The golden bowls are broken,
The silver cords untwine;
Almond flowers in token

Have bloomed,—that I am thine! Others who would fly thee

In cowardly alarms,
Who hate thee and deny thee,
Thou foldest in thine arms!
How shall I entreat thee

No longer to withhold?
I dare not go to meet thee,
O lover, far and cold!

O lover, whose lips chilling
So many lips have kissed,
Come, even if unwilling,

And keep thy solemn tryst!

I never knew before what beds,
Fragrant to smell, and soft to touch,
The forest sifts and shapes and spreads;
I never knew before how much
Of human sound there is in such
Low tones as through the forest sweep
When all wild things lie" down to sleep."
Each day I find new coverlids

Tucked in, and more sweet eyes shut tight;

Sometimes the viewless mother bids

Her ferns kneel down full in my sight; I hear their chorus of "good night;" And half I smile, and half I weep, Listening while they lie "down to sleep." November woods are bare and still;

November days are bright and good; Life's noon burns up life's morning chill; Life's night rests feet which long have stood;

Some warm soft bed, in field or wood, The mother will not fail to keep, Where we can

lay us down to sleep."

MY STRAWBERRY.

O MARVEL, fruit of fruits, I pause
To reckon thee. I ask what cause
Set free so much of red from heats

At core of earth, and mixed such sweets With sour and spice: what was that strength

Which out of darkness, length by length,
Spun all thy shining thread of vine,
Netting the fields in bond as thine.
I see thy tendrils drink by sips
From grass and clover's smiling lips;
I hear thy roots dig down for wells,
Tapping the meadow's hidden cells;

Whole generations of green things,
Descended from long lines of springs,
I see make room for thee to bide
A quiet comrade by their side;
I see the creeping peoples go
Mysterious journeys to and fro,
Treading to right and left of thee,
Doing thee homage wonderingly.
I see the wild bees as they fare,
Thy cups of honey drink, but spare.
I mark thee bathe and bathe again
In sweet uncalendared spring rain.
I watch how all May has of sun
Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,
While all her nights let dews escape
To set and cool thy perfect shape.
Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause
To dream and seek thy hidden laws!
I stretch my hand and dare to taste,
In instant of delicious waste
On single feast, all things that went
To make the empire thou hast spent.

"DOWN TO SLEEP."

NOVEMBER woods are bare and still; November days are clear and bright; Each noon burns up the morning's chill; The morning's snow is gone by night; Each day my steps grow slow, grow light, As through the woods I reverent creep, Watching all things lie" down to sleep."

VINTAGE.

BEFORE the time of grapes,
While they altered in the sun,
And out of the time of grapes,
When vintage songs were done,—
From secret southern spot,

Whose warmth not a mortal knew;
From shades which the sun forgot,
Or could not struggle through,-
Wine sweeter than first wine,

She gave him by drop, by drop; Wine stronger than seal could sign, She poured out and did not stop. Soul of my soul, the shapes

Of the things of earth are one;
Rememberest thou the grapes
I brought thee in the sun?

And darest thou still drink
Wine stronger than seal can sign?
And smilest thou to think
Eternal vintage thine?

THOUGHT.

O MESSENGER, art thou the king, or I?
Thou dalliest outside the palace gate
Till on thine idle armor lie the late
And heavy dews: the morn's bright, scorn-
ful eye

Reminds thee; then, in subtle mockery,
Thou smilest at the window where I wait,
Who bade the ride for life. In empty state
My days go on, while false hours prophesy
Thy quick return; at last, in sad despair,
I cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air;
When lo, thou stand'st before me glad and
fleet,

And lay'st undreamed of treasures at my feet.
Ah! messenger, thy royal blood to buy,
I am too poor. Thou art the king, not I.

SEBASTIANO AT SUPPER.*

HA! ha! How free and happy I am, Here in my rollicking, careless calm, With never a scowling monk to gibe,

Or hurry me for the crab-like way They tell me I work. That beggarly tribe, Priors and abbesses, deem that a day Must count in the life of a picture. Fools! They think that they grow like mushroom stools.

-"Here's so many feet of bare, blank wallHere's so many days to fresco all.” Bah! Through the Father's grace, that's

past,

And I'm free-do you hear, friends ?-free

at last,

With only the Seals upon my mind;
As idle a Fraté as you'll find

In Rome or out of it. Here are we,
Gandolfo and Messer Marco-three
Right merry old roysterers, faith, we be;
The night is before us; with many a chorus,
We'll set the rafters a-ringing o'er us;
For I vow I never could tell which art-
The brush or the bow, most swayed my
heart.

-Yes, yes-his worship Ippolito
Once served me a sorry trick, I know-

The time he sent-(he was love á-craze, And wanted the work quick done)-relays Of horses for speed, when I went to paint The Donna Guelma: she was the saint

His prayers were said to, in these old days! Well-would you believe it? Nathless, 'tis true;

I left my pigments behind and brought My viol, as uppermost in my thought: -And what did his Cardinal graceship do? He smashed and he crashed the strings right through.

And so, thereafter, I could not shirk,
For music, a single day of work.
Aye, aye-be sure 'twas a brutal shame,
But it helped in a month to build my fame,
For I need not tell you the picture's name.
Heigho! with a sweet relief I sigh,
As I lounge so masterless here-you by,
Dearest of comrades-sigh to think
How Michelagnolo pinned me down,

Granting me scarcely leave to wink,

Michael Angelo's most famous pupil was Sebastiano del Piombo-so called from his being made Keeper of the Papal Seals, through which appointment he was enabled to live without work. But for his excessive indolence and self-indulgence, he might have disputed the palm with any of his cotemporaries. All Art pilgrims will remember his masterpiece in the Church of San Gian Grisostomo, Venice.

Impaled all day on his frescoes brown
(Lout that I was to fear his frown!)
No toil can tire him out: he'll be
Still fresh-you mark me-at ninety-three,
With muscles like his own David's. Well
It was that we quarreled; for who can tell,
If under his grand, resistless will,

I might not have been a captive still?
I think the Maestro hates me though:
My debtor I made him long ago,

And it rankles his terrible pride. You see
I went to Ischia once to paint
The lovely Marchesa; (What a saint

Of a wife Colonna had!—and he-
But we'll tell no tales; it's all forgiven,
Now that he's been so long in heaven ;)
And the picture I gave the master, who
Had learned to worship that face, as you
Worship Our Lady's; nor would I touch
In boot a biaccho 'tis so much

To have him beholden! And that is how
The liking of yore is hatred now.

Ah, well-a-day! I have loved my art,
Beautiful mistress she ever was!
And yet we are not unloth to part,

Though bound together for years-because
I inwardly groan to come and go,
At beck of the best; and I leave her so.
Besides, I own, of the perilous stuff
The world calls fame I have had enough.
To Giulio, Perino, and such, 'tis best
I think, on the whole, to leave the rest.

-I'm garrulous: why have you let me waste
My breath a-chattering? Only taste
This vintage, and own it might cheat the
Fates,

And see you, my friends, the supper waits.

ANDREA'S MISTAKE.*

1512.

"Nor heard the tale?" Why, where have you been hidden

These seven days gone? All Florence rings it round;

And you may see, along the Via Larga,
Madonna Maddalena and the rest-

The fair court-ladies, who were wont to count

The marriage of Andrea del Sarto (the old Florentine master, whose pictures take rank, perhaps, next to Raphael's) with a widow of the lower class, a beautiful yet worthless woman, gave great disgust to his friends, and threatened seriously to arrest his course as an artist.

It honor if allowed to stand and watch
Over his shoulder as our Andrea worked,-
May see these very same avert the face
And draw the robe aside when Andrea
passes,

As if from the contaminate touch of plague.

"What hath he done?" Ay, verily, done enough

To topple him down from his high dignity Among the Masters. Take your stroll tonight

Through Di San Gallo, and there ask the first Bold wanton that you chance to meet, "What news?"

And I will wager you ten oboli

You'll have the story, all the marrow in it, Neat as a nut-with yet the shell of truth.

"Rather from me?" Good! you shall hear

it now.

Let's turn aside, and by the fountain-brink
In cool San Marco's gardens, talk of it.

"A woman?" Certes! Did you ever find
Mischief a-brewing, nor aforehand know
A woman's meddling finger there? Per
Bacco!

To think how fortune, honor, reverence, all
Waited his plucking-just as quick to drop
At his mere touch as yonder fig has tumbled
Ere the wind's coming; then to see him leave
The vintage of his yet ungathered life,
To rake a vile squeez'd orange from the muck
Because the rind was bright! Why just

consider

A right harsh mother to her children oftWhy, Florence flings her roses at his feet, And sets him with her nobles, and throws wide

To him her proudest doors. And he-poor fool!

For sake of lips that take a brighter red,
Or cheek whose oval chances perfecter,
Haply, than any to his insatiate eye,

Makes haste to scramble from his hard-won seat

(Dropping his brushes in the sewer), to run And snatch this woman of the people up, And take her-mind you!-as his wedded

wife.

Is not a diamond to be lost i' the mire, But a most lambent star that in the orbit Of its own splendor shall go circling on, To far-off ages visible? Well, they'll see! "Pity him?" Yea, I'm moved to think on him ;

And so to Santa Trinità I'll go To-morrow with gifts to please Our Lady: she,

Mayhap, may grant some respite of the thrall,

Seeing through this Maestro's skill divine
Mortals are won to purer love of her,
By reason of his semblances. But yonder
Jacopo beckons, and my tale's not told.

DONNA MARGHERITA.* (AN ART-PICTURE.)

HERE is the chamber: Messers, enter yo:
A Borgherini needs must courtesy yield
To whoso comes.
Ye see upon the walls
My priceless pictures, famed all Florence
through-

Jacopo's work. Behold the Patriarch's sons,
Cruel, unpitying, grouped about the boy,
Whom, for a fardel of rough Midian gold,

the story,

Nor, when I tell it you, as here we sit,
Will you once marvel that I sigh so, seeing
I hold our Andrea's life as lost to Art.

Albrecht Dürer.

* During one of the sieges of Florence, the artist Palla, with the connivance of the venal Signori, seized, under pretence of purchase for the King of France, numbers of the art-treasures of the city,-thus enriching himself through his country's ruin. The Donna Margherita Borgherini, who owned the masterpiece of Jacopo Puntormo-The History of Joseph braved the power of the State, and refused to give up her pictures.

Ha! Paila,-stand where thou canst note the chaffer,

Yea,-so!-And now I say, this Simeon, Who clutches from the Arab's sleeve the price

O'er which they higgle, is as a puling milksop

To that thou art! He bartered only blood; Thou,-honor, faith, and Florence! And because

She lies, our Florence, weeping at the feet
Of her invaders, in her broideries wrapped,
(An Empress still, wanting, albeit, a crust,-)
Thy thief's hand twitches off thy Mother's
robe,

Leaving her in her nuded majesty
To perish. Out upon thy villainy !

I would this golden bodkin were a lance,
For other impalement than a woman's hair:
But being a woman, shorn of all defence,
Saving my shuddering hate, I dare defy
Thee and thy myrmidons, though ye be

armed

With license from the huckstering Signori;— Ye loosen no pictures from these walls, except

Ye loosen them with my life!

-Why, cravens, yonder Stands in that carven niche my bridal couch; And when I use from my Francesco's face To turn, I ever met the moistened lift Of Jacob's lids,-(see !) as with lips a-strain, He quaffs the maiden's foamy loveliness: The earliest sight that filled the baby eyes Of my young Florentine, was yon Hebrew

lad

Weeping before his brothers' knees. Why I Were lacking in such mere brute instincts

tures

At cost of her heart's blood.

DOROTHEA'S ROSES.

(IN FLORENCE.)

YES,-here is the old cathedral;
Out of the glare and heat,
We'll plunge in these depths of coolness,
(-Take the prie-dieu for a seat :)

Bathe in this gloom your vision,

So wearied with frescoed shows, And let the slow ripples of silence, Tide-like, around you close.

Then at your ease, I'll show you

That picture of Carlo's,*-the sight
Of whose so ineffable sweetness
Prismed my dreams last night.
Surely you've heard the legend,
(Saint Cyprian hands it down,)
Of the beautiful Dorothea

Who was crowned with the fiery crown? No? Then sit as you're sitting

There, in that open stall,
Just where the great rose-window
Splendors the eastern wall,-

Just where the sunset shivers

Its darts on the altar-rail,
And while the blue smoke of the incense
Rises, I'll tell the tale.

-There dwelt (while the old religion

For the golden East sufficed,
While the Grecian Zeus was worshipped
In the temples, instead of Christ-

When flame and rack and dungeon
Awaited the neophyte

Who turned from an idol's statue,
Or shrank from a pagan rite)—

In a fair Greek city, a maiden,
Whose fame went all abroad
Because of her wondrous beauty,

And they called her The gift of God.
One day, as she passed, bestowing
Offerings at Hebe's shrine,
Strange words to her ear were wafted-
New teachings that seemed divine.

She paused, and the hoary hermit
Placed in her hands a scroll,
-Saint John-the-Divine's sweet Gospel-
And she read-and believed the whole.

Thereat, the fierce proconsul

Rose in his wrath:-" Deny This myth of the Galilean,

Or thou, by the gods, shalt die !"

Carlo Dolce's St. Dorothea.

Meekly she bowed before him,

With a faith no threat could dim; -"He hath died for me, and I cannot, I cannot do less for Him!"

As out through the gates of the city, They led her to meet her death, From the midst of his gay companions, Hilarion mocking saith

"Ha!-goest thou, lovely maiden, (Such joy on thy face I see,) Afar to some fair Elysium,

Where thy bridegroom waits for thee?

"If there an Hesperides garden

Blooms, that is brighter than ours,
Send me, beseech thee, in token,
A spray of celestial flowers!"

She smiled with a smile seraphic;

-"Is that of thy faith the price? Then, verily, thou shalt have roses Gathered in Paradise."

Onward she went exulting,

As though she were borne mid air;
And lo! as she neared the pyre,
A fair-haired boy stood there,-

In his hand, three dewy roses,
Clustered about their stem:

-"Ah, hasten," she said,-"sweet angel!

Hilarion waits for them!"

-Come now, and see Carlo's picture
Of the maiden, as she stands
With the golden nimbus around her,
And the roses within her hands.

IN AN EASTERN BAZAAR.

I AM tired!-Let us sit in the shadows
This mosque flings,-(how drowsy they
are!)

And watch, as they come from the meadows,
Those carriers, each with his jar
And puff at a lazy cigar.

Confess now, 'tis something delicious-
To leave the old life all behind,
Its turbulence, worries and wishes,
Its loves and its longings, and find
A Nirvana at last to your mind.

What softness suffuses the picture!
How tranquil the poppied repose!

Just look at yon brown caryatid

Who poises the urn on her head ; -Don't tell me her long locks are matted, But mark the Greek Naiad instead, -Such grace to such symmetry wed! Quick!-notice the droop of her shoulder, And the exquisite curve of her arm; None ever will tell, or has told her

How perfect she is :-There's the charm!
Such knowledge brings nothing but harm.

Here's a group now! The jealous Zenanas
Unveil in the twilight their bowers;
And girls that look proud as Sultanas,

Bloom out as the night-blooming flowers,
That drowse with their odors the hours.
True wildlings of nature! Each gesture
A study, by art undefiled:
They gather or loosen their vesture,

By no thought of observance beguiled,
Unconscious of aim as a child.

-The traffic too,-what now could ruffle
Yon white-turban'd merchant's repose,
As placidly scorning the scuffle

And chaffer, he waits ?-for he knows Where the vantage will rest, at the close. I miss (and how slumbrous the feeling!) As I catch the low hum of these hives, That Occident worry that's stealing (Through schemes that our culture con trives)

The calmness all out of our lives. No exigence harries their pleasures; Unbeautiful haste does not fray Their time of its margin of leisures; While we, in our prodigal way,

Forestall our whole morrow, to-day. -Yes-yes-I concede we're their betters, (Self-gratulant Goth that I am!)

We have science, religion and letters, With the bane of the curse, we've the balm:

They keep their inviolate calm.

If only this land of the lotus

"

Would teach us the charm it knows best, That could soothe the rasped nerve-that could float us

Far off to some Island of Rest,

What a boon from the East to the West!

ST. GREGORY'S SUPPER.

stricture

Of dress that encumbers: he knows (Acquit of the gyves we impose)

What the meaning of freedom is, better Than any young Frank of them all, Whose civilized feet we must fetterWhose fair Christian limbs we must gall With garments that chafe and enthrall.

Though He be Sovereign Lord of all. Shut in my crypt by night, by day, Breathing His peace with every breath,

I was content to wear away,
Tasting a calm as sweet as death:
Yet they have bidden me forth to bear
Mitre and stole and sacred staff,-
Burdens that stoop my heart with care,
-Heart that is weak as winnowed chaff