What! shall I bind him more? in his

behalf, Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him That which of all things is the dearest to me, Not only showing? and he himself pro

nounced That my rich gift is wholly mine to give.

Ev'n to the uttermost : in her behold
Of all my treasures the most beautiful,
Of all things upon earth the dearest to

me.'
Then waving us a sign to seat ourselves,
Led his dear lady to a chair of state.
And I, by Lionel sitting, saw his face
Fire, and dead ashes and all fire again
Thrice in a second, felt him tremble too,
And heard him muttering, “So like, so

like;
She dever had a sister. I knew none.
Some cousin of his and hers-0 God, so

like!'
And then he suddenly ask'd her if she

were.
She shook, and cast her eyes down, and

was dumb.
And then some other question'd if she

came
From foreign lands, and still she did not

speak.
Another, if the boy were hers : but she
To all their queries answer'd not a word,
Which made the amazement more, till

one of them
Said, shuddering, “Her spectre !' But

his friend
Replied, in half a whisper, ‘Not at least
The spectre that will speak if spoken to.
Terrible pity, if one so beautiful
Prove, as I almost dread to find her,

dumb !'

Now all be dumb, and promise all of

you Not to break in on what I say by word Or whisper, while I show you all my heart.' And then began the story of his love As here to-day, but not so wordilyThe passionate moment would not suffer

thatPast thro' his visions to the burial ; thence Down to this last strange hour in his own

hall; And then rose up, and with him all his

guests Once more as by enchantment; all but he, Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again, And sat as if in chains-to whom he said:

"Take my free gift, my cousin, for your

wife; And were it only for the giver's sake, And tho' she seem so like the one you

lost,

Yet cast her not away so suddenly,
Lest there be none left here to bring her

back : I leave this land for ever.' Here he

ceased.

But Julian, sitting by her, answer'd all : She is but dumb, because in her you see That faithful servant whom we spoke

about, Obedient to her second master now; Which will not last. I have here to

night a guest So bound to me by common love and

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 ; Whereat 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—the

sight of this 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.

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 loathed himself;

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

and cried :

LUCRETIUS.

‘Storm in the night! for thrice I heard

the rain Rushing; and once the flash of a

thunderboltMethought I never saw so fierce a forkStruck 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-eve was dusty-dry.

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 lov'd 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 Left by the Teacher whom he held divine. She brook'd it not; but wrathful, petulant,

‘Storm, and what dreams, ye holy

Gods, what dreams ! For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Per.

chance 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 faring atom.

streams And torrents of her myriad universe, Ruining along the illimitable inane, Fly on to clash together again, and make

Not ev'n a rose, were offer'd to thee ?

thine, Forgetful how my rich procmion makes Thy glory fly along the Italian field, In lays that will outlast thy Deity ?

Another and another frame of things
For ever : that was mine, my dream, I

knew itOf 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 mea

dow, 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 yelld and round

me drove In narrowing circles till I yelld again Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw – Was it the first beam of my latest day?

* 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 canst, O Goddess, like

ourselves 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.

“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

shamed 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.

• 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, Oye Gods, Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called Calliope to grace his golden verseAy, and this Kypris also_did I take

*Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus,

thine, Because I would not one of thine cwn

doves,

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 : 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

• Look where another of our Gods, the

Sun, Apollo, Delius, or of older use All-seeing Hyperion—what you will-Has 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 roast

ing 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

ma

gain

Letting his own life go. The Gods, the

Gods ! If all be atoms, how then should the

more.

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 Aowery 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.

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

Past earthquake-ay, and gout and stone,

that break 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?

* But who was he, that in the garden

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

quiveringThe 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

How should the mind, except it loved

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

Alakes 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 ?

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, goat

foot : 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 From childly wont and ancient use I call — I thought I lived securely as yourselves -No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey

spite,

“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, Now towering o'er him in serenest air, A mountain o'er a mountain,- ay, and

within All hollow as the hopes and fears of men?