equal even while on earth, to those Angels
among whom, in Heaven, he shall see her—
SEE her, at last, no longer blind!

PROSERPINA IN THE SHADES.

THROUGH the dull hours (that see not any change
Of light and dark, of sun and moon and stars,)
I dwell in this wide land of woeful shapes,
Thinking of Enna and the distant day.
My heart is ever homelessly wandering
In the upper fields. My eyes are blind with tears.
The endless twilight, and perpetual growth
Of leaves in this hot subterranean world,
Confuse my sense of time; so that, alas!
I know not how the years increase and wane.
I know not when the Spring's invisible kiss
Fills dusky nooks with flaming crocus-buds,
And startles the brown woodlands into green:
I know not when the Summer covers up
With crowding leaves and flowers of coloured light
Young Flora, and, as from a censer, flings
Large incense to the odour-loving Gods:
I know not when the Autumn walks abroad,
Golden beneath the blue and breathless sky,
And to my mother Ceres brings sleek fruits,
Honey, and wine, and wealth of bearded corn:
Nor know I when the Winter, noiselessly,
Comes down like sleep on the exhausted earth.
Ever, for ever, stares my life at me,
Like a stone face upon a monument,
Looking with passionless eyes into the air
Age after age—O young and delicate blooms
Quickening within the vital ground o'erhead!
The glad light calls from far, and you ascend
Out of your dark pre-natal prison-house.
O buds, and leaves, and flowers! you pass bright lives
Beneath the round and sun-eyed firmament;
And when death comes, your tender breaths exhale
Calmly as sleep from off an infant's brow
ln the clear morning. But, for Me, no sun
Will ever rise—no death will ever fall.

Instead of you, O plains of Sicily,
And dark green valley-depths, and mountains zoned
With pine woods, singing in the musical wind!
Instead of you, I must for aye reside
In this sad garden, under shades of death
Half-kindled by those far Etnean fires
Where singèd Vulcan and his fellows beat
The sullen iron into shape, and dash
All round, a wrathful and tumultuous dawn.
Silence and dreamy rest are on this place;
The black trees gloom; the clotted foliage creeps
From trunk to trunk across the moveless air;
The slumber-bearing weeds, large-leaved and lax,
Drag with the fulness of their unctuous juice,
Unpluck'd; and flowers of poisonous sweetness drowse,
Heavy and golden-ripe, on branch and spray.
But what avails it unto me?—Vain! vain!
Hemlock, and hellebore, and poppy—all
You syrup-balms of mortal woe; and you,
Swart berries, in whose purple pulp is found
The sleep that has no waking; you are void
Of power to lull My watchful grief, for I
Am all undying as a naked soul.

I am a Queen, and yet I cannot die.
I languish on a fierce and golden seat,
And waste towards the stars, and yet remain.

My spirit is an upward-straining fire,
Divorced for ever from its home, the sun:
For ever idly striving to climb back.

I am a wife, yet wherefore am I so?
My eyes are widow'd of the lightsome sky,
My ears are orphan'd of familiar sounds.

O mother Ceres! Like a desert sea,
Whose dull grey lips upon the skyey wall
Are press'd continually, my life rolls out
Towards the aye-receding shore. But still
I will hope on. Patience is strong as Fate,
And weighs with rich and equal scale against
The heaviest destiny. It is a moon
That wanes not, neither sets, but keeps full-orb'd;
An earnest of all immatured good;
A white Aurora to the coining day,
Smoothing dark clouds with brightness; the heart's rest:
A central peace in tempest and loud war;
A soul of sweetness in a mass of gall.
All things have need of patience. The dull earth,
Made rough and ragged by the wintry cold,
Is patient, and looks forward to the time
When Spring's hot blood shall beat within her veins,
And flush her cheek with beauty. Higher still,
The Ages are most patient, and hold firm
Through the long mystery of pain and sin,
With faces ever looking tow'rds the end,
And voices that inweave a low, sweet song,
Typing the hidden consummation cored
Within the great To-come. What else, sad heart,
Has the expecting mother whose dear lord
Is dead and earth'd—what else but patient hope
To see the dawning of that glad new life
Which shall re-link her to the lost beloved?
Therefore will I be patient, and will hope
Even though the centuries should mock my hope;
For Jove is strong, and circles round the world.

Behold! even now more happy thoughts have come!
I see a land of loveliness and joy
Lying beyond the stream of present time;
And, though I lack a bridge to pass thereto,
I will sit humbly on the bank, and wait,
Till Heaven shall send some radiant messenger
To lead me forth, over the perilous bourne.
—But what if he should never come? Oh, then
Patience will make its own delightful realm,
Wherefrom the gloom and sadness of this place
Will lighten, like old Chaos in the beams
Of newly-risen Jove. Thus, at the last,
All darkness, and all mortal clouds of pain,
Shall burn into a bright ethereal gold;
For the World's Soul is working secretly,
And will not cease until, within the abyss,
The crystal orb of being, sphere in sphere,
Hangs round and smooth, and perfect, and all-sunn'd
In the universal morning. I repose
My head upon the pillow of that thought.
So will I comfort me, and stand erect
Under my grief; since in the harshest sounds
I hear the music of the faultless Law!

THE TURK AT HOME.

THE Turk, as he is presented to the
popular mind, is a gentleman with a
ferocious beard; wearing a curved sword;
having more wives than he can count;
smoking all day long; and disdaining
the convenience of a chair. Blue Beard is
supposed to have been a Turk; and, in
fact, all the horrible monsters of our
children's story-books are represented to be