And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Fragment: Song of the

Furies

I.

HEN a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the

rarest.

Their caresses were like the chaff

In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair - her epitaph!

II.

When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusky Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day
She remains, it fades away.

An Exhortation

HAMELEONS feed on light

and air:

Poets' food is love and fame:

If in this wide world of care

Poets could but find the same

With as little toil as they,

Would they ever change their hue

As the light chameleons do,

Suiting it to every ray

Twenty times a day?

Poets are on this cold earth,
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
In a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do:

Fame is love disguised if few

Find either, never think it strange

That poets range.

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power
A poet's free and heavenly mind:
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
Children of a sunnier star,
Spirits from beyond the moon,
Oh refuse the boon!

ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing

low,

And the stars are shining bright:

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in

my feet

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream
And the Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart;-
As I must on thine,

O! beloved as thou art!

III.

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;

Oh! press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last.

CANCELLED PASSAGE OF THE INDIAN SERENADE

O pillow cold and wet with tears!
Thou breathest sleep no more!