NEPHELIDIA.
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noon-shine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moon-shine, These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with sobs from the throat? Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses— Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die. Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yards of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the blood-shed of things; Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her, Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kernel of kings.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
THE ARAB.
On, on, my brown Arab, away, away! Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day, And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw-piled lair, To tread with those echoless, unshod feet Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat, Where no palm-tree proffers a kindly shade, And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade; And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough, O, it goes to my heart—but away, friend, off!
And yet, ah! what sculptor who saw thee stand, As thou standest now, on thy native strand, With the wild wind ruffling thine uncombed hair, And thy nostril upturned to the odorous air, Would not woo thee to pause, till his skill might trace At leisure the lines of that eager face; The collarless neck and the coal-black paws And the bit grasped tight in the massive jaws; The delicate curve of the legs, that seem Too slight for their burden—and, O, the gleam Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay! Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away!
Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay; Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day. For thy hand is not Echoless—there they are, Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star, And thou hintest withal that thou fain wouldst shine, As I read them, these bulgy old boots of mine. But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eatest eel-pie, Thou evermore hast at least one black eye; There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues Are due not to nature, but handling shoes; And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see, Is a bit of tobacco-pipe—Flee, child, flee!
CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.
THE MODERN HIAWATHA.
He killed the noble Mudjokivis. Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the inside skin side outside; He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside.