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CCXXV.

A DREAM OF EGYPT.

"Where's my Serpent of old Nile?"

NIGHT sends forth many an eagle-wingèd dream
To soar through regions never known by day;
And I by one of these was wrapt away

To where the sunburnt Nile, with opulent stream
Makes teem the desert sand. My pomp supreme

Enriched the noon; I spurned earth's common clay;
For I was Antony and by me lay

That Snake whose sting was bliss. Nations did seem But camels for the burden of our joy;

Kings were our slaves; our wishes glowed in the air

And grew fruition; night grew day, day night, Lest the high bacchanal of our loves should cloy; We reined the tiger, Life, with flower-crowned hair, Abashlessly abandoned to delight.

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CCXXVI.

IN THE LOUVRE.

A DINGY picture: others passed it by
Without a second glance. To me it seemed
Mine somehow, yet I knew not how, nor why:
It hid some mystic thing I once had dreamed,
As I suppose. A palace porch there stood,

With massy pillars and long front, where gleamed
Most precious sculptures; but all scarred and seamed
By ruining Time. There, in a sullen mood,
A man was pacing o'er the desolate floor
Of weedy marble; and the bitter waves

Of the encroaching sea crawled to his feet,
Gushing round tumbled blocks. I conned it o'er.
'Age-mouldering creeds!' said I, 'a dread sea raves
To whelm the temples of our fond conceit.'

CCXXVII.

WITCHES.

METHOUGHT I saw three sexless things of storm,
Like Macbeth's witches-creatures of the curse
That broods, the nightmare of the universe,
Over the womb and mortal births of form;
And cloudlike in their train a vampyre swarm

Of hovering ills, each than the other worse, Letcheries and hates that make this world a hearse Wherein the heart of life is coffined warm.

Said the First Witch: "I am Lust, the worm that feeds

Upon the buds of love;" the Second said:

"I am the tyrant's tyrant, cruel Fear;'

The Third: "I am the blight of evil deeds,

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The murrain of sick souls," and in my ear Whispered a name of paralysing dread.

CCXXVIII.

THE HEART'S SACREDNESS.

A WRETCHED thing it were to have our heart
Like a broad highway or a populous street,
Where every idle thought has leave to meet,
Pause or pass on as in an open mart;
Or like some roadside post, which no nice art
Has guarded that the cattle may not beat
And foul it with a multitude of feet,

Till of the heavens it can give back no part.
But keep thou thine a holy solitude,

For He who would walk there would walk alone; He who would drink there must be first endued

With single right to call that stream his own; Keep thou thine heart close fastened, unrevealed, A fenced garden and a fountain sealed.

CCXXIX.

VESUVIUS, AS SEEN FROM CAPRI.

A WREATH of light blue vapour, pure and rare, Mounts, scarcely seen against the bluer sky, In quiet adoration, silently,

Till the faint currents of the upper air Disdain it, and it forms, dissolving there, The dome, as of a palace, hung on high Over the mountain :-underneath it lie Vineyards, and bays, and cities white and fair. Might we not hope this beauty would engage All living things into one pure delight? A vain belief;-for here, our records tell, Rome's understanding tyrant, from men's sight Hid, as within a guilty citadel,

The shame of his dishonourable age.

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