Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was

woven with, O my Dolores? Was it pallor or slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair? For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh, not the heart, is her fuel; She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escap'd from the rage of her reign; Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel, And flush'd as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain. Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer,

In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew ;

And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,

And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew. With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter,

With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile; And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter,

And she laughs with a savor of blood in her face, and a savor of guile.

She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;

Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,

To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.

Ah, daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,

Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;

Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen,

Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.

They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,

None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride:

By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden, Where life breaks loud and unseen, a

sonorous invisible tide;

By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile, By the thundering reef and the low sea wall and the channel of years,

Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril, Labor and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;

And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder, And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass, Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,

Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;

Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden, Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past; And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden, As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah, love, shall we win at the last?

IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAV-
AGE LANDOR

BACK to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.

The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Fill'd full of sun;

All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.

In many a tender wheaten plot
Flowers that were dead

Live, and old suns revive; but not
That holier head.

By this white wandering waste of sea,
Far north, I hear

One face shall never turn to me
As once this year:

Shall never smile and turn and rest On mine as there,

Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendor and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,

Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,

Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,

Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!

For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,

And the southwest-wind and the westwind sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that

The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes

From leaf to flower and flower to fruit ; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut

root.

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair

Over her eyebrows, hiding her eyes; The wild vine slipping down leaves bare Her bright breast shortening into sighs;

The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,

But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that
flies.

I know you have it about you: give it me. Chast. I cannot yield you such a thing again;

Not as I had it.

Queen. A coward? what shift now? Do such men make such cravens? Chast. Chide me not : Pity me that I cannot help my heart. Queen. Heaven mend mine eyes that took you for a man!

What, is it sewn into your flesh ? take heed Nay, but for shame with it?

what have you done

God help me, sir!

Chast. Why, there it lies, torn up.
Queen.

Have you done this?

Chast. Yea, sweet; what should I do? Did I not know you to the bone, my sweet? God speed you well? you have a goodly

lord.