“Eterne alternation
  Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,—­
  Under pleasure, pain lies. 
Love works at the centre,
  Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
  To the borders of day.

“Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits;
  Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,
  Her muddy eyes to clear!”
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—­
  Said, “Who taught thee me to name? 
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;
  Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

“Thou art the unanswered question;
  Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
  And each answer is a lie. 
So take thy quest through nature,
  It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
  Time is the false reply.”

Uprose the merry Sphinx,
  And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
  She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
  She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave: 
  She stood Monadnoc’s head.

Thorough a thousand voices
  Spoke the universal dame;
“Who telleth one of my meanings
  Is master of all I am.”

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE

I, Alphonso, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern. 
Things deteriorate in kind;
Lemons run to leaves and rind;
Meagre crop of figs and limes;
Shorter days and harder times. 
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies. 
Imps, at high midsummer, blot
Half the sun’s disk with a spot;
’Twill not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man. 
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the people cry. 
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood;—­
They discredit Adamhood. 
Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O’er your ramparts as ye lean,
The general debility;
Of genius the sterility;
Mighty projects countermanded;
Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
Puny man and scentless rose
Tormenting Pan to double the dose. 
Rebuild or ruin:  either fill
Of vital force the wasted rill,
Or tumble all again in heap
To weltering Chaos and to sleep.

Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,
Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
That mortals miss the loyal heats,
Which drove them erst to social feats;
Now, to a savage selfness grown,
Think nature barely serves for one;
With science poorly mask their hurt;
And vex the gods with question pert,
Immensely curious whether you
Still are rulers, or Mildew?

Masters, I’m in pain with you;
Masters, I’ll be plain with you;
In my palace of Castile,
I, a king, for kings can feel. 
There my thoughts the matter roll,
And solve and oft resolve the whole. 
And, for I’m styled Alphonse the Wise,
Ye shall not fail for sound advice. 
Before ye want a drop of rain,
Hear the sentiment of Spain.