Helen. Easy are all things, do but thou command.

Menelaus. Look up then.

Helen.

To the hardest proof of all I am now bidden; bid me not look up. Menelaus. She looks as when I led her on behind

The torch and fife, and when the blush o'erspread

Her girlish face at tripping in the myrtle On the first step before the wreathed gate.

Approach me. Fall not on thy knees.
Helen.
The hand
That is to slay me, best may slay me thus.
I dare no longer see the light of heaven,
Not thine-alas! the light of heaven to

WHERE art thou gone, light-ankled
Youth?

With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem'd to whisper near
That thou and I must part;

I doubted it: I felt no fear.
No weight upon the heart:
If aught befell it, Love was by
And roll'd it off again;
So, if there ever was a sigh,
'Twas not a sigh of pain.

I may not call thee back; but thou
Returnest when the hand

Of gentle Sleep waves o'er my brow
His poppy-crested wand;

Then smiling eyes bend over mine,
Then lips once pressed invite ;
But sleep hath given a silent sign,
And both, alas! take flight.

1853.

years

Have we lived door by door:

The Fates have laid aside their shears Perhaps for some few more.

1 was indocile at an age

When better boys were taught,

But thou at length hast made me sage,
If I am sage in aught.

Little I know from other men,
Too little they from me,
But thou hast pointed well the pen
That writes these lines to thee.

Thanks for expelling Fear and Hope,
One vile, the other vain ;
One's scourge, the other's telescope,
I shall not see again :

Rather what lies before my feet
My notice shall engage-

He who hath braved Youth's dizzy heat
Dreads not the frost of Age.

1853.

The poet's heart: while that heart bleeds, the hand

Presses it close. Grief must run on and pass

Into near Memory's more quiet shade
Before it can compose itself in song.
He who is agonized and turns to show
His agony to those who sit around,
Seizes the pen in vain: thought, fancy,
power,

Rush back into his bosom; all the strength

Of genius can not draw them into light From under mastering Grief; but Memory,

The Muse's mother, nurses, rears them up,

Informs, and keeps them with her all her 1853.

days.

I was among the shades (if shades they were)

And look'd around me for some friendly hand

To guide me on my way, and tell me all That compass'd me around. I wish'd to find

One no less firm or ready than the guide Of Alighieri, trustier far than he, Higher in intellect, more conversant With earth and heaven and whatso lies between.

He stood before me-Southey.

"Thou art he," Said I, "whom I was wishing."

"That I know," Replied the genial voice and radiant eye. "We may be question'd, question we may not ;

For that might cause to bubble forth again

Some bitter spring which crossed the pleasantest

And shadiest of our paths."

"I do not ask," Said I," about your happiness; I see The same serenity as when we walked Along the downs of Clifton. Fifty years Have roll'd behind us since that summer

tide,

Nor thirty fewer since along the lake Of Lario, to Bellaggio villa-crown'd, Thro' the crisp waves I urged my sideling bark,

Amid sweet salutations off the shore From lordly Milan's proudly courteous dames."

"Landor! I well remember it," said he, "I had just lost my first-born only boy, And then the heart is tender; lightest things

Sink into it, and dwell there evermore." The words were not yet spoken when the air

Blew balmier; and around the parent's neck

An Angel threw his arms: it was that