4.  A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; in the Louvre.

(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)

  Water, for anguish of the solstice,—­yea,
    Over the vessel’s mouth still widening
    Listlessly dipt to let the water in
  With slow vague gurgle.  Blue, and deep away,
  The heat lies silent at the brink of day. 
    Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
    That sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing,
  Mournful with complete pleasure.  Her eyes stray
  In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep
    And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grass
      Is cool against her naked flesh.  Let be: 
  Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,—­
    Nor name this ever.  Be it as it was:—­
      Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.

5.  “Angelica rescued from the Sea-monster,” by Ingres; in the Luxembourg.

  A remote sky, prolonged to the sea’s brim: 
    One rock-point standing buffetted alone,
    Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
  Hell-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim: 
  A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
    Reared at the rock:  a woman fettered there,
    Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
  And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb. 
  The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt. 
    Under his lord, the griffin-horse ramps blind
      With rigid wings and tail.  The spear’s lithe stem
    Thrills in the roaring of those jaws:  behind,
  The evil length of body chafes at fault. 
      She doth not hear nor see—­she knows of them.

6.  The same.

  Clench thine eyes now,—­’tis the last instant, girl: 
    Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
    One breath for all:  thy life is keen awake,—­
  Thou may’st not swoon.  Was that the scattered whirl
  Of its foam drenched thee?—­or the waves that curl
    And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?—­
    Or was it his the champion’s blood to flake
  Thy flesh?—­Or thine own blood’s anointing, girl?....
  ....Now, silence; for the sea’s is such a sound
    As irks not silence; and except the sea,
      All is now still.  Now the dead thing doth cease
    To writhe, and drifts.  He turns to her:  and she
  Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
      Again a woman in her nakedness.

Papers of “The M. S. Society”

No.  IV.  Smoke.

    I’m the king of the Cadaverals,
      I’m Spectral President;
      And, all from east to occident,
    There’s not a man whose dermal walls
    Contain so narrow intervals,
      So lank a resident.