Yellow, uncanny, mummified, Like to a Pharaoh's hand it lay, And stretched its faun-shaped fingers wide, Crisp with temptation's awful play; As though an itch for flesh and gold Lured them to horrors yet to be, Twisting them roughly as of old, Teasing their immobility. There every vice and passion's whim Had seamed the flesh abundantly With hideous hieroglyphs and grim, That headsmen read with fluency. There plainly writ in furrows fell, I saw the deeds of sin and soil, Scorchings from every fiery hell Wherein corruptions seethe and boil. There was a track of Capri's vice, Of lupanars and gaming-scores, Fretted with wine and blood and dice, Like ennui of old emperors. Supple and fierce, it had some dower Of grace unto the searching eye, Some brutal fascination's power, A gladiator's mastery. Cold aristocracy of crime! No plane inured, no hammer spent The hand whose task for every time Had but the knife for implement. The hand of Lacenaire! No clue Therein to labour's honest pride! False poet, and assassin true, The Manfred of the gutter died! VARIATIONS ON THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE I ON THE STREET There is a popular old air That every fiddler loves to scrape. 'T is wrung from organs everywhere, To barking dog with wrath agape. The music-box has registered Its phrases garbled and reviled. 'T is classic to the household bird; Grandmother learned it as a child. The trumpet and the clarinet, In dusty gardens of the dance, Blow it to clerk and gay grisette, In shrill, unlovely resonance. And of a Sunday swarm the folk Under the honeysuckle vine, Quaffing, the while they talk and smoke, The sun, the melody, the wine. It lurks within the wry bassoon The blind man plays, the porch beneath. His poodle whimpers low the tune, And holds the cup between its teeth. The players of the light guitar, Decked with their flimsy tartans, pale, With voices sad, where feasters are, Through coffee-houses fling its wail. Great Paganini at a sign, One night, as with a needle's gleam, Picked up with end of bow divine The little antiquated theme, And, threading it with fingers deft, He broidered it with colours bright, Till up and down the faded weft Ran golden arabesques of light. II ON THE LAGOONS Tra la, tra la, la, la, la,--who Knows not the theme's soft spell? Or sad or light or mock or true, Our mothers loved it well. The Carnival of Venice! Long Adown canals it came, Till, wafted on a zephyr's song, The ballet kept its fame. I seem, whene'er its phrase I hear, A gondola to view, With prow voluted, black and clear, Slip o'er the water blue; To see, her bosom covered o'er With pearls, her body suave, The Adriatic Venus soar On sound's chromatic wave. The domes that on the water dwell Pursue the melody In clear-drawn cadences, and swell Like breasts of love that sigh. My chains around a pillar cast, I land before a fair And rosy-pale facade at last, Upon a marble stair.