THUNDER: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down.
Night east, west, south, and northward, very night.
Star upon struggling star strives into sight,
Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown.
The very throne of night, her very crown,

A man lays hand on, and usurps her right.
Song from the highest of heaven's imperious height
Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town.
Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime,
Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time

Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass
Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves.
Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves,
Shapes here and there of child and mother pass.

COXI.

ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF

THE JEWS.

(Written June 1882.)

O SON of man, by lying tongues adored,

By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod In carnage deep as ever Christian trod Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde, Brute worshippers of wielders of the rod,

Most murderous even of all that call thee God, Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;Face loved of little children long ago,

Head hated of the priests and rulers then,

If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine
Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,

Say, was not this thy Passion to foreknow

In death's worst hour the works of Christian men?

CCXII.

HOPE AND FEAR.

BENEATH the shadow of dawn's aerial cope,
With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere,
Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer
Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,

And makes for joy the very darkness dear

That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear
At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.
Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn,
May truth first purge her eyesight to discern

What once being known leaves time no power to appal;

Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn

The kind wise word that falls from years that fall'Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.'

OCXIII.

TO THE GENIUS OF ETERNAL SLUMBER

SLEEP, thou art named eternal! Is there then
No chance of waking in thy noiseless realm ?
Come there no fretful dreams to overwhelm
The feverish spirits of o'erlaboured men?

Shall conscience sleep where thou art; and shall pain
Lie folded with tired arms around her head;
And memory be stretched upon a bed

Of ease, whence she shall never rise again?
O Sleep, thou art eternal! Say, shall Love

Breathe like an infant slumbering at thy breast

Shall hope there cease to throb; and shall the smart Of things impossible at length find rest?

Thou answerest not. The poppy-heads above

Thy calm brows sleep. How cold, how still thou art !

CCXIV.

INEVITABLE CHANGE.

REBUKE me not! I have nor wish nor skill
To alter one hair's breadth in all this house
Of Love, rising with domes so luminous
And air-built galleries on life's topmost hill!
Only I know that fate, chance, years that kill,
Change that transmutes, have aimed their darts at us;
Envying each lovely shrine and amorous

Reared on earth's soil by man's too passionate will.

Dread thou the moment when these glittering towers, These adamantine walls and gates of gems,

Shall fade like forms of sun-forsaken cloud;

When dulled by imperceptible chill hours,

The golden spires of our Jerusalems

Shall melt to mist and vanish in night's shroud!