BEAUTY.

AS never form and never face

WAS

So sweet to SEYD as only grace

Which did not slumber like a stone,
But hovered gleaming and was gone.
Beauty chased he everywhere,

In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.

He smote the lake to feed his eye

With the beryl beam of the broken wave;

He flung in pebbles well to hear

The moment's music which they gave.

Oft pealed for him a lofty tone

From nodding pole and belting zone.

He heard a voice none else could hear
From centred and from errant sphere.

The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,

And beam to the bounds of the universe.
While thus to love he gave his days
In loyal worship, scorning praise,
How spread their lures for him in vain
Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
He thought it happier to be dead,

To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

MANNERS.

GRACE, Beauty, and Caprice

Build this golden portal;

Graceful women, chosen men,

Dazzle every mortal.

Their sweet and lofty countenance

His enchanted food;

He need not go to them, their forms

Beset his solitude.

He looketh seldom in their face,

His eyes explore the ground,

The green grass is a looking-glass
Whereon their traits are found.
Little and less he says to them,

So dances his heart in his breast;

Their tranquil mien bereaveth him

Of wit, of words, of rest.

Too weak to win, too fond to shun

The tyrants of his doom,

The much deceived Endymion

Slips behind a tomb.

ART.

IVE to barrows, trays, and pans

GIVE

Grace and glimmer of romance;

Bring the moonlight into noon

Hid in gleaming piles of stone;

On the city's paved street

Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;
Let spouting fountains cool the air,
Singing in the sun-baked square;

Let statue, picture, park, and hall,
Ballad, flag, and festival,

The past restore, the day adorn,

And make to-morrow a new morn.
So shall the drudge in dusty frock
Spy behind the city clock