V.

No more wild war my veins ensteeps, Angelica! No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles!-- White wastes before me miles on miles With one low, ruby sunset bound-- Thou fleest before, I follow on: a far off sound Of oceans gnawing at dark steeps Swells to a roar.-- 'Mid foam thou smil'st: I spurn the ground-- I sink, I swim, waves hiss around-- Oh, could I sink 'neath the profound, And think of thee no more!

THE HAUNTED ROOM.

Its casements' diamond disks of glass Stare myriad on a terrace old, Where urns, unkempt with ragged grass, Foam o'er with frothy cold. The snow rounds o'er each stair of stone; The frozen fount is hooped with pearl; Down desolate walks, like phantoms lone, Thin, powd'ry snow-wreaths whirl.

And to each rose-tree's stem that bends With silver snow-combs, glued with frost, It seems each summer rosebud sends Its airy, scentless ghost. The stiff Elizabethan pile Chatters with cold thro' all its panes, And rumbling down each chimney file The mad wind shakes his reins.

* * * * * * *

Lone in the Northern angle, dim With immemorial dust, it lay, Where each gaunt casement's stony rim Stared lidless to the day. Drear in the Northern angle, hung With olden arras dusky, where Tall, shadowy Tristrams fought and sung For shadowy Isolds fair.

Lies by a dingy cabinet A tarnished lute upon the floor; A talon-footed chair is set Grotesquely by the door. A carven, testered bedstead stands With rusty silks draped all about; And like a moon in murky lands A mirror glitters out.

Dark in the Northern angle, where In musty arras eats and clings The drowsy moth; and frightened there The wild wind sighs and sings Adown the roomy flue and takes And swings the ghostly mirror till It shrieks and creaks, then pulls and shakes The curtains with a will.

A starving mouse forever gnaws Behind a polished panel dark, And 'long the floor its shadow draws A poplar in the park. I have been there when blades of light Stabbed each dull, stained, and dusty pane; I have been there at dead of night, But never will again....

She grew upon my vision as Heat sucked from the dry summer sod; In taffetas as green as grass Silent and faint she trod; And angry jewels winked and frowned In serpent coils on neck and wrist, And 'round her dainty waist was wound A zone of silver mist.

And icy fair as some bleak land Her pale, still face stormed o'er with night Of raven tresses, and her hand Was beautiful and white. Before the ebon mirror old Full tearfully she made her moan, And then a cock crew far and cold; I looked and she was gone.

As if had come a sullying breath And from the limpid mirror passed, Her presence past, like some near death Leaving my blood aghast. Tho' I've been there when blades of light Stabbed each dull, stained, and dusty pane; Tho' I've been there at dead of night, I never will again.

SERENADE.

By the burnished laurel line Glimmering flows the singing stream; Oily eddies crease and shine O'er white pebbles, white as cream.

Richest roses bud or die All about the splendid park; Fountains glass a wily eye Where the fawns browse in the dark.

Amber-belted through the night Floats the alabaster moon, Stooping o'er th' acacia white Where my mandolin I tune.

By the twinkling mere I sing Where lake lilies stretch pale eyes, And a bulbul there doth fling Music at the moon who flies.

With a broken syrinx there, From enameled beds of buds, Rises Pan in hoof and hair-- Moonlight his dim sculpture floods.

The pale jessamines have felt The large passion of her gaze; See! they part--their glories melt Round her in a starry haze.

THE MIRROR.

An antique mirror this, I like it not at all, In this lonely room where the goblin gloom Scowls from the arrased wall.

A mystic mirror framed In ebon, wildly carved; And the prisoned air in the crevice there Moans like a man that's starved.

A truthful mirror where, In the broad, chaste light of day, From the window's arches, like fairy torches, Red roses swing and sway.

They blush and bow and gaze, Proud beauties desolate, In their tresses cold the sunlight's gold, In their hearts a jealous hate.

A small green worm that gnaws, For the nightingale that low Each eve doth rave, the passionate slave Of the wild white rose below.

The night-bird wails below; The stars creep out above; And the roses soon in the sultry moon Shall palpitate with love.

The night-bird sobs below; The roses blow and bloom; Thro' the diamond panes the moonlight rains In the dim unholy room.

Ancestors grim that stare Stiff, starched, and haughty down From the oaken wall of the noble hall Put on a sterner frown.

The old, bleak castle clock Booms midnight overhead, And the rose is wan and the bird is gone When walk the shrouded dead.

And grim ancestors gaunt In smiles and tears faint flit; By the mirror there they stand and stare, And weep and sigh to it.

In rare, rich ermine earls With rapiers jeweled rare, With a powdered throng of courtiers long Pass with stiff and stately air.

With diamonds and perfumes In ruff and golden lace, Tall ladies pass by the looking-glass, Each sighing at her face.

An awful mirror this, I like it not at all, In this lonely room where the goblin gloom Scowls from the arrased wall.

THE RIDE.

She rode o'er hill, she rode o'er plain, She rode by fields of barley, By morning-glories filled with rain, And beechen branches gnarly.

She rode o'er plain, she rode o'er hill, By orchard land and berry; Her face was buoyant as the rill, Her eyes and heart were merry,

A bird sang here, a bird sang there, Then blithely sang together, Sang sudden greetings every where, "Good-morrow!" and "good weather!"

The sunlight's laughing radiance Laughed in her radiant tresses; The bold breeze set her curls a-dance, Made red her lips with kisses.

"Why ride ye here, why ride ye there, Why ride ye here so merry? The sunlight living in your hair, And in your cheek the cherry?

"Why ride ye with your sea-green plumes, Your sea-green silken habit, By balmy bosks of faint perfumes Where squats the cunning rabbit?"

"The morning's feet are wrought of gold, The hunter's horn is jolly; Sir Richard bold was rich and old, Was old and melancholy.

"A wife they'd have me to his bed, And to the kirk they hurried; But now, gramercy! he is dead, Perdie! is dead and buried.

"I ride by tree, I ride by rill, I ride by rye and clover, For by the kirk beyond the hill Awaits a better lover."

THE SLEEPER.

She sleeps and dreams; one milk-white, lawny arm Pillowing her heavy hair, as might cold Night Meeting her sister Day, with glory warm, Subside in languor on her bosom's white.

The naked other on the damask cloth,-- White, smooth, and light as the light thistle-down, Or the pink, fairy, fluffy evening moth On June-drunk beds of roses red,--lies thrown.

And one sweet cheek, kissed with the enamored moon, Grown pale with anger at the liberty. While, dusk in darkness, at the favor shown The pouting other frowns still envity.

Hangs fall'n in folds the rich, dark covering, With fretfulness thrust partly from her breast; As through storm-broken clouds the moon might spring, From this the orb of one pure bosom prest.

She sleeps; and where the silent moonbeams sink Thro' diamond panes,--soft as a ghost of snow,-- In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink With tawny jaws its wasted, winey glow.

Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams to her, Unborn of feverish sorrow or of care, Soft as the gust that makes the arras stir, Tangling gold moonbeams in her fragrant hair.

A MELODY.