NOTRE DAME—FROM THE SOUTH-EAST
("Ionica," 1877)
Oh lord of high compassion, strong to scorn
Ephemeral monsters, who with tragic pain
Purgest our trivial humours, once again
Through thine own Paris have I roamed, to mourn
For freemen plagued with cant, ere we were born,
For feasts of death, and hatred's harvest wain
Piled high, for princes from proud mothers torn,
And soft despairs hushed in the waves of Seine.
Oh Victor, oh my prophet, wilt thou chide
If Gudule's pangs, and Marion's frustrate plea,
And Gauvrain's promise of a heavenly France,
Thy sadly worshipt creatures, almost died
This evening, for that spring was on the tree,
And April dared in children's eyes to dance?
April 1877.
IN HONOUR OF MATTHEW PRIOR
("Ionica," 1877)
I am Her mirror, framed by him
Who likes and knows her. On my rim
No fret, no bead, no lace.
He tells me not to mind the scorning
Of every semblance of adorning,
Since I receive Her face.
Sept. 1877.
The following little Greek lyric occurs in a letter of December 18, 1862, to the Rev. E. D. Stone. "My lines," wrote William Johnson, "are suggested by the death of Thorwaldsen: he died at the age of seventy, imperceptibly, having fallen asleep at a concert. But when I had done them, I remembered Provost Hawtrey's last appearance in public at a music party, where he fell asleep: and so I value my lines as a bit of honour done to him, and it seems odd that I should unintentionally have caught in the second and third lines his characteristic sympathy with the young...."