And silence faints in the chambers,
And darkness waits in the halls—
"Waits as all things have waited
Since she went that day of spring,
Borne in her pallid splendor
To dwell in the Court of the King:
"With lilies on brow and bosom,
With robes of silken sheen.
And her wonderful frozen beauty
The lilies and silk between.
"Red roses she left behind her,
But they died long, long ago :
'Twas the odorous ghost of a blossom
That seemed through the dusk to glow.
"The garments she left mocked the shadows
With hints of womanly grace,
And her image swims in the mirror
That was so used to her face.
"The birds make insolent music
Where the sunshine riots outside.
And the winds are merry and wanton
With the summer's pomp and pride.
"But into this desolate mansion,
Where Love has closed the door,
Nor sunshine nor summer shall enter,
Since she can come in no more."
The reader must agree with the critic that this poem of "The House of Death" is unequalled in its tragic beauty and sweetness. It was apropos of this volume that in one of his letters to her Robert Browning said he had closed the book with music in his ears and flowers before his eyes, and not without thoughts across his brain. And it was concerning a later poem, "Laus Veneris," inspired by a painting of his own, that Burne-Jones said it made him work all the more confidently and was a real refreshment.
" Pallid with too much longing,
White with passion and prayer,
Goddess of love and beauty.
She sits in the picture there —
"Sits with her dark eyes seeking
Something more subtle still
Than the old delights of loving
Her measureless days to fill.
"She has loved and been loved so -often
In her long immortal years
That she tires of the worn-out rapture,
Sickens of hopes and fears.
"No joys or sorrows move her,
Done with her ancient pride;
For her head she found too heavy
The crown she has cast aside.
"Clothed in her scarlet splendor.
Bright with her glory of hair,
Sad that she is not mortal —
Eternally sad and fair —
"Longing for joys she knows not,
Athirst with a vain desire,
There she sits in the picture.
Daughter of foam and fire! "
Could anything be in stronger or more glorious contrast to the "House of Death" or to "Arcady" or to that great sonnet, "At War," or show more varied power?
Few people could have met such praise and appreciation as Mrs. Moulton received, so calmly, so sedately and gently, without one flutter of gratified vanity. Indeed, she is to-day the most modest and most humble-minded of women.
With the exception of the two years immediately following Mr. Moulton's death, when she remained at home and in seclusion, Mrs. Moulton has every summer sailed away for the foreign shores where she is so welcomed and so loved. Although possibly few Americans have had such a social as well as literary success abroad, the hospitality she has received has never been violated by her in pen or word: she has printed no letters and uttered no gossip concerning the houses in which she has been a guest. She has been, through all and everything, a woman of unerring sense of right and courtesy, of whom all other Americans may be proud. Every winter sees her back in Boston, where her house is a centre of literary life, and where one is sure to find every stranger of distinction. For her acquaintance among English people of prominence is as extensive as among those of our own country. The friend of Longfellow and Whittier and Holmes in their lifetime, the acquaintance of Boker, and Emerson, and Lowell, and Boyle O'Reilly, and of Sarah Helen Whitman (the fiancee of Edgar Allan Poe), of Rose Terry and Nora Perry, as she is still of Stedman and Stoddard, Mrs. Howe, Arlo Bates, Edward Everett Hale, Howells, William Winter, Anne Whitney,
