I hear the music that was played,-- The songs that silence knows by heart!-- I see sweet burlesque feigning art, The careless grace that curved and swayed Through dances and through breezy walks; I feel once more the eyes that smiled, And that dear presence that beguiled The pauses of the foolish talks, When this poor phantom of perfume Was the Sweet Clover's living soul, And breathed from her as if it stole, Ah, heaven! from her heart in bloom! II. We have not many ways with pain: We weep weak tears, or else we laugh; I doubt, not less the cup we quaff, And tears and scorn alike are vain. But let me live my quiet life; I will not vex my calm with grief, I only know the pang was brief, And there an end of hope and strife. And thou? I put the letters by: In years the sweetness shall not pass; More than the perfect blossom was I count its lingering memory. Alas! with Time dear Love is dead, And not with Fate. And who can guess How weary of our happiness We might have been if we were wed? Venice. THE ROYAL PORTRAITS. (AT LUDWIGSHOF.) I. Confronting each other the pictures stare Into each other's sleepless eyes; And the daylight into the darkness dies, From year to year in the palace there: But they watch and guard that no device Take either one of them unaware. Their majesties the king and the queen, The parents of the reigning prince: Both put off royalty many years since, With life and the gifts that have always been Given to kings from God, to evince His sense of the mighty over the mean. I cannot say that I like the face Of the king; it is something fat and red; And the neck that lifts the royal head Is thick and coarse; and a scanty grace Dwells in the dull blue eyes that are laid Sullenly on the queen in her place. He must have been a king in his day 'Twere well to pleasure in work and sport: One of the heaven-anointed sort Who ruled his people with iron sway, And knew that, through good and evil report, God meant him to rule and them to obey. There are many other likenesses Of the king in his royal palace there; You find him depicted everywhere,-- In his robes of state, in his hunting-dress, In his flowing wig, in his powdered hair,-- A king in all of them, none the less; But most himself in this on the wall Over against his consort, whose Laces, and hoops, and high-heeled shoes Make her the finest lady of all The queens or courtly dames you choose, In the ancestral portrait hall. A glorious blonde: a luxury Of luring blue and wanton gold, Of blanched rose and crimson bold, Of lines that flow voluptuously In tender, languorous curves to fold Her form in perfect symmetry.