Was, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a crime, I say. You of the virtue, (we issue join)

How strive you? De te, fabula!

LOVE IN A LIFE.

1.

ROOм after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,

Next time, herself! - not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest, who cares?

-

But 'tis twilight, you see,— with such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

LIFE IN A LOVE.

ESCAPE me?

Never

Beloved!

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 to begin again,

So the chace takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your furthest bound,

At me so deep in the dust and dark,

No sooner the old hope drops to ground.

Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,

HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY.

I ONLY knew one poet in my life:

And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,
A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black

Was courtly once and conscientious still,

And many might have worn it, though none did:

The cloak that somewhat shone and showed the threads

Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.

He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, Scenting the world, looking it full in face,

An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.

They turned up, now, the alley by the church,

That leads no whither; now, they breathed themselves
On the main promenade just at the wrong time.
You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat,

Making a peaked shade blacker than itself
Agast the single window spared some house
Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work, -
Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick
Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks

Of some new shop a-building, French and fine.
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,
The man who slices lemons into drink,
The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys
That volunteer to help him turn its winch.
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,
And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string,
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.
He took such cognizance of men and things,

If

any beat a horse, you felt he saw;
If any cursed a woman, he took note;
Yet stared at nobody, they stared at him,
And found, less to their pleasure than surprise,
He seemed to know them and expect as much.
So, next time that a neighbour's tongue was loosed,
It marked the shameful and notorious fact,
We had among us, not so much a spy,
As a recording chief-inquisitor,

The town's true master if the town but knew!
We merely kept a Governor for form,
While this man walked about and took account
Of all thought, said, and acted, then went home,
And wrote it fully to our Lord the King,
Who has an itch to know things, He knows why,
And reads them in His bedroom of a night.
Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,
A tang of... well, it was not wholly ease
As back into your mind the man's look came
Stricken in years a little, - such a brow