And follow no step ;-O Persephone, take him,

My husband!-thou'rt better and brighter than I !
So all beauty flows down to thee! I cannot make him
Look up at my grief; there's despair in my cry,
Since I wail for Adonis, who died to me... died to me.
-Then I fear thee !-Art thou dead, my Adored?
Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me.—
Cypris is widowed; the Loves seek their lord

All the house through in vain! Charm of cestus has ceased
With thy clasp !-O too bold in the hunt, past preventing;
Ay, mad: thou so fair . . . to have strife with a beast!'
Thus did Cypris wail on—and the Loves are lamenting.

VI.

Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead :

She wept tear after tear, with the blood which was shed; And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close; Her tears, to the wind-flower,—his blood, to the rose.

VII.

I mourn for Adonis-Adonis is dead.

Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover.
So, well; make a place for his corse in thy bed,

With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over.
He's fair though a corse-a fair corse . . . like a sleeper—-
Lay soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold,

When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper
Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold!
Love him still, poor Adonis! cast on him together

The crowns and the flowers! since he died from the place,
Why, let all die with him—let the blossoms go wither;
Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face:
Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining,
For thy myrrh, his life, from thy keeping is swept!
-Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining,-

The Loves raised their voices around him and wept.
They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis :
One treads on his bow,-on his arrows, another,-
One breaks up a well-feathered quiver; and one is
Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings;

And one carries the vases of gold from the springs,

1

While one washes the wound; and behind them a brother Fans down on the body sweet airs with his wings.

VIII.

Cytherea herself, now, the Loves are lamenting.
Each torch at the door, Hymenæus blew out;
And the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting,
No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about,
But the ai ai instead- -"ai alas" is begun

For Adonis, and then follows "ai Hymenæus !"
The Graces are weeping for Cinyras' son,

Sobbing low, each to each, “His fair eyes cannot see us!" Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dione's;

The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis,

Deep chanting! he hears not a word that they say:
He would hear, but Persephone has him in keeping.
-Cease moan, Cytherea-leave pomps for to-day,
And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping.

AND so these daughters fair of Pandarus,

The whirlwinds took. The gods had slain their kin :
They were left orphans in their father's house.

And Aphrodite came to comfort them

With incense, luscious honey, and fragrant wine;
And Here gave them beauty of face and soul
Beyond all women; purest Artemis

Endued them with her stature and white grace;
And Pallas taught their hands to flash along
Her famous looms. Then, bright with deity,
Towards far Olympus, Aphrodite went
To ask of Zeus (who has his thunder-joys
And his full knowledge of man's mingled fate)
How best to crown those other gifts with love
And worthy marriage: but, what time she went,
The ravishing Harpies snatched the maids away,
And gave them up, for all their loving eyes,
To serve the Furies who hate constantly.

ANOTHER VERSION.

So the storms bore the daughters of Pandarus out into thrall—
The gods slew their parents; the orphans were left in the hall.
And there came to feed their young lives, Aphrodite divine,
With the incense, the sweet-tasting honey, the sweet-smelling
wine.

Here brought them her wit above woman's, and beauty of face;
And pure Artemis gave them her stature, that form might have

grace:

And Athene instructed their hands in her works of renown;
Then afar to Olympus, divine Aphrodite moved on:

To complete other gifts, by uniting each girl to a mate.

She sought Zeus, who has joy in the thunder and knowledge of fate,

Whether mortals have good chance or ill! But the Harpies alate

In the storm came, and swept off the maidens, and gave them to wait,

With that love in their eyes, on the Furies who constantly hate.

SONG OF THE ROSE.

ATTRIBUTED TO SAPPHO.

If Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!
For the rose, ho, the rose ! is the eye of the flowers,

Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,--
Is the lightning of beauty, that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,

As they laugh to the Wind as it laughs from the west.
From Achilles Tatius.

Sonnets from the Portuguese.

I.

I THOUGHT Once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery while I strove,

"Guess now who holds thee?"-" Death!" I said. But,

there,

The silver answer rang,

"Not Death, but Love.”

II.

BUT only three in all God's universe

Have heard this word thou hast said; Himself, beside

Thee speaking and me listening! and replied

One of us... that was God! . . . and laid the curse

So darkly on my eyelids as to amerce

My sight from seeing thee,-that if I had died,

The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
Less absolute exclusion. Nay" is worse

From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend :
Our hands would touch, for all the mountain-bars ;-
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.

III.

UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses, and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears, even, can make mine, to ply thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

A poor, tired, wandering singer? . . . singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,— And Death must dig the level where these agree.

IV.

THOU hast thy calling to some palace floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house's latch, too poor
For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
To let thy music drop here unaware
In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and see the casement broken in,
The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
Hush! call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there's a voice within

That weeps . . . as thou must sing. . . alone, aloof.

V.

I LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet.

Behold and see

What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn