The loveliness that wanes not,
The Love that ne'er can wane.

In dreams she grows not older
The lands of Dream among,
Though all the world wax colder,
Though all the songs be sung,

In dreams doth he behold her
Still fair and kind and young.

Andrew Lang [1844-1912]

AN INTERLUDE

IN the greenest growth of the Maytime,
I rode where the woods were wet,
Between the dawn and the daytime:
The spring was glad that we met.

There was something the season wanted,
Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet,

The breath at your lips that panted,

The pulse of the grass at your feet.

You came, and the sun came after,

And the green grew golden above;
And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,
And the meadow-sweet shook with love.

Your feet in the full-grown grasses

Moved soft as a weak wind blows:

You passed me as April passes,

With face made out of a rose.

By the stream where the stems were slender,
Your bright foot paused at the sedge:

It might be to watch the tender

Light leaves in the springtime hedge,

On boughs that the sweet month blanches
With flowery frost of May;

It might be a bird in the branches,

It might be a thorn in the way.

An Interlude

I waited to watch you linger

With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you.

And a bird overhead sang "Follow,"
And a bird to the right sang "Here":
And the arch of the leaves was hollow,
And the meaning of May was clear.

I saw where the sun's hand pointed,
I knew what the bird's note said:
By the dawn and the dew-fall anointed,
You were Queen by the gold on your head.

As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember
Recalls a regret of the sun,
I remember, forget, and remember
What Love saw done and undone.

I remember the way we parted,
The day and the way we met:
You hoped we were both broken-hearted,
And knew we should both forget.

And May with her world in flower
Seemed still to murmur and smile
As you murmured and smiled for an hour:
I saw you turn at the stile.

A hand like a white wood-blossom
You lifted, and waved, and passed,
With head hung down to the bosom,
And pale, as it seemed, at last.

And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,

If you've forgotten my kisses,

And I've forgotten your name.

831

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

HEBE

I SAW the twinkle of white feet,

I saw the flash of robes descending;

Before her ran an influence fleet,

That bowed my heart like barley bending.

As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees

Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-

The beaker fell; the luck was over.

The Earth has drunk the vintage up;
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
Can Summer fill the icy cup

Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?

O spendthrift haste! await the Gods;

Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;

Haste scatters on unthankful sods

The immortal gift in vain libations.

Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,

And shuns the hands would seize upon her;

Follow thy life, and she will sue

To pour for thee the cup of honor.

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]

"Justine, You Love Me Not!" 833

"JUSTINE, YOU LOVE ME NOT!"

"Helas! vous ne m'aimez pas.”—PIRON

I KNOW, Justine, you speak me fair

As often as we meet;

And 'tis a luxury, I swear,

To hear a voice so sweet;

And yet it does not please me quite,
The civil way you've got;
For me you're something too polite-
Justine, you love me not!

I know Justine, you never scold
At aught that I may do:
If I am passionate or cold,
'Tis all the same to you.

"A charming temper," say the men,
"To smooth a husband's lot":

I wish 'twere ruffled now and then-
Justine you love me not!

I know, Justine, you wear a smile
As beaming as the sun;

But who supposes all the while
It shines for only one?

Though azure skies are fair to see,
A transient cloudy spot

In yours would promise more to me-
Justine, you love me not!

I know, Justine, you make my name
Your eulogistic theme,

And say-if any chance to blame

You hold me in esteem.

Such words, for all their kindly scope,

Delight me not a jot;

Just as you would have praised the Pope-
Justine, you love me not!

I know, Justine-for I have heard
What friendly voices tell-
You do not blush to say the word,
"You like me passing well";
And thus the fatal sound I hear
That seals my lonely lot:

There's nothing now to hope or fear

Justine, you love me not!

John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887]

SNOWDROP

WHEN, full of warm and eager love,
I clasp you in my fond embrace,
You gently push me back and say,

"Take care, my dear, you'll spoil my lace."

You kiss me just as you would kiss

Some woman friend you chanced to see; You call me "dearest."-All love's forms Are yours, not its reality.

Oh, Annie! cry, and storm, and rave!
Do anything with passion in it!

Hate me an hour, and then turn round
And love me truly, just one minute.
William Wetmore Story [1819-1895]

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,

At the last of the thirty palace-gates,

The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,

Orders a feast in his favorite room-
Glittering squares of colored ice,