And the rolling anapæstic

Curled like vapor over shrines!

O, our Eschylus, the thunderous!

How he drove the bolted breath Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous In the gnarled oak beneath.

O, our Sophocles, the royal,

Who was born to monarch's place, And who made the whole world loyal, Less by kingly power than grace.

Our Euripides, the human

With his droppings of warm tears; And his touches of things common, Till they rose to touch the spheres! Our Theocritus, our Bion,

And our Pindar's shining goals! These were cup-bearers undying

Of the wine that's meant for souls.

And my Plato, the divine one,

If men know the gods aright By their motions as they shine on With a glorious trail of light! And your noble Christian bishops, Who mouthed grandly the last Greek: Though the sponges on their hyssops Were distent with wine - too weak.

Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him, With his liberal mouth of gold;

And your Basil, you upraised him
To the height of speakers old:
And we both praised Heliodorus
For his secret of pure lies;
Who forged first his linked stories
In the heat of lady's eyes.

And we both praised your Synesius
For the fire shot up his odes,
Though the Church was scarce propitious
As he whistled dogs and gods.-
And we both praised Nazianzen
For the fervid heart and speech;
Only I eschewed his glancing

At the lyre hung out of reach.

Do you mind that deed of Até
Which you bound me to so fast,-
Reading "De Virginitate,"

From the first line to the last?
How I said at ending, solemn,

As I turned and looked at you, That St. Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do?

For we sometimes gently wrangled;
Very gently, be it said,

Since our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old, -

Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons Stained the purple they would fold.

For the rest, a mystic moaning,
Kept Cassandra at the gate,

With wild eyes the vision shone in,—
And wide nostrils scenting fate.
And Prometheus, bound in passion
By brute Force to the blind stone,
Showed us looks of invocation
Turned to ocean and the sun.

And Medea we saw burning

At her nature's planted stake; And proud Edipus fate-scorning

While the cloud came on to break While the cloud came on slow-slower, Till he stood discrowned, resigned ! But the reader's voice dropped lower When the poet called him blind!

Ah, my gossip! you were older,
And more learned, and a man!
Yet that shadow the enfolder
Of your quiet eyelids ran
Both our spirits to one level,

And I turned from hill and lea
And the summer-sun's green revel, -
To your eyes that could not see.

Now Christ bless you with the one light Which goes shining night and day!

May the flowers which grow in sunlight
Shed their fragrance in your way!
Is it not right to remember

All your kindness, friend of mine,
When we two sate in the chamber,
And the poets poured us wine?

So, to come back to the drinking
Of this Cyprus, — it is well,
But those memories, to my thinking,
Make a better œnomel;
And whoever be the speaker,

None can murmur with a sigh-
That, in drinking from that beaker,

I am sipping like a fly.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

CLYTÈ.

N the sea-shore at Cyprus stood

ON

A little sheltered rustic altar

Where those whom Venus loved could come

And pious prayers and praises falter.

'T was humble, yet the Golden Age,

Ere tyrants were, had kept it guarded, And centuries long that little fane

A sheltering plane had greenly warded.

Up to its marble steps the waves
Came creeping, courtier-like, in whispers ;

The zephyrs spoke among the boughs,
Like lovers, or like infant lispers;
Dark violets purpled all the turf

Beneath that plane-tree's soft green shadow,
Nowhere the amaranth grew so fair
As just within that sea-side meadow.

Phædon, a sculptor, Lemnian born,

Had toiled for years to deck that altar With his best art; no lust for gold

Or bad men's scorn could make him falter; So he had carved his dead love's face

As Clytè-praying still in anguish

That for one hour she might return

From those dark shades where sad souls languish.

""Tis done!" one eve the sculptor cried,
And knelt in prayer to Aphroditè.
His dream stood petrified at last,

That marble, nymph, - his gentle Clytè.
The goddess heard him as he knelt,
And, smiled from rosy clouds, consenting.
The maid was ferried back to earth,
Pluto for one short hour relenting.

That swelling breast-the lover's pillow-
Was now of Parian crystal whiteness;
Those Juno arms, that Jove might fold,

Were of a smooth and radiant lightness;
Her hair in rippling wave on wave

Crowned a fair head so sweetly mournful;