The like whose loveliness was never known

Of ebony and rose and ivory,—

For her you weave a broidered tapestry,

Rife with rich stains of every color-tone

Inwrought; while she immovable as stone

But watches pitiless and silently.

Yet, should this Queen of Beauty lift her arm

And take your broidered web,—ah, then the prize,

The vast reward of all the scars and shame,

For in the moment as a mystic charm

The cloth is changed to porphyry, and lies

Forever on her breast a frozen flame!

The Hunchback

He never knew the golden thrall of youth,

The ringing step, the rumpled wind-tossed hair,

The reckless laugh untouched of pain or ruth,—

Youth without pity and without a care.

Not his the swift lithe strength that ever slays,

And in its joyous slaying doubly sweet,

Like some young god adown immortal ways,

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