Through those cleareyes, he saw the way to heaven.
Then he arose; and as a swimmer comes
Forth from the waves, he shook his locks aside,
Emerging from his dream, and standing firm
Upon a purpose with his sovereign will.
He took his palette, murmuring,
"Not yet!"
Confidingly and softly to the corpse;
And as the veriest drudge, who plies his art
Against his fancy, he addressed himself
With stolid resolution to his task.
Turning his vision on his memory,

And shutting out the present, till the dead,
The gilded pall, the lights, the pacing guard,
And all the meaning of that solemn scene
Became as nothing, and creative Art
Resolved the whole to chaos, and reformed
The elements according to her law:

So Carlo wrought, as though his eye and hand Were Heaven's unconscious instruments, and worked

The settled purpose of Omnipotence.

And it was wondrous how the red, the white,
The ochre, and the umber, and the blue,
From mottled blotches, hazy and opaque,
Grew into rounded forms and sensuous lines;
How just beneath the lucid skin the blood
Glimmered with warmth; the scarlet lips apart
Bloomed with the moisture of the dews of life;
How the light glittered through and underneath
The golden tresses, and the deep, soft eyes
Became intelligent with conscious thought,
And somewhat troubled underneath the arch
Of eyebrows but a little too intense
For perfect beauty; how the pose and poise
Of the lithe figure on its tiny foot
Suggested life just ceased from motion; so
That any one might cry, in marvelling joy,
"That creature lives, - has senses, mind, a soul
To win God's love or dare hell's subtleties !"
The artist paused. The ratifying "Good!"
Trembled upon his lips. He saw no touch
To give or soften. "It is done," he cried,
"My task, my duty! Nothing now on earth
Can taunt me with a work left unfulfilled !"
The lofty flame, which bore him up so long,
Died in the ashes of humanity;

And the mere man rocked to and fro again
Upon the centre of his wavering heart.
He put aside his palette, as if thus

He stepped from sacred vestments, and assumed
A mortal function in the common world.

Made eager struggles to maintain thy bloom, And gladdened heaven dropped down in gracious dews

I

On its transplanted darling? Hear me now!
say this but in justice, not in pride,
Not to insult thy high nobility,

But that the poise of things in God's own sight
May be adjusted; and hereafter I

May urge a claim that all the powers of heaven Shall sanction, and with clarions blow abroad. Laura, you loved me! Look not so severe, With your cold brows, and deadly, close-drawn lips!

You proved it, Countess, when you died for it, -
Let it consume you in the wearing strife

It fought with duty in your ravaged heart.
I knew it ever since that summer day

I painted Lila, the pale beggar's child,
At rest beside the fountain; when I felt-
O Heaven!- the warmth and moisture of your
breath

Blow through my hair, as with your eager soul-
Forgetting soul and body go as one

You leaned across my easel till our cheeks —
Ah me! 't was not your purpose- - touched, and
clung!

Well, grant 't was genius; and is genius naught ?
I ween it wears as proud a diadem -
Here, in this very world-

as that you wear.
A king has held my palette, a grand-duke
Has picked my brush up, and a pope has begged
The favor of my presence in his Rome.

I did not go; I put my fortune by.

I need not ask you why: you knew too well.
It was but natural, it was no way strange,
That I should love you. Everything that saw,
Or had its other senses, loved you, sweet,
And I among them. Martyr, holy saint,
I see the halo curving round your head,
I loved you once; but now I worship you,
For the great deed that held my love aloof,
And killed you in the action! I absolve
Your soul from any taint. For from the day
Of that encounter by the fountain-side
Until this moment, never turned on me
Those tender eyes, unless they did a wrong
To nature by the cold, defiant glare
With which they chilled me. Never heard I word
Of softness spoken by those gentle lips;
Never received a bounty from that hand
Which gave to all the world. I know the cause.
not for honor's sake,
Nor to save sin or suffering or remorse,
Or all the ghosts that haunt a woman's shame,
But for the sake of that pure, loyal love
Your husband bore you. Queen, by grace of God,
I bow before the lustre of your throne!
kiss the edges of your garment-hem,

And hold myself ennobled! Answer me,
If I had wronged you, you would answer me
Out of the dusty porches of the tomb :-
Is this a dream, a falsehood? or have I
Spoken the very truth?" "The very truth!"
A voice replied; and at his side he saw
A form, half shadow and half substance, stand,
Or, rather, rest; for on the solid earth
It had no footing, more than some dense mist
That wavers o'er the surface of the ground
It scarcely touches. With a reverent look
The shadow's waste and wretched face was bent
Above the picture; as though greater awe
Subdued its awful being, and appalled,
With memories of terrible delight
And fearful wonder, its devouring gaze.

the shape.

"And might not this, this second Eve, console
The emptiest heart? Will not this thing outlast
The fairest creature fashioned in the flesh?
Before that figure, Time, and Death himself,
Stand baffled and disarmed. What would you ask
More than God's power, from nothing to create?"
The artist gazed upon the boding form,
And answered: "Goblin, if you had a heart,
That were an idle question. What to me
Is my creative power, bereft of love?

Or what to God would be that selfsame power, If so bereaved?" "And yet the love, thus mourned,

You calmly forfeited. For had you said
To living Laura- in her burning ears-
One half that you professed to Laura dead,
She would have been your own. These contraries
Sort not with my intelligence. But speak,
Were Laura living, would the same stale play
Of raging passion tearing out its heart
Upon the rock of duty be performed?"
"The same, O phantom, while the heart I bear
Trembled, but turned not its magnetic faith
From God's fixed centre." "If I wake for you
This Laura, give her all the bloom and glow
Of that midsummer day you hold so dear,
The smile, the motion, the impulsive soul,
The love of genius, yea, the very love,
The mortal, hungry, passionate, hot love,
She bore you, flesh to flesh, would you receive
That gift, in all its glory, at my hands?"
A smile of malice curled the tempter's lips,
And glittered in the caverns of his eyes,
Mocking the answer. Carlo paled and shook ;
A woful spasm went shuddering through his
frame,

Curdling his blood, and twisting his fair face With nameless torture. But he cried aloud, Out of the clouds of anguish, from the smoke Of very martyrdom, "O God, she is thine!

Of my dark pinions I shall bear you hence,
And land you where the mountain-goat himself
Struggles for footing." He outspread his wings,
And all the chapel darkened, as though hell
Had swallowed up the tapers; and the air
Grew thick, and, like a current sensible,
Flowed round the person, with a wash and dash,
As of the waters of a nether sea.
Slowly and calmly through the dense obscure,
Dove-like and gentle, rose the artist's voice :
"I dare not bring her spirit to that shame!
Know my full meaning, I who neither fear
Your mystic person nor your dreadful power.
Nor shall I now invoke God's potent name
For my deliverance from your toils. I stand
Upon the founded structure of his law,
Established from the first, and thence defy
Your arts, reposing all my trust in that!"
The darkness eddied off; and Carlo saw
The figure gathering, as from outer space,
Brightness on brightness; and his former shape
Fell from him, like the ashes that fall off,
And show a core of mellow fire within.
Adown his wings there poured a lambent flood,
That seemed as molten gold, which plashing fell
Upon the floor, enringing him with flame;
And o'er the tresses of his beaming head
Arose a stream of many-colored light,
Like that which crowns the morning. Carlo stood
Steadfast, for all the splendor, reaching up
The outstretched palms of his untainted soul
Towards heaven for strength. A moment thus ;
then asked,

With reverential wonder quivering through
His sinking voice, "Who, spirit, and what, art
thou?"

"I am that blessing which men fly from,

Death."

"Then take my hand, if so God orders it; For Laura waits me." "But, bethink thee, man, What the world loses in the loss of thee!

What wondrous art will suffer with eclipse !
What unwon glories are in store for thee!
What fame, outreaching time and temporal shocks,
Would shine upon the letters of thy name
Graven in marble, or the brazen height
Of columns wise with memories of thee!"
"Take me! If I outlived the Patriarchs,
I could but paint those features o'er and o'er :
Lo! that is done." A smile of pity lit
The seraph's features, as he looked to heaven,
With deep inquiry in his tender eyes.

The mandate came. He touched with downy wing
The sufferer lightly on his aching heart;
And gently, as the skylark settles down
Upon the clustered treasures of her nest,
So Carlo softly slid along the prop
Of his tall easel, nestling at the foot

As though he slumbered; and the morning broke
In silver whiteness over Padua.

THE Abbess was of noble blood,
But early took the veil and hood,
Ere upon life she cast a look,
Or knew the world that she forsook.
Fair too she was, and kind had been
As she was fair, but ne'er had seen
For her a timid lover sigh,
Nor knew the influence of her eye.
Love, to her ear, was but a name,
Combined with vanity and shame;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall:
The deadliest sin her mind could reach
Was of monastic rule the breach;
And her ambition's highest aim
To emulate Saint Hilda's fame.
For this she gave her ample dower
To raise the convent's eastern tower;
For this, with carving rare and quaint,
She decked the chapel of the saint,
And gave the relic-shrine of cost,
With ivory and gems embost.
The poor her convent's bounty blest,
The pilgrim in its halls found rest.

Black was her garb, her rigid rule
Reformed on Benedictine school;
Her cheek was pale, her form was spare;
Vigils, and penitence austere,

Had early quenched the light of youth,
But gentle was the dame, in sooth;

While round the fire such legends go,
Far different was the scene of woe,
Where, in a secret aisle beneath,
Council was held of life and death.
It was more dark and lone, that vault,
Than the worst dungeon cell;
Old Colwulf built it, for his fault
In penitence to dwell,
When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.
This den which, chilling every sense

Of feeling, hearing, sight,
Was called the Vault of Penitence,

Excluding air and light,

Was, by the prelate Sexhelm, made
A place of burial for such dead
As, having died in mortal sin,
Might not be laid the church within.
'T was now a place of punishment ;
Whence if so loud a shriek were sent

As reached the upper air,
The hearers blessed themselves, and said,
The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there.

But though, in the monastic pile,
Did of this penitential aisle

Some vague tradition go,
Few only, save the Abbot, knew

Where the place lay; and still more few
Were those who had from him the clew
To that dread vault to go.