11.

'O Hector, gone, gone, gone! O Hector, thee Two chariots wait, in Troy long bless'd and curs'd;

And Grecian spear and Phrygian sand athirst Crave from thy veins the blood of victory.

Lo! long upon our hearth the brand had we,

Lit for the roof-tree's ruin: and to-day

The ground-stone quits the wall, the wind hath

way,

And higher and higher the wings of fire are free.

O Paris, Paris! O thou burning brand,

Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose, Lighting thy race to shipwreck! Even that hand Wherewith she took thine apple let her close Within thy curls at last, and while Troy glows Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land.'

PANDORA.

(For a Picture.)

WHAT of the end, Pandora? Was it thine,
The deed that set these fiery pinions free?
Ah! wherefore did the Olympian consistory
In its own likeness make thee half divine?
Was it that Juno's brow might stand a sign
For ever? and the mien of Pallas be

A deadly thing? and that all men might see
In Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine?

What of the end? These beat their wings at will, The ill-born things, the good things turned to ill,

Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited.

Aye, clench the casket now!

Whither they go

Thou mayst not dare to think: nor canst thou know If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.

ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS

Not that the earth is changing, O my God!

Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,Not that the virulent ill of act and talk Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,

Not therefore are we certain that the rod

Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, So many kings:-not therefore, O my God!

But because Man is parcelled out in men
To-day; because, for any wrongful blow,

No man not stricken asks, 'I would be told
Why thou dost thus ;' but his heart whispers then,

'He is he, I am I.' By this we know

That the earth falls asunder, being old.

ON THE VITA NUOVA' OF DANTE.

As he that loves oft looks on the dear form

And guesses how it grew to womanhood,

And gladly would have watched the beauties bud And the mild fire of precious life wax warm:— So I, long bound within the threefold charm Of Dante's love sublimed to heavenly mood, Had marvelled, touching his Beatitude,

How grew such presence from man's shameful swarm

At length within this book I found portrayed
Newborn that Paradisal Love of his,

And simple like a child; with whose clear aid
I understood. To such a child as this,
Christ, charging well his chosen ones, forbade
Offence: for lo! of such my kingdom is.'

DANTIS TENEBRÆ.

(In Memory of my Father.)

AND did'st thou know indeed, when at the font
Together with thy name thou gav'st me his,
That also on thy son must Beatrice

Decline her eyes according to her wont,
Accepting me to be of those that haunt
The vale of magical dark mysteries

Where to the hills her poet's foot-track lies
And wisdom's living fountain to his chaunt
Trembles in music? This is that steep land
Where he that holds his journey stands at gaze
Tow'rd sunset, when the clouds like a new height
Seem piled to climb. These things I understand:
For here, where day still soothes my lifted face,
Or. thy bowed head, my father, fell the night.