Slain by the arrows of her beauteous eyes. 'Why is her bosom made,' I cried, 'a suare? Why does a single ringlet of her hair Hold my heart captive?' 'Would you know?' she said;

'It is that you are mad with love, and chains Were made for madmen.' Then she raised her head

With answering love, that led to other strains,
Until the lute, which shared with her the smart,
Rocked as in storm upon her beating heart.
Thus to its wires she made impassioned cries:
'I swear it by the brightness of his eyes;
I swear it by the darkness of his hair;

By the warm bloom his limbs and bosom wear;
By the fresh pearls his rosy lips enclose;
By the calm majesty of his repose;
By smiles I coveted, and frowns I feared,
And by the shooting myrtles of his beard,
I swear it, that from him the morning drew
Its freshness, and the moon her silvery hue,
The sun his brightness, and the stars their fire,
And musk and camphor all their odorous breath :
And if he answer not my love's desire,
Day will be night to me, and Life be Death!'"

Only of this isle of glory,

Reached with many doubts and fears, Over love's frail bridge of rainbows Fading in a mist of tears.

Then she nestles still more closely
To the heart so kind and dear,
Whispering, "Love me, love me, darling,
All my hope and rest is here,
And without thee, earth is nothing
But a desert cold and drear.

"O, that every night my slumbers Might be so supremely blest, Bounded by thy dear embraces, Kissed from passion into rest;

I would ask no better heaven

Sheltered thus and thus caressed."

Fan them gently, odorous south wind,
And begone on pinions fleet!
Nothing in thy nightly journey

Shall thy wandering vision greet,
Half as perfect in fulfillment,
Satisfying and complete.

MARY LOUISE RITTER.

I will lie and dream of the past time,
Eons of thought away,
And through the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play ;
When, a smooth and velvety tiger,*
Ribbed with yellow and black,
Supple and cushion-footed,

I wandered where never the track
Of a human creature had rustled
The silence of mighty woods,
And, fierce in a tyrannous freedom,
I knew but the law of my moods.
The elephant, trumpeting, started
When he heard my footstep near,
And the spotted giraffes fled wildly
In a yellow cloud of fear.

I sucked in the noontide splendor
Quivering along the glade,
Or yawning, panting, and dreaming,
Basked in the tamarisk shade,
Till I heard my wild mate roaring,
As the shadows of night came on
To brood in the trees' thick branches,
And the shadow of sleep was gone;
Then I roused and roared in answer,

And unsheathed from my cushioned feet
My curving claws, and stretched me
And wandered my mate to greet.
We toyed in the amber moonlight,
Upon the warm flat sand,

And struck at each other our massive arms-
How powerful he was and grand !

His yellow eyes flashed fiercely

As he crouched and gazed at me,
And his quivering tail, like a serpent,
Twitched curving nervously;
Then like a storm he seized me,

With a wild, triumphant cry,
And we met as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly;
We grappled and struggled together,
For his love, like his rage, was rude;
And his teeth in the swelling folds of my neck
At times, in our play, drew blood.
Often another suitor

For I was flexile and fair

Fought for me in the moonlight,

While I lay crouching there,

Till his blood was drained by the desert;
And, ruffled with triumph and power,

He licked me and lay beside me
To breathe him a vast half-hour;
Then down to the fountain we loitered,
Where the antelopes came to drink,
Like a bolt we sprang upon them,
Ere they had time to shrink.
We drank their blood and crushed them,
And tore them limb from limb,

And the hungriest lion doubted Ere he disputed with him.

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life,

With its frivolous, bloodless passions,
Its poor and petty strife!
Come to my arms, my hero,

The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me!

Take me with triumph and power, As a warrior storms a fortress!

I will not shrink or cower. Come as you came in the desert, Ere we were women and men, When the tiger passions were in us, And love as you loved me then!

The nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast :.
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore,
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forebore,
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, he hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

THE face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, O still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shall be, there or here;
And this, this lute and song, loved yesterday
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

INDEED, this very love which is my boast,
And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
Doth crown me with a ruby large enow

To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,
This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,

I should not love withal, unless that thou
Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
When first thine earnest eyes with mine were
crossed,

And love called love.

speak

Of love even, as a good thing of my own.

That thou dost love me. Though the word re

peated

weak,

And placed it by thee on a golden throne, And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

IF thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day."
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love so
wrought

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

I NEVER gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say,
"Take it." My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee.
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may

Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,

Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral

shears

THE Soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet's forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,
As purely black, as erst, to Pindar's eyes,
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart,
Thy bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadow safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth,
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine,
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marveled, my Beloved, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine-
But... so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then, love me, Love! look on me. . . breathe on
me!

As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,

I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!-
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said, he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! this . . . the paper's light...
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine, and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this. . . O Love, thy words have ill availed,
If what this said, I dared repeat at last!

I THINK of thee! my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there's naught to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood

I will not have my thoughts instead of thee

THE first time that the sun rose on thine oath
To love me, I looked forward to the moon
To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly
loathe;

And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
For such man's love! more like an out of tune
Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste
Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,-
And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write ;
And, ever since, it grew more clean and white,
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "O list!"
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. O, beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love's own

crown,

With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,

I have been proud, and said, "My love, my own!"

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!— and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.