> mixed for Grecian mouths heaven's lyric wine

dumb, fell down reproved

>re one sovereign Lesbian song of thine.

t soul, though love and life had fain held fast,

d-winged with fiery music, rose and past

ough the indrawn hollow of earth and heaven and hell, through some strait sea-shell

wide sea's immemorial song,-the

sea

it sings and breathes in strange men's ears of thee

w in her barren bride bed, void and vast,

en thy soul sang itself to sleep at last.

sleep? Ah, then, what song is this, that here

kes all the night one ear,

e ear fulfilled and mad with music,

one

art kindling as the heart of heaven, to hear

song more fiery than the awakening

sun

ngs, when his song sets fire

› the air and clouds that build the dead night's pyre?

thou of divers-colored mind, O thou eathless, God's daughter, subtle-souled -lo, now,

ow to the song above all songs, in flight igher than the day-star's height,

nd sweet as sound the moving wings of night!

hou of the divers-colored seat-behold, er very song of old!—

- deathless, O God's daughter, subtlesouled!

hat same cry through this boskage overhead

ings round reiterated,

alpitates as the last palpitated,

he last that panted through her lips

and died

This is the song that made

Love fearful, even the heart of love afraid,

With the great anguish of its great delight.

No swan-song, no far-fluttering halfdrawn breath,

No word that love of love's sweet nature saith,

No dirge that lulls the narrowing lids of death,

No healing hymn of peace-prevented strife,

This is her song of life.

I loved thee,-hark, one tenderer note than all

Atthis, of old time, once-one low long fall,

Sighing one long low lovely loveless call,

Dying-one pause in song so flamelike fast

Atthis, long since in old time overpast-One soft first pause and last,

One, then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain

Storms all the music-maddened night again.

Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee

Bid not ache nor agony break nor master,

Lady, my spirit—

O thou her mistress, might her cry not reach thee?

Our Lady of all men's loves, could Love go past her,

Pass, and not hear it?

She hears not as she heard not: hears not me,

O trebled-natured mystery-how should she

Hear, or give ear?-who heard and heard not thee;

Heard and went past, and heard not; but all time

Hears all that all the ravin of his years Hath cast not wholly out of all men's

ears

And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime

Of their reiterate rhyme.

And now of all songs uttering all her praise,

All hers who had thy praise and did thee

wrong,

The spear that pierces even the sevenfold shields

Of mightiest Memory, mother of all songs made.

And wastes all songs as roseleaves kissed and frayed

As here the harvest of the foam-flowered fields;

But thine the spear may waste not that he wields

Since first the God whose soul is man's live breath,

The sun whose face hath our sun's face for shade,

Put all the light of life and love and death

Too strong for life, but not for love too strong,

Where pain makes peace with pleasure in thy song.

And in thine heart, where love and song make strife,

Fire everlasting of eternal life. 1880.

Spake, might the word be said that might speak Thee. Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea, the sea, What power is in them all to praise the sun?

His praise is this,-he can be praised of

none.

ין