SO Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar,
Floated the locks of Isis, shone the bright
Crown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star;
She came in deep blue raiment of the night,
Above her robes that now were snowy white,
Now golden as the moons of harvest are,
Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bay,
Now stained with all the lustre of the light.
Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew
The awful symbols borne in either hand;
The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew,
The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand;
The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through
The temples of that old Osirian land.
_THE SPINET_.
_MY heart an old Spinet with strings_
_To laughter chiefly turned_, _but some_
_That Fate has practised hard on_, _dumb_,
_They answer not whoever sings_.
_The ghosts of half-forgotten things_
_Will touch the keys with fingers numb_,
_The little mocking spirits come_
_And thrill it with their fairy wings_.
_A jingling harmony it makes_
_My heart_, _my lyre_, _my old Spinet_,
_And now a memory it wakes_,
_And now the music means_ “_forget_,”
_And little heed the player takes_
_Howe’er the thoughtful critic fret_.