Wilt thou take me for thy slave,

What his soul’s pride that its new tender measureShould find its echo in a dirge like this?The chaunters chaunting slow were sable priestsRobed for a requiem; the laughters clear,Women that wept; the untasted marriage feasts,Death’s banquet spread, and she upon the bier,Natalia’s self in her white robe of death,Mourned by the hard eyes of unfriendly…

And clutched at pleasure’s cup with lawless hands,And drunk my fill of mirth and lust and noise,Nor spared to make of human hearts my toys,But fed with life the brute strength of my pride,As with a tribute of fair living boysThe monstrous lord of Crete him satisfied.–But of all pictures laid up in my soulAre…

To mingle with the dust which covers thee;If in this latest dawn of evil yearsMy rebel eyes withhold their sympathy;If of a truth my thoughts so barren beOf their old griefs, so numb to tendernessThat they nor hear nor taste nor feel nor seeThe sweetness of thy presence in this place;If I now drowse,–’tis that…

Youth, with its pleasures, is a tale soon told.We grow a little poorer day by day.Old friendships falter. Loves grow strangely cold.In vain we shift our hearts to a new holdAnd barter joy for joy, the less for less.We doubt our strength, our wisdom, and our gold.We stand alone, as in a wildernessOf doubts and…

I, a sworn Montagu, to libertyBound by all oaths which men least lightly swear?How shall I aid you, who enlisted areIn a strange camp, ‘neath a strange captaincy,Nor urge rebellion to that lurid starWhich mocks the captive nations held in fee?–Nay, bid me not thus falsify my griefs.I cannot turn my creed nor change my…

I have no natural love of the “chaste muse.”If aught be worth the doing I would do it;And others, if they will, may tell the news.I care not for their laurels but would chooseOn the world’s field to fight or fall or run.My soul’s ambition will not take excuseTo play the dial rather than the…