicate flame great gloom environeth!
The gods are free, and drink a stainless air,
And lightly on calm shoulders they upbear
A weight of joy eternal, nor can Death

Cast o'er their sleep the shadow of her shrine.
O thou confessed too mortal by the o'er-fraught
Crowned forehead, must thy drooped eyes ever see
The glut of pleasure, those pale lips of thine
Still suck a bitter-sweet satiety,

Thy soul descend through cloudy realms of thought?

IV. LEONARDO'S " MONNA LISA."

Make thyself known, Sibyl, or let despair

Of knowing thee be absolute; I wait

Hour-long and waste a soul. What word of fate

Hides 'twixt the lips which smile and still forbear?

Secret perfection! Mystery too fair!

Tangle the sense no more lest I should hate

Thy delicate tyranny, the inviolate

Poise of thy folded hands, thy fallen hair.

Nay, nay, I wrong thee with rough words; still be

Serene, victorious, inaccessible;

Still smile but speak not; lightest irony

Lurk ever 'neath thine eyelids' shadow; still

O'ertop our knowledge; Sphinx of Italy,

Allure us and reject us at thy will!

V. ST LUKE PAINTING THE VIRGIN.

(By Van der Weyde.)

It was Luke's will; and she, the mother-maid,

Would not gainsay; to please him pleased her

best;

See, here she sits with dovelike heart at rest

Brooding, and smoothest brow; the babe is laid On lap and arm, glad for the unarrayed

And swatheless limbs he stretches; lightly pressed

By soft maternal fingers the full breast

Seeks him, while half a sidelong glance is stayed

By her own bosom and half passes down

To reach the boy. Through doors and window

frame

Bright airs flow in; a river tranquilly

Washes the small, glad Netherlandish town.
Innocent calm! no token here of shame,

A pierced heart, sunless heaven, and Calvary.

ON THE HEIGHTS.

Here are the needs of manhood satisfied!

Sane breath, an amplitude for soul and sense,

The noonday silence of the summer hills,

And this embracing solitude; o'er all

The sky unsearchable, which lays its claim,—
A large redemption not to be annulled,—
Upon the heart; and far below, the sea
Breaking and breaking, smoothly, silently.
What need I any further? Now once more
My arrested life begins, and I am man
Complete with eye, heart, brain, and that within
Which is the centre and the light of being;
O dull! who morning after morning chose
Never to climb these gorse and heather slopes
Cairn-crowned, but lost within one seaward nook
Wasted my soul on the ambiguous speech

And slow eye-mesmerism of rolling waves,

Courting oblivion of the heart. True life
That was not which possessed me while I lay
Prone on the perilous edge, mere eye and ear,
Staring upon the bright monotony,

Having let slide all force from me, each thought
Yield to the vision of the gleaming blank,

Each nerve of motion and of sense grow numb, Till to the bland persuasion of some breeze, Which played across my forehead and my hair, The last volition would efface itself,

And I was mingled wholly in the sound

Of tumbling billow and upjetting surge,

Long reluctation, welter and refluent moan,

And the reverberating tumultuousness

'Mid shelf and hollow and angle black with spray.

Yet under all oblivion there remained

A sense of some frustration, a pale dream

Of Nature mocking man, and drawing down,

As streams draw down the dust of gold, his will,

His thought and passion to enrich herself

The insatiable devourer.