V.

As if my tender mother laid

On

my shut lips her kisses' pressure, Half-waking me at night, and said

"Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser f'

THE CLAIM.

I.

GRIEF sate upon a rock and sighed one day, (Sighing is all her rest)

'Wellaway, wellaway, ah wellaway!'

As ocean beat the stone, did she her breast,
'Ah wellaway! ah me! alas, ah me!'
Such sighing uttered she.

II.

A Cloud spake out of heaven, as soft as rain

That falls on water, Lo,

'The winds have wandered from me! I remain Alone in the sky-waste, and cannot go

To lean my whiteness on the mountain blue
Till wanted for more dew.

III.

'The sun has struck my brain to weary peace,

Whereby constrained and pale

I spin for him a larger golden fleece

Than Jason's, yearning for as full a sail.

Sweet Grief, when thou hast sighed to thy mind,

Give me a sigh for wind,

IV.

And let it carry me adown the west.'
But Love, who próstrated

Lay at Grief's foot, his lifted eyes possessed
Of her full image, answered in her stead;
'Now nay, now nay! she shall not give away
What is my wealth, for any Cloud that flieth:
Where Grief makes moan,

Love claims his own,

And therefore do I lie here night and day,
And eke my life out with the breath she sigheth'

SONG OF THE ROSE.

ATTRIBUTED TO SAPPHO.

(From Achilles Tatius.)

Ir Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth, He would call to the rose and would royally crown it; For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,

Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it: For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers, Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves

fair,

Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers

On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the
world,

Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west!

A DEAD ROSE.

I.

O ROSE, who dares to name thee ?

No longer roseate now, nor soft nor sweet,
But pale and hard and dry as stubble wheat,-
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

II.

The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to last all day,

If breathing now, unsweetened would forgo thee.

III.

The sun that used to smite thee,

And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn

Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,— If shining now, with not a hue would light thee.

IV.

The dew that used to wet thee,

And, white first, grow incarnadined because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was,—
If dropping now, would darken where it met thee.