III. ANTINOUS CROWNED AS BACCHUS. (In the British Museum.) Who crowned thy forehead with the ivy-wreath Cast o'er their sleep the shadow of her shrine. Thy soul descend through cloudy realms of thought? IV. LEONARDO'S " MONNA LISA." Make thyself known, Sibyl, or let despair Of knowing thee be absolute; I wait Hour-long and waste a soul. What word of fate Hides 'twixt the lips which smile and still forbear? Secret perfection! Mystery too fair! Tangle the sense no more lest I should hate Thy delicate tyranny, the inviolate Poise of thy folded hands, thy fallen hair. Nay, nay, I wrong thee with rough words; still be Serene, victorious, inaccessible; Still smile but speak not; lightest irony Lurk ever 'neath thine eyelids' shadow; still O'ertop our knowledge; Sphinx of Italy, Allure us and reject us at thy will! V. ST LUKE PAINTING THE VIRGIN. (By Van der Weyde.) It was Luke's will; and she, the mother-maid, Would not gainsay; to please him pleased her best; See, here she sits with dovelike heart at rest Brooding, and smoothest brow; the babe is laid On lap and arm, glad for the unarrayed And swatheless limbs he stretches; lightly pressed By soft maternal fingers the full breast Seeks him, while half a sidelong glance is stayed By her own bosom and half passes down To reach the boy. Through doors and window frame Bright airs flow in; a river tranquilly Washes the small, glad Netherlandish town. A pierced heart, sunless heaven, and Calvary. ON THE HEIGHTS. Here are the needs of manhood satisfied! Sane breath, an amplitude for soul and sense, The noonday silence of the summer hills, And this embracing solitude; o'er all The sky unsearchable, which lays its claim,— And slow eye-mesmerism of rolling waves, Courting oblivion of the heart. True life Having let slide all force from me, each thought Each nerve of motion and of sense grow numb, Till to the bland persuasion of some breeze, Which played across my forehead and my hair, The last volition would efface itself, And I was mingled wholly in the sound Of tumbling billow and upjetting surge, Long reluctation, welter and refluent moan, And the reverberating tumultuousness 'Mid shelf and hollow and angle black with spray. Yet under all oblivion there remained A sense of some frustration, a pale dream Of Nature mocking man, and drawing down, As streams draw down the dust of gold, his will, His thought and passion to enrich herself The insatiable devourer. |