xvi.

How can it be that one so fair as thou
Should wear contention on a whiter brow
Than May-day Dian's in her hunting gear?
I'll not believe that eyes so holy-clear
And mouth so constant to its morning prayer
Could mock the mischief of a man's despair
And all the misery of a moment's hope
Seen far away, as mists are seen in air.

xvii.

How can a woman's heart be made of stone
And she not know it? Mine is overthrown.
I have no heart to-day, no perfect one,
Only a thing that sighs at set of sun
And beats its cage, as if the thrall thereof
Were freedom's prison or the tomb of love;
As if, God help me! there were shame in truth
And no salvation left in realms above.

xviii.

I once could laugh, I once was deem'd a man
Fit for the frenzies of the dead god Pan,
And now, by Heaven! the birds that sing so well
Move me to tears; and all the leafy dell,
And all the sun-down glories of the West,
And all the moorland which the moon has blest,
Make me a dreamer, aye! a coward, too,
In all the weird expanse of mine unrest.

xix.

It is my curse to see thee and to learn
That I must shun thee, though I blaze and burn
With all this longing, all this fierce delight
Fear-fraught and famish'd for a suitor's right;
A right conceded for a moment's space
And then withdrawn as, amorous face to face,
I dared to clasp thee and to urge a troth
Too sovereign-sweet for one of Adam's race.

xx.

I am a doom-entangled mirthless soul,
Without the power to rid me of the dole
Which, day by day, and nightly evermore
Corrodes my peace! Oh, smile, as once before,
At each wild thought and each discarded plea,
And let thy sentence, let thy suffrance be
That I be reckon'd till the day I die
The sad-eyed Singer of thy fame and thee!

[Illustration: cherub]

Third Litany.

_AD TE CLAMAVI._

Third Litany.

Ad Te Clamavi.

i.

Again, O Love! again I make lament,
And, Arab-like, I pitch my summer-tent
Outside the gateways of the Lord of Song.
I weep and wait, contented all day long
To be the proud possessor of a grief.
It comforts me. It gives me more relief
Than pleasures give; and, spirit-like in air,
It re-invokes the peace that was so brief.

ii.

It speaks of thee. It keeps me from the lake
Which else might tempt me; and for thy sweet sake
I shun all evil. I am calmer now
Than when I wooed thee, calmer than the vow
Which made me thine, and yet so fond withal
I st