The artist paused and bowed his face Within his palms a little space, While reverently on his form I bent my gaze and marked a storm That shook his frame as wrathfully As some typhoon of agony, And fraught with sobs—the more profound For that peculiar laughing sound We hear when strong men weep.... I leant With warmest sympathy—I bent To stroke with soothing hand his brow, He murmuring—“’Tis over now!— And shall I tie the silken thread Of my frail romance?” “Yes,” I said.— He faintly smiled; and then, with brow In kneading palm, as one in dread— His tasselled cap pushed from his head;— “‘Her voice’s music,’ I repeat,” He said,—“’twas sweet—O passing sweet!— Though she herself, in uttering Its melody, proved not the thing Of loveliness my dreams made meet For me—there, yearning, at her feet— Prone at her feet—a worshipper,— For lo! she spake a tongue,” moaned he, “Unknown to me;—unknown to me As mine to her—as mine to her.” LEONAINIE Leonainie—Angels named her; And they took the light Of the laughing stars and framed her In a smile of white; And they made her hair of gloomy Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy Moonshine, and they brought her to me In the solemn night.— In a solemn night of summer, When my heart of gloom Blossomed up to greet the comer Like a rose in bloom; All forebodings that distressed me I forgot as Joy caressed me— (_Lying_ Joy! that caught and pressed me In the arms of doom!) Only spake the little lisper In the Angel-tongue; Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,— “Songs are only sung Here below that they may grieve you— Tales but told you to deceive you,— So must Leonainie leave you While her love is young.” Then God smiled and it was morning. Matchless and supreme Heaven’s glory seemed adorning Earth with its esteem: Every heart but mine seemed gifted With the voice of prayer, and lifted Where my Leonainie drifted From me like a dream. TO A JILTED SWAIN Get thee back neglected friends; And repay, as each one lends, Tithes of shallow-sounding glee Or keen-ringing raillery: Get thee from lone vigils; be But in jocund company, Where is laughter and acclaim Boisterous above the name.— Get where sulking husbands sip Ale-house cheer, with pipe at lip; And where Mol the barmaid saith Curst is she that marrieth. THE VOICES Down in the night I hear them: The Voices—unknown—unguessed,— That whisper, and lisp, and murmur, And will not let me rest.— Voices that seem to question, In unknown words, of me, Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams Of this and the World to be. Voices of mirth and music, As in sumptuous homes; and sounds Of mourning, as of gathering friends In country burial-grounds.