's claws,
And a woman's breast and face.

A woman fair! The marble glance
Spake wild desire and guile.
The silent lips were proudly curled
In a confident, glad smile.

The nightingale, she sang so sweet,
I yielded to her tone.
I touched, I kissed the lovely face,
And lo, I was undone!

The marble image stirred with life,
The stone began to move;
She drank my fiery kisses' glow
With panting thirsty love.

She well nigh drank my breath away;
And, lustful still for more,
Embraced me, and my shrinking flesh
With lion claws she tore.

Oh, rapturous martyrdom! ravishing pain!
Oh, infinite anguish and bliss!
With her horrible talons she wounded me,
While she thrilled my soul with a kiss.

The nightingale sang: "Oh beautiful sphinx.
Oh love! what meaneth this?
That thou minglest still the pangs of death
With thy most peculiar bliss?

Thou beautiful Sphinx, oh solve for me
This riddle of joy and tears!
I have pondered it over again and again,
How many thousand years!"

DONNA CLARA.

In the evening through her garden
Wanders the Alcalde's daughter;
Festal sounds of drum and trumpet
Ring out hither from the castle.

"I am weary of the dances,
Honeyed words of adulation
From the knights who still compare me
To the sun,--with dainty phrases.

"Yes, of all things I am weary,
Since I first beheld by moonlight,
Him my cavalier, whose zither
Nightly draws me to my casement.

"As he stands, so slim and daring,
With his flaming eyes that sparkle
From his nobly-pallid features,
Truly he St. George resembles."

Thus went Donna Clara dreaming,
On the ground her eyes were fastened,
When she raised them, lo! before her
Stood the handsome, knightly stranger.

Pressing hands and whispering passion,
These twain wander in the moonlight.
Gently doth the breeze caress them,
The enchanted roses greet them.

The enchanted roses greet them,
And they glow like love's own heralds;
"Tell me, tell me, my beloved,
Wherefore, all at once thou blushest."

"Gnats were stinging me, my darling,
And I hate these gnats in summer,
E'en as though they were a rabble
Of vile Jews with long, hooked noses."

"Heed not gnats nor Jews, beloved,"
Spake the knight with fond endearments.
From the almond-tree dropped downward
Myriad snowy flakes of blossoms.

My