Primavera | Page 6

I may, I cannot slumber so:
Still burns that sleepless
beauty on the mind;
Still insupportable those visions glow;
And
hark! my spirit's aspirations find
An answer in the leaves, a warning
on the wind.
'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,
Shall Autumn come, and
through these branches weep:
Soon birds shall cease, and flowers no
more endure;
And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,
And
silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.
'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;
Then follow, till
around thee all be sere.
Lose not a vision of her passing face;
Nor
miss the sound of her soft robes, that here
Sweep over the wet leaves
of the fast-falling year.'
MANMOHAN GHOSE.
ORESTES
Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen
Among the dead, who
after heat and haste
At length have leisure for her steadfast voice,

That gathers peace from the great deeps of hell.
She call'd me, saying:
'I heard a cry by night!
Go thou, and question not; within thy halls

My will awaits fulfilment. Lo, the dead
Cries out before me in the
under-world.
Seek not to justify thyself: in me
Be strong, and I will
show thee wise in time;
For, though my face be dark, yet unto those


Who truly follow me through storm or shine,
For these the veil
shall fall, and they shall see
They walked with Wisdom, though they
knew her not.'
So sped I home; and from the under-world
Forever
came a wind that fill'd my sails,
Cold, like a spirit! and ever her still
voice
Spoke over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps,
And in great
calms, as from a colder world;
Nor slack'd I sail by day, nor yet when
night
Fell on my running keel, and now would burn,
With all her
eyes, my errand into me.
So sped I on, fill'd with a voice divine:

And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,
My mother! but a vague,
heroic dream
Possess'd me; fired to do the will of gods,
I lost the
man in minister of Heaven;
Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,

Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores
All round had faded,
leaving me alone:
I knew I could not die, till I had slain!
But, when
I came once more upon the land
That rear'd me, all the sweetness of
old days
Came back on me: I stood, as from a dream
Waked to a
sudden, sad reality.
And when, far off, I saw those ancient towers,

The palaces and places of my youth,
I long'd to fall into my mother's
arms,
And tell a thousand tales of near escapes.
And lo! the nurse,
that fondled me of yore,
Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told

How she, and how my mother, all this while
Had dream'd of all I
was to do, and said
How dear I should be to my mother's eyes.
Her
words shook me, but shook not my resolve.
For even then there came
that sterner voice,
Echoing to what was highest in the soul.
Then,
like to those who have a work on earth,
And put far from them lips of
wife or child,
And gird them to the accomplishment; so I
Strode in,
nor saw at all mine ancient halls;

And struck my father's murderess,
not my mother.
And, when I had smitten, lo, the strength of gods

Pass'd from me, and the old, familiar halls
Reel'd back on me; dim
statues, that of old
Holding my mother's hand I marvell'd at,
And
questioned her of each. And she lies there,
My mother! ay, my
mother now; O hair
That once I play'd with in these halls! O eyes

That for a moment knew me as I came,
And lighten'd up, and
trembled into love;
The next were darkened by my hand! Ah me!


Ye will not look upon me in that world.
Yet thou, perchance, art
happier, if thou go'st
Into some land of wind and drifting leaves,
To
sleep without a star; but as for me,
Hell hungers, and the restless
Furies wait.
Then the dark Curse, that sits upon the towers,
Bow'd
down her awful head, thus satisfied,
And I fled forth, a murderer,
through the world.
STEPHEN PHILLIPS.
THE SEASONS' COMFORT
Dry thine eyes, Doll! the stars above us shine;
God of His goodness
made them mine and thine;
His silver have we gotten, and His gold,

Whilst there's a sun to call us in the morn
To ply the hook among
amid the yellow corn,
That such a mine of pretty gems doth hold:

For there's the poppy half in sorrow,
Greeting sleepy-eyed the
morrow,
And the corn-flower, dainty tire for a sweetheart
sunny-poll'd.
Dry thine eyes, Doll! the woods are all our own,
The woods that soon
shall take a braver tone,
What time the frosts first silver Nature's hair;

The birds shall sing their best for thee and me;
And every sunrise
listeners will we be,
And so of singing get the goodliest share;

When the thrushes sing so sweetly,
We would fain be footing featly,

But our hearts dance time instead in the throbbing matin air.
Dry thine eyes, Doll! there's Love to feed our fire,
Not for the buying,
but for the desire;
Winter ne'er quenched a blaze so