HELEN.

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

AMID the green brook-fringing grasses
Droops Helen, with her young life shattered.
O'er brow and arm, in shining masses,
The golden curls are scattered.

Her white feet play within the river,

As throbs her heart, so play they faster,
With sand and foam-bells troubling ever
Each crystal wave flung past her.

From a branch o'er the bright flood leaning,
To watch each shadow as it glances,
A bird sings with such force and meaning,
She hears (it seems) not fancies.

Remonstrance warbled thus: 'Oh, maiden,

Why taint my pure stream thus? Why wrong her? With sand and foam, and tears o'erladen,

She mirrors heaven no longer.

'The sun, the moon, the stars within her,

Lost nothing of their living beauty.

Depart then, leaving Time to win her

Back to the light of duty.'

The maiden murmured, 'Yes! too surely She brightens when I am not near her. The blue sky, since she floweth purely, Holds her as dear, or dearer.

'But woe is me-for endless sorrow-
A maiden's soul, unlike this river,
Once darkened, knows no brighter morrow.
Her heaven is gone for ever.'

SECRET AFFINITIES:

A PANTHEISTIC FANTASY, FROM THE FRENCH OF THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

DEEP in the vanished time, two statues white,
On an old temple's front, against blue gleams
Of an Athenian sky, instinct with light,
Blended their marble dreams.

In the same shell imbedded (crystal tears
Of the sad sea mourning her Venus flown),
Two pearls of loneliest ocean, through long years,
Kept whispering words unknown.

In the fresh pleasaunce, by Grenada's river,

Close to the low-voiced fountain's silver showers, Two roses, from Boabdil's garden, ever

Mingled their murmuring flowers.

Upon the domes of Venice, in a nest

Where love from age to age has had his day, Two white doves, with their feet of pink, found rest Through the soft month of May.

Dove, rose, pearl, marble, into ruin dim

Alike dissolve themselves, alike decay;

Pearls melt, flowers wither, marble shapes dislimn, And bright birds float away.

Each element, once free, flies back to feed

The unfathomable Life-dust, yearning dumb, Whence God's all-shaping hands in silence knead Each form that is to come.

By slow, slow change, to white and tender flesh
The marble softens down its flawless grain;
The rose, in lips as sweet and red and fresh
Refigured, blooms again.

Once more the doves murmur and coo beneath
The hearts of two young lovers, when they meet;
The pearls renew themselves, and flash as teeth
Through smiles divinely sweet.

Hence sympathetic emanations flow,

And with soft tyranny the heart controul; Touched by them, kindred spirits learn to know Their sisterhood of soul.

Obedient to the hint some fragrance sends,
Some colour, or some ray with mystic power,
Atom to atom never swerving tends,

As the bee seeks her flower.

Of moonlight visions round the temple shed,
Of lives linked in the sea, a memory wakes,
Of flower-talk flushing through the petals red
Where the bright fountain breaks.

Kisses, and wings that shivered to the kiss,

On golden domes afar, come back to rain Sweet influence; faithful to remembered bliss, The old love stirs again.

Forgotten presences shine forth, the past
Is for the visionary eye unsealed;
The breathing flower, in crimson lips recast,
Lives to herself revealed.

Where the laugh plays a glittering mouth within
The pearl reclaims her lustre softly bright;
The marble throbs, fused in a maiden skin
As fresh, and pure, and white.

Under some low and gentle voice the dove
Has found an echo of her tender moan;
Resistance grows impossible, and love
Springs up from the unknown.

Oh! thou whom burning, trembling, I adore,

What shrine, what sea, what dome, what rose-tree

bower,

Saw us, as mingling marble, joined of yore,

Or pearl, or bird, or flower?

U