He saw wan Woman toil with famished eyes; He saw her bound, and strove to sing her free. He saw her fall'n; and wrote "The Bridge of Sighs"; And on it crossed to immortality.

Song is not Truth, not Wisdom, but the rose Upon Truths lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes.

A dreamer of the common dreams, A fisher in familiar streams, He chased the transitory gleams That all pursue; But on his lips the eternal themes Again were new.

She is not old, she is not young, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand, Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave.

Fiat justitia et ruant coeli. Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall. See Ferdinand I 320:1.

Threadbare his songs seem now, to lettered ken: They were worn threadbare next the hearts of men.

The after-silence, when the feast is o'er,And void the places where the minstrels stood,Differs in nought from what hath been before,And is nor ill nor good.