IV. THE CITY OF MY HEART IN ASHES. WHY is the ground thou treadst more hallowed to me? Why does thy voice transfix me like a dart ? Thy glances burn their way into my heart. Dizzy delirium with which I reel, Like shallop staggering on a stormy ocean? Whence this new fire that through my bosom flashes These Adonèan flames whose naphtha breath Is suffocating health, hope, peace to death? Alas! the city of my heart's in ashes! O Cupid! O incendiary cruel! How couldst thou fling thy torch mid such inflammable fuel? V. NATURE'S MASTER-PIECE. THOU'RT Nature's masterpiece. Most perfect of Her works, in execution and design. Most beautiful, Adhémar, most divine, Of all the temples she has built for love, And lofty virtue, honor, chivalry. In what high world, great Mother! didst thou find The attributes of such capacious mind? The essence of such magnanimity? Of such majestic, such high-statured soul? From what volcano was such genius caught? From what swift lightning such enrapturing thought? From what magnetic fount of feeling stole The eloquence, whose rapid current lifts us, And o'er the wide empyrean sea of beauty drifts us? VI. LOVE'S POWER. LIFE had no God-light-earth no glory till My senses of the weight of clay were purged, VII. LOVE'S ANGELHOOD. I NEVER felt my angelhood till thou, And all its strength of pinion until now. Thou'st taught it, like a new-fledged bird to soar Beyond the realm of storm, and sleet, and snow; Sweeping the worlds of high imagining, VIII. LOVE'S CONSTANCY. WHILOM I wept, but they were tears of woe- Must they thus clasped revolve through Love's eternity |