Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask

"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude

To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
And no more lapis to delight the world!

Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,

And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

670

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;

It was not her time to love; beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?

What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew— And, just because I was thrice as old

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come—at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)] In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red— And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old life's stead.

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? Let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold;

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:

671

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S

Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and

blind;

But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy

mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.

What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,

Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Ay, because the sea's the street there, and 'tis arched by what you call

Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:

I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was A lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,— On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on

its bed,

O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

Well, and it was graceful of them—they'd break talk off

and afford

—She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his

sword,

While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions66 Must we die?

Those commiserating sevenths—"Life might last! we can but try!"

"Were you happy?"—"Yes."—"And are you still as happy?"—"Yes. And you?"

-“Then, more kisses!"—" Did / stop them, when a million seemed so few?

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!

"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!

I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,

Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,

Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor

swerve,

While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close

reserve,

In you come with your cold music till I creep through every

nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:

"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.

The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

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Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,

Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;

Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,

Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dear women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

672

MEMORABILIA

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at—

My starting moves your laughter!