Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar Of London, and the bustling street, For still, by the Sicilian shore, The murmur of the Muse is sweet. Still, still, the suns of summer greet The mountain-grave of Helikê, And shepherds still their songs repeat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea. What though they worship Pan no more, That guarded once the shepherd’s seat, They chatter of their rustic lore, They watch the wind among the wheat: Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat, Where whispers pine to cypress tree; They count the waves that idly beat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea. Theocritus! thou canst restore The pleasant years, and over-fleet; With thee we live as men of yore, We rest where running waters meet: And then we turn unwilling feet And seek the world—so must it be— _We_ may not linger in the heat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea! ENVOY. Master,—when rain, and snow, and sleet And northern winds are wild, to thee We come, we rest in thy retreat, Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea! BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE. Ye giant shades of RA and TUM, Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian, If murmurs of our planet come To exiles in the precincts wan Where, fetish or Olympian, To help or harm no more ye list, Look down, if look ye may, and scan This monument in London mist! Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb That once were read of him that ran When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum Wild music of the Bull began; When through the chanting priestly clan Walk’d Ramses, and the high sun kiss’d This stone, with blessing scored and ban— This monument in London mist. The stone endures though gods be numb; Though human effort, plot, and plan Be sifted, drifted, like the sum Of sands in wastes Arabian. What king may deem him more than man, What priest says Faith can Time resist While _this_ endures to mark their span— This monument in London mist? ENVOY. Prince, the stone’s shade on your divan Falls; it is longer than ye wist: It preaches, as Time’s gnomon can, This monument in London mist! BALLADE OF ROULETTE. TO R. R. This life—one was thinking to-day, In the midst of a medley of fancies— Is a game, and the board where we play Green earth with her poppies and pansies. Let _manque_ be faded romances, Be _passe_ remorse and regret; Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances— The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette. The lover will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances; The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: How they gaze at the wheel as it glances— The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette!