I WONDER do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork's
cleft,

Some old tomb's ruin; yonder weed Took up the floating weft,

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may
pass.

She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.

She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion-heaven
hell?

or

She will not not give me heaven? "T is well!

Lose who may-I still can say,

Those who win heaven, blest are they! 1855.

ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

JUNE was not over

Though past the full, And the best of her roses Had yet to blow, When a man I know (But shall not discover, Since ears are dull, And time discloses)

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue.

My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.

But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up and begin again,So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.

What great fear, should one say, "Three days

That change the world might change as well

Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell!
What small fear, if another says,
"Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change un-
tried,

With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried."
No fear!-or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn.

1855.

A PICTURE AT FANO

DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave

That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special minis

try,

And time come for departure, thou, suspending

Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,

Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,

From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,

-And suddenly my head is covered o'er With those wings, white above the child who prays

Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding

Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know,

For I should have thy gracious face instead,

Thou bird of God! And wilt thou

bend me low

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,

Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,

And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

His clenched hand shall unclose at last, I know, and let out all the beauty: My poet holds the future fast,

Accepts the coming ages' duty, Their present for this past.

That day the earth's feast-master's brow Shall clear, to God the chalice raising; "Others give best at first, but thou Forever set'st our table praising, Keep'st the good wine till now!"

Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand, With few or none to watch and wonder:

I'll say-a fisher, on the sand

By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land.

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes Whereof one drop worked miracles,

And colored like Astarte's eyes Raw silk the merchant sells ?

And each bystander of them all Could criticise, and quote tradition