'Souls of men are on board; wealth of man in the hold; ' And the storm-wind Euroclydon sweeps to his prey; 'And who heeds the bird? "Save the silk and the

gold!"

And the bird from her shelter the gust sweeps away!

'Poor Paradise Bird! on her lone flight once more

Back again in the wake of the wind she is driven— 'To be whelm'd in the storm, or above it to soar,

'And, if rescued from ocean, to vanish in heaven!

And the ship rides the waters, and weathers the gales: 'From the haven she nears the rejoicing is heard.

All hands are at work on the ingots, the bales,

'Save a child, sitting lonely, who misses-the Bird!'

E

CANTO III.

I.

WITH stout iron shoes be my Pegasus shod!

For my road is a rough one: flint, stubble, and clod, Blue clay, and black quagmire, brambles no few,

And I gallop uphill, now.

There's terror that's true
In that tale of a youth who, one night at a revel,
Amidst music and mirth lured and wiled by some devil,
Follow'd ever one mask through the mad masquerade,
Till, pursued to some chamber deserted ('tis said),
He unmask'd, with a kiss, the strange lady, and stood
Face to face with a Thing not of flesh nor of blood.
In this Masque of the Passions, call'd Life, there's no
human

Emotion, though mask'd, or in man or in woman,
But, when faced and unmask'd, it will leave us at last
Struck by some supernatural aspect aghast.

For truth is appalling and eltrich, as seen

By this world's artificial lamplights, and we screen From our sight the strange vision that troubles our life. Alas! why is Genius for ever at strife

With the world, which, despite the world's self, it ennobles?

Why is it that Genius perplexes and troubles

And offends the effete life it comes to renew?

"Tis the terror of Truth! 'tis that Genius is true!

II.

Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read)

Was a woman of genius

whose genius, indeed,

With her life was at war. Once, but once, in that life
The chance had been hers to escape from this strife
In herself; finding peace in the life of another

From the passionate wants she, in hers, fail'd to smother.
But the chance fell too soon, when the crude restless

power

Which had been to her nature so fatal a dower,
Only wearied the man it yet haunted and thrall'd;
And that moment, once lost, had been never recall'd.
Yet it left her heart sore: and, to shelter her heart
From approach, she then sought, in that delicate art
Of concealment, those thousand adroit strategies
Of feminine wit, which repel while they please,
A weapon, at once, and a shield, to conceal
And defend all that women can earnestly feel.
Thus, striving her instincts to hide and repress,
She felt frighten'd at times by her very success;
She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, and the stars:
Golden wires may annoy us as much as steel bars
If they keep us behind prison-windows: impassion'd
Her heart rose and burst the light cage she had fashion'd
Out of glittering trifles around it.

Unknown

To herself, all her instincts, without hesitation,
Embraced the idea of self-immolation.

The strong spirit in her, had her life but been blended With some man's whose heart had her own compre

hended,

All its wealth at his feet would have lavishly thrown. For him she had struggled and striven alone;

For him had aspired; in him had transfused

All the gladness and grace of her nature; and used
For him only the spells of its delicate power :
Like the ministering fairy that brings from her bower
To some mage all the treasures, whose use the fond elf,
More enrich'd by her love, disregards for herself.
But standing apart, as she ever had done,

And her genius, which needed a vent, finding none
In the broad fields of action thrown wide to man's

power,

She unconsciously made it her bulwark and tower, And built in it her refuge, whence lightly she hurl'd Her contempt at the fashions and forms of the world.

And the permanent cause why she now miss'd and 'fail'd

That firm hold upon life she so keenly assail'd,
Was, in all those diurnal occasions that place
Say-The world and the woman opposed face to face,
Where the woman must yield, she, refusing to stir,
Offended the world, which in turn wounded her.

As before, in the old-fashion'd manner, I fit
To this character, also, its moral: to wit,
Say the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings:

Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things, you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle:

If

Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle;

For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside, And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thing To trample the world without feeling its sting.

III.

One lodges but simply at Serchon; yet, thanks
To the season that changes for ever the banks
Of the blossoming mountains, and shifts the light cloud
O'er the valley, and hushes or rouses the loud

Wind that wails in the pines, or creeps murmuring down

The dark evergreen slopes to the slumbering town,
And the torrent that falls, faintly heard from afar,
And the blue-bells that purple the dapple-gray scaur,
One sees with each month of the many-faced year
A thousand sweet changes of beauty appear.
The châlet where dwelt the Comtesse de Nevers
Rested half up the base of a mountain of firs,
In a garden of roses, reveal'd to the road,

Yet withdrawn from its noise: 'twas a peaceful abode. And the walls, and the roofs, with their gables like hoods

Which the monks wear, were built of sweet resinous woods.

The sunlight of noon, as Lord Alfred ascended

The steep garden paths, every odour had blended

Of the ardent carnations, and faint heliotropes,

With the balms floated down from the dark wooded slopes:

A light breeze at the windows was playing about,