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FATIMA.

O LOVE, Love, Love!

I.

O withering might!

O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

II.

Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers:

I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I rolled among the tender flowers:

I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth:
I look'd athwart the burning drouth

Of that long desert to the south.

III.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame

Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.

O Love, O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

IV.

Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

V.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher

The skies stoop down in their desire ;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,

My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight
Bursts into blossom in his sight.

VI.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place, Grow, live, die looking on his face, Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.

CENONE.

THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.

The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus

Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,

The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon

Mournful Enone, wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.

Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck

Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass :
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.

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'O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Hear me 0 Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves

cliff.

That house the cold crown'd snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,

Hear me, for I will speak, and build

up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

H

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