ANACREON

Poet of her face divine,
Curb this over-zeal of thine!
Doves wing frighted from the ground
At a step's too sudden sound,
And her passion is a dove,
Frighted by too bold a love.
Mute as marble Hermes wait
By the blooming hawthorn-gate.
Thou shalt see her wings expand,
She shall flutter to thy hand.
On thy forehead thou shalt know
Something like a breath of snow,
Or of pinions pure that beat
In a whirl of whiteness sweet.
And the dove, grown venturesome,
Shall upon thy shoulder come,
And its rosy beak shall sip
From the nectar of thy lip.

SMOKE

Beneath yon tree sits humble
A squalid, hunchbacked house,
With roof precipitous,
And mossy walls that crumble.

Bolted and barred the shanty.
But from its must and mould,
Like breath of lips in cold,
Comes respiration scanty.

A vapour upward welling,
A slender, silver streak,
To God bears tidings meek
Of the soul in the little dwelling.

APOLLONIA

Fair Apollonia, name august,
Greek echo of the sacred vale,
Great name whose harmonies robust
Thee as Apollo's sister hail!

Struck with the plectrum on the lyre,
And in melodious beauty sung,
Brighter than love's and glory's fire,
It resonant rings upon the tongue.

At such a classic sound as this,
The elves plunge down their German lake.
Alone the Delphian worthy is
So lustreful a name to take,--

Pythia! when in her flowing dress
She mounts her place with feet unshod,
And, priestess white and prophetess,
Wistful awaits the tardy god.

THE BLIND MAN

A blind man walks without the gate,
Wild-staring as an owl by day,
Fumbling his flute betimes and late,
Along the way.

He pipeth, weary wretch and worn,
A roundel shrill and obsolete.
The spectre of a dog forlorn
Attends his feet.

For him the days go lustreless.
Invisible life with beat and roar
He heareth like a torrent press
Around, before.

What strange chimeras haunt his head_
_And on his mind's bedarkened space,
What characters unheard, unread,
Doth fancy trace?

Thus down Venetian leads of doom,
Wan prisoners ensepulchred
In palpable, undying gloom
Have graven their word.

And yet perchance when life's last spark
Death speeds unto eternal night,
The tomb-bred soul, within the dark,
Shall see the light.

SONG

In April earth is white and rose
Like youth and love, now tendering
Her smiles, now fearful to disclose
Her virgin heart unto the Spring.

In June, a little pale and worn,
And full at