"But man crouches and blushes,

Absconds and conceals;

He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,

Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.'

"Out spoke the great mother,
Beholding his fear; —

At the sound of her accents
Cold shuddered the sphere:
Who has drugged my boy's cup?
Who has mixed my boy's bread?
Who, with sadness and madness,

Has turned my child's head?'

I heard a poet answer

Aloud and cheerfully,

"Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges

Are pleasant songs to me.

Deep love lieth under

These pictures of time;

They fade in the light of

Their meaning sublime.

"The fiend that man harries

Is love of the Best ;

Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
Lit by rays from the Blest.
The Lethe of Nature

Can't trance him again, Whose soul sees the perfect, Which his eyes seek in vain.

"To vision profounder,

Man's spirit must dive;

His aye-rolling orb

At no goal will arrive;

The heavens that now draw him

With sweetness untold,

Once found, for new heavens
He spurneth the old.

"Pride ruined the angels,

Their shame them restores;

Lurks the joy that is sweetest
In stings of remorse.

Have I a lover

Who is noble and free?

I would he were nobler

Than to love me.

"Eterne alternation

Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,
Under pleasure, pain lies.

Love works at the centre,

Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits;
Thy sight is growing blear;

Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,
Her muddy eyes to clear!"
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip, -

Said, "Who taught thee me to name?

I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;

Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

"Thou art the unanswered question; ' Couldst see thy proper eye,

Alway it asketh, asketh ;

And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply."

Uprose the merry Sphinx,

And crouched no more in stone;

She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
She flowered in blossoms red;

She flowed into a foaming wave: She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough a thousand voices Spoke the universal dame; "Who telleth one of my meanings Is master of all I am."

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE

I, ALPHONSO, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind;
Lemons run to leaves and rind;
Meagre crop of figs and limes;
Shorter days and harder times.
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies.
Imps, at high midsummer, blot
Half the sun's disk with a spot;
'T will not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man.
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood;

They discredit Adamhood.

Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O'er your ramparts as ye lean,

The general debility;

I

Of genius the sterility;

Mighty projects countermanded;
Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
Puny man and scentless rose
Tormenting Pan to double the dose.
Rebuild or ruin: either fill
Of vital force the wasted rill,
Or tumble all again in heap

To weltering Chaos and to sleep.2

Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,
Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
That mortals miss the loyal heats,
Which drove them erst to social feats;
Now, to a savage selfness grown,
Think nature barely serves for one;
With science poorly mask their hurt;
And vex the gods with question pert,
Immensely curious whether you
Still are rulers, or Mildew?

Masters, I'm in pain with you;
Masters, I'll be plain with you;
In my palace of Castile,

I, a king, for kings can feel.