CCXL.

FORESHADOWINGS.

(THE STARS IN THE RIVER)

THE mirrored stars lit all the bulrush spears,
And all the flags and broad-leaved lily-isles ;
The ripples shook the stars to golden smiles,
Then smoothed them back to happy golden spheres,
We rowed-we sang; her voice seemed, in mine ears
An angel's, yet with woman's dearest wiles ;
But shadows fell from gathering cloudy piles
And ripples shook the stars to fiery tears.

God shaped the shadows like a phantom boat Where sate her soul and mine in Doom's attire ; Along the lily-isles I saw it float

Where ripples shook the stars to symbols dire; We wept-we kissed, while starry fingers wrote, And ripples shook the stars to a snake of fire.

CCXLI.

THE HEAVEN THAT WAS.

(A sleepless night in Venice.)

WHEN Hope lies dead—Ah, when 'tis death to live,
And wrongs remembered make the heart still bleed,
Better are Sleep's sweet lies for Life's blind need
Than truth, if lies a little peace can give;
A little peace! 'tis thy prerogative

O sleep to lend it; thine to quell or feed
This love that starves-this starving soul's long
greed,

And bid Regret, the queen of hell, forgive.

Yon moon that mocks me thro' the uncurtained glass
Recalls that other night, that other moon,
That hour with her along the grey lagoon,
The voices from the lantern'd gondolas,

The kiss, the breath, the flashing eyes, the swoon Of throbbing stillness: all the heaven that was!

CCXLII.

NATURA BENIGNA.

WHAT power is this? what witchery wins my feet To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow, All silent as the emerald gulfs below,

Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat? What thrill of earth and heaven-most wild,

most sweet

What answering pulse that all the senses know, Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet?

Mother, 'tis' I once more: I know thee well, Yet that throb comes, an ever-new surprise! O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies! Dumb mother, struggling with the years to tell The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes!

COXLIII.

NATURA MALIGNA.

THE Lady of the Hills with crimes untold
Followed my feet, with azure eyes of prey;
By glacier brink she stood,-by cataract spray,—
When mists were dire, or avalanche-echoes rolled.
At night she glimmered in the death-wind cold,

And if a foot-print shone at break of day,

My flesh would quail but straight my soul would say: 'Tis her's whose hand God's mightier hand doth hold.

I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was bright,
Her icicle-arch across the sheer crevasse,

When lo, she stood! . . . God bade her let me pass;
Then fell the bridge; and, in the sallow light
Adown the chasm, I saw her cruel-white,

And all my wondrous days as in a glass.

COXLIV.

THE DAMSEL OF THE PLAIN.

CHILDE ROWLAND found a Damsel on the Plain,
Her daffodil crown lit all her shining head;

He kissed her mouth and through the world they sped,
The beauteous shining world in sun and rain.

But, when long joys made love a golden chain,
He slew her by the sea; then, as he fled,
Voices of earth and air and ocean said:
'The maid was Truth: God bids you meet again.'

Between the devil and a deep dark sea

He met a foe more soul-compelling still; A feathered snake the monster seemed to be, And wore a wreath o' the yellow daffodil. Then spake the devil: Rowland, fly to me:

When murdered Truth returns she comes to kill.'