e with us in Faery,
Come dance with us to-night.

III.

With scents of heat, dew-chilled and sweet,
The new-cut hay smells by the bight;
The ghost of some dead pansy bloom,
The butterfly dreams in the gloom,
Its pied wings folded tight.
The world is lost in fantasy,--
Come dance with us in Faery,
Come dance with us to-night.

THE WORLD'S DESIRE

The roses of voluptuousness
Wreathe her dark locks and hide her eyes;
Her limbs are flower-like nakedness,
Wherethrough the fragrant blood doth press,
The blossom-blood of Paradise.

She stands with Lilith finger tips,
With Lilith hands; and gathers up
The wild wine of all life; and sips
With Lilith-laughter-lightened lips
The soul as from a crystal cup.

What though she cast the cup away!
The empty bowl that flashed with wine!
Her curled lips' kiss, that stained the clay,
Her fingers' touch--shall not these stay,
That made its nothingness divine?

Through one again shall live the glow,
Immortalizing, of her touch;
And through the other, sweet to know
How life swept flame once 'neath the snow
Of her mooned breasts,--and this is much!

THE UNATTAINABLE

Mark thou! a shadow crowned with fire of hell.
Man holds her in his heart as night doth hold
The moonlight memories of day's dead gold;
Or as a winter-withered asphodel
In its dead loveliness holds scents of old.
And looking on her, lo, he thinks 'tis well.

Who would not follow her whose glory sits,
Imperishably lovely on the air?
Who, from the arms of Earth's desire, flits
With eyes defiant and rebellions hair?--
Hers is the beauty that no man shall share.

He who hath seen, what shall it profit him?
He who doth love, what shall his passion gain?
When disappointment at her cup's bright brim
Poisons the pleasure with the hemlock pain?
Hers is the passion that no man shall drain.

How long, how long since Life hath touched her eyes,
Making their night clairvoyant! And how long
Since Love hath kissed her lips and made them wise,
Binding her brow with prophecy and song!
Hope clad her nakedness in lovely lies,
Giving into her hands the right of wrong!

Lo! in her world she sets pale tents of thought,
Unearthly bannered; and her dreams' wild bands
Besiege the heavens like a twilight fraught
With recollections of lost stars. She stands
Radiant as Lilith given from God's hands.

The golden rose of patience at her throat
Drops fragrant petals--a