I KNOW her by her angry air, Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair,

Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughters of the woodpecker

From the bosom of a hill.

'Tis Kate- she sayeth what she will;

For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp.
Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung

Like a new bow, and bright and sharp

As edges of the scimitar. Whence shall she take a fitting mate? For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,

As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith the world is void of might.' Kate saith the men are gilded flies.'

Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lovers' sighs. I would I were an armed knight, Far-famed for well-won enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise;

For in a moment I would pierce

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; Even as the warm gulf-stream of Florida

Floats far away into the Northern seas The lavish growths of southern Mexico.

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 sanderased)

Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led

Joyful to that palm-planted fountainfed

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, un-
handed 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

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,

And trampled under by the last and least

Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased

To quiver, tho' her sacred blood doth drown

The fields, and out of every smouldering town

Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased,

Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East

Transgress his ample bound to some new crown,

Cries to Thee, 'Lord, how long shall these things be? How long this icy-hearted Muscovite

Oppress the region?' Us, O Just and Good,

Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three;

U's, who stand now, when we should aid the right

A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

VII

CARESS'D or chidden by the slender hand,

And singing airy trifles this or that, Light Hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand,

And run thro' every change of sharp and flat;

And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band,

And chased away the still-recurring gnat,

And woke her with a lay from fairy land.

But now they live with Beauty less and less,

For Hope is other Hope and wanders far,

Nor cares to lisp in love's delicious creeds;

And Fancy watches in the wilderness, Poor Fancy sadder than a single star, That sets at twilight in a land of reeds.

IF I were loved, as I desire to be, What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

And range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear, if I were loved by thee?

All the inner, all the outer world of pain

Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,

As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.

Twere joy, not fear, claspt hand-inhand with thee,