Panic seizes the herds,
And even the lions and leopards,
Prowling no longer for prey,
Crouch in their caverns with fright.

VOICES OF THE FOREST.

Guarding the mountains around
Majestic the forests are standing,
Bright are their crested helms,
Dark is their armour of leaves;
Filled with the breath of freedom,
Each bosom subsiding, expanding,
Now like the ocean sinks,
Now like the ocean upheaves,

Planted firm on the rock,
With foreheads stern and defiant,
Loud they shout to the winds,
Loud to the tempest they call;
Nought but Olympian thunders,
That blasted Titan and Giant,
Them can uproot and o'erthrow,
Shaking the earth with their fall.

CHORUS OF OREADES.

These are the Voices Three

Of winds and forests and fountains,
Voices of earth and of air,
Murmur and rushing of streams,
Making together one sound,

The mysterious voice of the mountains,

Waking the sluggard that sleeps,
Waking the dreamer of dreams.
These are the Voices Three,
That speak of endless endeavour,
Speak of endurance and strength,
Triumph and fulness of fame,
Sounding about the world,
An inspiration for ever,
Stirring the hearts of men,
Shaping their end and their aim.

CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE GATE

OF HORN.

Yes, the moment shall decide!
It already hath decided;
And the secret once confided
To the keeping of the Titan
Now is flying far and wide,
Whispered, told on every side,
To disquiet and to frighten.

Fever of the heart and brain,
Sorrow, pestilence, and pain,
Moans of anguish, maniac laughter,
All the evils that hereafter
Shall afflict and vex mankind,
All into the air have risen
From the chambers of their prison;
Only Hope remains behind.

VIII.

IN THE GARDEN.

EPIMETHEUS.

THE storm is past, but it hath left behind it

Ruin and desolation. All the walks Are strewn with shattered boughs; the

birds are silent;

The flowers, down trodden by the wind, lie dead;

The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain;

The melancholy reeds whisper together As if some dreadful deed had been committed

They dare not name, and all the air is

heavy

PANDORA.

tions,

Foreshadowings of some terrible

disaster

Oppress my heart. Ye Gods, avert

the omen!

PANDORA, coming from the house. O Epimetheus, I no longer dare To lift mine eyes to thine, nor hear thy voice,

Being no longer worthy of thy love.

EPIMETHEUS.

What hast thou done?

PANDORA.

fade,

As shadows passing into deeper shade
Sink and elude the sight.

For two alone, there in the hall,
Is spread the table round and small;
Upon the polished silver shine
The evening lamps, but, more divine,
The light of love shines over all;
Of love, that says not mine and thine,
But ours,
for ours is thine and mine.
They want no guests, to come between
Their tender glances like a screen,
And tell them tales of land and sea,
And whatsoever may betide

The great, forgotten world outside; They want no guests; they needs must be

Each other's own best company.

In part transfigured, through the open door

Appears the self-same scene. Seated, I see the two again. But not alone; they entertain A little angel unaware, With face as round as is the moon; A royal guest with flaxen hair, Who, throned upon his lofty chair, Drums on the table with his spoon, Then drops it careless on the floor, To grasp at things unseen before.

Are these celestial manners? these The ways that win, the arts that please?

Ah yes; consider well the guest,
And whatsoe'er he does seems best;
He ruleth by the right divine
Of helplessness, so lately born
In purple chambers of the morn,
As sovereign over thee and thine.

He speaketh not; and yet there lies
The golden silence of the Greek,
A conversation in his eyes;
The gravest wisdom of the wise,
Not spoken in language, but in looks
More legible than printed books,
As if he could but would not speak.

And now, O monarch absolute,
Thy power is put to proof; for lo!
Resistless, fathomless, and slow,
The nurse comes rustling like the sea,
And pushes back thy chair and thee,
And so good night to King Canute.

IV.

As one who walking in a forest sees A lovely landscape through the parted trees,

Then sees it not, for boughs that in

tervene ;

Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed

Through drifting clouds, and then again concealed,

So I behold the scene.

There are two guests at table now;
The king, deposed and older grown,
No longer occupies the throne,—
The crown is on his sister's brow;
A Princess from the Fairy Isles,
The very pattern girl of girls,
All covered and embowered in curls,
Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers,
And sailing with soft, silken sails
From far-off Dreamland into ours.
Above their bowls with rims of blue
Four azure eyes of deeper hue
Are looking, dreamy with delight;
Limpid as planets that emerge
Above the ocean's rounded verge,
Soft-shining through the
night.

summer

Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see Beyond the horizon of their bowls; Nor care they for the world that rolls With all its freight of troubled souls Into the days that are to be.