Lucifer. And so it shall be ever; but we will Unfold its gates!

Enormous vapours roll

Cain.
Apart-what's this?

Lucifer.

Cain.

Enter !

Can I return?

Lucifer. Return! be sure: how else should death be

peopled?

Its present realm is thin to what it will be,

Through thee and thine.

Cain.

200

The clouds still open wide And wider, and make widening circles round us. Lucifer. Advance!

Cain.

And thou!

Lucifer. Fear not-without me thou Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on! [They disappear through the clouds.

In secret we niet-
In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,
How should I greet thee ?-
With silence and tears.

?—

MAID OF ATHENS

Ζώη μοῦ, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ,
MAID of Athens, ere we part
Give, oh give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μοῦ, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Woo'd by each Ægean wind,
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζώη μοῦ, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζώη μού, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!

Ζώη μοῦ, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

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IO

20

AND THOU ART DEAD

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse !"

AND thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,

Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away;
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;

Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade ;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

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