To me, I must confess, the poems themselves seem harmless and pretty--I had almost said, academic and unimportant.
TWO LOVES TO "THE SPHINX" Two loves I have of comfort and despair That like two spirits do suggest me still, My better angel is a man right fair, My worse a woman tempting me to ill .-- _Shakespeare_.
I dreamed I stood upon a little hill, And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed Like a waste garden, flowering at its will With flowers and blossoms.

There were pools that dreamed Black and unruffled; there were white lilies A few, and crocuses, and violets Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets Blue eyes of shy pervenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown, Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades Of Nature's wilful moods; and here a one That had drunk in the transitory tone Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades Of grass that in an hundred springs had been Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, And watered with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous air of heaven.

Beyond, abrupt, A gray stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss Uprose.

And gazing I stood long, all mazed To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.
And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across The garden came a youth, one hand he raised To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes Were clear as crystal, naked all was he, White as the snow on pathless mountains frore, Red were his lips as red wine-spilth that dyes A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.
And he came near me, with his lips uncurled And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth, And gave me grapes to eat, and said, "Sweet friend, Come, I will show thee shadows of the world And images of life.

See, from the south Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end." And lo! within the garden of my dream I saw two walking on a shining plain Of golden light.