Once when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
On every crowded street to stare
Upon great Juan riding by:
Even like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.

Everywhere, everywhere, following me;
Taking me by the buttonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling me with the elbows;
Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle;
Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges;
Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor prohibit;
Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible;
Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok;
What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing.
Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me;

Still the tapestry is hanging
On the walls of Château Blay
That was wrought by Tripoli's Countess:
You can see it to this day.

As she stitched, she stitched her soul in,
And love's consecrating tears
Once bedewed that silken picture,
Where the scene portrayed appears.

Of her meeting with Rudèl
Pale and dying on the shore,
When she found her heart's ideal—
Found, and lost for evermore.

It was here Rudèl saw also,
For the first time and the last,
Her of whom he had so often
Dreamed of fondly in the past.

Oh for the breath of the briny deep,
And the tug of the bellying sail,
With the sea-gull's cry across the sky
And a passing boatman's hail.
For, be she fierce or be she gay,
The sea is a famous friend alway.

Ho! for the plains where the dolphins play,
And the bend of the mast and spars,
And a fight at night with the wild sea-sprite
When the foam has drowned the stars.
And, pray, what joy can the landsman feel
Like the rise and fall of a sliding keel?

Fair is the mead; the lawn is fair
And the birds sing sweet on the lea;

Man has a soul of vast defines,
He burns within with restless fires.
Tossed to and fro his passions fly,
From vanity to vanity.

When swing the morning-glory bells,
By marble pillar wreathing;
When o'er the perfumed violet dells
The morning zephyr's breathing,
That time I wander down a way
That myrtle sweet encloses,
And all about I pry and peep
For Love amongst the Roses.

A rosy brake I see ahead,
In golden vapour flushing;
My steps are winged, and on I speed,
The fragrant fortress crushing.
The dewy petals flutter fast—
The gap to me discloses,
Asleep upon the damask blooms,
Sweet Love amongst the Roses.

I stand entranced. O beauteous sight!

There's a feel of all things flowing,
And no power of Earth can bind them;
There's a sense of all things growing,
And through all their forms a glowing
Of the shaping souls behind them.

And the break of beauty heightens
With the swiftening of the motion,
And the soul behind it lightens,
As a gleam of splendor whitens
From a running wave of ocean.

See the still hand of the Shaper,
Moving in the dusk of being:
Burns at first a misty taper,
Like the moon in veil of vapor,
When the rack of night is fleeing.

Death conquers All.
Love conquers Death,
The Conqueror—
And these be They
Who through great tribulation gave
Us Victory.
By faith in deeds and hope and lives
Like Theirs,
Love conquers All.

Her ringlets glistened like the gold of morn,
And framed an oval outline statue fair,
Save where a shell-blush lingered for awhile,
Sending its ripples to the wavy hair.
Upon her features grace had shed its charm,
And in her smile sweetness to naught gave way;
'Twas like a streak of sunshine thrown across
The motionless repose of early day.
No sorrow rested on the calm, pure brow,
But thought held undisputed empire there.
Eyes like the dusky blue of evening skies,
Gazed in a dream or in a quiet prayer;
And through her aspect something noble shone,

My friend bade farewell at the Yellow Crane House,
And went down eastward to Willow Valley
Amid the flowers and mists of March.
The lonely sail in the distance
Vanished at last beyond the blue sky.
And I could see only the river
Flowing along the border of heaven.