hear the oar shake off
its shower of tinkling drops,--up the jewel-strewn deeps of heaven the
planets hang out their golden lamps to light our slumbers! Heart to
heart and lip to lip, we are at rest, we are at peace, nothing comes
between us, our souls have the eternities in which to mingle!"

He saw Eloise shudder, and turned from his dream, blazing full upon her.
"Life, then, is best!" he cried. "But life together and alone, life
where we count out its throbs in some far purple island of the main,
prolonged who knows how far?--love shall make for us perpetual youth,
there shall no gloom enter our Eden, perfect solitude and perfect bliss!
Alone, we two in our pride and our joy can defy the powers of any other
heaven, we shall become gods ourselves! Up helm and away! Life is best!"

THE NEVA.

I walk, as in a dream,
Beside the sweeping stream,
Wrapped in the summer midnight's amber haze:
Serene the temples stand,
And sleep, on either hand,
The palace-fronts along the granite quays.

Where golden domes, remote,
Above the sea-mist float,
The river-arms, dividing, hurry forth;
And Peter's fortress-spire,
A slender lance of fire,
Still sparkles back the splendor of the North.

The pillared angel soars
Above the silent shores;
Dark from his rock the horseman hangs in air;
And down the watery line
The exiled Sphinxes pine
For Karnak's morning in the mellow glare.

I hear, amid the hush,
The restless current's rush,
The Neva murmuring through his crystal zone:
A voice portentous, deep,
To charm a monarch's sleep
With dreams of power resistless as his own.

Strong from the stormy Lake,
Pure from the springs that break
In Valdai vales the forest's mossy floor,
Greener than beryl-stone
From fir woods vast and lone,
In one full stream the braided currents pour.

"Build up your granite piles
Around my trembling isles,"
I hear the River's scornful Genius say:
"Raise for eternal time
Your palaces sublime,
And flash your golden turrets in the day!

"But in my waters cold
A mystery I hold,--
Of empires and of dynasties the fate:
I bend my haughty will,
Unchanged, unconquered still,
And smile to note your triumph: mine can wait