But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,

While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close

reserve,

In you come with your cold music, till I creep through every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burn'd-

'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earn'd!

The soul, doubtless, is immortal-where a soul can be discern'd.

'Yours for instance, you know physics, something of geology,

Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;

Butterflies may dread extinction,-you'll not die, it cannot be !

'As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom

and drop,

Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop :

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

'Dust and ashes!' So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too-what's become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly

and grown old.

R. Browning

CXLV

IF SHE BUT KNEW

If she but knew that I am weeping
Still for her sake,

That love and sorrow grow with keeping
Till they must break,

My heart that breaking will adore her,
Be hers and die ;

If she might hear me once implore her,
Would she not sigh?

If she but knew that it would save me
Her voice to hear,

Saying she pitied me, forgave me,
Must she forbear?

If she were told that I was dying,
Would she be dumb?

Could she content herself with sighing?

Would she not come ?

A. O'Shaughnessy

CXLVI

SONG

Has summer come without the rose,
Or left the bird behind?

Is the blue changed above thee,
O world! or am I blind?
Will you change every flower that
Or only change this spot,
Where she who said, I love thee,
• Now says, I love thee not?

The skies seem'd true above thee,
The rose true on the tree;

grows,

The bird seem'd true the summer through, But all proved false to me.

World! is there one good thing in you,
Life, love, or death-or what?

Since lips that sang, I love thee,
Have said, I love thee not?

I think the sun's kiss will scarce fall
Into one flower's gold cup ;
I think the bird will miss me,
And give the summer up.
O sweet place! desolate in tall
Wild grass, have you forgot
How her lips loved to kiss me,
Now that they kiss me not?

Be false or fair above me,

Come back with any face,
Summer! do I care what you do?

You cannot change one place-
The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew,
The grave I make the spot-

Here, where she used to love me,
Here, where she loves me not.

A. O'Shaughnessy

CXLVII

DEPARTURE

It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have nought other to lament, Never, my Love, repent

Of how, that July afternoon,

You went,

With sudden, unintelligible phrase,

And frighten'd eye,

Upon your journey of so many days

Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?

I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;

And so we sate, within the low sun's rays,

You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Your harrowing praise.

Well, it was well,

To hear you such things speak,

And I could tell

What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash

To let the laughter flash,

Whilst I drew near,

Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.

But all at once to leave me at the last,

More at the wonder than the loss aghast,

With huddled, unintelligible phrase,

And frighten'd eye,

And go your journey of all days

With not one kiss, or a good-bye,

And the only loveless look the look with which you

pass'd:

'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

CXLVIII

SONG

C. Fatmore

I made another garden, yea,
For my new love;

I left the dead rose where it lay,
And set the new above.
Why did the summer not begin?
Why did my heart not haste?
My old love came and walk'd therein,
And laid the garden waste.

She enter'd with her weary smile,
Just as of old;

She look'd around a little while,

And shiver'd at the cold. .
Her passing touch was death to all,
Her passing look a blight :

She made the white rose-petals fall,
And turn'd the red rose white.

Her pale robe, clinging to the grass,
Seem'd like a snake

That bit the grass and ground, alas!
And a sad trail did make.

She went up slowly to the gate;
And there, just as of yore,

She turn'd back at the last to wait,
And say farewell once more.

A. O'Shaughnessy

CXLIX

THE LOST MISTRESS

All's over, then does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves !

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully
-You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,—
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever !—

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

R. Browning