III.

And then you called me, and my ears Grew flattered with the music, led In fancy back to sweeter years, Far sweeter years that now are dead; And at your summons fast I sped, Buoyant as one a goal who nears. Ah! lost, dead love! I woke in tears; For as I neared you farther fled!

ASPIRATION.

God knows I strive against low lust and vice, Wound in the net of their voluptuous hair; God knows that all their kisses are as ice To me who do not care.

God knows, against the front of Fate I set Eyes still and stern, and lips as bitter prest; Raised clenched and ineffectual palms to let Her rock-like pressing breast!

God knows what motive such large zeal inspires, God knows the star for which I climb and crave, God knows, and only God, the eating fires That in my bosom rave.

I will not fall! I will not; thou dost lie! Deep Hell! that seethest in thy simmering pit; Thy thousand throned horrors shall not vie, Or ever compass it!

But as thou sinkest from my soul away, So shall I rise, rolled in the morning's rose, Beyond this world, this life, this little day-- God knows! God knows! God knows!

SPRING TWILIGHT.

The sun set late, and left along the West One furious ruby rare, whose rosy rays Poured in a slumb'rous cloud's pear-curdled breast, Blossomed to peachy sprays.

The sun set late, and wafts of wind arose, And cuffed the blossom from the blossoming quince; Shatter red attar vials of the rose, And made the clover wince.

By dusking forests, thro' whose fretful boughs In flying fragments shot the evening's flame, Adown the tangled lane the quiet cows With dreary tinklings came.

The sun set late; but hardly had he gone When o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there, Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone, Pulsed in fair deeps of air.

As from faint stars the glory waned and waned, The fussy insects made the garden shrill; Beyond the luminous pasture lands complained One lonely whippoorwill.

FRAGMENTS.