d the rain on the drizzled pane,
And the eve falls chill and murk;
But on yesterday's eve I know
How a horned moon's thorn-like bow
Stabbed rosy thro' gold and thro' glow,
Like a rich barbaric dirk.

II.

Now thick throats of the snapdragons,--
Who hold in their hues cool dawns,
Which a healthy yellow paints,--
Are filled with a sweet rain fine
Of a jaunty, jubilant shine,
A faery vat of rare wine,
Which the honey thinly taints.

III.

Now dabble the poppies shrink,
And the coxcomb and the pink;
While the candytuft's damp crown
Droops dribbled, low bowed i' the wet;
And long spikes o' the mignonette
Little musk-sacks open set,
Which the dripping o' dew drags down.

IV.

Stretched taunt on the blades of grass,
Like a gossamer-fibered glass,
Which the garden-spider spun,
The web, where the round rain clings
In its middle sagging, swings;--
A hammock for Elfin things
When the stars succeed the sun.

V.

And mark, where the pale gourd grows
Up high as the clambering rose,
How that tiger-moth is pressed
To the wide leaf's underside.--
And I know where the red wasps hide,
And the wild bees,--who defied
The first strong gusts,--distressed.

VI.

Yet I feel that the gray will blow
Aside for an afterglow;
And a breeze on a sudden toss
Drenched boughs to a pattering show'r
Athwart the red dusk in a glow'r,
Big drops heard hard on each flow'r
On the grass and the flowering moss.

VII.

And then for a minute, may be,--
A pearl--hollow worn--of the sea,--
A glimmer of moon will smile;
Cool stars rinsed clean on the dusk,
A freshness of gathering musk
O'er the showery lawns, as brusk
As spice from an Indian isle.

CARMEN.

La _Gitanilla!_ tall dragoons
In Andalusian afternoons,
With ogling eye and compliment
Smiled on you, as along you went
Some sleepy street of old Seville;
Twirled with a military skill
Moustaches; buttoned uniforms
Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms.

Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black!
Whence your mantilla, half thrown back,
Discovered shoulders and bold breast
Bohemian brown: and you were dressed--
In some short skirt of gipsy red
Of smuggled stuff; thence stockings dead
White silk exposed with many a hole
Thro' which your plump legs roguish stole
A fleshly look; and tiny toes
In red