5.

Her fingers number every nerve
Just as a miser counts his gold;
She lives upon his shrieks and cries,
And she grows young as he grows old.

6.

Till he becomes a bleeding youth,
And she becomes a virgin bright;
Then he rends up his manacles

And binds her down for his delight.

7.

He plants himself in all her nerves
Just as a husbandman his mould,
And she becomes his dwelling-place
And garden fruitful seventyfold.

8.

An aged shadow soon he fades,
Wandering round an earthly cot,
Full filled all with gems and gold
Which he by industry had got.

9.

And these are the gems of the human soul,
The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye,
The countless gold of the aching heart,
The martyr's groan and the lover's sigh.

10.

They are his meat, they are his drink;
He feeds the beggar and the poor;

To the wayfaring traveller

For ever open is his door.

II.

His grief is their eternal joy,

They make the roofs and walls to ring; Till from the fire upon the hearth

A little female babe doth spring.

12.

And she is all of solid fire

And gems and gold, that none his hand Dares stretch to touch her baby form Or wrap her in his swaddling band.

13.

But she comes to the man she loves,
If young or old or rich or poor;
They soon drive out the aged host,
A beggar at another's door.

14.

He wanders weeping far away,

Until some other take him in;

Oft blind and age-bent, sore distress'd,
Until he can a maiden win.

15.

And to allay his freezing age,

The poor man takes her in his arms;

The cottage fades before his sight,

The garden and its lovely charms.

16.

The guests are scattered through the land; For the eye altering alters all;

The senses roll themselves in fear,

And the flat earth becomes a ball.

17.

The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away,
A desert vast without a bound,
And nothing left to eat or drink,
And a dark desert all around:

18.

The honey of her infant lips,

The bread and wine of her sweet smile,

The wild game of her roving eye,

Do him to infancy beguile.

19.

For as he eats and drinks he grows
Younger and younger every day,
And on the desert wild they both
Wander in terror and dismay.

20.

Like the wild stag she flees away;

Her fear plants many a thicket wild, While he pursues her night and day, By various arts of love beguiled.

21.

By various arts of love and hate,

Till the wild desert's planted o'er

With labyrinths of wayward love, Where roam the lion, wolf, and boar.

22.

Till he becomes a wayward babe,

And she a weeping woman old;

Then many a lover wanders here,
The sun and stars are nearer rolled;

23.

The trees bring forth sweet ecstasy
To all who in the desert roam;
Till many a city there is built,

And many a pleasant shepherd's home.

24.

But when they find the frowning babe, Terror strikes through the region wide: They cry- the babe-the babe is born!' And flee away on every side.

25.

For who dare touch the frowning form, His arm is withered to its root: Bears, lions, wolves, all howling flee, And every tree doth shed its fruit.

26.

And none can touch that frowning form Except it be a woman old;

She nails it down upon the rock,

And all is done as I have told.

IN A MYRTLE SHADE.

To a lovely myrtle bound,
Blossoms showering all around,
O how weak and weary I
Underneath my myrtle lie!

Why should I be bound to thee,
O my lovely myrtle tree?
Love, free love, cannot be bound
To any tree that grows on ground.