Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, 110
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there! 
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—­ye wish it—­God, ye wish it! stone—­
Gritstone, a-crumble! clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—­
And no more lapis to delight the world! 
Well, go!  I bless ye.  Fewer tapers there,
But in a row:  and, going, turn your backs 120
—­Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch, at leisure if he leers—­
Old Gandolf—­at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

* * * * *

THE LABORATORY

ANCIEN REGIME

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—­
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do:  they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—­I am here!

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder, I am not in haste! 10
Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King’s.

That in the mortar—­you call it a gum? 
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! 
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—­is that poison, too? 
Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of Invisible pleasures! 
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket! 20

Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live! 
But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

Quick—­is it finished?  The colour’s too grim! 
Why not soft like the phial’s, enticing and dim? 
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

What a drop!  She’s not little, no minion like me! 
That’s why she ensnared him:  this never will free 30
The soul from those masculine eyes,—­say “No!”
To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go.

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so that I thought
Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall
Shrivelled; she fell not:  yet this does it all!