II.

What caused the mandate? wherefore do I shrink?

why tarry on the brink?

On to my task; yet in the pause between
Sorrow and joy, behold the quiet scene;
The chamber stately in that calm repose,
Which Art, the god whose life is calm, bestows;
There, gleam the shapes in which, immortal, still,
Live the bright exiles from the Olympian Hill;
Still moonèd Dian from the breathing stone
Haunts, with pure eyes, thy dreams, Endymion;
Still on the vast brow of the Father-god,
Hangs the hush'd thunder of the awful nod;

Still fair, as when on Ida's mountain seen,

By Troy's young shepherd, Beauty's bashful Queen;
Still Ind's divine Iacchus laughing weaves

His crown of clustering grapes and glossy leaves;
Still thou, Arch-type of Song,* ordain'd to soothe
The rest of Heroes, and with deathless youth

Crown the Celestial Brotherhood dost hold,

Brimm'd with the drink of gods, the urn of gold!

All live again! for this most pure, most high
Of Art's link'd choir, this chastener of the eye,
This heightener of the soul, that symbols all
The thoughts that fire us, and the toils that thrall,
Hewing from mine and rock its airy throne,

And quickening shapes for gods to wear, from stone,
Charm'd Morvale's mind, which simple and austere,

Ev'n in relaxing, yearned but to revere.

'T was noon, and broken by the gentle gloom
Of coolest draperies, through the shadowy room,
In moted shaft aslant, the golden ray

Forced lingering in, through tiers of flowers, its way,
Glanced on the lute, (just hush'd, to leave behind
Elysian dreams, the music of the mind,)

Play'd round the songstress, and with warmer flush
Steep'd the young cheek, unconscious of its blush,
And fell, as if in worship, at thy base,

*

O sculptured Psyche of the soul-lit face,

Bending to earth resign'd the mournful eye,

Since earth must prove the pathway to the sky;

The Psyche of Naples, the most intellectual and (so to speak) the most Christian of all the dreams of beauty which Grecian art has embodied in the marble.

Doomed here, below, Love's foot-print to explore,
Till Jove relents, the destined wandering o'er,

And in immortal groves, Soul meets with Love once more."

And, side by side, the lovers sate, their words

Low mix'd with notes from Lucy's joyous birds,
Sole witnesses and fit-those airy things,
That, midst the bars, can still unfold the wings,
And soothe the cell with language learn'd above;
As the caged bird- so on the earth is love!

Their talk was of the future; from the height

Of Hope, they saw the landscape bath'd in light,

And, where the golden dimness veil'd the gaze,

*

Guess'd out the spot, and marked the sites of happy

days,

Till silence came, and the full sense and power

Of the blest Present, the rich-laden Hour

That overshadowed them, as some hushed tree
With mellow fruitage bending heavily,-

What time, beneath the tender gloom reclined,
Dies on the lap of summer noon the wind!

*

Every one knows, through the version of Mrs. Tighe, the lovely allegory of Eros and Psyche, which Apuleius the neglected original, to whom all later romance writers are unconsciously indebted bequeathed to the delight of poets and the recognition of Christians.

has

Rous'd from the lulling spell with startled blush
At such strange power in silence, to the hush
The maid restored the music, while she sought
Fresh banks for that sweet river-loving thought.

"Tell me," she said, "if not too near the gloom
Of some sad tale, the rash desire presume;
What severs so the chords that should entwine
With one warm bond our sister's heart and thine?
Why does she love yet dread thee? what the grief
That shrinks from utterance and disdains relief?

Hast thou not been too stern?

Let thy words chide me,

nay, pardon! nay,

- not thy looks dismay!"

"Not unto thee, beneath whose starry eye

Each wild wave hushes, did my looks reply;

They were the answer to mine own dark thought,

Which back the gloom, thy smile had banish'd, brought.

"Well; — to the secrets of my soul thy love

Hath such sweet right, I lift the veil above

Home's shattered gods, and show what wounds belong

To writhing honour and revengeless wrong.

"Reared in the desert, round its rugged child, All we call life, grouped, menacing and wild; But to man's soul there is an inner life;

There, one soft vision smiled away the strife!
A fairy shape, an infant's face of glee,
An angel from that heaven, young Memory,
A voice that called me brother;

years had fled

Since my rough breast had pillowed that sweet head, Yet still my heart throbb'd with the pressure; still Tears, such as mothers know, my eyes would fill; Prayers, such as fathers pray, my soul would breathe; The oak were sere but for that jasmine-wreath!

At length, wealth came; my footsteps left the wild, Again we met; to woman grown the child!

How did we meet?. that heart to me was dead!

The bird, far heard amidst the waste was fled!

With earthlier fires that breast had learned to burn;

And what yet left? but ashes in the urn:

Wooed and abandoned! all of love, hope, soul

Lavish'd - now lifeless! - well, were this the whole!

But the good name — the virgin's pure renown —

Woman's white robe, and Honour's starry crown,
Lost, lost, for ever!"