For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
       Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
  Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
       Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
  Search narrowly the lines!–they hold a treasure
       Divine–a talisman–an amulet
  That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure–
       The words–the syllables! Do not forget
  The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
       And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
  Which one might not undo without a sabre,
       If one could merely comprehend the plot.
  Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
       Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
  Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
       Of poets by poets–as the name is a poet’s, too.
  Its letters, although naturally lying
       Like the knight Pinto–Mendez Ferdinando–
  Still form a synonym for Truth–Cease trying!
       You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

  _No more!_ alas, that magical sad sound
    Transforming all! Thy charms shall please _no more_–
  Thy memory _no more!_ Accursed ground
    Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
  O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
    “Isola d’oro! Fior di Levante!”

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, –
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, “But the forty?
Did they come back no more?”

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller’s eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.

Nec tantum prodere vati,
Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.
LUCAN, Phars. v. 176.

How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,
With lips of lurid blue,
The other glowing like the vital morn,                              
When throned on ocean’s wave
It breathes over the world:
Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,                          
To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,                   
Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
Nor putrefaction’s breath
Leave aught of this pure spectacle
But loathsomeness and ruin?–                                       
Spare aught but a dark theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
To watch their own repose?                                          
Will they, when morning’s beam
Flows through those wells of light,
Seek far from noise and day some western cave,
Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds
A lulling murmur weave?–                                           
Ianthe doth not sleep
The dreamless sleep of death:
Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
Or mark her delicate cheek                                          
With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
Outwatching weary night,
Without assured reward.
Her dewy eyes are closed;
On their translucent lids, whose texture fine              
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
With unapparent fire,
The baby Sleep is pillowed:
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom’s stainless pride,                                        
Twining like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound?
‘Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
Around a lonely ruin                                                
When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
In whispers from the shore:
‘Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
The genii of the breezes sweep.                              
Floating on waves of music and of light,
The chariot of the Daemon of the World
Descends in silent power:
Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of day                
When evening yields to night,
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
Its transitory robe.
Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light         
Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
Their wings of braided air:
The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car
Gazed on the slumbering maid.
Human eye hath ne’er beheld                                  
A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o’er the maiden’s charmed sleep
Waving a starry wand,
Hung like a mist of light.
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds 
Of wakening spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
Maiden, the world’s supremest spirit
Beneath the shadow of her wings
Folds all thy memory doth inherit                                
From ruin of divinest things,
Feelings that lure thee to betray,
And light of thoughts that pass away.
For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
The truths which wisest poets see                                
Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
Rewarding its own majesty,
Entranced in some diviner mood
Of self-oblivious solitude.

Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;            
From hate and awe thy heart is free;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
For dark and cold mortality
A living light, to cheer it long,
The watch-fires of the world among.                            

Therefore from nature’s inner shrine,
Where gods and fiends in worship bend,
Majestic spirit, be it thine
The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
Where the vast snake Eternity                                      
In charmed sleep doth ever lie.

All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,
Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
Or think or feel, awake, arise!                                     
Spirit, leave for mine and me
Earth’s unsubstantial mimicry!

It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
A radiant spirit arose,
All beautiful in naked purity.                                      
Robed in its human hues it did ascend,

Disparting as it went the silver clouds,
It moved towards the car, and took its seat
Beside the Daemon shape.

Obedient to the sweep of aery song,                       
The mighty ministers
Unfurled their prismy wings.
The magic car moved on;
The night was fair, innumerable stars
Studded heaven’s dark blue vault;                          
The eastern wave grew pale
With the first smile of morn.
The magic car moved on.
From the swift sweep of wings
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;              
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now far above a rock the utmost verge
Of the wide earth it flew,                                          
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o’er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot’s stormy path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous ocean lay.                                              
Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot’s fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tingeing those fleecy clouds                                      
That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
The chariot seemed to fly
Through the abyss of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,                                   
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.

As they approached their goal,
The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth            
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
In the black concave of heaven
With the sun’s cloudless orb,
Whose rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot’s swifter course,            
And fell like ocean’s feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel’s prow.

The magic car moved on.
Earth’s distant orb appeared                                        

The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
Whilst round the chariot’s way
Innumerable systems widely rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever varying glory.                                              
It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,
And like the moon’s argentine crescent hung
In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed
A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed       
Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,
Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed
Bedimmed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here                                              
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose involved immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf                                           
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee,–
Yet not the meanest worm.
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
Less shares thy eternal breath.                              
Spirit of Nature! thou
Imperishable as this glorious scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.

If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the shore of the immeasurable sea,                  
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun’s broad orb
Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,
Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold
That without motion hang                                       
Over the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,
Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet
Above the burning deep:                                         
And yet there is a moment
When the sun’s highest point
Peers like a star o’er ocean’s western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:         
Then has thy rapt imagination soared
Where in the midst of all existing things
The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.

Yet not the golden islands
That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,           
Nor the feathery curtains
That canopy the sun’s resplendent couch,
Nor the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight                                    
As the eternal temple could afford.
The elements of all that human thought
Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join
To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
Of earth may image forth its majesty.                  
Yet likest evening’s vault that faery hall,
As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome;
And on the verge of that obscure abyss                
Where crystal battlements o’erhang the gulf
Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
Their lustre through its adamantine gates.

The magic car no longer moved;
The Daemon and the Spirit                                     
Entered the eternal gates.
Those clouds of aery gold
That slept in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy,
With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;            
While slight and odorous mists
Floated to strains of thrilling melody
Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

The Daemon and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement,            
Below lay stretched the boundless universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That limits swift imagination’s flight.
Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,
Immutably fulfilling                                                
Eternal Nature’s law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony.
Each with undeviating aim                                     
In eloquent silence through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.–

Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.
Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
Strange things within their belted orbs appear.        
Like animated frenzies, dimly moved
Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,
Thronging round human graves, and o’er the dead
Sculpturing records for each memory
In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,            
Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell
Confounded burst in ruin o’er the world:
And they did build vast trophies, instruments
Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,
Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls      
With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,
Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained
With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,
The sanguine codes of venerable crime.
The likeness of a throned king came by.                    
When these had passed, bearing upon his brow
A threefold crown; his countenance was calm.
His eye severe and cold; but his right hand
Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw
By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart                 
Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,
A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.
With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks
Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by.
Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,            
Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues
Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly,
Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies
Against the Daemon of the World, and high
Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,   
Serene and inaccessibly secure,
Stood on an isolated pinnacle.
The flood of ages combating below,
The depth of the unbounded universe
Above, and all around                                             

Necessity’s unchanging harmony.

O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!
To which those restless powers that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe aspire;
Thou consummation of all mortal hope!                               
Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will!
Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,
Verge to one point and blend for ever there:
Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!
Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,                         
Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come:
O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,
And dim forebodings of thy loveliness,
Haunting the human heart, have there entwined        
Those rooted hopes, that the proud Power of Evil
Shall not for ever on this fairest world
Shake pestilence and war, or that his slaves
With blasphemy for prayer, and human blood
For sacrifice, before his shrine for ever                         
In adoration bend, or Erebus
With all its banded fiends shall not uprise
To overwhelm in envy and revenge
The dauntless and the good, who dare to hurl
Defiance at his throne, girt tho’ it be                             
With Death’s omnipotence. Thou hast beheld
His empire, o’er the present and the past;
It was a desolate sight–now gaze on mine,
Futurity. Thou hoary giant Time,
Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,–                    
And from the cradles of eternity,
Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep
By the deep murmuring stream of passing things,
Tear thou that gloomy shroud.–Spirit, behold
Thy glorious destiny!

The Spirit saw                                                      
The vast frame of the renovated world
Smile in the lap of Chaos, and the sense
Of hope thro’ her fine texture did suffuse
Such varying glow, as summer evening casts
On undulating clouds and deepening lakes.                          
Like the vague sighings of a wind at even,
That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea
And dies on the creation of its breath,
And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits,
Was the sweet stream of thought that with wild motion    
Flowed o’er the Spirit’s human sympathies.
The mighty tide of thought had paused awhile,
Which from the Daemon now like Ocean’s stream
Again began to pour.–

To me is given
The wonders of the human world to keep-                  
Space, matter, time and mind–let the sight
Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope.
All things are recreated, and the flame
Of consentaneous love inspires all life:
The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck                    
To myriads, who still grow beneath her care,
Rewarding her with their pure perfectness:
The balmy breathings of the wind inhale
Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:
Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,                  
Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream;
No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven,
Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride
The foliage of the undecaying trees;
But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,                   
And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace,
Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,
Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit
Reflects its tint and blushes into love.

The habitable earth is full of bliss;                               
Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled
By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,
Where matter dared not vegetate nor live,
But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude
Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed;             
And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles
Ruffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls
Its broad, bright surges to the sloping sand,
Whose roar is wakened into echoings sweet
To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves       
And melodise with man’s blest nature there.

The vast tract of the parched and sandy waste
Now teems with countless rills and shady woods,
Corn-fields and pastures and white cottages;
And where the startled wilderness did hear                   
A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,
Hymmng his victory, or the milder snake
Crushing the bones of some frail antelope
Within his brazen folds–the dewy lawn,
Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles                 
To see a babe before his mother’s door,
Share with the green and golden basilisk
That comes to lick his feet, his morning’s meal.

Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail
Has seen, above the illimitable plain,                              
Morning on night and night on morning rise,
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread
Its shadowy mountains on the sunbright sea,
Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves
So long have mingled with the gusty wind                            
In melancholy loneliness, and swept
The desert of those ocean solitudes,
But vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,
The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,
Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds                         
Of kindliest human impulses respond:
Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,
With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,
And fertile valleys resonant with bliss,
Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,                             
Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore,
To meet the kisses of the flowerets there.

Man chief perceives the change, his being notes
The gradual renovation, and defines
Each movement of its progress on his mind.                        
Man, where the gloom of the long polar night
Lowered o’er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil,
Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost
Basked in the moonlight’s ineffectual glow,
Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night;   
Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day
With a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame,
Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere
Scattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed
Unnatural vegetation, where the land                              
Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease,
Was man a nobler being; slavery
Had crushed him to his country’s blood-stained dust.

Even where the milder zone afforded man
A seeming shelter, yet contagion there,                           
Blighting his being with unnumbered ills,
Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth availed
Till late to arrest its progress, or create
That peace which first in bloodless victory waved
Her snowy standard o’er this favoured clime:                
There man was long the train-bearer of slaves,
The mimic of surrounding misery,
The jackal of ambition’s lion-rage,
The bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal.

Here now the human being stands adorning                  
This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;
Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,
Which gently in his noble bosom wake
All kindly passions and all pure desires.
Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,             
Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal
Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness gift
With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks
The unprevailing hoariness of age,                                  
And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene
Swift as an unremembered vision, stands
Immortal upon earth: no longer now
He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling
And horribly devours its mangled flesh,                            
Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream
Of poison thro’ his fevered veins did flow
Feeding a plague that secretly consumed
His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind
Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,                          
The germs of misery, death, disease and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands                  
Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play.
All things are void of terror: man has lost
His desolating privilege, and stands
An equal amidst equals: happiness                                   
And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;
Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,
Reason and passion cease to combat there;
Whilst mind unfettered o’er the earth extends                  
Its all-subduing energies, and wields
The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

Mild is the slow necessity of death:
The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,
Without a groan, almost without a fear,                             
Resigned in peace to the necessity,
Calm as a voyager to some distant land,
And full of wonder, full of hope as he.
The deadly germs of languor and disease
Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts                      
With choicest boons her human worshippers.
How vigorous now the athletic form of age!
How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!
Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,
Had stamped the seal of grey deformity                             
On all the mingling lineaments of time.
How lovely the intrepid front of youth!
How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,
Fearless and free the ruddy children play,                         
Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows
With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,
That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;
The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,
There rust amid the accumulated ruins                              
Now mingling slowly with their native earth:
There the broad beam of day, which feebly once
Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines
On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:                           
No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair
Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes
Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
And merriment are resonant around.

The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more                        
The voice that once waked multitudes to war
Thundering thro’ all their aisles: but now respond
To the death dirge of the melancholy wind:
It were a sight of awfulness to see
The works of faith and slavery, so vast,                            
So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!
Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall.
A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death
To-day, the breathing marble glows above
To decorate its memory, and tongues                            
Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms
In silence and in darkness seize their prey.
These ruins soon leave not a wreck behind:
Their elements, wide-scattered o’er the globe,
To happier shapes are moulded, and become               
Ministrant to all blissful impulses:
Thus human things are perfected, and earth,
Even as a child beneath its mother’s love,
Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows
Fairer and nobler with each passing year.                 

Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene
Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past
Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:
Thy lore is learned. Earth’s wonders are thine own,
With all the fear and all the hope they bring.            
My spells are past: the present now recurs.
Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains
Yet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand.

Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,
Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue                       
The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
For birth and life and death, and that strange state
Before the naked powers that thro’ the world
Wander like winds have found a human home,
All tend to perfect happiness, and urge                      
The restless wheels of being on their way,
Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,
Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal:
For birth but wakes the universal mind
Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow     
Thro’ the vast world, to individual sense
Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape
New modes of passion to its frame may lend;
Life is its state of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated there                                 
That variegate the eternal universe;
Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies
And happy regions of eternal hope.
Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:                      
Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,
Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,
Yet spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth,
To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,
That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,   
Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.

Fear not then, Spirit, death’s disrobing hand,
So welcome when the tyrant is awake,
So welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch flares;
‘Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,                
The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.
For what thou art shall perish utterly,
But what is thine may never cease to be;
Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen
Love’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,
Mingling with freedom’s fadeless laurels there,
And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.
Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene
Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?
Hopes that not vainly thou, and living fires   
Of mind as radiant and as pure as thou,
Have shone upon the paths of men–return,
Surpassing Spirit, to that world, where thou
Art destined an eternal war to wage
With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot       
The germs of misery from the human heart.
Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe
The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,
Whose impotence an easy pardon gains,
Watching its wanderings as a friend’s disease:             

Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy
Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,
When fenced by power and master of the world.
Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind,
Free from heart-withering custom’s cold control,       
Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.
Earth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,
And therefore art thou worthy of the boon
Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep
Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,             
And many days of beaming hope shall bless
Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.
Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
Light, life and rapture from thy smile.                          

The Daemon called its winged ministers.
Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,
That rolled beside the crystal battlement,
Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness.
The burning wheels inflame                                          
The steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way.
Fast and far the chariot flew:
The mighty globes that rolled
Around the gate of the Eternal Fane
Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared              
Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs
That ministering on the solar power
With borrowed light pursued their narrower way.
Earth floated then below:
The chariot paused a moment;                                        
The Spirit then descended:
And from the earth departing
The shadows with swift wings
Speeded like thought upon the light of Heaven.

The Body and the Soul united then,                                  
A gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame:
Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;
Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained:
She looked around in wonder and beheld
Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch,                         
Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love,
And the bright beaming stars
That through the casement shone.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

  Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
  And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
  With forms that no man can discover
  For the dews that drip all over;
  Mountains toppling evermore
  Into seas without a shore;
  Seas that restlessly aspire,
  Surging, unto skies of fire;
  Lakes that endlessly outspread
  Their lone waters–lone and dead,
  Their still waters–still and chilly
  With the snows of the lolling lily.

  By the lakes that thus outspread
  Their lone waters, lone and dead,–
  Their sad waters, sad and chilly
  With the snows of the lolling lily,–

  By the mountains–near the river
  Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,–
  By the gray woods,–by the swamp
  Where the toad and the newt encamp,–
  By the dismal tarns and pools
    Where dwell the Ghouls,–
  By each spot the most unholy–
  In each nook most melancholy,–

  There the traveller meets aghast
  Sheeted Memories of the past–
  Shrouded forms that start and sigh
  As they pass the wanderer by–
  White-robed forms of friends long given,
  In agony, to the Earth–and Heaven.

  For the heart whose woes are legion
  ‘Tis a peaceful, soothing region–
  For the spirit that walks in shadow
  ‘Tis–oh, ’tis an Eldorado!
  But the traveller, travelling through it,
  May not–dare not openly view it;
  Never its mysteries are exposed
  To the weak human eye unclosed;
  So wills its King, who hath forbid
  The uplifting of the fringed lid;
  And thus the sad Soul that here passes
  Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

  By a route obscure and lonely,
  Haunted by ill angels only.

  Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
  On a black throne reigns upright,
  I have wandered home but newly
  From this ultimate dim Thule.

M. J. OPENS THE GAME
On the morning after Cyril’s first concert of
the season, Billy sat sewing with Aunt Hannah
in the little sitting-room at the end of the hall
upstairs.  Aunt Hannah wore only one shawl this
morning,–which meant that she was feeling
unusually well.

“Marie ought to be here to mend these stockings,”
remarked Billy, as she critically examined
a tiny break in the black silk mesh stretched across
the darning-egg in her hand; “only she’d want
a bigger hole.  She does so love to make a beautiful
black latticework bridge across a yawning white
china sea–and you’d think the safety of an
army depended on the way each plank was laid,
too,” she concluded.

Aunt Hannah smiled tranquilly, but she did
not speak.

“I suppose you don’t happen to know if Cyril
does wear big holes in his socks,” resumed Billy,
after a moment’s silence.  “If you’ll believe it,
that thought popped into my head last night when
Cyril was playing that concerto so superbly.  It
did, actually–right in the middle of the adagio
movement, too.  And in spite of my joy and pride
in the music I had all I could do to keep from
nudging Marie right there and then and asking
her whether or not the dear man was hard on
his hose.”

“Billy!” gasped the shocked Aunt Hannah;
but the gasp broke at once into what–in Aunt
Hannah–passed for a chuckle.  “If I remember
rightly, when I was there at the house with you
at first, my dear, William told me that Cyril
wouldn’t wear any sock after it came to mending.”

“Horrors!” Billy waved her stocking in
mock despair.  “That will never do in the world.
It would break Marie’s heart.  You know how she
dotes on darning.”

“Yes, I know,” smiled Aunt Hannah.  “By
the way, where is she this morning?”

Billy raised her eyebrows quizzically.

“Gone to look at an apartment in Cambridge, I
believe.  Really, Aunt Hannah, between her home-
hunting in the morning, and her furniture-and-
rug hunting in the afternoon, and her poring over
house-plans in the evening, I can’t get her to
attend to her clothes at all.  Never did I see a
bride so utterly indifferent to her trousseau as
Marie Hawthorn–and her wedding less than
a month away!”

“But she’s been shopping with you once or
twice, since she came back, hasn’t she?  And she
said it was for her trousseau.”

Billy laughed.

“Her trousseau!  Oh, yes, it was.  I’ll tell you
what she got for her trousseau that first day.
We started out to buy two hats, some lace for
her wedding gown, some cr<e^>pe de Chine and net
for a little dinner frock, and some silk for a couple
of waists to go with her tailored suit; and what did
we get?  We purchased a new-style egg-beater and
a set of cake tins.  Marie got into the kitchen
department and I simply couldn’t get her out of it.
But the next day I was not to be inveigled below
stairs by any plaintive prayer for a nutmeg-
grater or a soda spoon.  She _shopped_ that day, and
to some purpose.  We accomplished lots.”

Aunt Hannah looked a little concerned.

“But she must have _some_ things started!”

“Oh, she has–’most everything now.  _I’ve_
seen to that.  Of course her outfit is very simple,
anyway.  Marie hasn’t much money, you know,
and she simply won’t let me do half what I want
to.  Still, she had saved up some money, and I’ve
finally convinced her that a trousseau doesn’t
consist of egg-beaters and cake tins, and that
Cyril would want her to look pretty.  That name
will fetch her every time, and I’ve learned to
use it beautifully.  I think if I told her Cyril
approved of short hair and near-sightedness she’d
I cut off her golden locks and don spectacles on the
spot.”

Aunt Hannah laughed softly.

“What a child you are, Billy!  Besides, just
as if Marie were the only one in the house who is
ruled by a magic name!”

The color deepened in Billy’s cheeks.

“Well, of course, any girl–cares something–
for the man she loves.  Just as if I wouldn’t do
anything in the world I could for Bertram!”

“Oh, that makes me think; who was that young
woman Bertram was talking with last evening–
just after he left us, I mean?”

“Miss Winthrop–Miss Marguerite Winthrop.
Bertram is–is painting her portrait, you know.”

“Oh, is that the one?” murmured Aunt
Hannah.  “Hm-m; well, she has a beautiful face.”

“Yes, she has.”  Billy spoke very cheerfully.
She even hummed a little tune as she carefully
selected a needle from the cushion in her basket.

“There’s a peculiar something in her face,”
mused Aunt Hannah, aloud.

The little tune stopped abruptly, ending in a
nervous laugh.

“Dear me!  I wonder how it feels to have a
peculiar something in your face.  Bertram, too,
says she has it.  He’s trying to `catch it,’ he says.
I wonder now–if he does catch it, does she lose
it?”  Flippant as were the words, the voice that
uttered them shook a little.

Aunt Hannah smiled indulgently–Aunt Hannah
had heard only the flippancy, not the shake.

“I don’t know, my dear.  You might ask him
this afternoon.”

Billy made a sudden movement.  The china
egg in her lap rolled to the floor.

“Oh, but I don’t see him this afternoon,” she
said lightly, as she stooped to pick up the egg.

“Why, I’m sure he told me–”  Aunt Hannah’s
sentence ended in a questioning pause.

“Yes, I know,” nodded Billy, brightly; “but
he’s told me something since.  He isn’t going.
He telephoned me this morning.  Miss Winthrop
wanted the sitting changed from to-morrow to
this afternoon.  He said he knew I’d understand.”

“Why, yes; but–”  Aunt Hannah did not
finish her sentence.  The whir of an electric bell
had sounded through the house.  A few moments
later Rosa appeared in the open doorway.

“It,’s Mr. Arkwright, Miss.  He said as how
he had brought the music,” she announced.

“Tell him I’ll be down at once,” directed the
mistress of Hillside.

As the maid disappeared, Billy put aside her
work and sprang lightly to her feet.

“Now wasn’t that nice of him?  We were
talking last night about some duets he had, and he
said he’d bring them over.  I didn’t know he’d
come so soon, though.”

Billy had almost reached the bottom of the
stairway, when a low, familiar strain of music drifted
out from the living-room.  Billy caught her breath,
and held her foot suspended.  The next moment
the familiar strain of music had become a lullaby
–one of Billy’s own–and sung now by a melting
tenor voice that lingered caressingly and
understandingly on every tender cadence.

Motionless and almost breathless, Billy waited
until the last low “lul-la-by” vibrated into
silence; then with shining eyes and outstretched
hands she entered the living-room.

“Oh, that was–beautiful,” she breathed.

Arkwright was on his feet instantly.  His eyes,
too, were alight.

“I could not resist singing it just once–
here,” he said a little unsteadily, as their hands
met.

“But to hear my little song sung like that!
I couldn’t believe it was mine,” choked Billy,
still plainly very much moved.  “You sang it as
I’ve never heard it sung before.”

Arkwright shook his head slowly.

“The inspiration of the room–that is all,”,
he said.  “It is a beautiful song.  All of your songs
are beautiful.”

Billy blushed rosily.

“Thank you.  You know–more of them,
then?”

“I think I know them all–unless you have
some new ones out.  Have you some new ones,
lately?”

Billy shook her head.

“No; I haven’t written anything since last
spring.”

“But you’re going to?”

She drew a long sigh.

“Yes, oh, yes.  I know that _now_–”  With a
swift biting of her lower lip Billy caught herself
up in time.  As if she could tell this man, this
stranger, what she had told Bertram that night
by the fire–that she knew that now, _now_ she
would write beautiful songs, with his love, and
his pride in her, as incentives.  “Oh, yes, I think
I shall write more one of these days,” she finished
lightly.  “But come, this isn’t singing duets!  I
want to see the music you brought.”

They sang then, one after another of the duets.
To Billy, the music was new and interesting.
To Billy, too, it was new (and interesting) to hear
her own voice blending with another’s so perfectly
–to feel herself a part of such exquisite harmony.

“Oh, oh!” she breathed ecstatically, after the
last note of a particularly beautiful phrase.  “I
never knew before how lovely it was to sing
duets.”

“Nor I,” replied Arkwright in a voice that was
not quite steady.

Arkwright’s eyes were on the enraptured face
of the girl so near him.  It was well, perhaps,
that Billy did not happen to turn and catch their
expression.  Still, it might have been better if
she had turned, after all.  But Billy’s eyes were
on the music before her.  Her fingers were busy
with the fluttering pages, searching for another
duet.

“Didn’t you?” she murmured abstractedly.
“I supposed _you’d_ sung them before; but you
see I never did–until the other night.  There,
let’s try this one!”

“This one” was followed by another and
another.  Then Billy drew a long breath.

“There! that must positively be the last,”
she declared reluctantly.  “I’m so hoarse now
I can scarcely croak.  You see, I don’t pretend
to sing, really.”

“Don’t you?  You sing far better than some
who do, anyhow,”retorted the man, warmly.

“Thank you,” smiled Billy; “that was nice
of you to say so–for my sake–and the others
aren’t here to care.  But tell me of yourself.  I
haven’t had a chance to ask you yet; and–I
think you said Mary Jane was going to study for
Grand Opera.”

Arkwright laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“She is; but, as I told Calderwell, she’s quite
likely to bring up in vaudeville.”

“Calderwell!  Do you mean–Hugh Calderwell?”
Billy’s cheeks showed a deeper color.

The man gave an embarrassed little laugh.  He
had not meant to let that name slip out just yet.

“Yes.”  He hesitated, then plunged on
recklessly.  “We tramped half over Europe together
last summer.”

“Did you?”  Billy left her seat at the piano
for one nearer the fire.  “But this isn’t telling
me about your own plans,” she hurried on a little
precipitately.  “You’ve studied before, of course.
Your voice shows that.”

“Oh, yes; I’ve studied singing several years,
and I’ve had a year or two of church work,
besides a little concert practice of a mild sort.”

“Have you begun here, yet?”

“Y-yes, I’ve had my voice tried.”

Billy sat erect with eager interest.

“They liked it, of course?”

Arkwright laughed.

“I’m not saying that.”

“No, but I am,” declared Billy, with conviction.
“They couldn’t help liking it.”

Arkwright laughed again.  Just how well they
had “liked it” he did not intend to say.  Their
remarks had been quite too flattering to repeat
even to this very plainly interested young woman
–delightful and heart-warming as was this same
show of interest, to himself.

“Thank you,” was all he said.

Billy gave an excited little bounce in her
chair.

“And you’ll begin to learn r<o^>les right away?”

“I already have, some–after a fashion–before
I came here.”

“Really?  How splendid!  Why, then you’ll
be acting them next right on the Boston Opera
House stage, and we’ll all go to hear you.  How
perfectly lovely!  I can hardly wait.”

Arkwright laughed–but his eyes glowed with
pleasure.

“Aren’t you hurrying things a little?” he
ventured.

“But they do let the students appear,”
argued Billy.  “I knew a girl last year who went on

in `Aida,’ and she was a pupil at the School.
She sang first in a Sunday concert, then they put
her in the bill for a Saturday night.  She did
splendidly–so well that they gave her a chance
later at a subscription performance.  Oh, you’ll
be there–and soon, too!”

“Thank you!  I only wish the powers that
could put me there had your flattering enthusiasm
on the matter,” he smiled.

“I don’t worry any,” nodded Billy, “only
please don’t `arrive’ too soon–not before the
wedding, you know,” she added jokingly.  “We
shall be too busy to give you proper attention
until after that.”

A peculiar look crossed Arkwright’s face.

“The–_wedding?_” he asked, a little faintly.

“Yes.  Didn’t you know?  My friend, Miss
Hawthorn, is to marry Mr. Cyril Henshaw next
month.”

The man opposite relaxed visibly.

“Oh, _Miss Hawthorn!_  No, I didn’t know,”
he murmured; then, with sudden astonishment
he added:  “And to Mr. Cyril, the musician,
did you say?”

“Yes.  You seem surprised.”

“I am.”  Arkwright paused, then went on
almost defiantly.  “You see, Calderwell was
telling me only last September how very
unmarriageable all the Henshaw brothers were.  So
I am surprised–naturally,” finished Arkwright,
as he rose to take his leave.

A swift crimson stained Billy’s face.

“But surely you must know that–that–”

“That he has a right to change his mind, of
course,” supplemented Arkwright smilingly,
coming to her rescue in the evident confusion that
would not let her finish her sentence.  “But
Calderwell made it so emphatic, you see, about
all the brothers.  He said that William had lost
his heart long ago; that Cyril hadn’t any to lose;
and that Bertram–”

“But, Mr. Arkwright, Bertram is–is–”
Billy had moistened her lips, and plunged hurriedly
in to prevent Arkwright’s next words.  But again
was she unable to finish her sentence, and again
was she forced to listen to a very different
completion from the smiling lips of the man at her
side.

“Is an artist, of course,” said Arkwright.
“That’s what Calderwell declared–that it
would always be the tilt of a chin or the curve
of a cheek that the artist loved–to paint.”

Billy drew back suddenly.  Her face paled.
As if _now_ she could tell this man that Bertram
Henshaw was engaged to her!  He would find it
out soon, of course, for himself; and perhaps he,
like Hugh Calderwell, would think it was the
curve of _her_ cheek, or the tilt of _her_ chin–

Billy lifted her chin very defiantly now as she
held out her hand in good-by.

These fleshless lovers met,
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another’s eyes.

No lifetime set on them,
Apparelled as the new
Unborn, except they had beheld,
Born everlasting now.

Was bridal e’er like this?
A paradise, the host,
And cherubim and seraphim
The most familiar guest.

When sporgles spanned the floreate mead
And cogwogs gleet upon the lea,
Uffia gopped to meet her love
Who smeeged upon the equat sea.

Dately she walked aglost the sand;
The boreal wind seet in her face;
The moggling waves yalped at her feet;
Pangwangling was her pace.