A clash of human tongues within
Made the bright room a dreary jail;
Dull webs of talk the idle spin
Turned all its glow and color pale.

Outside, the peaceful sunset sky
Was burning, deepening with the night;
One great star, glittering still and high,
Sent o'er the sea its track of light.

And wearily I spoke, and heard
An empty echo of reply,
Fretting like some imprisoned bird
That longs to break its cage and fly;

When suddenly the din seemed stilled,
Rarer the air so dense before;

By D.G. ROSSETTI

What is the music of these flower-crowned strings?
Nay, what is the music of this love-crowned soul?
Unto which listening in rapture with their wings

Folded to silence angels, see, stay their flight,
While only one small bird's fluttering thrills through the whole
Harmonious wonder of scent and sound and sight.

What is this music? Of fate that thwarts and kills?
Of thought that forbodes? Of life that is weary? Of death
That must come i' the end? Of love whose passion fulfils

Orlando, cease to murmur at thy fate,
Suppress the heaving and afflictive sigh;
Forbear to mourn for dear Eliza's death,
'Tis of mortality, the lot to die!

Say, did not ev'ry grace adorn her mind?
Say, did not Reason at her call attend?
In her was painted Innocence and Truth;
The tender Partner, and the faithful Friend.

Was worth like this to be on Earth confin'd?
Was it not fetter'd when enshrin'd in Dust?
Tho' far sequester'd from each vain pursuit,
And uncorrupted by terrestrial rust.

Man, considered alone, is a sensible creature accounted;
But regard him in bulk, and what a blockhead is he!

Rolls the long breaker in splendor, and glances,
Leaping in light!
Sparkling and singing the swift ripple dances,
Laughing and bright;
Up through the heaven the curlew is flying,
Soaring so high!
Sweetly his wild notes are ringing, and dying,
Lost in the sky.
Glitter the sails to the south-wind careening,
White-winged and brave;
Bowing to breeze and to billow, and leaning
Low o'er the wave.
Beautiful wind, with the touch of a lover
Leading the hours,
Helping the winter-worn world to recover
All its lost flowers,

Life is a crooked Labyrinth, and wee
Are dayly lost in that Obliquity.
'Tis a perplexed Circle, in whose round
Nothing but Sorrowes and new Sins abound.
How is the faint Impression of each good
Drown'd in the vitious Channell of our blood?
Whose Ebbes and Tides by their vicissitude
Both our Great Maker and our selves dilude.
O wherfore is the most discerning Ey
Unapt to make its owne discovery?
Why is the clearest and best judging Mind
In her owne Ill's prevention dark and blind?
Dull to advise, to act præcipitate,

By D. G. ROSSETTI

Lady of the golden hair and splendid robe
Of perfectly wrought pattern gold and white —
Thou on whose large throat one large mystic globe

Lies, see, of crystal — didst thou ever receive
Flesh of our flesh to breathe here? did the light
Ever indeed break from those eyes and leave

Heaven lightless? or did those splendid, red, curled lips
Ever break silence? Mistress of passion and love,
Mistress of passion and life, ah! and of death that sips

To him who is the Life of life,
My soul its vows would pay;
He leads the flowery seasons on,
And gives the storm its way.

The winds run backward to their caves
At his divine command,
And the great deep he folds within
The hollow of his hand.

He clothes the grass, he makes the rose
To wear her good attire;
The moon he gives her patient grace,
And all the stars their fire.

He stretches out the north; he binds
The tempest in his care;
The mountains cannot strike their roots
So deep he is not there.

RATS,
stone-head rats lay off our grain,
three years pain,
enough, enough, plus enough again

More than enough from you, deaf you,
we're about thru and ready to go
where something will grow
untaxed
Good earth, good sown,
and come into our own.

RATS,
big rats, lay off our wheat,
three years deceit,
and now we're about ready to go
to Lo Kuo, happy, happy land, Lo Kuo, good earth
where we can earn our worth.

RATS,
stone-head rats, spare our new shoots,
three years, no pay.
We're about ready to move away

Gods of the old mythology, arise in gloom and storm;
Adramalec, bow down thy head; Nergal, dark fiend, thy form; —
The giant sons of Anakim bowed lowest at thy shrine,
And thy temple rose in Argob, with its hallowed groves of vine;
And there was eastern incense burnt, and there were garments spread,
With the fine gold decked and broidered, and tinged with radiant red, —
With the radiant red of furnace-flames that through the shadow shone,
As the full moon, when on Sinai's top, her rising light is thrown.
Baal of Chaldaea, dread god of the sun,