The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse 30

Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach,

Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

35

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,

Drop water gently till the surface sinks,
And if ye find... Ah, God I know not,
I!...

Bedded in store of rotten figleaves soft, 40
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas,
all,

45

That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both His
hands

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

50

That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,

No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, 85
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone
can point,

And let the bedclothes for a mortcloth drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor'swork:

90

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, Popes, Cardinals and
Priests,

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, 95
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,

Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope

100

Be a god and hold me

With a charm!

Be a man and fold me

With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought

I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought-

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)

And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.

EVELYN HOPE

5

Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares,

Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking

While we speak!

10

Hush and hide the talking,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold - 50 There was place and to spare for the frank young smile

And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold.

So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

grass Never was!

25

55

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

Now,

1855

35

the single little turret that remains On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,

40

While the patching houseleek's head of blos

som winks

Through the chinks

(So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince

Ages since

10

Held his court in, gathered councils, wield

ing far

Peace or war.

and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

5

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions -'Must we die?' 20 Those commiserating sevenths- 'Life might last! we can but try!' 'Were you happy?' 'Yes.'-'And are

you still as happy?'-'Yes. And you?' 'Then, more kisses!'-'Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?' Hark! the dominant's persistence, till it must be answered to!

So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!

25

'Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike

Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon,

With the beanflowers' boon,

And the blackbird's tune,

And May, and June!

What I love best in all the world,

Is, a castle, precipice-encurled,

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,
And come again to the land of lands) -
In a sea-side house to the farther South,

10

15

20

(Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue,

Till my friends have said

They would fain see, too,

40

45

1855

My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs
furled:
They must solace themselves with the
Saturn above it.

10

What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.