Ah! Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
We sit together now as then;
I press your hand, you meet my glance,
We seem as if we loved again.
But in my heart I feel the truth,

The dear old times have passed away :
The love that once possessed our souls
We do but simulate to-day.
Since last we met my Lady Vere,
You've grown in years and culture too,
And, putting childish things away,

Have ceased to be sincere and true, Naught caring for a single soul,

You spare no trouble, reck no pain, To add another name unto

The bead-roll of the hearts you've slain. To you, my Lady Vere de Vere,

What is it that a heart may break? You had no hazard in the game

He should have played with equal stake. You did but seek to while away

The slow hours of an idle night;
The fault lay with the fool who failed
To read your character aright.
But, Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You make your wares by far too cheap;
Your net claims all as fish that comes
Within the limit of its sweeps.
You sit beside me here to-day,,

You try to make me love again; But I am safe the while I think

You've sat thus with a scorn of men. Still, Lady Clara, Clara, dear,

Beneath your finished mask I see The gentle heart, the honest mind,

That made you once so dear to me. Your voice is still as sweet as then, Your face is still as pure and good: I see the graces of my love

All ripened in her womanhood. If some day, Clara Vere de Vere,

You weary of the counterfeit,
And look with yearning back upon

The old times linked with this seat-
If you would change your fleeting loves
For one true love for evermore,
Then we will come and see this place,
And sit together, as of yore.
But meanwhile, Lady Vere de Vere,

Of me win all renown you may;
A plaything fresh my heart for you,

A new world for your sovereign sway

Bring all your practised charms in play,
Shoot all your darts, they cannot hurt;
For when me meet I clothe me in
The proved chain-armor of a flirt.

THE VICTIM.

I.

A PLAGUE upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low,
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,

For on them brake the sudden foe;
So thick they died the people cried

The Gods are moved against the land."
The priest in horror about his altar
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand:

"Help us from famine
And plague and strife!
What would you have of us?
Human life?

Were it our nearest,
Were it our dearest,
(Answer, O answer)

We give you his life."

VI.

The rites prepared, the victim bared,
The knife uprising toward the blow,
To the altar-stone she sprang alone,

Me, not my darling, no!"

He caught her away with a sudden cry;
Suddenly from him brake the wife,
And shrieking „Iam his dearest, I-

I am his dearest!" rush'd on the knife.
And the Priest was happy,
,,O, Father Odin,

We give you a life.
Which was his nearest?
Which was his dearest?
The Gods have answered;
We give them the wife!"

LUCRETIUS. LUCILIA, wedded to Lucretius, found Her master cold; for when the morning flush Of passion and the first embrace had died Between them, tho' he loved her none the less, Yet often when the woman heard his foot Return from pacings in the field, and ran To greet him with a kiss, the master took Small notice, or austerely, for- his mind Half buried in some weightier argument, Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise And long roll of the Hexameter-he past To turn and ponder those three hundred (scrolls

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Left by the Teacher whom he held divine. She brook'd it not; but wrathful, petulant, Dreaming some rival, sought and found a (witch

Who brew'd the philtre which had power, (they said,

To lead an errant passion home again. And this, at times, she mingled with his (drink,

And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth Confused the chemic labour of the blood, And tickling the brute brain within the (man's

Made havock among those tender cells and (check'd

His power to shape: he loath'd himself; and (once

After a tempest woke upon a morn That mock'd him with returning calm, and (cried;

Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the (rain,

Rushing; and once the flash of a thunder(bolt

Methought I never saw so fierce a fork Struck out the streaming mountain-side, (and show'd

A riotous confluence of watercourses Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it, Where all but yester-eye was dusty-dry.

Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods (what dreams!

For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance
We do but recollect the dreams that come,
Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem'd
A void was made in Nature; all her bonds
Crack'd: and I saw the flaring atom-streams
And torrents of her myriad universe,
Ruining along the illimitable inane,
Fly on to clash together again, and make
Another and another frame of things
For ever: that was mine, my dream, I knew
(it

Of and belonging to me, as the dog

With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies His function of the woodland: but the next! I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed Came driving rainlike down again on earth, And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, (sprang

No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth, For these I thought my dream would show (to me,

But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art,
Hired animalisms, vile as those that made
The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worse
Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods.
And hands they mixt, and yell'd and round
(me drove

In narrowing circles till I yell'd again
Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw-
Was it the first beam of my latest day?

Then, then, from utter gloom stood out (the breasts,

The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword
Now over and now under, now direct,
Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down sha-
(med

At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire,
The fire that left a roofless Ilion,

Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I (woke,

,,Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine, Because I would not one of thine own doves, Not ev❜n a rose, were offer'd to thee? thine, Forgetful how my rich prooemion makes Thy glory fly along the Italian field, In lays that will outlast thy Deity?

,,Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these Angers thee most, or angers thee at all? Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof From envy, hate and pity, and spite and (scorn,

Live the great life which all our greatest fain Would follow, center'd in eternal calm.

,,Nay, if thou can'st, O Goddess, like our(selves

Touch, and be touch'd, then would I cry to (thee

To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms Round him, and keep him from the lust of (blood

That makes a steaming slaughter-house of (Rome.

"Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not (her,

Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and (tempt

The Trojan, while his neat-herds were (abroad;

Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept Her Deity false in human-amorous tears; Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter

Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods,
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called
Calliope to grace his golden verse-
Ay, and this Kypris also did I take
That popular name of thine to shadow forth
The all-generating powers and genial heat
Of Nature, when she strikes through the
(thick blood

Of cattle, and light is large and lambs are (glad

Nosing the mother's udder, and the bird Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of (flowers:

Which things appear the work of mighty (Gods.

The Gods! and if I go my work is left Unfinish'd-if I go. The Gods, who haunt The lucid interspace of world and world, Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a (wind,

Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,

Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm! and such,
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm,
Not such, nor all unlike it, man may gain
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Gods!
If all be atoms, how then should the Gods
Being atomic not be dissoluble,

Not follow the great law? My master held
That Gods there are, for all men so believe.
I prest my footsteps into his, and meant
Surely to lead my Memmius in a train
Of flowery clauses onward to the proof
That Gods there are, and deathless. Meant?
(I meant?

I have forgotten what I meant: my mind
Stumbles, and all my faculties are lamed.

"Look where another of our Gods, the Sun Apollo, Delius, or of older use

All-seeing Hyperion- what you willHad mounted yonder; since he never sware, Except his wrath were wreak'd on wretched (man,

That he would only shine among the dead Hereafter; tales! for never yet on earth Could dead flesh creep, or bits of roasting ox Moan round the spit -nor knows he what (he sees;

King of the East altho' he seem, and girt With song and flame and fragrance, slowly (lifts

His golden feet on those empurpled stairs

That climb into the windy halls of heaven:
And here he glances on an eye new-born,
And gets for greeting but a wail of pain;
And here he stays upon a freezing orb
That fain would gaze upon him to the last;
And here upon a yellow eyelid fall'n
And closed by those who mourn a friend in
(vain,

Not thankful that his troubles are no more.
And me, altho' his fire is on my face
Blinding, he sees not, nor at all can tell
Whether I mean this day to end myself,
Or lend an ear to Plato where he says,
#That men like soldiers may not quit the post
Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds
The Gods are careless, wherefore need he
(care

Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at once, Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and (sink

Past earthquake (that break

ay, and gout and stone,

Body toward death, and palsy, death-in-life, And wretched age- and worst disease of (all,

These prodigies of myriad nakednesses,
And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable,
Abominable, strangers at my hearth
Not welcome, harpies miring every dish,
The phantom husks of something foully
(done,

And fleeting thro' the boundless universe,
And blasting the long quiet of my breast
With animal heat and dire insanity?

„How should the mind, except it loved (them, clasp

These idols to herself? or do they fly
Now thinner, and now thicker, like the
(flakes

In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour
Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear
The keepers down, and throng, their rags
(and they,

The basest, far into that council-hall
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land?

Can I not fling this horror off me again, Seeing with how great ease Nature can (smile,

Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm,
At random ravage? and how easily
The mountain there has cast his cloudy
(slough,

"But who was he, that in the garden (snared

Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale
To laugh at more to laugh at in myself-
For look! what is it? there? yon arbutus
Totters; a noiseless riot underneath
Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops
(quivering -

The mountain quickens into Nymph and (Faun;

And here an Oread- how the sun delights To glance and shift about her slippery sides, And rosy knees and supple roundedness, And budded bosom-peaks - who this way (runs

Before the rest- A satyr, a satyr, see, Follows; but him I proved impossible; Twy-natured is no nature: yet he draws Nearer and nearer, and I scan him now Beastlier than any phantom of his kind That ever butted his rough brother-brute For lust or lusty blood or provender:

I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and she Loathes him as well; such a precipitate heel, Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle(wing,

Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself, Shameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot: (nay,

Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilder

(ness,

And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I (wish

What? - that the bush were leafless? or to (whelm

All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods,
I know you careless, yet, behold, to you
I thought I lived securely as yourselves
From childly wont and ancient use Ï call-
No lewdness,narrowing envy,monkey-spite,
No madness of ambition, avarice, none:
No larger feast than under plane or pine
With neighbours laid along the grass, to
(take

Only such cups as left us friendly-warm,
Affirming each his own philosophy
Nothing to mar the sober majesties
Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life.
But now it seems some unseen monster lays

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His vast and filthy hands upon my will,
Wrenching it backward into his; and spoils
My bliss in being; and it was not great;
For save when shutting reasons up
(rhythm,

in

Or Heliconian honey in living words,
To make a truth less harsh, I often grew
Tired of so much within our little life,
Or of so little in our little life-
Poor little life that toddles half an hour
Crown'd with a flower or two, and there
(an end-

And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade,
Why should I, beastlike as I find myself,
Not manlike end myself?-
Pour privilege —
What beast has heart to do it? And what
(man,

What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph (thus?

Not I; not he, who bears one name with her Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom (of kings,

When, brooking not the Tarquin in her (veins,

She made her blood in sight of Collatine

And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air, Spout from the maiden fountain in her

(heart.

And from it sprang the Commonwealth, (which breaks

As I am breaking now!

,,And therefore now Let her, that is the womb and tomb of all, Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart Those blind beginnings that have made (me man

That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel,
And numbs the Fury's singlet-snake, and
(plucks

The mortal soul from on immortal hell,
Shall stand: ay, surely: then it fails at last
And perishes as I must; for O Thou,
Passionless bride, divine Tranquility,
Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wise,
Who fail to find thee, being as thou art
Without one pleasure and without one pain,
Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine
Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus
I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not
How roughly men may woo thee so they
(win

- thus: the soul flies out and dies in Thus (the air."

With that he drove the knife into his side: She heard him raging, heard him fall; ran (in,

Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself
As having fail'd in duty to him, shriek'd
That she but meant to win him back, fell
(on him,

Clasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd; he answer'd,
(,,Care not thou!
Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well!"
My life is full of weary days,

But good things have not kept aloof,
Nor wandered into other ways:

I have not lack'd thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.
And now shake hands across the brink
Of that deep grave to which I go:
Shake hands once more: I cannot sink
So far far down, but I shall know
Thy voice, and answer from below.

THE CAPTAIN.
A LEGEND OF THE NAVY.

HE that only rules by terror

Doeth grievous wrong.
Deep as Hell I count his error.

Let him hear my song.
Brave the Captain was: the seamen
Made a gallant crew,
Gallant sons of English freemen,
Sailors bold and true.
But they hated his oppression,
Stern he was and rash;
So for every light transgression
Doom'd them to the lash.