T is a lie, IT [SPAIN.] their Priests, their Pope, You think Priests just and holy men! I was a human creature too, With flesh and blood like one of you, This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt, Was kissed all over till it burned, By lips the truest, love e'er turned His heart's own tint: one night they kissed My soul out in a burning mist. So, next day when the accustomed train But when I falter Beltran's name, "Ha?"quoth the father; "much I blame The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve? strenuously retrieve! Nay, I will turn this love of thine To lawful love, almost divine. Despair not, "For he is young, and led astray, «For, when he lies upon thy breast, THE CONFESSIONAL. That I and every priest, to purge His soul, may fast and use the scourge." That father's beard was long and white, He told me what he would not tell I told the father all his schemes, Who were his comrades, what their dreams, "to pray Nor next night: on the after-morn, The stapled block . . . God sink the rest! No part in aught they hope or fear! $7 No Earth, not so much space as pens But shall bear God and Man my cry, A ONE WAY OF LOVE. LL June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves, And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was they might take her eye. How many a month I strove to suit She will not hear my music? So! My whole life long I learned to love. And speak my passion. - Heaven or hell? Lose who may, I still can say, 'Tis well! Those who win heaven, blest are they. ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE. 89 ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE. J UNE was not over, Though past the full, And the best of her roses When a man I know And time discloses) Turned him and said, with a man's true air, Well, Dear, in-doors with you! Tries a man's temper. What's in the blossom June wears on her bosom ? Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly! If June mends her bowers now, your hand left unsightly my June will do rightly. By plucking their roses, And after, for pastime, If June be refulgent Of wine poured at mass-time, Or if, with experience of man and of spider, She use my June-lightning, the strong insect-ridder, |