SONNET XXXIX.

VAIN VIRTUES.

WHAT is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?
None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed
Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell
Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel
Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves
Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,
Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair

And

eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit

To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife,

The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

SONNET XL.

LOST DAYS.

THE lost days of my life until to-day,

What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway?

I do not see them here; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 'I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?' ‘And I—and I—thyself,' (lo! each one saith,) 'And thou thyself to all eternity!'

SONNET XLI.

DEATH'S SONGSTERS.

WHEN first that horse, within whose populous womb
The birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate,
Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight,
Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home :
She whispered, 'Friends, I am alone; come, come!'
Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid,

And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid
His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.

The same was he who, lashed to his own mast,

There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves, Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd,

Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves. Say, soul,—are songs of Death no heaven to thee, Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?

SONNET XLII.

'RETRO ME, SATHANA !'

GET thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,
Stooping against the wind, a charioteer

Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world: Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air,

It shall be sought and not found anywhere. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways. Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath

For certain years, for certain months and days.

SONNET XLIII.

LOST ON BOTH SIDES.

As when two men have loved a woman well,

Each hating each, through Love's and Death's deceit ;
Since not for either this stark marriage-sheet

And the long pauses of this wedding-bell;
Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel

At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat;
Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet
The two lives left that most of her can tell :-

:

So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed

The one same Peace, strove with each other long,

And Peace before their faces perished since :

So through that soul, in restless brotherhood,
They roam together now, and wind among

Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns.