Algernon Charles Swinburne

I. A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal

April made me: winter laid me here away asleep. Bright as Maytime was my daytime; night is soft and deep: Though the morrow bring forth sorrow, well are ye that weep.

TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. Song wakes with every wakening year From hearts of birds that only feel

High beyond the granite portal arched across Like the gateway of some godlike giant's hold Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss

Sea to sea that clasps and fosters England, uttering ever-more Song eterne and praise immortal of the indomitable shore, Lifts aloud her constant heart up, south to north and east to west,

Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep, Glad at heart and guarded from change and care like ours, Girt about with beauty by days and nights that creep

The burden of hard hitting. Slug away Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb. Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?

Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth,

I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun's way, hidden apart; In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is,

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers, Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass, In midst whereof there was

There was a graven image of Desire Painted with red blood on a ground of gold Passing between the young men and the old,

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour

Praise of the knights of old May sleep: their tale is told, And no man cares:

What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be? Fame upon land will you look for, or glory by sea? Gallant your life will be always, and all of it free.

All the bells of heaven may ring, All the birds of heaven may sing, All the wells on earth may spring,

No sweeter thing than children's ways and wiles, Surely, we say, can gladden eyes and ears: Yet sometime sweeter than their words or smiles

How low soe'er men rank us, How high soe'er we win, The children far above us

Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;

Three damsels in the queen's chamber, The queen's mouth was most fair; She spake a word of God's mother

I Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers That bask in heavenly heat

O strong Republic of the nobler years Whose white feet shine beside time's fairer flood That shall flow on the clearer for our blood

'La maison sans enfants!' - VICTOR HUGO. I. A month without sight of the sun

I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone,

Ferdinand II entered Malebolge May 22nd, 1859. Go down to hell. This end is good to see; The breath is lightened and the sense at ease

The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise, Rise and make revel, as of old men said, Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed:

I. Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,

A bell tolls on in my heart As though in my ears a knell Had ceased for awhile to swell,

All Afric, winged with death and fire, Pants in our pleasant English air. Each blade of grass is tense as wire,

Heart's ease or pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island,

1746 The weary day rins down and dies, The weary night wears through:

1716 There's nae mair lands to tyne, my dear, And nae mair lives to gie:

I. Who hath known the ways of time Or trodden behind his feet?

Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still And glad of silence:    down the wood sweeps clear To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill

Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight sank, With German garters crossed athwart thy frank

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear. Let us go hence together without fear; Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,

FIRST ANTIPHONE. All the bright lights of heaven I will make dark over thee;

Fair of face, full of pride, Sit ye down by a dead man's side. Ye sang songs a' the day:

We mix from many lands, We march for very far; In hearts and lips and hands

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together

The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word Is soft as the least wave's lapse in a still small reach. From bay into bay, on quest of a goal deferred,

East and north a waste of waters, south and west Lonelier lands than dreams in sleep would feign to be, When the soul goes forth on travel, and is prest

Along these low pleached lanes, on such a day, So soft a day as this, through shade and sun, With glad grave eyes that scanned the glad wild way,

Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side, Ranged in royal rank arow along the warm grey wall, Whence their deep disks burn at rich midnoon afire with pride,

Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned.

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb: Waveward sinks the loosening seaboard's floor: Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime.

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down We, before the night upon his grave be sealed. Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town,

The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore. Her call is a trumpet compelling us homeward: if dawn in her east be acold,

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May, Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away.

If the rose of all flowers be the rarest That heaven may adore from above, And the fervent moss-rose be the fairest

An age too great for thought of ours to scan, A wave upon the sleepless sea of time That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime

Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894 The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night, Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;

To Joseph Mazzini Send the stars light, but send not love to me. - SHELLEY.

To Victor Hugo I. Twice twelve times have the springs of years refilled

Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking

I. Three times thrice hath winter's rough white wing Crossed and curdled wells and streams with ice

Summer, and noon, and a splendour of silence, felt, Seen, and heard of the spirit within the sense. Soft through the frondage the shades of the sunbeams melt,

To a friend leaving England for a year's residence in Australia. These winds and suns of spring That warm with breath and wing

Some die singing, and some die swinging, And weel mot a' they be: Some die playing, and some die praying,

The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves Lie strewn on the graveyard grass, and all their light And colour and fragrance leave our sense and sight

Babe, if rhyme be none For that sweet small word Babe, the sweetest one

Death, I would plead against thy wrong, Who hast reft me of my love, my wife, And art not satiate yet with strife,

Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar, Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam, And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar

I The clearest eyes in all the world they read With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true

Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses, Is good, or was held so, for ladies:    but nought In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is

Sea beyond sea, sand after sweep of sand, Here ivory smooth, here cloven and ridged with flow Of channelled waters soft as rain or snow,

Inscribed With All Devotion and Reverence To: JOSEPH MAZZINI DIRAE I saw the double-featured statue stand

Push hard across the sand, For the salt wind gathers breath; Shoulder and wrist and hand,

The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head: For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead. The poor and the halt and the blind are keen and mighty and fleet:

If that be yet a living soul which here Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered springs And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things

Somno mollior unda I Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,

1 Watchman, what of the night? Storm and thunder and rain,

Ps. xciv. 8. I. 'Take heed, ye unwise among the people:

Men, born of the land that for ages Has been honoured where freedom was dear, Till your labour wax fat on its wages

I. A word across the water Against our ears is borne,

I Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her The mightiest of seamen on earth,

Lord of days and nights that hear thy word of wintry warning, Wind, whose feet are set on ways that none may tread, Change the nest wherein thy wings are fledged for flight by morning,

If blood throbs yet in this that was thy face, O thou whose soul was full of devil's faith, If in thy flesh the worm's bite slackeneth

Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;

JANUARY Hail, January, that bearest here On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year

I. Queen, for whose house my fathers fought, With hopes that rose and fell,

For the seven times seventh time love would renew the delight without end or alloy That it takes in the praise as it takes in the presence of eyes that fulfil it with joy; But how shall it praise them and rest unrebuked by the presence and pride of the boy?

The four boards of the coffin lid Heard all the dead man did. The first curse was in his mouth,

I. Three men lived yet when this dead man was young Whose names and words endure for ever one:

To Joseph Mazzini. Prim' dicte mihi, summ' dicende Camen'. 1.

'Si quis piorum Manibus locus.' I. Straight from the sun's grave in the deep clear west

France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate, Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born, Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,

In the beginning God made thee A woman well to look upon, Thy tender body as a tree

I Art thou indeed among these, Thou of the tyrannous crew,

I Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth? Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days of his mirth,

Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton A light has passed that never shall pass away, A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.

In the greenest growth of the Maytime, I rode where the woods were wet, Between the dawn and the daytime;

Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it. Who shall snare or slay the white dove

My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,

Till death have broken Sweet life's love-token, Till all be spoken

Strong as death, and cruel as the grave, Clothed with cloud and tempest's blackening breath, Known of death's dread self, whom none outbrave,

If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song, And make the sunlight fire before those eyes That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,

Et Judas m'a dit: Tra'tre! - Victor Hugo I

From the french of the Vidame de Chartres. 12--? When the fields catch flower

I Fire out of heaven, a flower of perfect fire, That where the roots of life are had its root

England, elect of time, By freedom sealed sublime, And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn

After reading Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia in the garden of an old English manor house I A star in the silence that follows

Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves Sit in the market-houses, and speak words Made sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is

'Farewell and adieu' was the burden prevailing Long since in the chant of a home-faring crew; And the heart in us echoes, with laughing or wailing,

I Good night, we say, when comes the time to win The daily death divine that shuts up sight,

Str. I. Ere from under earth again like fire the violet kindle, Ere the holy buds and hoar on olive-branches bloom,

La plus douce des voix qui vibraient sous le ciel Se tait: les rossignols ail's pleurent le fr're Qui s'envole au-dessus de l''pre et sombre terre,

There were four apples on the bough, Half gold half red, that one might know The blood was ripe inside the core;

The year lies fallen and faded On cliffs by clouds invaded, With tongues of storms upbraided,

I. Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon Between two dates of death, while men were fain

In Memory of Charles Baudelaire Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs;

Baby-bird, baby-bird, Ne'er a song on earth May be heard, may be heard,

I. A baby shines as bright If winter or if May be

Still the sovereign trees Make the sundawn's breeze More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose,

Sweet life, if life were stronger, Earth clear of years that wrong her, Then two things might live longer,

A month or twain to live on honeycomb Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time, Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,

Love's twilight wanes in heaven above, On earth ere twilight reigns: Ere fear may feel the chill thereof,

Here, down between the dusty trees, At this lank edge of haggard wood, Women with labour-loosened knees,

(VERSES WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE.) INSCRIBED TO J. A. WHISTLER. I.

Blest in death and life beyond man's guessing Little children live and die, possest Still of grace that keeps them past expressing

Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother, Night and day, on all things that draw breath, Reign, while time keeps friends with one another

I Love and praise, and a length of days whose shadow cast upon time is light, Days whose sound was a spell shed round from wheeling wings as of doves in flight,

Strophe 1. Spring, born in heaven ere many a springtime flown, Dead spring that sawest on earth

Not all disgraced, in that Italian town, The imperial German cowered beneath thine hand, Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand,

To the Signora Cairoli Blessed was she that bare, Hidden in flesh most fair,

A fire of fierce and laughing light That clove the shuddering heart of night Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might

If we dream that desire of the distance above us Should be fettered by fear of the shadows that seem, If we wake, to be nought, but to hate or to love us

To Walter Theodore Watts. 'We are what suns and winds and waters make us.''Landor. Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breath

Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow, Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow, When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet.

"His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract" The tongue is loosed of that most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness. Listen: "Lo,

Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell Wherein the souls of anarchs hiss and die, With stroke as dire has cloven a heart as high

The blind king hides his weeping eyeless head, Sick with the helpless hate and shame and awe, Till food have choked the glutted hell-bird's craw

But now life's face beholden Seemed bright as heaven's bare brow With hope of gifts withholden

Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made lovely, we thought, with love? What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, down from the light above? What strange faces of dreams, voices that called, hands that were raised to wave,

I IN CHURCH Thou whose birth on earth

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day. Here you have your answer'England's yea against your nay: Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way!

"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours, Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep, And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;

Child, when they say that others Have been or are like you, Babes fit to be your brothers,

Reconciled by death's mild hand, that giving Peace gives wisdom, not more strong than mild, Love beholds them, each without misgiving

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire, Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom; O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom

(To a tune of Blake's) I. Baby, baby bright,

What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say His was the light that lit on England's way The sundawn of her time-compelling power,

Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark, White as a dead stark-stricken dove: None that pass by him pause to mark

Death and birth should dwell not near together: Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth: Fate doth ill to link in one brief tether

The sea that is life everlasting And death everlasting as life Abides not a pilot's forecasting,

TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please

TO MY BEST FRIEND THEODORE WATTS I DEDICATE IN THIS BOOK

The sea of the years that endure not Whose tide shall endure till we die And know what the seasons assure not,

The years are many, the changes more, Since wind and sun on the wild sweet shore Where Joyous Gard stands stark by the sea

I. The love that comes and goes like wind or fire Hath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee.

A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting, As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled The raven-figured flag that led men fighting

Take, since you bade it should bear, These, of the seed of your sowing, Blossom or berry or weed.

Take, since you bade it should bear, These, of the seed of your sowing, Blossom or berry or weed.

(B.C. 280) Done into English I

Chief in thy generation born of men Whom English praise acclaimed as English-born, With eyes that matched the worldwide eyes of morn

Unreconciled by life's fleet years, that fled With changeful clang of pinions wide and wild, Though two great spirits had lived, and hence had sped

(NOTRE-DAME DES SEPT DOULEURS.) Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;

Ad generem Cereris sine c'de et vulnere pauci Descendunt reges, aut sicc' morte tyranni. By no dry death another king goes down

Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one, Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun. From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and transfigures the west,

I. Sun, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears, Rise, let the time of year be May,

1869-1891 Auvergne, Auvergne, O wild and woful land, O glorious land and gracious, white as gleam

I Sea and strand, and a lordlier land than sea-tides rolling and rising sun Clasp and lighten in climes that brighten with day when day that was here is done,

Fly, white butterflies, out to sea, Frail pale wings for the winds to try, Small white wings that we scarce can see

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet, And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust; Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it,

Between the wave-ridge and the strand I let you forth in sight of land, Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes

ERECHTHEUS. Mother of life and death and all men's days, Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless,

I. Eros, from rest in isles far-famed, With rising Anthesterion rose,

Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet, O love, to lay down fear at love's fair feet; Shall not some fiery memory of his breath

For the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Foundation of the College I Four hundred summers and fifty have shone on the meadows of Thames and died

I. A Baby's feet, like sea-shells pink, Might tempt, should heaven see meet,

A year ago red wrath and keen despair Spake, and the sole word from their darkness sent Laid low the lord not all omnipotent

To Victor Hugo Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries, And hardly for the storm and ruin shed

In Memory of Mrs. Thellusson. Forth of our ways and woes, Forth of the winds and snows,

Over two shadowless waters, adrift as a pinnace in peril, Hangs as in heavy suspense, charged with irresolute light, Softly the soul of the sunset upholden awhile on the sterile

Mais o' sont les neiges d'antan? What shall be said between us here Among the downs, between the trees,

Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Lean back, and get some minutes' peace; Let your head lean

A little way, more soft and sweet Than fields aflower with May, A babe's feet, venturing, scarce complete

Upon the borderlands of being, Where life draws hardly breath Between the lights and shadows fleeing

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her:

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided, Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist, Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided

Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with night: Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and sword in sight: One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks the light.

Steadfast as sorrow, fiery sad, and sweet With underthoughts of love and faith, more strong Than doubt and hate and all ill thoughts which throng,

I. Winter in Northumberland Outside the garden The wet skies harden;

O love! what shall be said of thee? The son of grief begot by joy? Being sightless, wilt thou see?

In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or space was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth,

Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand, Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face, Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,

Attempted in English verse after the original metre. I was allured into the audacity of this experiment by consideration of a fact which hitherto does not seem to have been taken into consideration by any translator of the half divine humourist in whose incomparable genius the highest qualities of Rabelais were fused and harmonized with the supremest gifts of Shelley: namely, that his marvellous metrical invention of the anap'stic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anap'stic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent. As it happens, this highest central interlude of a most adorable masterpiece is as easy to detach from its dramatic setting, and even from its lyrical context, as it was easy to give line for line of it in English. In two metrical points only does my version vary from the verbal pattern of the original. I have of course added rhymes, and double rhymes, as necessary makeweights for the imperfection of an otherwise inadequate language; and equally of course I have not attempted the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees: and this for the obvious reason that even if such a line'which I doubt'could be exactly represented, foot by foot and pause for pause, in English, this English line would no more be a verse in any proper sense of the word than is the line I am writing at this moment. And my main intention, or at least my main desire, in the undertaking of this brief adventure, was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who 'dance as 'twere to the music

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust, How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying

All the golden air is full of balm and bloom Where the hawthorns line the shelving dyke with flowers. Joyous children born of April's happiest hours,

I Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's mirth,

To Isabel Swinburne. The far green westward heavens are bland, The far green Wiltshire downs are clear

In the month of the long decline of roses I, beholding the summer dead before me, Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,

I. Lift up thy lips, turn round, look back for love, Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;

When grace is given us ever to behold A child some sweet months old, Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith,

I am that which began; Out of me the years roll; Out of me God and man;

Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is, Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy, As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,

Beneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope, With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere, Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer

(During the Session in Rome of the Ecumenical Council) In the grey beginning of years, in the twilight of things that began, The word of the earth in the ears of the world, was it God? was it man?

(AFTER THE PROCLAMATION IN ROME OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH) Vicisti, Galil'e. I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;

There is an end of joy and sorrow; Peace all day long, all night, all morrow, But never a time to laugh or weep.

TO THEODORE WATTS I. The heavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,

I. Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;

Yet again another, ere his crowning year, Gone from friends that here may look for him no more. Never now for him shall hope set wide the door,

The wider world of men that is not ours Receives a soul whose life on earth was light. Though darkness close the date of human hours,

Beloved above all nations, land adored, Sovereign in spirit and charm, by song and sword, Sovereign whose life is love, whose name is light,

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well, Though we fare ill that love thee, and that live, And know, whate'er the days wherein we dwell

Back to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,

Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear? Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear

Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag's front cloven asunder With strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is shed As a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that thunder

'Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo c'nam.' - Catullus, LIX. 3. 'To publish even one line of an author which he himself has not intended for the public at large, especially letters which are addressed to private persons, is to commit a despicable act of felony.'

I Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west,

"Return," we dare not as we fain Would cry from hearts that yearn: Love dares not bid our dead again

Baby, see the flowers! - Baby sees Fairer things than these,

Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all. Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,

(PROVENCAL BURDEN.) Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see; Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;

I Marlowe, the father of the sons of song Whose praise is England's crowning praise, above

Sark, fairer than aught in the world that the lit skies cover, Laughs inly behind her cliffs, and the seafarers mark As a shrine where the sunlight serves, though the blown clouds hover,

Ave Caesar Imperator, moriturum te saluto. 1 O Death, a little more, and then the worm;

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead.

Now who will speak, and lie not, And pledge not life, but give? Slaves herd with herded cattle:

I At The Piano I

The sun was heavy; no more shade at all Than you might cover with a hollow cup There was in the south chamber; wall by wall,

Bill, I feel far from quite right if not further: already the pill Seems, if I may say so, to bubble inside me. A poet's heart, Bill, Is a sort of a thing that is made of the tenderest young bloom on a fruit.

Mal' soluta navis exit alite. Hor. Rigged with curses dark.

Lors dit en plourant; H'las trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je cl'mence et mis'ricorde de Dieu. Ores m'en irai-je d'icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requ'rant de faveur et d'amoureuse merci ma doulce dame V'nus, car pour son amour serai-je bien ' tout jamais damn' en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d'armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. H'las, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-l'. Lors s'en alla tout en g'missant et se retourna chez elle, et l' vescut tristement en grand amour pr's de sa dame. Puis apr's advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et ainsi vit-il reverdir toute l'escorce. Ce dont il eut grande crainte et moult s'en esmut, et grande piti' lui prit de ce chevalier qui s'en estoyt d'parti sans espoir comme un homme mis'rable et damn'. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu'il aurait de Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand p'ch' d'amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier aupr's de V'nus la haulte et forte d'esse 's flancs de la montagne amoureuse. Livre des grandes merveilles d'amour, escript en latin et en fran'oys par Maistre Antoine Gaget. 1530. Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,

From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken With change everlasting of life and of death, Where hardly by noon if the lulled ear hearken

Whatever a man of the sons of men Shall say to his heart of the lords above, They have shown man verily, once and again,

He should have followed who goes forth before us, Last born of us in life, in death first-born: The last to lift up eyes against the morn,

To Philip Bourke Marston Love will not weep because the seal is broken That sealed upon a life beloved and brief

Last high star of the years whose thunder Still men's listening remembrance hears, Last light left of our fathers' years,

Italia, mother of the souls of men, Mother divine, Of all that served thee best with sword or pen,

To E. H. The dawn of night more fair than morning rose, Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snows

Come close and see her and hearken. This is she. Stop the ways fast against the stench that nips Your nostril as it nears her. Lo, the lips

I. The stainless soul that smiled through glorious eyes; The bright grave brow whereon dark fortune's blast

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided, Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist, Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her:

I. Love, loyallest and lordliest born of things, Immortal that shouldst be, though all else end,

Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,

Imitated from Th'ophile Gautier We are in love's land to-day; Where shall we go?

'crasez l'inf'me. - Voltaire Les pr'tres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer.

Under green apple-boughs That never a storm will rouse, My lady hath her house

I Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;

Mad March, with the wind in his wings wide-spread, Leaps from heaven, and the deep dawn's arch Hails re-risen again from the dead

Citoyen, lui dit Enjoiras, ma m're, c'est la R'publique. - Les Mis'rables. Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,

Mother of man's time-travelling generations, Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart, God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,

(BRETON.) 'Stand up, stand up, thou May Janet, And go to the wars with me.'

A new year gleams on us, tearful And troubled and smiling dim As the smile on a lip still fearful,

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed Through stress of season and coil of cloud, Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fear

At the time when the stars are grey, And the gold of the molten moon Fades, and the twilight is thinned,

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve, Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve? La L'gende des Si'cles: - Ratbert.

1 Such prayers last year were put up for thy sake; What shall this year do that hath lived to see

Put in the sickles and reap; For the morning of harvest is red, And the long large ranks of the corn

Because there is but one truth; Because there is but one banner; Because there is but one light;

Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled,

I Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone from the word, When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the first-born bird?

Far off is the sea, and the land is afar: The low banks reach at the sky, Seen hence, and are heavenward high;

Sweet heart, that no taint of the throne or the stage Could touch with unclean transformation, or alter To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:

I FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI STROZZI Night, whom in shape so sweet thou here may'st see

I. Lord of light, whose shine no hands destroy, God of song, whose hymn no tongue refuses,

It does not hurt. She looked along the knife Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done

Between our eastward and our westward sea The narrowing strand Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee

I. 'Not a child: I call myself a boy,' Says my king, with accent stern yet mild,

STR. 1 I laid my laurel-leaf At the white feet of grief,

To: VICTOR HUGO (Greek: ailenon ailenon eipe, to d' eu nikato) STROPHE 1

When the might of the summer Is most on the sea; When the days overcome her

I Who may praise her? Eyes where midnight shames the sun,

I. If all the flowers of all the fields on earth By wonder-working summer were made one,

CELEBRATED UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF VICTOR HUGO. Scarce two hundred years are gone, and the world is past away As a noise of brawling wind, as a flash of breaking foam,

Between the moondawn and the sundown here The twilight hangs half starless; half the sea Still quivers as for love or pain or fear

A light of blameless laughter, fancy-bred, Soft-souled and glad and kind as love or sleep, Fades, and sweet mirth's own eyes are fain to weep

TRANSLATED BY D. C. ROSSETTI FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON I. Death, from thy rigour a voice appealed,

Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day, Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son More glorious than this dead and deathless one

Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart, A soul that here Chose and held fast the better part

Night or light is it now, wherein Sleeps, shut out from the wild world's din, Wakes, alive with a life more clear,

Fourscore and five times has the gradual year Risen and fulfilled its days of youth and eld Since first the child's eyes opening first beheld

Two souls diverse out of our human sight Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder,

A faint sea without wind or sun; A sky like flameless vapour dun; A valley like an unsealed grave

O son of man, by lying tongues adored, By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod In carnage deep as ever Christian trod

To Theodore Watts Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds, Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,

I. One of twain, twin-born with flowers that waken, Now hath passed from sense of sun and rain:

A Lyrical Idyl THALASSIUS Pan!

"Popule mi, quid tibi feci?" What hast thou done? Hark, till thine ears wax hot, Judas; for these and these things hast thou done.

I. Dead and gone, the days we had together, Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone

I. The sea shall praise him and the shores bear part That reared him when the bright south world was black

In a vision Liberty stood By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good,

Iscariot, thou grey-grown beast of blood, Stand forth to plead; stand, while red drops run here And there down fingers shaken with foul fear,

Hippolytus; Ph'dra; Chorus of Tr'zenian Women HIPPOLYTUS Lay not thine hand upon me; let me go;

I. Soul within sense, immeasurable, obscure, Insepulchred and deathless, through the dense

Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond: Thought can see not thence the goal of hope's surmises

The sea gives her shells to the shingle, The earth gives her streams to the sea; They are many, but my gift is single,

Between the green bud and the red Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,

Swift music made of passion's changeful power, Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang

Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear

Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea, Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be. No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time

The golden bells of fairyland, that ring Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring, Sang soft memorial music in his ear

The mightiest choir of song that memory hears Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years. Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies

When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above All praise, all adoration, save of love, As here on earth above all men he stood

Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire, Make bright and loud the terror of the night

The wind that brings us from the springtide south Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased

Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south, Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth, Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song,

Am i not he that hath made thee and begotten thee, I, God, the spirit of man? Wherefore now these eighteen years hast thou forgotten me,

I. What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast, Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope

I. Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers,

The wave that breaks against a forward stroke Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through With joyous trust to win his way anew

Take hands and part with laughter; Touch lips and part with tears; Once more and no more after,

These many years since we began to be, What have the gods done with us? what with me, What with my love? they have shown me fates and fears,

Kissing her hair I sat against her feet, Wove and unwove it, wound and found it sweet; Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes,

I Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom, Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom;

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron

If you loved me ever so little, I could bear the bonds that gall, I could dream the bonds were brittle;

I saw my soul at rest upon a day As a bird sleeping in the nest of night, Among soft leaves that give the starlight way

I. Seven white roses on one tree, Seven white loaves of blameless leaven,

Inside this northern summer's fold The fields are full of naked gold, Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;

I. At threescore years and five aroused anew To rule in India, forth a soldier went

To H.W.M. Between the springs of six and seven, Two fresh years' fountains, clear

Sleep, when a soul that her own clouds cover Wails that sorrow should always keep Watch, nor see in the gloom above her

Sweet mother, in a minute's span Death parts thee and my love of thee; Sweet love, that yet art living man,

Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor Born January 30th, 1775 Died September 17th, 1864

That nose is out of drawing. With a gasp, She pants upon the passionate lips that ache With the red drain of her own mouth, and make

More yet and more, and yet we mark not all: The Warning fain to bid fair women heed Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;1

Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour, Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims For ever, but forgetfulness defames

Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men, Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames,

An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west, Arose two stars upon the pale deep east. The hall of heaven was clear for night's high feast,

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform, With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine, Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine,

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire, Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star! Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far,

Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith, Found first among the nations: once, when she Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee

High priest of Homer, not elect in vain, Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind

The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp

Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm, When in the skies of song yet flushed and warm

Hew hard the marble from the mountain's heart Where hardest night holds fast in iron gloom Gems brighter than an April dawn in bloom,

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow

Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down. Night: east, west, south, and northward, very night Star upon struggling star strives into sight,

Clouds here and there arisen an hour past noon Chequered our English heaven with lengthening bars And shadow and sound of wheel-winged thunder-cars

I. Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers, Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage:

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben, All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale, Bright from the broad light of his presence, hail!

Out of the depths of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe;

Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom. What else may all men call thee, seeing thus bright Even yet the laughing and the weeping light

A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud, That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath, Hell's children revel along the shuddering heath

Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one Spake, might the word be said that might speak Thee. Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea, the sea,

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver

Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner; Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring; Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,

It hath been seen and yet it shall be seen That out of tender mouths God's praise hath been Made perfect, and with wood and simple string

When the game began between them for a jest, He played king and she played queen to match the best; Laughter soft as tears, and tears that turned to laughter,

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered, Most royal and most loyal born of men, Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared

The sundawn fills the land Full as a feaster's hand Fills full with bloom of bland

If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had mingled the past and hereafter In a single adorable season whose life were a rapture of love and of laughter, And the blithest of singers were back with a song; if again from his tomb as from prison,

All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's glorious grave Fast with seals of light and fire and cloud that light and fire illume, Glows at heart and kindles earth and heaven with joyous blush and bloom,

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, Remembering thee, That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,

At the chill high tide of the night, At the turn of the fluctuant hours, When the waters of time are at height,

Upon the flowery forefront of the year, One wandering by the grey-green April sea Found on a reach of shingle and shallower sand

Let there be light, said Time: and England heard: And manhood grew to godhead at the word. No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,

I Light and night, whose clouds and glories change and mingle and divide, Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of things they hide.

I I England, mother born of seamen, daughter fostered of the sea,

Lay the corpse out on the altar; bid the elect Slaves clear the ways of service spiritual, Sweep clean the stalled soul's serviceable stall,

The sea swings owre the slants of sand, All white with winds that drive; The sea swirls up to the still dim strand,

In Memory of Theodore de Banville Death, a light outshining life, bids heaven resume Star by star the souls whose light made earth divine.

(FINNISH.) 'O where have ye been the morn sae late, My merry son, come tell me hither?

"The wind wears roun', the day wears doun, The moon is grisly grey; There's nae man rides by the mirk muirsides,

There were twa brethren fell on strife; Sweet fruits are sair to gather: The tane has reft his brother of life;

O daughter of pride, wasted with misery, With all the glory that thy shame put on Stripped off thy shame, O daughter of Babylon,

Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn, Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and glad, Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was born

'Horatio Nelson - Honor est a Nilo' A hundred years have lightened and have waned Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained

Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee, 'Sweet enemy' called in days long since at end. Now found and hailed of England sweeter friend,

I Eight hundred years and twenty-one Have shone and sunken since the land

Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union, Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face, Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion,

(Double Sestina) DECAMERON, x. 7

I. Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend, Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth

1 O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then, When in man's sight he stood not yet undone,

On the Busts of Nero in the Uffizj. I. A child of brighter than the morning's birth

1 The trumpets of the four winds of the world From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height, Beheld and heard one saying, "Behold me well: I am, I am Beatrice." Heaven and hell

Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless praise. One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea Far and fast as storm could speed: the same strong day of days

On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by Victor Hugo, in his speech of July 3rd, for the surviving exiles of the Commune.) Thou shouldst have risen as never dawn yet rose, Day of the sunrise of the soul of France,

Sea, and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air, More dear than all things earth-born; O to me Mother more dear than love's own longing, sea,

Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot

Is it so, that the sword is broken, Our sword, that was halfway drawn? Is it so, that the light was a spark,

Fourscore years and seven Light and dew from heaven Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is: Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:

I Days dawn on us that make amends for many Sometimes,

We were ten maidens in the green corn, Small red leaves in the mill-water: Fairer maidens never were born,

The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene, And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen

eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula. ouketi PHoibos exei kaluban, ou mantida daphnen, ou pagan laleousan . apesbeto kai lalon udor.

Nothing is better, I well think, Than love; the hidden well-water Is not so delicate to drink:

CHORUS If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee, We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root, Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire, Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit

Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage; Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age

KING DAVID. Knights mine, all that be in hall, I have a counsel to you all,

Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta. She stood before her traitors bound and bare, Clothed with her wounds and with her naked shame

I Not from without us, only from within, Comes or can ever come upon us light

Ask nothing more of me, sweet; All I can give you I give. Heart of my heart, were it more,

Inscribed to my Mother September, all glorious with gold, as a king In the radiance of triumph attired,

The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word, And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard.

IDYL CCCLXVI THE ACCOMPANIMENTS 1. The Monthly Nurse

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?

Said a poet to a woodlouse, "Thou art certainly my brother; I discern in thee the markings of the fingers of the Whole; And I recognize, in spite of all the terrene smut and smother,

Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast. The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre,

Shall England consummate the crime That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves No surety for the trust of thieves?

Return, they cry, ere yet your day Set, and the sky grow stern: Return, strayed souls, while yet ye may

Gratefully inscribed to Dr. A.B. Grosart. Sweet song-flower of the Mayspring of our song, Be welcome to us, with loving thanks and praise

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear

If childhood were not in the world, But only men and women grown; No baby-locks in tendrils curled,

1 O son of man, but of what man who knows? That broughtest healing on thy leathern wings

This fell when Christmas lights were done, Red rose leaves will never make wine; But before the Easter lights begun;

Maiden most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands, Queen and republican, crowned of the centuries whose years are thy sands, See for thy sake what we bring to thee, Italy, here in our hands.

I. Since in Athens God stood plain for adoration, Since the sun beheld his likeness reared in stone,

A little marsh-plant, yellow green, And pricked at lip with tender red. Tread close, and either way you tread

Dedication To My Mother Love that holds life and death in fee,

Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea

Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever

Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate, Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago, As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow

I. Is the sound a trumpet blown, or a bell for burial tolled, Whence the whole air vibrates now to the clash of words like swords

I will that if I say a heavy thing Your tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring Has flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet,

There's mony a man loves land and life, Loves life and land and fee; And mony a man loves fair women,

I Three in one, but one in three, God, who girt her with the sea,

The wind's way in the deep sky's hollow None may measure, as none can say How the heart in her shows the swallow

O daughter, why do ye laugh and weep, One with another? For woe to wake and for will to sleep,

O weary fa' the east wind, And weary fa' the west: And gin I were under the wan waves wide

"O where will ye gang to and where will ye sleep, Against the night begins?" "My bed is made wi' cauld sorrows,

From the depths of the green garden-closes Where the summer in darkness dozes Till autumn pluck from his hand

There were four loves that one by one, Following the seasons and the sun, Passed over without tears, and fell

Three weeks since there was no such rose in being; Now may eyes made dim with deep delight See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing

The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank: Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free, A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank

Again the same strange might of eyes, that saw In heaven and earth nought fairer, overcame My sight with rapture of reiterate awe,

Out of the dark pure twilight, where the stream Flows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike bark That skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleam

I Life, sublime and serene when time had power upon it and ruled its breath, Changed it, bade it be glad or sad, and hear what change in the world's ear saith,

Watching here alone by the fire whereat last year Sat with me the friend that a week since yet was near, That a week has borne so far and hid so deep,

I. Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame

PART I It is an hour before the hour of dawn. Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here

My brother, my Valerius, dearest head Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read

Child of two strong nations, heir Born of high-souled hope that smiled, Seeing for each brought forth a fair

Beyond the north wind lay the land of old Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed With joy's bright raiment and with love's sweet bread,

On the Eightieth Anniversary of his Birth, High thought and hallowed love, by faith made one, Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child,

I. Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute

(ON HIS TRANSLATION OF "THE ARABIAN NIGHTS") Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears,

In the fair days when God By man as godlike trod, And each alike was Greek, alike was free,

Send but a song oversea for us, Heart of their hearts who are free, Heart of their singer, to be for us

The larks are loud above our leagues of whin Now the sun's perfume fills their glorious gold With odour like the colour: all the wold

Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth, Smiles and weeps upon thy birth, Child, whose mother's love-lit eyes

I Stately, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend

When I had wings, my brother, Such wings were mine as thine: Such life my heart remembers

I NOW DEDICATE, WITH EQUAL AFFECTION, REVERENCE, AND REGRET, A POEM INSCRIBED TO HIM WHILE YET ALIVE IN WORDS WHICH ARE NOW RETAINED BECAUSE THEY WERE LAID BEFORE HIM; AND TO WHICH, RATHER THAN CANCEL

Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name Is one with England's even as light with flame, Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know

Love, that is first and last of all things made, The light that has the living world for shade, The spirit that for temporal veil has on

About the middle music of the spring Came from the castled shore of Ireland's king A fair ship stoutly sailing, eastward bound

Out of the night arose the second day, And saw the ship's bows break the shoreward spray. As the sun's boat of gold and fire began

''As the dawn loves the sunlight I love thee;' As men that shall be swallowed of the sea Love the sea's lovely beauty; as the night

Spring watched her last moon burn and fade with May While the days deepened toward a bridal day. And on her snowbright hand the ring was set

Fate, that was born ere spirit and flesh were made, The fire that fills man's life with light and shade; The power beyond all godhead which puts on

But that same night in Cornwall oversea Couched at Queen Iseult's hand, against her knee, With keen kind eyes that read her whole heart's pain

A little time, O Love, a little light, A little hour for ease before the night. Sweet Love, that art so bitter; foolish Love,

But all that year in Brittany forlorn, More sick at heart with wrath than fear of scorn And less in love with love than grief, and less

Enough of ease, O Love, enough of light, Enough of rest before the shadow of night. Strong Love, whom death finds feebler; kingly Love,

Affectionately Inscribed to W.M.R. and L.R. April, on whose wings Ride all gracious things,

I. LOHENGRIN Love, out of the depth of things,

The days of a man are threescore years and ten. The days of his life were half a man's, whom we Lament, and would yet not bid him back, to be

Sea and land are fairer now, nor aught is all the same, Since a mightier hand than Time's hath woven their votive wreath. Rocks as swords half drawn from out the smooth wave's jewelled sheath,

'As a matter of fact, no man living, or who ever lived, not C'sar or Pericles, not Shakespeare or Michael Angelo, could confer honour more than he took on entering the House of Lords.' - Saturday Review, December 15, 1883. 'Clumsy and shallow snobbery can do no hurt.'

What shall be done for sorrow With love whose race is run? Where help is none to borrow,

Looking on a page where stood Graven of old on old-world wood Death, and by the grave's edge grim,

Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one Spake, might the word be said that might speak Thee, Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea, the sea,

Outside the garden The wet skies harden; The gates are barred on