Later Sonnets: Three Pictures

I HAVE seen many things in many lands,
And many sorrows known and many joys,
And clutched at pleasure's cup with lawless hands,
And drunk my fill of mirth and lust and noise,
Nor spared to make of human hearts my toys,
But fed with life the brute strength of niy pride,
As with a tribute of fair living boys
The monstrous lord of Crete him satisfied.
— But of all pictures laid up in my soul
Are three most beautiful and passionate,
The illumined margin of an ancient scroll,
Which moraliseth pity, love and hate ;
And these, when she is sad, she doth unroll
And on their common meaning meditate.
THE first, a woman, nobly limbed and fair,
Standeth at sunset by a famed far sea.
Red are her lips as Love's own kisses w»
Yet speak they never though they smile on me.
An old knight, next, and armed cap-a-pie.
Watcheth the slaughtered clay that was his In-ir.
Tin' winding-sheet is not more white than ho,
Il.ith sat since dawn and hath not shed a tear.
The third a tortured bull about to die
In the arena. No proud infidel
E'er laid his dripping spears more scornfully
In Spanish dust ; for he too, ere he fell,
Hath slain a man. Ah Christ ! That murderous eye
Burneth athirst like the red pit of Hell.