But sting not-wise Asclepios-could cure!
For evermore, Silenus, when my brain

Lies in a dream just conscious of its pain,

And my full heart throbs tenderly and rockingly,
Far out upon the bosom of the main

She flashes up, green-kirtled, and laughs mockingly.
Thrice has her smile enticed me to the chin

Thro' the great waves that round me bite and bark,

And gleam'd away and left me in the dark.

Alas, that I must woo and never win!

Alas, that I am foul while she is fair!

Alas, that this red Eye, my only one,

Like a brown lizard looking on the sun,

Turns green in her bright mist of yellow hair!

SILENUS.

Majestic Cyclops! Heir of the huge Sea!

God-like,-like those great heavens that oversheen us ! One-eyed, like the bright Day! Wilt thou by me, Thy servant, be advised?

POLYPHEME.

Speak on, Silenus.

SILENUS.

Behold!-Beneath the many-tinctured west hid,

Fades Phoebus crimson-crested,

And the faint image of his parting light

On the deep Sea broad-breasted

Fades glassily; while down the mountain height
Behind us, slides the purple shadow'd Night.
Come in and from your cellar iced by springs
Drag forth the god of wine,

And listen to him as he chirps and sings

His songs delicious, dulcet, and divine :
Throned in the brain, magnificently wise,
And blowing warmly out thro' kindled eyes
All vapours vapid, vain, and vague.

Seek the god's counsel, Cyclops, I beseech you;
'Tis he alone, if once his magic reach you,

Can cure Love's panting heat or shivering ague.

POLYPHEME.

He cannot make me fair!

SILENUS.

Phoo!-He will teach

you

1

To lift your dreamy gaze from the soft sod,
And rise erect, big-hearted, self-reliant,

On Ætna's horn, with leathern lungs defiant—
No minnow-hearted grampus of a god!

And then in the quick flush and exultation
Of that proud inspiration,

Wine in his nostrils, Polypheme will be
In Polypheme's own estimation

A match for any girl on land or sea.

Then, furiously, gloriously rash,

Grasp Opportunity, that, passing by

On the sheet-lightning with a moment's flash,
Haunts us for ever with its meteor eye;

And-grasp the thing you pant for now in vain,
Ay, hold her fast, and if you choose intreat her—
But, if she still be deaf to your sad pain,

Why, hearken to the mad god in your brain,

And make a meal of trouble—that is, eat her!

X.

PENELOPE.

WHITHER, Ulysses, whither dost thou roam,

Roll'd round with wind-led waves that render dark The smoothly-spinning circle of the sea?

Where dost thou linger? Whither dost thou drag
The silken chain thou fastenedst round my neck
When to the porch of thy inclement realm,

With blushing face turn'd backward, first I came,
Trembling and treading fearfully on flowers?
Lo, Troy has fallen, fallen like a tower,
And the mild sun of a less glorious day
Gleams faintly on its ruins. One by one,
Swift as the sparkle of a star the ships
Have dipt up gladly from the under-world,
And plumed warriors, standing in their prows,

Stretching out arms to wives and little ones
That crowd with seaward faces on the beach,
Have flung their armour off and leapt and swam
Ere yet the homeward keels had grazed the sand.
And these the gaunt survivors of thy peers-
Have landed, shone upon by those they love,
And faded into happy happy homes;

While I, the lonely woman, hugging close
The comfort of thy individual fame,

Still wait and yearn and wish towards the sea;

And all the air is hollow of my joy :

The seasons come and go, the hour-glass runs,
The day and night come punctual as of old;
But thy deep strength is in the solemn dawn,
And thy proud step is in the plumëd noon,
And thy grave voice is in the whispering eve;
And all the while, amid this dream of thee,
In restless resolution oceanward,

I sit and ply my sedentary task,

And fear that I am lonelier than I know.

Dear Lord, the rose you took away with you