23.

Now I may speak: you fool, for all

Your lore! WHо made things plain in vain? What was the sea for? What, the grey

Sad church, that solitary day, Crosses and graves and swallows' call?

24.

Was there nought better than to enjoy?

No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through

Into eternity, our due?

No forcing earth teach Heaven's employ?

25.

No wise beginning, here and now,

What cannot grow complete (earth's feat)
And Heaven must finish, there and then?
No tasting earth's true food for men,
Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

26.

No grasping at love, gaining a share

O' the sole spark from God's life at strife

With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,

Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

54 DÎS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS.

27.

This you call wisdom? Thus you add
Good unto good again, in vain?
You loved, with body worn and weak;
I loved, with faculties to seek:

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad ?

28.

Let the mere star-fish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed,
Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips
Man, found with either in default.

29.

But what's whole, can increase no more,
Is dwarfed and dies, since here 's its sphere.

The devil laughed at you in his sleeve !

You knew not? That, I well believe;
Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

30.

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist,
Ancle, or something. Pooh," cry you?

66

At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely her vogue has had its day.

Here comes my husband from his whist.

TOO LATE.

TOO LATE.

1.

HERE was I with my arm and heart

And brain, all yours for a word, a want
Put into a look-just a look, your part,—
While mine, to repay it vainest vaunt,

Were the woman, that 's dead, alive to hear,

Had her lover, that 's lost, love's proof to show! But I cannot show it; you cannot speak

From the churchyard neither, miles removed,

Though I feel by a pulse within my cheek,

Which stabs and stops, that the woman I loved Needs help in her grave and finds none near,

Wants warmth from the heart which sends it-so!