With fetters gold her captivated feet Lay, sunny sweet; In that palm was the poppy, Sleep; in this The apple, Bliss; Against the mild side of his Spouse and Mother One small God throve, and in’t, meseem’d, another. By these a Death-in-Life did foully breathe Out of a face that was one grate of teeth. Lift, O kind Angels, lift her eyelids loth, Lest he devour her and her Godlets both!

MIGNONNE

Whate’er thou dost thou’rt dear. Uncertain troubles sanctify That magic well-spring of the willing tear, Thine eye. Thy jealous fear, With not the rustle of a rival near; Thy careless disregard of all My tenderest care; Thy dumb despair When thy keen wit my worship may construe Into contempt of thy divinity; They please me too! But should it once befall These accidental charms to disappear, Leaving withal Thy sometime self the same throughout the year, So glowing, grave and shy, Kind, talkative and dear As now thou sitt’st to ply The fireside tune Of that neat engine deft at which thou sew’st With fingers mild and foot like the new moon, O, then what cross of any further fate Could my content abate? Forget, then, (but I know Thou canst not so,) Thy customs of some praediluvian state. I am no Bullfinch, fair my Butterfly, That thou should’st try Those zigzag courses, in the welkin clear; Nor cruel Boy that, fledd’st thou straight Or paused, mayhap Might catch thee, for thy colours, with his cap.

ALEXANDER AND LYCON

‘What, no crown won, These two whole years, By man of fortitude beyond his peers, In Thrace or Macedon?’ ‘No, none. But what deep trouble does my Lycon feel, And hide ’neath chat about the commonweal?’ ‘Glaucé but now the third time did again The thing which I forbade. I had to box her ears. ’Twas ill to see her both blue eyes Settled in tears Despairing on the skies, And the poor lip all pucker’d into pain; Yet, for her sake, from kisses to refrain!’ ‘Ho, Timocles, take down That crown. No, not that common one for blood with extreme valour spilt, But yonder, with the berries gilt. ’Tis, Lycon, thy just meed. To inflict unmoved And firm to bear the woes of the Beloved Is fortitude indeed.’

SEMELE

No praise to me! My joy ’twas to be nothing but the glass Thro’ which the general boon of Heaven should pass, To focus upon thee. Nor is’t thy blame Thou first should’st glow, and, after, fade i’ the flame. It takes more might Than God has given thee, Dear, so long to feel delight. Shall I, alas, Reproach thee with thy change and my regret? Blind fumblers that we be About the portals of felicity! The wind of words would scatter, tears would wash Quite out the little heat Beneath the silent and chill-seeming ash, Perchance, still slumbering sweet.

1

In this year the middle and upper classes were disfranchised by Mr. Disraeli’s Government, and the final destruction of the liberties of England by the Act of 1884 rendered inevitable.

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2

The Alabama Treaty.

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3

This Piece was written in the year 1874, soon after the publication of an incendiary pamphlet by Mr. Gladstone against the English Catholics, occasioned by the Vatican Council.

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