ROME THE VATICAN-SALA DELLE MUSE (1887) I SAT in the Muses' Hall at the mid of the day, And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away, And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun, Till beside a Carrara column there gleamed forth One. She looked not this nor that of those beings divine, But each and the whole-an essence of all the Nine ; With tentative foot she neared to my haltingplace, A pensive smile on her sweet, small, marvellous face. Regarded so long, we render thee sad? said she. " "Not you," sighed I, "but my own in constancy! I worship each and each; in the morning one, And then, alas! another at sink of sun. "To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is my troth Of yesternight with Tune: can one cleave to both?" "Be not perturbed," said she. apart in fame, "Though As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same." -"But my love goes further-to Story, and Dance, and Hymn, " The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim- "And that one is I; and I am projected from thee, One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest ROME AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS (1887) WHO, then, was Cestius, And what is he to me ? Amid thick thoughts and memories multi tudinous One thought alone brings he. I can recall no word Of anything he did; For me he is a man who died and was interred To leave a pyramid Whose purpose was exprest Not with its first design, Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest Two countrymen of mine. Cestius in life, maybe, Slew, breathed out threatening ; I know not. This I know in death all silently He does a rarer thing, In beckoning pilgrim feet To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street, Those matchless singers lie. -Say, then, he lived and died That stones which bear his name Should mark, through Time, where two im mortal Shades abide; It is an ample fame. ON AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES I My ardours for emprize nigh lost Have left upon the centuried years. II For, wonning in these ancient lands, And scored with prints of perished hands, |