I can recall those happy days forgot, And see, with head bowed on your knees, my past. Your languid beauties now would move me not Did not your gentle heart and body cast The old spell of those happy days forgot. Can vows and perfumes, kisses infinite, Be reborn from the gulf we cannot sound; As rise to heaven suns once again made bright After being plunged in deep seas and profound? Ah, vows and perfumes, kisses infinite! THE SICK MUSE Poor Muse, alas, what ail's thee, then, to-day? Thy hollow eyes with midnight visions burn, Upon thy brow in alternation play, Folly and Horror, cold and taciturn. Have the green lemure and the goblin red, Poured on thee love and terror from their urn? Or with despotic hand the nightmare dread Deep plunged thee in some fabulous Mintume? Would that thy breast where so deep thoughts arise, Breathed forth a healthful perfume with thy sighs; Would that thy Christian blood ran wave by wave In rhythmic sounds the antique numbers gave, When Phœbus shared his alternating reign With mighty Pan, lord of the ripening grain. THE VENAL MUSE Muse of my heart, lover of palaces, When January comes with wind and sleet, During the snowy eve's long wearinesses, Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet? Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders In the moon-beams that through the window fly? Or when thy purse dries up, thy palace moulders, Reap the far star-gold of the vaulted sky? For thou, to keep thy body to thy soul, Must swing a censer, wear a holy stole, And chaunt Te Deums with unbelief between. Or, like a starving mountebank, expose Thy beauty and thy tear-drowned smile to those Who wait thy jests to drive away thy spleen. THE EVIL MONK The ancient cloisters on their lofty walls Had holy Truth in painted frescoes shown, And, seeing these, the pious in those halls Felt their cold, lone austereness less alone. At that time when Christ's seed flowered all around, More than one monk, forgotten in his hour, Taking for studio the burial-ground, Glorified Death with simple faith and power. And my soul is a sepulchre where I, Ill cenobite, have spent eternity: On the vile cloister walls no pictures rise. O when may I cast off this weariness, And make the pageant of my old distress For these hands labour, pleasure for these eyes? THE TEMPTATION The Demon, in my chamber high, This morning came to visit me, And, thinking he would find some fault, He whispered: "I would know of thee Among the many lovely things That make the magic of her face, Among the beauties, black and rose, That make her body's charm and grace,