The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,

The new wine's foaming flow,
The master's lips aglow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,

Thee, God, who mouldest men ;

And since, not even while the whirl was worst,

Did I to the wheel of life

With shapes and colours rife,

Bound dizzily-mistake my end, to slake thy thirst:

So, take and use thy work:

Amend what flaws may lurk,

For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses,

past the aim!

My times be in thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

YOUTH AND ART

Ir once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the house top lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

Then laughed "They will see some day Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

My business was song, song, song;

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, "Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered!"

I earned no more by a warble

Than you by a sketch in plaster: You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air, looked out on the tiles,

For fun, watched each other's windows.

IF one could have that little head of hers

Painted upon a background of pale gold,

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft

In the pure profile: not as when she laughs,

For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's

Burden of honey-coloured buds to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,

How it should waver on the pale gold ground

Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!

I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb :

But these are only massed there, I should think,

Waiting to see some wonder momently

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like