ing hands

And cries about the banquet - "Beau

tiful!

Who could desire more beauty at a feast?"

The lover answer'd, "There is more than one

Here sitting who desires it. Laud me not Before my time, but hear me to the close. This custom steps yet further when the

guest

Is loved and honor'd to the uttermost.
For after he has shown him gems or gold,
He brings and sets before him in rich guise
That which is thrice as beautiful as these,
The beauty that is dearest to his heart-
O my heart's lord, would I could show
you,' he says,

'Ev'n my heart too.' And I propose tonight

To show you what is dearest to my heart, And my heart too.

"But solve me first a doubt. I knew a man, nor many years ago; He had a faithful servant, one who loved His master more than all on earth beside. He falling sick, and seeming close on death,

His master would not wait until he died, But bade his menials bear him from the door,

And leave him in the public way to die.
I knew another, not so long ago,
Who found the dying servant, took him
home,

And fed, and cherish'd him, and saved his life.

I ask you now, should this first master claim

His service, whom does it belong to? him Who thrust him out, or him who saved his life?"

By all the laws of love and gratefulness, The service of the one so saved was due All to the saver - adding, with a smile, The first for many weeks a semi-smile As at a strong conclusion- "body and soul

-

And life and limbs, all his to work his will."

Then Julian made a secret sign to me To bring Camilla down before them all. And crossing her own picture as she came, And looking as much lovelier as herself Is lovelier than all others on her head A diamond circlet, and from under this A veil, that seem'd no more than gilded

air,

Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze With seeds of gold — so, with that grace of hers,

Slow-moving as a wave against the wind, That flings a mist behind it in the sun And bearing high in arms the mighty babe,

The younger Julian, who himself was crown'd

With roses, none so rosy as himself—
And over all her babe and her the jewels
Of many generations of his house
Sparkled and flash'd, for he had decked
them out

As for a solemn sacrifice of love —
So she came in : - I am long in telling it.
I never yet beheld a thing so strange,
Sad, sweet, and strange together—floated
in,

While all the guests in mute amazement rose,

And slowly pacing to the middle hall, Before the board, there paused and stood,

her breast

Then taking his dear lady by one hand, And bearing on one arm the noble babe, He slowly brought them both to Lionel. And there the widower husband and dead wife

Rush'd each at each with a cry, that rather seem'd

For some new death than for a life renew'd;

At this the very babe began to wail; At once they turn'd, and caught and brought him in

To their charm'd circle, and, half-killing him

With kisses, round him closed and claspt again.

But Lionel, when at last he freed himself From wife and child, and lifted up a face All over glowing with the sun of life, And love, and boundless thanks

sight of this

the

So frighted our good friend, that turning to me

And saying, "It is over: let us go' There were our horses ready at the doorsWe bade them no farewell, but mounting these

He past for ever from his native land; | And I with him, my Julian, back to mine.

THE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains

Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems?

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,

we not live in dreams?

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

reason why ;

For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I"?

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou

fulfillest thy doom, Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom.

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and
Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer

than hands and feet.

God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice,

For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice.

Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool;

For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool;

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision were it not He?

ulant,

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

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

"Storm, and what dreams, ye Gods, what dreams! For thrice I waken'd after dreams.

chance

"Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus,

thine,

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 atomstreams

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

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 thro' 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: