A WOMAN'S LAST WORD.

1.

LET's contend no more, Love,

Strive nor weep All be as before, Love,

- Only sleep!

2.

What so wild as words are?

-I and thou

In debate, as birds are,

Hawk on bough!

3.

See the creature stalking

While we speak

Hush and hide the talking,

Cheek on cheek!

4.

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is,

Shun the tree

5

Where the apple reddens

Never pry

Lest we lose our Edens.

Eve and I!

6.

Be a god and hold me

With a charm

Be a man and fold me

With thine arm!

7.

Teach me, only teach, Love!

As I ought

I will speak thy speech, Love,

Think thy thought

8.

Meet, if thou require it,

Both demands,

Laying flesh and spirit

In thy hands!

9.

That shall be to-morrow

Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow

Out of sight.

10.

Must a little weep, Love,

Foolish me!

And so fall asleep, Love,

Loved by thee.

FRA LIPPO LIPPI.

I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk !
What, it's past midnight, and you go the rounds,
And here you catch me at an alley's end
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar.
The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up,

Do,
harry out, if you must show your zeal,
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company!
Aha, you know your betters? Then, you'll take
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat,
And please to know me likewise. Who am I?
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend

Three streets off — he's a certain . . . how d'ye call?
Master a Cosimo of the Medici,

In the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were be....! Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,

How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
Pick up a manner nor discredit you.

Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets
And count fair prize what comes into their net?
He's Judas to a tittle, that man is!

Just such a face! why, sir, you make amends.
Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
Of the munificent House that harbours me
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!)
And all's come square again. I'd like his face
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door

With the pike and lantern, for the slave that holds
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair

With one hand ("look you, now," as who should say)
And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!
It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk,
A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!
Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so.
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down,
You know them and they take you? like enough!
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye -

'Tell you I liked your looks at very first.

Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands

To roam the town and sing out carnival,

And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,

A-painting for the great man, saints and saints