Broad-winged, the stormy slopes of air. And once, when winter's stubborn heart Half broke in sunshine o'er the place, We held our bridles to depart,

Eager and gleeful; but your face-
It did not mirror our delights,
O Maiden of the Maronites!

Bright face! how Arab-wild would glow,
Through shifting mood of storm or calm,
Its beauty, born of sun and snow,

Between the cedar and the palm.
Nor, as I watched its changing thought,
Could alien speech be long disguise;
For ere one English phrase she caught
I learned the Arabic of her eyes
The love-lore of their dusks and lights,
My Maiden of the Maronites!

We parted soon, and upward fared,
Snow-fettered, till the pass was ours,
And all beneath us, golden-aired,

Lay Syria, in a dream of flowers.
Then spurred we, for before us burned
White Baalbec's signal in the noon,
And, ere to wayside camp we turned,
'Twixt us and you and far Bhâmdun,
All Lebanon raised his icy heights,
My Maiden of the Maronites!

Yet, still, those days on Lebanon

As steadfast keep their after-glow As if they owned a summer sun,

And roses blossomed in the snow; And when, with fire of heart and brain, And the quick pulse's speed increased, And wordless longings, come again

Vision and passion of the East,

I dream—ah! wild are Fancy's flights,
O Maiden of the Maronites !

DIVIDED

THE half-world's width divides us; where she sits

Noonday has broadened o'er the prairied
West;

For me, beneath an alien sky, unblest,
The day dies and the bird of evening flits.
Nor do I dream that in her happier breast
Stirs thought of me. Untroubled beams

the star,

quest,

Who, for dear life, may seek it on mid-sea. The half-world's width divides us; yet, from far

--

Who lieth, still and mute,
In sleep so absolute.
Yea, by this precious sign

Shall sleep most sweet be mine;

And I, at last, am blest, Knowing she went to rest This cross upon her breast."

Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;

And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
Of spiced meats and costliest fish
And all that the curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;
Scattered over mosaic floors
Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows,
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand
The dancing-girls of Samarcand
Making a sudden mist in air
Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,

Of fleecy veils and floating hair
And white arms lifted. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,
Flaming, flickering on the night
From my neighbor's casement opposite,
I know as well as I know to pray,
I know as well as a tongue can say,
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman
Has gone to the city Ispahan.

PALABRAS CARIÑOSAS

GOOD-NIGHT! I have to say good-night
To such a host of peerless things!
Good-night unto the slender hand
All queenly with its weight of rings;
Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes,
Good-night to chestnut braids of hair,
Good-night unto the perfect mouth,
And all the sweetness nestled there

The snowy hand detains me, then
I'll have to say Good-night again!

But there will come a time, my love,
When, if I read our stars aright,
I shall not linger by this porch
With my farewells. Till then, good-night!
You wish the time were now ? And I.
You do not blush to wish it so ?
You would have blushed yourself to death
To own so much a year ago
What, both these snowy hands! ah, then
I'll have to say Good-night again!

HEREDITY

Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate,

Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel

Stay those who to thy sacred portals come To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a

care

Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be

torn

And trampled in the dust. For so of old The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,

And where the temples of the Cæsars stood The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.

GUILIELMUS REX

THE folk who lived in Shakespeare's day
And saw that gentle figure pass
By London Bridge, his frequent way ·
They little knew what man he was.

The pointed beard, the courteous mien,
The equal port to high and low,
All this they saw or might have seen
But not the light behind the brow!

The doublet's modest gray or brown,
The slender sword-hilt's plain device,
What sign had these for prince or clown?
Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.

Yet 't was the king of England's kings!
The rest with all their pomps and trains
Are mouldered, half-remembered things -
"Tis he alone that lives and reigns!

What strain was his in that Crimean war? A bugle-call in battle; a low breath, Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!

So year by year the music rolled afar, From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,

Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.

Others shall have their little space of time, Their proper niche and bust, then fade away

Into the darkness, poets of a day; But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime

On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.

Waft me this verse across the winter sea, Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,

O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; Though the poor gift betray my poverty, At his feet lay it: it may chance that he

Will find no gift, where reverence is, un

meet.

A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT CLOSE on the edge of a midsummer dawn In troubled dreams I went from land to

land,

Each seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,