English

The trumpets' blare
Rings through the air:
The glittering lists are bright with sword and shield.
A hundred gallant knights,
Known in a thousand fights,
Mix and engage upon the mimic field.
But one towers o'er them all,
A noble knight and tall,
With giant form in armour black concealed.

In vain, in vain,
The thick blows rain,—
He dreams of her whose heart has wrought him wrong.

I.

Man brings us flowers and brings us grief;
He twines for us love's myrtle leaf,
And wreathes about our brows the thorn.
We crave for love? Man gives us this?
Nay, he bestows but passion's kiss,
And tinges passion with his scorn!

Ten thousand years have passed away,
Or more years yet, the wise men say,
Since history on this earth began.
In all those years, what have we gained?
Deceived, misunderstood, disdained,
What shall we render back to man?

Love. — This our great prerogative,

" Oh, well I love the red red gold,
So sang the maiden fair:
" I love to twine in fold on fold
My bright soft golden hair
In spring the golden daffodils
Shine out in field and lane,
And when red gold the coffer fills
Why should a girl complain —
And when red gold the coffer fills
Why should a girl complain, complain,
Why should a girl complain? "

There came a lover bold and strong
To worship and to dare;
His voice of gold sang passion's song,
He stroked the golden hair.

I.

We know our own true home at last:
The gorgeous dreams of heaven are past:
No angel's harp sounds on the breeze.
Gold wings are gone. We mark instead
White wings above the dahlia bed,
And blue wings o'er the clover leas.

These are our angels — Butterflies,
Blue as the cloudless azure skies,
Or white-winged as the clouds at morn,
Dance o'er the garden-beds, and gleam

Across the solemn purple plains of night
The starry light
Falls in a million gold and silver rays.
Within the arch of heaven the star-flowers sing:
Yes, these too bring
Their ceaseless tribute of deep love and praise.

God sowed the fields with daisies — so they say:
With many a ray
Of golden light he sowed the heavens on high.
We are the blossoms of the purple air:
We blossom there,
The buttercups and cowslips of the sky.

One law pervades our being. We arise
Upon the skies

Each evening on the ethereal canvas wide
I paint new sunsets, colouring all the air.
When Turner failed and flung his brush aside,
I touched the heaven,—the longed-for tint was there.

Yet who will gaze each evening at the sky?
Who cares to contemplate my work supreme?
Unnoticed, shade by shade, the bright tints die.
Man lusts for gold, while God and poets dream.

When my sonorous thunder-pæans sound,
What audience have I in the heights of space?
When my stars fill the air for leagues around,

Woman.

Of old the river-banks were sweet. —
The waves played round my girlish feet,
As in the brook I gathered cress.
I stooped. Then, quicker than a thought,
The wicked ripples laughed and caught
The bright skirt of my Sunday dress.

Satan.

And who came through the wood that day,
With face so handsome, step so gay,
And eyes in which no evil seemed?
And who, found standing in the brook,
Blushed childlike at his laughing look
And then went home, and cried, and dreamed?

Woman.

Philosopher.

Could the good without the evil ever hold out for an hour
Never! — Every lady strutting in her grand silk down the street,
Full of pureness like an angel, full of beauty like a flower,
Were it not for the poor harlot would be never half so sweet.

Satan.

True, the Force that moulded all things is dramatic at the core;
Has its due sense of proportion; sets the good beside the base;

Reformer.

The world is perfect as God made
Its heights of sunlight, depths of shade:
God's image in it we restore.

Satan.

Your pupils daub the world with mud:
Or else will send a sea of blood
Circling along from shore to shore.

Reformer.

The world was perfect. Leaf and flower,
Starlight and moonlight, sun and shower,
Fulfil the high God's perfect will.

Satan.

And ye will add a starlight new

Satan.

O poet, in whose brain and heart the sweetness
Of summer reigns and glows,
What bars thy life from rounding to completeness?
Where findest thou thy foes?

Thy foes are surely in the heavens above thee;
God gazes down with scorn: —
The golden stars and golden blossoms love thee,
And the bright clouds of morn.

Upon thy side thou hast the sunset-glory;
The clouds in fiery mail.