"How horrible all this is," he said to himself; "this is worse than peeping and botanizing on a mother's grave." He desired supreme grief, and grief fled from his lure; and rhymes and images thronged his brain; and the poem that oftenest rose in his mind, seemingly complete in cadence and idea, was so cruel, that Lily, looking out of heaven, seemed to beg him to refrain. But though he erased the lines on the paper, he could not erase them on his brain, and baffled, he pondered over the phenomena of the antagonism of desired aspirations and intellectual instincts. He desired a poem full of the divine grace of grief; a poem beautiful, tender and pure, fresh and wild as a dove crossing in the dawn from wood to wood. He desired the picturesqueness of a young man's grief for a dead girl, an Adonais going forth into the glittering morning, and weeping for his love that has passed out of the sun into the shadow. This is what he wrote: A UNE POETRENAIRE. We are alone! listen, a little while, And hear the reason why your weary smile And lute-toned speaking is so very sweet To me, and how my love is more complete Than any love of any lover. They Have only been attracted by the gray Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim And delicate form, or some such whimpering whim, The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I For other reasons. Listen whilst I try And say. I joy to see the sunset slope Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm, Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, In mildly modulated phrases; thus Your life shall fade like a voluptuous Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die Like some soft evening's sad serenity ... I would possess your dying hours; indeed My love is worthy of the gift, I plead For them.