Dramatic Romances | Page 7

shrubs,
'Twixt the stems and stubs,
With a still,
composed, strong mind,
Nor a care for the world behind-- 90
XIX
Swifter and still more swift,
As the crowding peace
Doth to joy increase
In the wide blind eyes
uplift
Thro' the darkness and the drift!
XX
While I--to the shape, I too
Feel my soul dilate
Nor a whit abate,
And relax not a gesture due,


As I see my belief come true. 100
XXI
For, there! have I drawn or no
Life to that lip?
Do my fingers dip
In a flame which again they
throw
On the cheek that breaks a-glow?
XXII
Ha! was the hair so first?
What, unfilleted,
Made alive, and spread
Through the void with a
rich outburst,
Chestnut gold-interspersed? 110
XXIII
Like the doors of a casket-shrine,
See, on either side,
Her two arms divide
Till the heart betwixt
makes sign,
Take me, for I am thine!
XXIV
"Now--now"--the door is heard!
Hark, the stairs! and near--
Nearer--and here--
"Now!" and at call
the third
She enters without a word. 120
XXV
On doth she march and on
To the fancied shape;
It is, past escape,
Herself, now: the dream is
done
And the shadow and she are one.
XXVI

First I will pray. Do Thou
That ownest the soul,
Yet wilt grant control
To another, nor
disallow
For a time, restrain me now! 130
XXVII
I admonish me while I may,
Not to squander guilt,
Since require Thou wilt
At my hand its price
one day!
What the price is, who can say?
NOTES:
"Mesmerism." With a continuous tension of will, whose

unbroken concentration impregnates the very structure of
the poem, a
mesmerist describes the processes of the act
by which he summons
shape and soul of the woman he
desires; and then reverent perception
of the sacredness
of the soul awes him from trespassing upon
another's
individuality.
THE GLOVE
(Peter Ronsard, loquitur)
"Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis,
"Distance all value
enhances.
When a man's busy, why, leisure
Strikes him as
wonderful pleasure:
Faith, and at leisure once is he?
Straightway he
wants to be busy.
Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
Caught
thinking war the true pastime.
Is there a reason in metre?
Give us
your speech, master Peter!" 10 I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er am
at loss with my Naso
"Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets:
"Men
are the merest Ixions"--
Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's

--Heigho--go look at our lions."
Such are the sorrowful chances
If
you talk fine to King Francis.
And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was
leading, 20 Increased by new followers tenfold
Before he arrived at

the penfold;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the
western horizon.
And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost
With
the dame he professed to adore most.
Oh, what a face! One by fits
eyed
Her, and the horrible pitside;
For the penfold surrounded a
hollow
Which led where the eye scarce dared follow 30 And shelved
to the chamber secluded
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.
The King hailed his keeper, an Arab
As glossy and black as a scarab,

And bade him make sport and at once stir
Up and out of his den the
old monster.
They opened a hole in the wire-work
Across it, and
dropped there a firework,
And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled;

A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 The blackness and
silence so utter,
By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;
Then
earth in a sudden contortion
Gave out to our gaze her abortion.

Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot
(Whose experience of
nature's but narrow
And whose faculties move in no small mist

When he versifies David the Psalmist)
I should study that brute to
describe you
Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu. 50 One's whole blood
grew curdling and creepy
To see the black mane, vast and heapy,

The tail in the air stiff and straining
The wide eyes, nor waxing nor
waning,
As over the barrier which bounded
His platform, and us
who surrounded
The barrier, they reached and they rested
On space
that might stand him in best stead:
For who knew, he thought, what
the amazement,
The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 60 And if, in
this minute of wonder,
No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder,
Lay
broad, and, his shackles all shivered,
The lion at last was delivered?

Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead!
And you saw by the flash on
his forehead,

By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,
He was
leagues in the desert already
Driving the flocks up the mountain
Or
catlike couched hard by the fountain 70 To waylay the date-gathering
negress:
So guarded he entrance or egress.
"How he stands!" quoth
the King: "we may well swear,
(No novice, we've won our spurs
elsewhere
And so can afford the confession)
We exercise

wholesome discretion
In keeping aloof from his threshold;
Once
hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,
Their first would too
pleasantly purloin
The visitor's brisket or surloin: 80 But who's he
would prove so fool-hardy?
Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!"
The sentence no sooner was uttered,
Than over the rails a glove
fluttered,
Fell close to the lion, and rested:
The dame 'twas, who
flung it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For
months past; he sat there pursuing
His