THE PASSOVER IN THE HOLY FAMILY

(For a Drawing.")

HERE meet together the prefiguring day

And day prefigured. 'Eating, thou shalt stand, Feet shod, loins girt, thy road-staff in thine hand, With blood-stained door and lintel,' — did God say By Moses' mouth in ages passed away.

And now, where this poor household doth comprise At Paschal-Feast two kindred families,

Lo! the slain lamb confronts the Lamb to slay.

The pyre is piled. What agony's crown attained,

What shadow of Death the Boy's fair brow subdues Who holds that blood wherewith the porch is stained By Zachary the priest? John binds the shoes

He deemed himself not worthy to unloose; And Mary culls the bitter herbs ordained.

* The scene is in the house-porch, where Christ holds a bowl of blood from which Zacharias is sprinkling the posts and lintel. Joseph has brought the lamb and Elisabeth lights the pyre The shoes which John fastens and the bitter herbs which Mary is gathering form part of the ritual.

MARY MAGDALENE.

AT THE DOOR OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.

(For a Drawing.*)

WHY wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?

Nay, be thou all a rose,

Nay, not this house,

-

wreath, lips, and cheek.

that banquet-house we seek ;

See how they kiss and enter; come thou there.

This delicate day of love we two will share

Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak What, sweet one,- hold'st thou still the foolish

freak?

Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.'

'Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,

My hair, my tears He craves to-day: - and oh! What words can tell what other day and place Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His? He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!'

* In the drawing Mary has left a festal procession, and is ascending by a sudden impulse the steps of the house where she sees Christ. Her lover has followed her and is trying to turn her back.

LILITH.

(For a Picture.)

OF Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)

That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck

bent,

And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

VENUS VERTICORDIA.

(For a Picture.)

SHE hath the apple in her hand for thee,
Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
She muses, with her eyes upon the track
Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
Haply, 'Behold, he is at peace,' saith she;
'Alas! the apple for his lips, - the dart
That follows its brief sweetness to his heart, –

The wandering of his feet perpetually!'

A little space her glance is still and coy,

But if she give the fruit that works her spell,

Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.

Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe fore tell,

And her far seas moan as a single shell,

And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.

CASSANDRA.

(For a Drawing.*)

I.

KEND, rend thine hair, Cassandra: he will go.

Yea, rend thy garments, wring thine hands, and cry
From Troy still towered to the nreddened sky.
See, all but she that bore thee mock thy woe:
He most whom that fair woman arms, with show
Of wrath on her bent brows; for in this place
This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's face
The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know.
What eyes, what ears hath sweet Andromache,
Save for her Hector's form and step; as tear
On tear make salt the warm last kiss he gave?

He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily
Like crows above his crest, and at his ear

Ring hollow in the shield that shall not save.

The subject shows Cassandra prophesying among her kindred, as Hector leaves them for his last battle. They are on the platform of a fortress, from which the Trojan troops are marching out. Helen is arming Paris; Priam soothes Hecuba; and Andromache holds the child to her bosom.