From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn
through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
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 moonshine,
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 bloodshed 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.

A. C. Swinburne, in "The Heptalogia."

MARTIN LUTHER AT POTSDAM

What lightning shall light it? What thunder shall tell it?
In the height of the height, in the depth of the deep?

Shall the sea—storm declare it, or paint it, or smell it?
Shall the price of a slave be its treasure to keep?
When the night has grown near with the gems on her bosom,
When the white of mine eyes is the whiteness of snow,
When the cabman—in liquor—drives a blue roan, a kicker,
Into the land of the dear long ago.

Ah!—Ah, again!—You will come to me, fall on me—
You are so heavy, and I am so flat.
And I? I shall not be at home when you call on me,
But stray down the wind like a gentleman's hat:
I shall list to the stars when the music is purple,
Be drawn through a pipe, and exhaled into rings;
Turn to sparks, and then straightway get stuck in the gateway
That stands between speech and unspeakable things.

As I mentioned before, by what light is it lighted?
Oh! Is it fourpence, or piebald, or gray?
Is it a mayor that a mother has knighted,
Or is it a horse of the sun and the day?
Is it a pony? If so, who will change it?
O golfer, be quiet, and mark where it scuds,
And think of its paces—of owners and races—
Relinquish the links for the study of studs.

Not understood? Take me hence! Take me yonder!
Take me away to the land of my rest—
There where the Ganges and other gees wander,
And uncles and antelopes act for the best,
And all things are mixed and run into each other
In a violet twilight of virtues and sins,
With the church-spires below you and no one to show you
Where the curate leaves off and the pew-rent begins!

In the black night through the rank grass the snakes peer—
The cobs and the cobras are partial to grass—
And a boy wanders out with a knowledge of Shakespeare
That's not often found in a boy of his class,
And a girl wanders out without any knowledge,
And a bird wanders out, and a cow wanders out,
Likewise one wether, and they wander together—
There's a good deal of wandering lying about.

But it's all for the best; I've been told by my friends, Sir,
That in verses I'd written the meaning was slight;
I've tried with no meaning—to make 'em amends, Sir—
And find that this kind's still more easy to write.
The title has nothing to do with the verses,
But think of the millions—the laborers who
In busy employment find deepest enjoyment,
And yet, like my title, have nothing to do!

Barry Pain.