There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, [month Will let those quails fly, will not eat this One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] 1864. CONFESSIONS WHAT is he buzzing in my ears? Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, To mine, it serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" Is the house o'ertopping all. At a terrace, somewhere stopper. near the There watched for me, one June, A girl: I know, sir, it 's improper, My poor mind 's out of tune. Only, there was a way you crept Close by the side, to dodge Eyes in the house, two eyes except : They styled their house “The Lodge.” What right had a lounger up their lane? But, by creeping very close, With the good wall's help,-their yes might strain And stretch themselves to Oes, You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse-nay, a bit of beard too: Or you got it, rubbing your mouth And I-soon managed to find And be safe in my corset-lacing. If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up: For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare Of thanks in a look, or sing it? I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles,) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. But I think I gave you as good! "That foreign fellow,-who can know How she pays, in a playful mood, For his tuning her that piano?" Could you say so, and never say, 66 Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?" No, no: you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over: You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. But you meet the Prince at the Board, I'm queen myself at bals-paré, I've married a rich old lord, And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A. Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,-been happy. And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever: This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever. A FACE 1864. IF one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile: not as when she laughs, For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver on the pale gold ground Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by), All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 1864. Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board; "Why what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they : "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable' here with her twelve and eighty guns Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where t is ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Reach the mooring? Rather say, "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, "Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues ! Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way! Only let me lead the line, Have the biggest ship to steer, Get this 'Formidable' clear, Make the others follow mine, And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, Right to Solidor past Grève, And there lay then safe and sound: And if one ship misbehave, --Keel so much as grate the ground, Why I've nothing but my life,-here's my head!" cries Hervé Riel. VII Not a minute more to wait, Steer us in, then, small and great! Still the north-wind, by God's grace! As the big ship, with a bound, were the wide sea's profound! See, safe through shoal and rock, How they follow in a flock, Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, Not a spar that comes to grief! The peril, see, is past, All are harbored to the last, And just as Hervé Riel hollas "Anchor!"-sure as fate, Up the English come-too late! VIII So, the storm subsides to calm : They see the green trees wave Then a beam of fun outbroke On the bearded mouth that spoke, Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!" That he asked and that he got,-nothing more. ΧΙ Name and deed alike are lost: In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing-smack, |