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Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido's wet accursed graves,

They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And... on Thy breast I sink!

She replies, musing.

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do thus: were Death so unlike Sleep,
Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel,
Or poison doubtless; but from water-feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,

I flung away since you have praised my hair,
'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks.

Row home? must we row home? Too surely

Know I where its front 's demurely

Over the Giudecca piled;

Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,

All's the set face of a child :
But behind it, where 's a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child's playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O'er the small sea-water thread

Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!

First, out a cloud of curtain blew,

Then, a sweet cry, and last, came you—
To catch your loory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.

I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony,

(To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach)
That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.

Dear loory, may his beak retain

Ever its delicate rose stain

As if the wounded lotus-blossoms

Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others' sake

Than mine! what should your chamber do?

-With all its rarities that ache

In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,

Suspended just to pleasure you

-That brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether

That they look dumb: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
That dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumbrously as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell,
As the dry limpet for the lymph

Come with a tune he knows so well.

And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies

To that prim Saint by Haste-thee-Luke:
And, deeper into her rock den,

Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-

As if the Tizian thinks of her,

And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document

That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks.

1.

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze if the ribbon's black,
The Three are watching; keep away.

2.

Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe

A mesh of water-weeds about

Its prow, as if he unaware

Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair;

That I may throw a paper out

[blocks in formation]

There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we! Only one minute more to-night with me? Resume your past self of a month ago!

Be you
the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow:

Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, All thanks, Siora !—

Heart to heart,

And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou art!

He is surprised, and stabbed.

It was ordained to be so, Sweet,—and best

Comes now, beneath thine eyes, and on thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards!

Only to put aside thy beauteous hair

Care

My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I

Have lived indeed, and so—

-(yet one more kiss)—can die!

ARTEMIS PROLOGUIZES.

I AM a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Thro' Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace;
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,
And every feathered mother's callow brood,

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