XI.

I liked that way you had with your curls
Wound to a ball in a net behind :
Your cheek was chaste as a Quaker-girl's,

And your mouth-there was never, to my mind,
Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut;

And the dented chin too-what a chin !

There were certain ways when you spoke, some words
That you know you never could pronounce :
You were thin, however; like a bird's

Your hand seemed-some would say, the pounce Of a scaly-footed hawk-all but !

The world was right when it called you thin.

XII.

But I turn my back on the world: I take
Your hand, and kneel, and lay to my lips.
Bid me live, Edith! Let me slake

Thirst at your presence! Fear no slips!
'Tis your slave shall pay, while his soul endures,
Full due, love's whole debt, summum jus.
My queen shall have high observance, planned
Courtship made perfect, no least line
Crossed without warrant. There you stand,
Warm too, and white too: would this wine
Had washed all over that body of yours,
Ere I drank it, and you down with it, thus !

BIFURCATION.

We were two lovers; let me lie by her,

My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe

46

I loved him; but my reason bade prefer Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe Of rose and lily when each path diverged, And either I must pace to life's far end As love should lead me, or, as duty urged, Plod the warm causeway arm in arm with friend. So, truth turned falsehood: How I loathe a flower, How prize the pavement!' still caressed his earThe deafish friend's-through life's day, hour by hour, As he laughed (coughing) Ay, it would appear!' But deep within my heart of hearts there hid

Ever the confidence, amends for all,

That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did When love from life-long exile comes at call.

Duty and love, one broadway, were the best-
Who doubts? But one or other was to choose.
I chose the darkling half, and wait the rest
In that new world where light and darkness fuse."

Inscribe on mine-" I loved her: love's track lay
O'er sand and pebble, as all travelers know.
Duty led through a smiling country, gay

With greensward where the rose and lily blow.

Our roads are diverse farewell, love!' said she :

'Tis duty I abide by: homely sward

And not the rock-rough picturesque for me!
Above, where both roads join, I wait reward.
Be you as constant to the path whereon

I leave you planted!' But man needs must move,
Keep moving-whither, when the star is gone
Whereby he steps secure nor strays from love?
No stone but I was tripped by, stumbling-block
But brought me to confusion. Where I fell,
There I lay flat, if moss disguised the rock:
Thence, if flint pierced, I rose and cried, ‘All's well!
Duty be mine to tread in that high sphere
Where love from duty ne'er disparts, I trust,

And two halves make that whole, whereof-since here
One must suffice a man---why, this one must!''

Inscribe each tomb thus: then, some sage acquaint The simple-which holds sinner, which holds saint!

A LIKENESS.

SOME people hangportraits up
In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,
And her cousin, he stirs his cup,

Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?'
""Tis a daub John bought at a sale,"
Quoth the wife,-looks black as thunder.
What a shade beneath her nose!
Snuff-taking, I suppose."--

Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail.
Or else, there's no wife in the case,
But the portrait's queen of the place,
Alone mid the other spoils

Of youth,-masks, gloves, and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine,

But my master's, the Tipton Slasher")
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for a cigar-case,

And the chamois-horns ("shot in the Chablais")
And prints-Rarey drumming on Cruiser,
And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,
And the little edition of Rabelais :

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets
May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,

But the eyes are half out of their sockets;

That hair's not so bad, where the gloss is,
But they've made the girl's nose a proboscis :
Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!
What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?"

All that I own is a print,
An etching, a mezzotint;
'Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction,
Yet a fact (take my conviction),
Because it has more than a hint
Of a certain face, I never
Saw elsewhere touch or trace of
In women I've seen the face of:
Just an etching, and, so far, clever,

I keep my prints an imbroglio,
Fifty in one portfolio.

When somebody tries my claret,
We turn round chairs to the fire,
Chirp over days in a garret,
Chuckle o'er increase of salary,
Taste the good fruits of our leisure,
Talk about pencil and lyre,

And the National Portrait Gallery :

Then I exhibit my treasure.

After we've turned over twenty,

And the debt of wonder my crony owes

Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

He stops me-"Festina lentè!

What's that sweet thing there, the etching?"

How my waistcoat strings want stretching,

How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,

How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

“By the bye, you must take, for a keepsake,
That other, you praised, of Volpato's.'

The fool! would he try a flight farther and say—
He never saw, never before to-day,

What was able to take his breath away,

A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

With the dream of, meet death with,-why, I'll not engage But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,

I should toss him the thing's self-"'Tis only a duplicate,

A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!"

MAY AND DEATH.
I.

I WISH that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring's delightful things;
Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.

II.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps !
There must be many a pair of friends
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm
Moon-births and the long evening-ends.

III.

So, for their sake, be May still May!
Let their new time, as mine of old,

Do all it did for me: I bid

Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.

IV.

Only, one little sight, one plant,

Woods have in May, that starts up green
Save a sole streak which, so to speak,

Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,—

V.

That, they might spare; a certain wood
Might miss the plant; their loss were small:
But I,-whene'er the leaf grows there,

Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.

A FORGIVENESS.

I AM indeed the personage you know.

As for my wife,-what happened long ago-
You have a right to question me, as I

Am bound to answer.

("Son, a fit reply!"

The monk half spoke, half ground through his clenched

teeth,

At the confession-grate I knelt beneath.)

Thus then all happened, Father! Power and place

I had as still I have. I ran life's race,

With the whole world to see, as only strains

His strength some athlete whose prodigious gains
Of good appall him happy to excess,—

Work freely done should balance happiness
Fully enjoyed; and, since beneath my roof

Housed she who made home heaven, in heaven's behoof
I went forth every day, and all day long

Worked for the world. Look, how the laborer's song
Cheers him! Thus sang my soul, at each sharp throe
Of laboring flesh and blood-" She loves me so!"

One day, perhaps such song so knit the nerve
That work grew play and vanished. "I deserve
Haply my heaven an hour before the time !"
I laughed, as silverly the clockhouse-chime
Surprised me passing through the postern gate
-Not the main entry where the menials wait
And wonder why the world's affairs allow
The master sudden leisure. That was how
I took the private garden-way for once,