University of Virginia Library

The New Orpheus to his Eurydice

Why wilt thou woo, ah strange Eurydice,
A languid laurell'd Orpheus in the shades,
For here is company of shadowy maids,
Hero, and Helen and Psamathoë:
And life is like the blossom on the tree,
And never tumult of the world invades;
The low light wanes and waxes—flowers and fades—
And sleep is sweet, and dreams suffice for me.

161

Go back, and seek the sunlight,' as of old
The wise ghost-mother of Odysseus said;
Here am I half content, and scarce a-cold,
But one light fits the living, one the dead;
Good-bye, be glad, forget! thou canst not hold
In thy kind arms, alas! this powerless head.
When first we heard Rossetti sing,
We also wrote this kind of thing!