I knew a poet once; and he was young, And intermingled with such fierce desires As made pale Eros veil his face with grief, And caused his lustier brother to rejoice. He was as amorous as a crocodile In the spring season, when the Memphian bank, Receiving substance from the glaring sun, Resolves itself from mud into a shore. And—as the scaly creature wallowing there, In its hot fits of passion, belches forth The steam from out its nostrils, half in love, And half in grim defiance of its kind; Trusting that either, from the reedy fen, Some reptile-virgin coyly may appear, Or that the hoary Sultan of the Nile May make tremendous challenge with his jaws, And, like Mark Anthony, assert his right To all the Cleopatras of the ooze— So fared it with the poet that I knew. He had a soul beyond the vulgar reach, Sun-ripened, swarthy. He was not the fool To pluck the feeble lily from its shade When the black hyacinth stood in fragrance by. The lady of his love was dusk as Ind, Her lips as plenteous as the Sphinx’s are, And her short hair crisp with Numidian curl. She was a negress. You have heard the strains That Dante, Petrarch, and such puling fools As loved the daughters of cold Japhet’s race, Have lavished idly on their icicles. As snow melts snow, so their unhasty fall Fell chill and barren on a pulseless heart. But, would you know what noontide ardour is, Or in what mood the lion, in the waste, All fever-maddened, and intent on cubs, At the oasis waits the lioness— That shall you gather from the fiery song Which that young poet framed, before he dared Invade the vastness of his lady’s lips. Judging from the implied character of the ditty in question, we are not sorry that we cannot lay it before our readers—indeed it does not appear in the volume, for D’Aguilar was so disgusted with the introduction that he openly reviled Firmilian as a pupil of Mahound, and bestowed a buffet on him, whereupon there was a flashing of swords. These, however, were sheathed, and the students again sate down amicably to drink. Firmilian, being suddenly called away, entreats his friends to amuse themselves, during his absence, with a special bottle of “Ildefronso”—a vintage which we do not remember having seen in any modern list of wines. They comply—feel rather uncomfortable—and the scene concludes by the chaunt of a funeral procession beneath the window; an idea which we strongly suspect has been borrowed from Victor Hugo’s tragedy of _Lucrèce Borgia_.