Which the sea casts unreturningly.

That poor and hungry men should break
The laws which wreak them toil and scorn
We understand; but Lionel,
We know, is rich and nobly born."
So wondered they; yet all men loved
Young Lionel, though few approved ;
All but the priests, whose hatred fell
Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,
The withering honey-dew which clings
Under the bright-green buds of May

Whilst they unfold their emerald wings:
For he made verses wild and queer
On the strange creeds priests hold so dear
Because they bring them land and gold.
Of devils and saints, and all such gear,

He made tales which whoso heard or read
Would laugh till he were almost dead.
So this grew a proverb: "Don't get old
Till Lionel's Banquet in Hell you hear,
And then you will laugh yourself young again."
So the priests hated him, and he
Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.

Ah! smiles and joyance quickly died,
For public hope grew pale and dim
In an altered time and tide,

And in its wasting withered him;
As a summer flower that blows too soon
Droops in the smile of the waning moon,
When it scatters through an April night
The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.
None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated
Safely on her ancestral throne;

And Faith, the python, undefeated,

Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on
Her foul and wounded train; and men

Were trampled and deceived again;
And words and shows again could bind
The wailing tribes of humankind
In scorn and famine. Fire and blood
Raged round the raging multitude,

To fields remote by tyrants sent

To be the scornèd instrument

With which they drag from mines of gore
The chains their slaves yet ever wore.
And in the streets men met each other,
And by old altars and in halls,

And smiled again at festivals :

But each man found in his heart's brother
Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,
The outworn creeds again believed.

And the same round anew began
Which the weary world yet ever ran.

Many then wept, not tears but gall,
Within their hearts, like drops which fall
Wasting the fountain-stone away.

And in that dark and evil day

Did all desires and thoughts that claim
Men's care-ambition, friendship, fame,
Love, hope, though hope was now despair-
Indue the colours of this change;

As from the all-surrounding air

The earth takes hues obscure and strange, When storm and earthquake linger there.

And so, my friend, it then befell
To many, most to Lionel ;

Whose hope was like the life of youth
Within him, and, when dead, became
A spirit of unresting flame,
Which goaded him in his distress
Over the world's vast wilderness.
Three years he left his native land,
And in the fourth, when he returned,1
None knew him he was stricken deep
With some disease of mind, and turned
Into aught unlike Lionel.

On him-on whom, did he pause in sleep, Serenest smiles were wont to keep, And, did he wake, a wingèd band Of bright Persuasions, which had fed On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,

Kept their swift pinions half outspread
To do on men his least command-

On him, whom once 'twas paradise
Even to behold, now misery lay.
In his own heart 'twas merciless :
To all things else none may express
Its innocence and tenderness.

'Twas said that he had refuge sought
In love from his unquiet thought
In distant lands, and been deceived

By some strange show; for there were found,
Blotted with tears (as those relieved

By their own words are wont to do),

These mournful verses on the ground,—

By all who read them blotted too.

"How am I changed! My hopes were once like fire.
I loved, and I believed that life was love.
How am I lost! On wings of swift desire
Among heaven's winds my spirit once did move.

I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire

My liquid sleep. I woke, and did approve All Nature to my heart, and thought to make A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

"I love, but I believe in love no more :

I feel desire, but hope not. Oh from sleep Most vainly must my weary brain implore

Its long-lost flattery now! I wake to weep,
And sit through the long day gnawing the core
Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep-
Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure--·
To my own soul its self-consuming treasure."

He dwelt beside me near the sea;
And oft in evening did we meet,
When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
O'er the yellow sands with silver feet,—
And talked. Our talk was sad and sweet,
Till slowly from his mien there passed
The desolation which it spoke;

And smiles—as, when the lightning's blast

Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,

The next Spring shows leaves pale and rare,
But like flowers delicate and fair,
On its rent boughs-again arrayed

His countenance in tender light.
His words grew subtle fire, which made
The air his hearers breathed delight:
His motions, like the winds, were free,
Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
Then fade away in circlets faint:
And winged Hope-on which upborne
His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
Like some bright spirit newly born
Floating amid the sunny skies-
Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
Yet o'er his talk and looks and mien,
Tempering their loveliness too keen,
Past woe its shadow backward threw ;
Till, like an exhalation spread

From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
They did become infectious,-sweet

And subtle mists of sense and thought; Which wrapped us soon, when we might mect, Almost from our own looks, and aught

The wide world holds. And so his mind
Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear:
For ever now his health declined,

Like some frail bark which cannot bear
The impulse of an altered wind,

Though prosperous. And my heart grew full,

Mid its new joy, of a new care :

For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,

As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are ;

And soon his deep and sunny hair,

In this alone less beautiful,

Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare. The blood in his translucent veins

Beat not like animal life, but love Seemed now its sullen springs to move, When life had failed, and all its pains; And sudden sleep would seize him oft, Like death, so calm,—but that a tear, His pointed eyelashes between, Would gather in the light serene

Of smiles whose lustre bright and soft
Beneath lay undulating there..
His breath was like inconstant flame,
As eagerly it went and came;
And I hung o'er him in his sleep,

Till, like an image in the lake

Which rains disturb, my tears would break
The shadow of that slumber deep.
Then he would bid me not to weep,
And say, with flattery false yet sweet,
That death and he could never meet,
If I would never part with him.
And so we loved, and did unite
All that in us was yet divided :
For-when he said that many a rite,

By men to bind but once provided,
Could not be shared by him and me,
Or they would kill him in their glee-
I shuddered, and then laughing said:

"We will have rites our faith to bind ; But our church shall be the starry night, Our altar the grassy earth outspread,

And our priest the muttering wind."

Had scarce burst forth, when from afar
The ministers of misrule sent

Seized upon Lionel, and bore

His chained limbs to a dreary tower In the midst of a city vast and wide :— For he, they said, from his mind had bent Against their gods keen blasphemy, For which, though his soul must roasted be In hell's red lakes immortally,

Yet even on earth must he abide

The vengeance of their slaves-a trial,
I think, men call it. What avail
Are prayers and tears, which chase denial
From the fierce savage nursed in hate?

What the knit soul that pleading and pale Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late