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
I heard the footsteps of thy Soul, and felt
Thine eyes on me like tropic sunbeams melt,
Infusing warmth through all my frame-a thrill
Of fire, that banished cold, and ice, and chill;
Then beauty on the face of all things dwelt,
And folding up its hands my spirit knelt,
Drinking of omnipresent love its fill.

My senses of the weight of clay were purged,
Till I could peer o'er in the spirit-world
On countless souls alit with pinions furled,
Giving me gaze for gaze. With becks they urged
Me to o'erstep the bounds 'tween Life and Death,
Drawing me towards them till soul took away my breath.

VII.

LOVE'S ANGELHOOD.

I NEVER felt my angelhood till thou,
Beloved Adhémar, bent thine eyes on me ;

I never felt my soul's divinity,

And all its strength of pinion until now.
Thou'st taught it, like a new-fledged bird to soar
Out on the borders of the aerial shore

Beyond the realm of storm, and sleet, and snow;
And poise with thee upon heaven's starry brow.
Arm locked in arm-wing lapping over wing-
Lip pressed to lip in sensuous, soft embrace,
Our spirits float illimitable space,

Sweeping the worlds of high imagining,
Drinking of beauty-love from wells divine,
Until they all forget that spirits can untwine.

VIII.

LOVE'S CONSTANCY.

WHILOM I wept, but they were tears of woe-
And now I weep, but they are tears of bliss,
Such as from Angels' eyes fall when they kiss
In Heaven, and thrill with an ecstatic glow.
For thee, beloved Adhémar, sweet tears flow,
When I remember all thy great love is,
And how it brought me out of grief's abyss
Into a port where winds nor tempests blow.
As two bright rainbows sit above the clouds,
Vested in beauty that all beauty cheers,
Serenely smiling through their radiant tears,
So sit our souls 'bove all that mist enshrouds ;
And constant as the twin stars walk the sky

Must they thus clasped revolve through Love's eternity

IX.

LOVE'S COLOR.

I CAN nor tell nor sing the bliss of loving,

It is a joy to think of-not to speak,

Words, symbols, lyres, seraphic trumpets are too weak To utter its divinity-so proving

That silence is its best interpreter.

Love never did gain strength through speech or ear;

If found loquacious, it is plumed for roving,

Or lodged in bosoms little worth its moving.

All things assume the color of my love,

I only see through its prismatic eyes.

It vests the stars in hues of Paradise,

And clothes the moon in soulshine from above

If sun, moon, stars went out-earth were black night,

I could live on and love by Love's celestial light.