Till in the end, the Day of Days,
At judgment, one of his own race,
As frail and lost as you, shall rise,
His daughter, with his mother's eyes?

How Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf, Might not the dial scorn itself That has such hours to register? Yet as to me, even so to her Are golden sun and silver moon, In daily largesse of earth's boon, Counted for life-coins to one tune. And if, as blindfold fates are toss'd, Through some one man this life be lost, Shall soul not somehow pay for soul?

-

Fair shines the gilded aureole In which our highest painters place Some living woman's simple face. And the stilled features thus descried As Jenny's long throat droops aside, The shadows where the cheeks are thin, And pure wide curve from ear to chin, With Raffael's, Leonardo's hand To show them to men's souls, might stand, Whole ages long, the whole world through, For preachings of what God can do. What has man done here? How atone, Great God, for this which man has done? And for the body and soul which by Man's pitiless doom must now comply With lifelong hell, what lullaby Of sweet forgetful second birth Remains? All dark. No sign on earth What measure of God's rest endows The many mansions of his house.

If but a woman's heart might see

Such erring heart unerringly
For once! But that can never be.

Like a rose shut in a book

In which pure women may not look,
For its base pages claim control
To crush the flower within the soul;
Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings,
Pale as transparent psyche-wings,

To the vile text, are traced such things
As might make lady's cheek indeed
More than a living rose to read;

So nought save foolish foulness may
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
And so the life-blood of this rose,
Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows
Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose;
Yet still it keeps such faded show

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That Jenny's flattering sleep confers
New magic on the magic purse,
Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!
Between the threads fine fumes arise
And shape their pictures in the brain.
There roll no streets in glare and rain,
Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk,
But delicately sighs in musk
The homage of the dim boudoir;

Or like a palpitating star
Thrilled into song, the opera-night
Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light;
Or at the carriage-window shine
Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine,
Whirls through its hour of health (divine
For her) the concourse of the Park.
And though in the discounted dark

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"Why did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began." "The time was long, yet the time ran,

Little brother."

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(O Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!) 7

"But if you have done your work aright, Sister Helen, You'll let me play, for you said I might.” "Be very still in your play to-night,

Little brother."

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 13 Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)

"You said it must melt ere vesper-bell, Sister Helen;

If now it be molten, all is well." "Even so, - nay, peace! you cannot tell, Little brother." (O Mother, Mary Mother, What is this, between Hell and Heaven?)

"Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day, Sister Helen;

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