Sidor som bilder
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I lure thee above where the destinies bar

My plumes their full play

Till a ruddier ray

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Past every church that saints and saves;
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves

Than my pale one announce there is with- By Lido's wet accursed graves,

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Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow

deep,

As I do, thus: were death so unlike

sleep,

Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,

Or poison, doubtless; but from water

feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay

me?

There!

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Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon

grass

To plait in where the foolish jewel was

I flung away: since you have praised my

hair,

'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

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Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead! First, out a cloud of curtain blew, Then a sweet cry, and last came you To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach So far back o'er the balcony To catch him ere he climbed too high Above you in the Smyrna peach That quick the round smooth cord of gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled, 150 Fell down you like a gorgeous snake The Roman girls were wont, of old, When Rome there was, for coolness' sake To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. Dear lory, may his beak retain

Ever its delicate rose stain

As if the wounded lotos-blossoms

Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others' sake

Than mine!

do?

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What should your chamber

- With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time, and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you

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Who brought against their will together 165 These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether

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Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords his wings
Make murmur, wheresoe'er they graze;
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon. -
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell;
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies

To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent;
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed, must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks:

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Had struck some quay or bridge-foot For she laid the poor snail my chance foot

stair!

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spurned,

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THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH 417

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She, men would have to be your mother Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church

once,

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! 5 What's done is done, and she is dead

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