SONNET.

Love died here
   Long ago;
O’er his bier,
   Lying low,
   Poppies throw;
      Shed no tear;
      Year by year,
   Roses blow!

Year by year,
Adon—dear
   To Love’s Queen—
      Does not die!
   Wakes when green
      May is nigh!

She has just “put her gown on” at Girton,
   She is learned in Latin and Greek,
But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt on
   That the prudish remark with a shriek.
In her accents, perhaps, she is weak
   (Ladies are, one observes with a sigh),
But in Algebra—there she’s unique,
   But her forte’s to evaluate π.

She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton,
   Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique,
Old tiles with the secular dirt on,
   Old marbles with noses to seek.
And her Cobet she quotes by the week,
   And she’s written on κεν and on καὶ,
And her service is swift and oblique,
   But her forte’s to evaluate π.

Envoy.

Princess, like a rose is her cheek,
   And her eyes are as blue as the sky,
And I’d speak, had I courage to speak,
   But—her forte’s to evaluate π.

Ye wells, ye founts that fall
   From the steep mountain wall,
That fall, and flash, and fleet
         With silver feet,

Ye woods, ye streams that lave
The meadows with your wave,
   Ye hills, and valley fair,
         Attend my prayer!

When Heaven and Fate decree
My latest hour for me,
   When I must pass away
         From pleasant day,

Only a laurel tree
Shall shade the grave of me,
   Only Apollo’s bough
         Shall guard me now!

Now shall I be at rest
Among the spirits blest,
   The happy dead that dwell—
         Where,—who may tell?

The snow and wind and hail
May never there prevail,
   Nor ever thunder fall
         Nor storm at all.

There shall I ever hear
Alcaeus’ music clear,
   And sweetest of all things
         There Sappho sings.

(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living
before the wreck of the Don Juan.)

Mid April seemed like some November day,
   When through the glassy waters, dull as lead
Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead,
   Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay,
   Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay
Before us, that gay village, yellow and red,
The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,—
   His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.

1880.

My Love dwelt in a Northern land.
   A grey tower in a forest green
Was hers, and far on either hand
   The long wash of the waves was seen,
And leagues on leagues of yellow sand,
   The woven forest boughs between!

And through the silver Northern night
   The sunset slowly died away,
And herds of strange deer, lily-white,
   Stole forth among the branches grey;
About the coming of the light,
   They fled like ghosts before the day!

I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves
   Among the shining salmon-flies;
A song for summer-time that grieves
   I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves.
   Between grey sea and golden sheaves,
Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies,
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves
   Among the shining salmon-flies.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL.

Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best
   With the scent of the limes, when the bees
Hummed low ’round the doves in their nest,
   While the vintagers lay at their ease,
Had he sung in our northern degrees,
   He’d have sought a securer retreat,
He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees,
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crest
   And the daffodil’s fair on the leas,
And the soul of the Southron might rest,
   And be perfectly happy with these;
But we, that were nursed on the knees
   Of the hills of the North, we would fleet
Where our hearts might their longing appease
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Ah Constance, the land of our quest
   It is far from the sounds of the street,
Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blest
   With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)

Villanelle, why art thou mute?
   Hath the singer ceased to sing?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Many a pipe and scrannel flute
   On the breeze their discords fling;
Villanelle, why art thou mute?

Sound of tumult and dispute,
Noise of war the echoes bring;
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Fading leaf and falling fruit
   Say, “The year is on the wing,
Hath the Master lost his lute?”

Ere the axe lie at the root,
   Ere the winter come as king,
Villanelle, why art thou mute?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Αιαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωντα
ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι
ἄμμες δ’ ὁι μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροί, οἱ σοφοὶ ἄνδες
ὁππότε πρᾶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοι ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ,
εὕδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον.

Alas, for us no second spring,
   Like mallows in the garden-bed,
For these the grave has lost his sting,
   Alas, for us no second spring,
   Who sleep without awakening,
And, dead, for ever more are dead,
   Alas, for us no second spring,
      Like mallows in the garden-bed!

TO T. W. LANG.

The burden of hard hitting: slog away!
Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”
And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say,
That thou art in for an uncommon score.
Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,
And thou to rival Thornton shalt aspire,
When lo, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of long fielding, when the clay
Clings to thy shoon in sudden shower’s downpour,
And running still thou stumblest, or the ray
Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,
And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,
Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer,”
And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Envoy.

Alas, yet liefer on Youth’s hither shore
Would I be some poor Player on scant hire,
Than King among the old, who play no more,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in the
forest, before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, that
they beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the very
Venus herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might,
for’ said she, ‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall ye
endure to see another May time.’”—Edmund Gorliot, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p. 149.  (1573.)

“Whence do ye come, with the dew on your hair?
From what far land are the boughs ye bear,
   The blossoms and buds upon breasts and tresses,
The light burned white in your faces fair?”

“In a falling fane have we built our house,
With the dying Gods we have held carouse,
   And our lips are wan from their wild caresses,
Our hands are filled with their holy boughs.

She was not decked as for glee and game,
She was not veiled with the veil of flame,
   The saffron veil of the Bride that covers
The face that is flushed with her joy and shame.

On the laden branches the scent and dew
Mingled and met, and as snow to strew
   The woodland rides and the fragrant grasses,
White flowers fell as the night wind blew.

Tears and kisses on lips and eyes
Mingled and met amid laughter and sighs
   For grief that abides, and joy that passes,
For pain that tarries and mirth that flies.

“Ye have made your choice, and the better part,
Ye chose” she said, “and the wiser art;
   In the wild May night drank all the measure,
The perfect pleasure of heart and heart.

“Ye shall walk no more with the May,” she said,
“Shall your love endure though the Gods be dead?
   Shall the flitting flocks, mine own, my chosen,
Sing as of old, and be happy and wed?

“Yea, they are glad as of old; but you,
Fair and fleet as the dawn or the dew,
   Abide no more, for the springs are frozen,
And fled the Gods that ye loved and knew.

“Though the flowers in your golden hair be bright,
Your golden hair shall be waste and white
   On faded brows ere another May time
      Bring the spring, but no more delight.”

The sacred keep of Ilion is rent
   By shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
   To war with Gods and heroes long ago.
   Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low
In rich Mycenæ, do the Fates relent:
   The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.

The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,
   Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,
   And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to see
The crown that burns on thine immortal head
   Of indivisible supremacy!

LUI.

Ah lady, lady, leave the creeping mist,
   And leave the iron castle by the sea!

ELLE.

Nay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissed
   My lips, and so I cannot come to thee!

LUI.

Ah lady, leave the cruel landward wind
   That crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam!

ELLE.

Nay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind,
   And I must dwell with him and make my home!

Come, for the Spring is fair in Joyous Guard
   And down deep alleys sweet birds sing again.

ELLE.

But I must tarry with the winter hard,
   And with the bitter memory of pain,
Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,
   And in the gardens glad birds sing again!

The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.

The daughter of the Lesbian king
   Within her bower she watched the war,
Far off she heard the arrows ring,
   The smitten harness ring afar;
And, fighting from the foremost car,
   Saw one that smote where all must flee;
More fair than the Immortals are
   He seemed to fair Pisidicê!

She took a gift into her hand,
   As one that had a boon to crave;
She stole across the ruined land
   Where lay the dead without a grave,
And to Achilles’ hand she gave
   Her gift, the secret postern’s key.
“To-morrow let me be thy slave!”
   Moaned to her love Pisidicê.

In havens of that haunted coast,
   Amid the myrtles of the shore,
The moon sees many a maiden ghost
   Love’s outcast now and evermore.
The silence hears the shades deplore
   Their hour of dear-bought love; but thee
The waves lull, ’neath thine olives hoar,
   To dreamless rest, Pisidicê!

Returning from what other seas
   Dost thou renew thy murmuring,
Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of these
   To tell, the shores where float and cling
My love, my hope, my memories?

Say does my lady wake to note
   The gold light into silver die?
Or do thy waves make lullaby,
   While dreams of hers, like angels, float
Through star-sown spaces of the sky?

Ah, would such angels came to me
   That dreams of mine might speak with hers,
Nor wake the slumber of the sea
   With words as low as winds that be
Awake among the gossamers!

Ο ΕΡΩΤΑΣ ’Σ ΤΟΝ ΤΑΦΟ.

   The level sands and grey,
   Stretch leagues and leagues away,
Down to the border line of sky and foam,
   A spark of sunset burns,
   The grey tide-water turns,
Back, like a ghost from her forbidden home!

   Here, without pyre or bier,
   Light Love was buried here,
Alas, his grave was wide and deep enough,
   Thrice, with averted head,
   We cast dust on the dead,
And left him to his rest.  An end of Love.

   So each to each we said!
   Ah, but to either bed
Set far apart in lands of North and South,
   Love as a Vampire came
   With haggard eyes aflame,
And kissed us with the kisses of his mouth!

   Thenceforth in dreams must we
   Each other’s shadow see
Wand’ring unsatisfied in empty lands,
   Still the desirèd face
   Fleets from the vain embrace,
And still the shape evades the longing hands.

There is a Heaven, or here, or there,—
A Heaven there is, for me and you,
Where bargains meet for purses spare,
Like ours, are not so far and few.
Thuanus’ bees go humming through
The learned groves, ’neath rainless skies,
O’er volumes old and volumes new,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!

There’s Eve,—not our first mother fair,—
But Clovis Eve, a binder true;
Thither does Bauzonnet repair,
Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!
But never come the cropping crew
That dock a volume’s honest size,
Nor they that “letter” backs askew,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!

Envoy.

Friend, do not Heber and De Thou,
And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,
La chasse au bouquin still pursue
Within that Book-man’s Paradise?

(Clement Marot’s Frère Lubin, though translated by Longfellow and others, has not hitherto been rendered into the original measure of ballade à double refrain.)

Some ten or twenty times a day,
To bustle to the town with speed,
To dabble in what dirt he may,—
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
But any sober life to lead
Upon an exemplary plan,
Requires a Christian indeed,—
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!

An honest girl to lead astray,
With subtle saw and promised meed,
Requires no cunning crone and grey,—
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
He preaches an ascetic creed,
But,—try him with the water can—
A dog will drink, whate’er his breed,—
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!

Envoy.

In good to fail, in ill succeed,
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
In honest works to lead the van,
Le Frère Lubin is not the man!

I’ve a fancy as morbid as Poe’s,
I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens,”
I have breasted the river that flows
Through the land of the wild Gadarenes;
I can gossip with Burton on skenes,
I can imitate Irving (the Mime),
And my sketches are quainter than Keene’s,
But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

Envoy.

So the tower of mine eminence leans
Like the Pisan, and mud is its lime;
I’m acquainted with Dukes and with Deans,
But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

Oh, novel readers, tell me this,
   Can prose that’s polished by the file,
Like great Boisgobey’s mysteries,
   Wet days and weary ways beguile,
And man to living reconcile,
   Like these whose every trick we know?
The agony how high they pile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!

Envoy.

Ah, friend, how many and many a while
   They’ve made the slow time fleetly flow,
And solaced pain and charmed exile,
   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

(FROM ARISTOPHANES.)

Socrates speaks.

Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves here;
Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,
Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear,
Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile’s overflow,
Or whether you dwell by Mæotis mere
Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!
And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.

The Clouds sing.

“All these for Fourpence.”

Oh, where are the endless Romances
Our grandmothers used to adore?
The Knights with their helms and their lances,
Their shields and the favours they wore?
And the Monks with their magical lore?
They have passed to Oblivion and Nox,
They have fled to the shadowy shore,—
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And the Music!  The songs and the dances?
The tunes that Time may not restore?
And the tomes where Divinity prances?
And the pamphlets where Heretics roar?
They have ceased to be even a bore,—
The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,—
They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core,—
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

Envoy.

Suns beat on them; tempests downpour,
On the chest without cover or locks,
Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door,—
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

I would my days had been in other times,
A moment in the long unnumbered years
That knew the sway of Horus and of hawk,
In peaceful lands that border on the Nile.

I would my days had been in other times,
Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymn
Between the Five great Rivers, or in shade
And shelter of the cool Himâlayan hills.

I would my days had been in other times,
That I in some old abbey of Touraine
Had watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life,
Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais!

In the Aves of Aristophanes, the Bird Chorus declare that they are older than the Gods, and greater benefactors of men.  This idea recurs in almost all savage mythologies, and I have made the savage Bird-gods state their own case.

The Birds sing:

A MORALITY.

“The Ancestor remote of Man,”
Says Darwin, “is th’ Ascidian,”
A scanty sort of water-beast
That, ninety million years at least
Before Gorillas came to be,
Went swimming up and down the sea.

Their ancestors the pious praise,
And like to imitate their ways;
How, then, does our first parent live,
What lesson has his life to give?

Ah, scarce we live, we scarcely know
The wide world’s moving ebb and flow,
The clanging currents ring and shock,
But we are rooted to the rock.
And thus at ending of his span,
Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man
Revert to the Ascidian.

“What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blonde
Aryan drove him into the corners of Europe?”—Brander Matthews.

I am an ancient Jest!
Palæolithic man
In his arboreal nest
The sparks of fun would fan;
My outline did he plan,
And laughed like one possessed,
’Twas thus my course began,
I am a Merry Jest!

I am an ancient Jest,
Through all the human clan,
Red, black, white, free, oppressed,
Hilarious I ran!
I’m found in Lucian,
In Poggio, and the rest,
I’m dear to Moll and Nan!
I am a Merry Jest!

Envoy.

Prince, you may storm and ban—
Joe Millers are a pest,
Suppress me if you can!
I am a Merry Jest!

These versions from classical passages are pretty close to the original, except where compression was needed, as in the sonnets from Pausanias and Apuleius, or where, as in the case of fragments of Æschylus and Sophocles, a little expansion was required.

The graver by Apollo’s shrine,
   Before the Gods had fled, would stand,
   A shell or onyx in his hand,
To copy there the face divine,
Till earnest touches, line by line,
   Had wrought the wonder of the land
   Within a beryl’s golden band,
Or on some fiery opal fine.
Ah! would that as some ancient ring
To us, on shell or stone, doth bring,
   Art’s marvels perished long ago,
So I, within the sonnet’s space,
   The large Hellenic lines might trace,
      The statue in the cameo!

(Iliad, iii. 146.)

Fair Helen to the Scæan portals came,
Where sat the elders, peers of Priamus,
Thymoetas, Hiketaon, Panthöus,
And many another of a noble name,
Famed warriors, now in council more of fame.
Always above the gates, in converse thus
They chattered like cicalas garrulous;
Who marking Helen, swore “it is no shame
That armed Achæan knights, and Ilian men
For such a woman’s sake should suffer long.
Fair as a deathless goddess seemeth she.
Nay, but aboard the red-prowed ships again
Home let her pass in peace, not working wrong
To us, and children’s children yet to be.”

Pindar, Fr., 106, 107 (95): B. 4, 129–130, 109 (97): B. 4, 132.

But the Souls that Persephone cleanses from ancient pollution and stain,
   These at the end of the age, be they prince, be they singer, or seer;
These to the world shall be born as of old, shall be sages again;
   These of their hands shall be hardy, shall live, and shall die, and shall hear
Thanks of the people, and songs of the minstrels that praise them amain,
   And their glory shall dwell in the land where they dwelt, while year calls unto year!

(Æsch., Fr., 156.)

Of all Gods Death alone
   Disdaineth sacrifice:
No man hath found or shown
   The gift that Death would prize.
   In vain are songs or sighs,
Pæan, or praise, or moan,
   Alone beneath the skies
Hath Death no altar-stone!

There is no head so dear
   That men would grudge to Death;
Let Death but ask, we give
All gifts that we may live;
But though Death dwells so near,
   We know not what he saith.

(Soph., Fr., 235; Æsch., Fr., 56.)

On these Nysæan shores divine
   The clusters ripen in a day.
   At dawn the blossom shreds away;
The berried grapes are green and fine
And full by noon; in day’s decline
   They’re purple with a bloom of grey,
   And e’er the twilight plucked are they,
And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.

But through the night with torch in hand
   Down the dusk hills the Mænads fare;
   The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare,
The muffled timbrels swell and sound,
   And drown the clamour of the band
Like thunder moaning underground.

(Œd. Col., 667–705.)

I.

Here be the fairest homes the land can show,
   The silvery-cliffed Colonus; always here
The nightingale doth haunt and singeth clear,
For well the deep green gardens doth she know.
Groves of the God, where winds may never blow,
   Nor men may tread, nor noontide sun may peer
   Among the myriad-berried ivy dear,
Where Dionysus wanders to and fro.

For here he loves to dwell, and here resort
These Nymphs that are his nurses and his court,
And golden eyed beneath the dewy boughs
   The crocus burns, and the narcissus fair
   Clusters his blooms to crown thy clustered hair,
Demeter, and to wreathe the Maiden’s brows!

Yea, here the dew of Heaven upon the grain
   Fails never, nor the ceaseless water-spring,
   Near neighbour of Cephisus wandering,
That day by day revisiteth the plain.
Nor do the Goddesses the grove disdain,
   But chiefly here the Muses quire and sing,
   And here they love to weave their dancing ring,
With Aphrodite of the golden rein.

And here there springs a plant that knoweth not
   The Asian mead, nor that great Dorian isle,
Unsown, untilled, within our garden plot
   It dwells, the grey-leaved olive; ne’er shall guile
Nor force of foemen root it from the spot:
   Zeus and Athene guarding it the while!

(Œd. Col., 1655–1666.)

How Œdipous departed, who may tell
   Save Theseus only? for there neither came
   The burning bolt of thunder, and the flame
To blast him into nothing, nor the swell
Of sea-tide spurred by tempest on him fell.
   But some diviner herald none may name
   Called him, or inmost Earth’s abyss became
The painless place where such a soul might dwell.

Howe’er it chanced, untouched of malady,
   Unharmed by fear, unfollowed by lament,
With comfort on the twilight way he went,
   Passing, if ever man did, wondrously;
From this world’s death to life divinely rent,
   Unschooled in Time’s last lesson, how we die.

(Soph., Fr., 587.)

(Sidero, the stepmother of Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, cruelly entreated her in all things, and chiefly in this, that she let sheer her beautiful hair.)

At fierce Sidero’s word the thralls drew near,
   And shore the locks of Tyro,—like ripe corn
   They fell in golden harvest,—but forlorn
The maiden shuddered in her pain and fear,
   Like some wild mare that cruel grooms in scorn
Hunt in the meadows, and her mane they sheer,
And drive her where, within the waters clear,
   She spies her shadow, and her shame doth mourn.

Ah! hard were he and pitiless of heart
   Who marking that wild thing made weak and tame,
      Broken, and grieving for her glory gone,
Could mock her grief; but scornfully apart
   Sidero stood, and watched a wind that came
And tossed the curls like fire that flew and shone!

(Hippol., Eurip., 73–87.)

For thee soft crowns in thine untrampled mead
   I wove, my lady, and to thee I bear;
Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed,
   Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there;
   Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fair
The brown bee comes and goes, and with good heed
Thy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth lead
   About the grassy close that is her care!

Souls only that are gracious and serene
   By gift of God, in human lore unread,
May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green
   That now I wreathe for thine immortal head,
I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen,
   And by thy whispered voice am comforted.

(Hippol., Eurip., 252–266.)

Long life hath taught me many things, and shown
   That lukewarm loves for men who die are best,
   Weak wine of liking let them mix alone,
Not Love, that stings the soul within the breast;
Happy, who wears his love-bonds lightliest,
   Now cherished, now away at random thrown!
   Grievous it is for other’s grief to moan,
Hard that my soul for thine should lose her rest!

Wise ruling this of life: but yet again
   Perchance too rigid diet is not well;
He lives not best who dreads the coming pain
   And shunneth each delight desirable:
Flee thou extremes, this word alone is plain,
   Of all that God hath given to Man to spell!

(Theocritus, Idyll, iii.)

Fair Amaryllis, wilt thou never peep
   From forth the cave, and call me, and be mine?
Lo, apples ten I bear thee from the steep,
   These didst thou long for, and all these are thine.
Ah, would I were a honey-bee to sweep
   Through ivy, and the bracken, and woodbine;
To watch thee waken, Love, and watch thee sleep,
   Within thy grot below the shadowy pine.
Now know I Love, a cruel god is he,
   The wild beast bare him in the wild wood drear;
And truly to the bone he burneth me.
   But, black-browed Amaryllis, ne’er a tear,
Nor sigh, nor blush, nor aught have I from thee;
   Nay, nor a kiss, a little gift and dear.

A.D. 160.

Καὶ ἔθυσε τὸ βρέφος, καὶ ἔσπεισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τὸ αἶμα—έπὶ τούτου βωμοῦ τῷ Δὺ θύoυσιν ἐv ἀπoῤῥήτῳ.—Paus. viii. 38.

None elder city doth the Sun behold
   Than ancient Lycosura; ’twas begun
   Ere Zeus the meat of mortals learned to shun,
And here hath he a grove whose haunted fold
The driven deer seek and huntsmen dread: ’tis told
   That whoso fares within that forest dun
   Thenceforth shall cast no shadow in the Sun,
Ay, and within the year his life is cold!

(Apuleius, Metamorph. XI.)

Thou that art sandalled on immortal feet
   With leaves of palm, the prize of Victory;
Thou that art crowned with snakes and blossoms sweet,
   Queen of the silver dews and shadowy sky,
   I pray thee by all names men name thee by!
Demeter, come, and leave the yellow wheat!
   Or Aphrodite, let thy lovers sigh!
Or Dian, from thine Asian temple fleet!

Or, yet more dread, divine Persephone
   From worlds of wailing spectres, ah, draw near;
Approach, Selene, from thy subject sea;
   Come, Artemis, and this night spare the deer:
By all thy names and rites I summon thee;
   By all thy rites and names, Our Lady, hear!

So Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar,
   Floated the locks of Isis, shone the bright
Crown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star;
   She came in deep blue raiment of the night,
   Above her robes that now were snowy white,
Now golden as the moons of harvest are,
Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bar,
   Now stained with all the lustre of the light.

Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew
   The awful symbols borne in either hand;
The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew,
   The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand;
The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through
   The temples of that old Osirian land.

My heart’s an old Spinet with strings
   To laughter chiefly tuned, but some
   That Fate has practised hard on, dumb,
They answer not whoever sings.
The ghosts of half-forgotten things
   Will touch the keys with fingers numb,
   The little mocking spirits come
And thrill it with their fairy wings.

A jingling harmony it makes
   My heart, my lyre, my old Spinet,
And now a memory it wakes,
   And now the music means “forget,”
And little heed the player takes
   Howe’er the thoughtful critic fret.