then
In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and
some men.

XX.

"Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and
fulfils.

XXI.

"I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a
week,
For the sake of ... what was it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole
on a cheek?

XXII.

"And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the
frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and
supplant,

XXIII.

"I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or
avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.

XXIV.

"There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you
can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.

XXV.

"Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you
a scar--
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.

XXVI.

"You wronged me: but then I considered ... there's Walter! And so at
the end
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a
friend.

XXVII.

"Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my
Walter, be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine."

BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.

I.

The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fire-flies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales!

II.

Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
Along the ground, against the sky;
And _we_, too! from such soul-height went
Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
Most passionate earth or intense heaven
The nightingales, the nightingales!

III.

We paled with love, we shook with love,
We kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered "Sweet, above
God's Ever guaranties this Now."
And thr