hose bubbled rubies maiden feet did bruise
From crusted vats of vintage rich, I ween,
Vivacious purple of some Samian sod.

Oh, for the cold conclusion of one draught!
Elysian ecstacy of classic earth!--
Where heroes warred with gods and where gods laughed
In eyes of mortal brown, a lusty mirth
Of deity delirious with desire:
Where danced the sacrifice to horned shrines,
And splashed the full libation blue as blood.--
Oh, to be drunk with dreaming! to inspire
The very soul of beauty whence it shines
Too lost for utterance yet understood!

In cogitation of what verdurous shades,
Dull-droning quietudes where wild-bees lolled
Suck, lulled in pulpy lilies of the glades,
Barbaric-smothered with the kerneled gold:
Teased by some torso of the golden age,
Nude breasts of Cytherea, famous fair,
Uncestus'd, yet suggestive of what loves
Immortal! yearn enamoured; or to rage
With sun-burnt Poesy whose throat breathes bare
O'er leopard skins and flute among her groves.

LATE OCTOBER.

Ah, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes,
What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold,
Cast Tyrian purple o'er broad-shouldered woods,
And to your pride anointed empire sold
For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods
Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold?

Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep,
Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush
Flames--when the winds armsful of motion heap
In wincing gusts upon it--amber blush;
The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep
Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush.

Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose,
Rose cameo, in day's gray, somber spar
Of smoky quartz--intaglioed beauty--glows
Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are
Vast organs antheming the winds' wild woes
A faded sun and pale night's paler star.

Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls,
And by its gnarly saucer in the streams
Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum balls
Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams;
Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls
Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams.

Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk
Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed's puff
Along the orchard's fence, where in the dusk
And ashen weeds,--as some grim Satyr's rough
Red, breezy cheeks burn thro' his beard,--the brusque