24

On silken cushions half reclined;
I watch thy grace; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,
While I muse upon thy face;
And a languid fire creeps

Thro' my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly soon

From thy rose-red lips My name
Floweth; and then, as in a swoon,
With dinning sound my ears are rife,
My tremulous tongue faltereth,
I lose my colour, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death,
Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warm-
est life.

I die with my delight, before

I hear what I would hear from

thee;

Yet tell my name again to me,

I would be dying evermore,

So dying ever, Eleanore.

I.

My life is full of weary days,

But good things have not kept aloof, Nor wander'd 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.

II.

When in the darkness over me

The four-handed mole shall scrape,

Plant thou no dusky cypress-tree,

Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape,

But pledge me in the flowing grape.

II.

TO J. M. K.

My hope and heart is with thee-thou wilt be

A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest

Every turn and glance of thine,

Every lineament divine,

Eleanore,

And the steady sunset glow,

That stays upon thee? For in thee Is nothing sudden, nothing single; Like two streams of incense free

From one censer in one shrine,
Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow
To one another, even as tho'
They were modulated so

To an unheard melody,

Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep; Who may express thee, Eleänore?

V.

I stand before thee, Eleanore;

I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er

The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies,
To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee for evermore,

Serene, imperial Eleanore !

Ev'n while we gaze on it,

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly

grow

To a full face

Fix'd-then as slowly fade again,

And draw itself to what it was before;

So full, so deep, so slow,
Thought seems to come and go
In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.

VII.

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,
Roof'd the world with doubt and fear,
Floating thro' an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky;
In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might

In a silent meditation,
Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation : As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still

Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore.

VI.

Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling

asleep,

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep
In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite,
I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
But am as nothing in its light:
As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set,

VIII.

But when I see thee roam, with tresses

unconfined,

While the amorous, odorous wind

Breathes low between the sunset and

the moon;

Or, in a shadowy saloon,

To scare church-harpies from the master's

feast;

Our dusted velvets have much need of thee

Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distill'd from some worm-canker'd ho

mily;

But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone Half God's good sabbath, while the wornout clerk

Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne

Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark

Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark

III.

MINE be the strength of spirit, full and free,

Like some broad river rushing down alone,

With the selfsame impulse wherewith he

was thrown

From his loud fount upon the echoing

lea :

Which with increasing might doth forward flee

By town, and tower, and hill, and cape,

and isle,

And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a

mile.

Mine be the power which ever to its

sway

Will win the wise at once, and by degrees
May into uncongenial spirits flow;
Ev'n as the warm gulf-stream of Florida
Floats far away into the Northern seas
The lavish growths of southern Mexico.

IV.

ALEXANDER.

WARRIOR of God, whose strong right

arm debased

The throne of Persia, when her Satrap bled

At Issus by the Syrian gates, or fled Beyond the Memmian naphtha-pits, disgraced

For ever-thee (thy pathway sand-erased) Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led

Joyful to that palm-planted fountain-fed Ammonian Oasis in the waste.

There in a silent shade of laurel brown Apart the Chamian Oracle divine Shelter'd his unapproached mysteries: High things were spoken there, unhanded down ;

Only they saw thee from the secret shrine

Returning with hot cheek and kindled

eyes.

V.

BUONAPARTE.

HE thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,

Madman!-to chain with chains, and bind with bands

That island queen who sways the floods

and lands

From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls,-lit by

sure hands,

With thunders, and with lightnings, and

with smoke,

Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic

sands.