CLXXX.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

AП, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past :
Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain !
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
It shall say till the mighty angel-blast

Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast, And showering down the stars like sudden rain. And evermore men shall go fearfully,

Bending beneath their weight of heaviness; And ancient men shall lie down wearily,

And strong men shall rise up in weariness ; Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly, Saying one to another: How vain it is!

CLXXXI.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING.

LOVE that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face,
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,

But felt my quickened heart leap in its place; Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days, Caught echoes of all music passed away.

Was this indeed to meet ?-I mind me yet

In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,

Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive :

Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

CLXXXII.

SIBYLLA PALMIFERA.

UNDER the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,

The sky and sea bend on thee,-which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law,

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise

Thy voice and hand shake still-long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,―the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet,

How passionately and irretrievably,

In what fond flight, how many ways and days !

CLXXXIII.

FOR

A VENETIAN PASTORAL.

BY GIORGIONE.

(In the Louvre.)

WATER, for anguish of the solstice :-nay,
But dip the vessel slowly,-nay, but lean
And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in
Reluctant. Hush! beyond all depth away
The heat lies silent at the break of day:

Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing,
Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray
Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep
And leave it pouting, while the shadowed grass

Is cool against her naked side? Let be:
Say nothing now unto her lest she weep,
Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,-
Life touching lips with Immortality.

CLXXXIV.

ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS.

NOT that the earth is changing, O my God!
Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,-
Not that the virulent ill of act and talk
Seethes ever as a wine-press ever trod,—
Not therefore are we certain that the rod

Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though

now

Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, So many kings:-not therefore, O my God!

But because Man is parcelled out in men
To-day; because, for any wrongful blow,

No man not stricken asks, 'I would be told Why thou dost strike;' but his heart whispers then, 'He is he, I am I.' By this we know

That the earth falls asunder, being old.