She said, “I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead !”

VI.

All day within the dreamy house

The doors upon their hinges creaked ; The blue fly sung i’ the pane; the mouse

Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about.

Old faces glimmered through the doors,

Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without.

She only said, “My life is dreary,

He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead !”

VII.

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense ; but most she loathed the hour

When the thick-moted sunbeam lay

Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower.

Then, said she, “I am very dreary,

He will not come,” she said ;
She wept, “I am aweary, aweary,

O God! that I were dead !”

TO

CLEAR-IIEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain

The knots that tangle human creeds, The wounding cords that bind and strain

The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn

Roof not a glance so keen as thine :

If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain.

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;

Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow:

Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames nor trenchant swords

Can do away that ancient lie :

A gentler death shall Falsehoud die, Shot through and through with cunning words.

Weak Truth, a-leaning on her crutch,

Wan, wasted Truth, in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,

Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;

Like that strange angel which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,

Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,
And heaven's mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.

MADELINE.

Thou art not steeped in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,

Ever varying Madeline.
Through light and shadow thou dost range,

Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites, and darling angers,

And airy forms of Aitting change.

Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles: but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter ?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,

Who may know?

Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,

Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof

From one another,

Each to each is dearest brother; Hues of the silken sheeny woof Momently shot into each other.

All the mystery is thine; Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect

in love-lore, Ever varying Madeline.

A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fanned,

About thee breaks and dances ;
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of angered shame

O’erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,

Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest,

But, looking fixedly the while, All my bounding heart entanglest

In a golden-netted smile; Then in madness and in bliss, If my lips should dare to kiss

Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.

SONG. - THE OWL.

WHEN cats run home and light is come,

And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,

And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;

Alone and warming his five wits
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,

And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch

Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;

Alone and warming his five wits
The white owl in the belfry sits.

SECOND SONG.

TO THE SAME.

THY tuwhits are lulled, I wot,

Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat,

So took echo with delight,
So took echo with delight,

That her voice, untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.

I would mock thy chant anew;

But I cannot mimic it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,

Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,

With a lengthened loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-0-0.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

I.

WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flowed back with me,

The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

II.

Anight my shallop, rustling through
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering through samplight dim,
And broidered sofas on each side :

In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.