Hardly a May-go-down, 't is just
A sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must-
No Merry-go-down, no gracious gust
Commingles the racy with Spring-
tide's rare!

"What wonder," say you, "that we cough, and blink

At Autumn's heady drink?”

Is it a fancy, friends?

Mighty and mellow are never mixed, Though mighty and mellow be born at

once.

Sweet for the future,-strong for the nonce!

Stuff you should stow away, ensconce In the deep and dark, to be found fastfixed

At the century's close: such time strength spends

A-sweetening for my friends! And then-why, what you quaff

With a smack of lip and a cluck of

tongue,

Is leakage and leavings-just what haps From the tun some learned taster taps With a promise "Prepare your watery chaps!

Here's properest wine for old and young!

Dispute its perfection? You make us laugh!

Have faith, give thanks, butquaff!"

Leakage, I say, or-worse-

Leavings suffice, pot-valiant souls. Somebody, brimful, long ago,

Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs; and, lo,

Down whisker and beard what an overflow!

Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls,

Sup the single scene, sip the only verseOld wine, not new and worse!

I grant you: worse by much!

Renounce that new where you never gained

One glow at heart, one gleam at head, And stick to the warrant of age instead!

No dwarf's-lap! Fatten, by giants fed! You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained?

You feed-who would choke did a cobweb smutch

The Age you love so much?

A mine 's beneath a moor:

Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine Which diamonds dot where you please to dig;

Yet who plies spade for the bright and big?

Your product is--truffles, you hunt with a pig!

Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine,

Suits badly and therefore the Kohi noor

May sleep in mine 'neath moor!

Wine, pulse in might from me!

It may never emerge in must from vat,

Never fill cask nor furnish can,
Never end sweet, which strong began-
God's gift to gladden the heart of man;

But spirit 's at proof, I promise that! No sparing of juice spoils what should

be

Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to-what may suit

Children, beyond dispute?

And, here 's May-month, all bloom,

All bounty: what if I sacrifice?

If I out with shears and shear, nor stop Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop? And will you prefer it to ginger-pop When I've made you wine of the memories

Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb

My meadow, late all blocm?

Nay, what ingratitude

Should I hesitate to amuse the wits That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged

The headache that paid their pains, nor budged

From bunghole before they sighed and judged

"Too rough for our taste, to-day,

befits

PROLOGUE

GOOD, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.
Fretless and free,

Soul, clap thy pinion, Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee!

Wander at will,
Day after day,
Wander away,
Wandering still-
Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber:
Body shall cumber
Soul-flight no more.

Waft of soul's wing.

What lies above? Sunshine and Love Skyblue and Spring! Body hides-where?

Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care!

1876.

1878.

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

PROLOGUE

SUCH a starved bank of moss

Till, that May-morn,

Blue ran the flash across;
Violets were born!

Sky-what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,

Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

World-how it walled about
Life with disgrace

Till God's own smile came out :
That was thy face!

EPILOGUE

What a pretty tale you told me
Once upon a time

-Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)

Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,
While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there's no forgetting
This much if no more,
That a poet (pray, no petting!)
Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,
Went where suchlike used to go,
Singing for a prize, you know.
Well, he had to sing, nor merely
Sing but play the lyre;
Playing was important clearly
Quite as singing: I desire,
Sir, you keep the fact in mind
For a purpose that's behind.

There stood he, while deep attention
Held the judges round,
-Judges able, I should mention,

To detect the slightest sound
Sung or played amiss: such ears
Had old judges, it appears!

None the less he sang out boldly,
Played in time and tune,
Till the judges, weighing coldly

Each note's worth, seemed, late or

soon.

Sure to smile" In vain one tries
Picking faults out: take the prize!"

When, a mischief! Were they seven
Strings the lyre possessed?
Oh, and afterwards eleven,

Thank you! Well, sir,-who had guessed

Such ill luck in store?-it happed
One of those same seven strings snapped.

All was lost, then! No! a cricket (What" cicada"? Pooh !) -Some mad thing that left its thicket

For mere love of music-flew
With its little heart on fire,
Lighted on the crippled lyre.

So that when (Ah, joy !) our singer
For his truant string
Feels with disconcerted finger,

What does cricket else but fling
Fiery heart forth, sound the note
Wanted by the throbbing throat?

Ay and, ever to the ending,
Cricket chirps at need,
Executes the hand's intending,

Promptly, perfectly,—indeed
Saves the singer from defeat
With her chirrup low and sweet.

Till, at ending, all the judges
Cry with one assent

"Take the prize-a prize who grudges
Such a voice and instrument?
Why, we took your lyre for harp,
So it shrilled us forth F sharp!"

Did the conqueror spurn the creature,
Once its service done?

That's no such uncommon feature
In the case when Music's son
Finds his Lotte's power too spent
For aiding soul-development.

No! This other, on returning
Homeward, prize in hand,
Satisfied his bosom's yearning:

(Sir, I hope you understand!) -Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue:
Marble stood, life-size;

On the lyre, he pointed at you,
Perched his partner in the prize;
Never more apart you found

Her, he throned, from him, she crowned,

That's the tale: its application?

Somebody I know

Hopes one day for reputation

Through his poetry that 's--Oh,
All so learned and so wise
And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket,
When his statue 's built,

Tell the gazer ""Twas a cricket

Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

Good dog! What, off again? There's yet

Another child to save? All right!

"How strange we saw no other fall! It's instinct in the animal.

Good dog! But he's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonderStrong current, that against the wall!

"Here he comes, holds in mouth this time

---What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!

Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished-the child's doll from the
slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,-old Tray,-
Till somebody, prerogatived

With reason, reasoned: Why he dived, His brain would show us, I should say.

"John, go and catch-or, if needs be, Purchase that animal for me!

By vivisection, at expense

Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we 'il see!'" 1879.

ECHETLOS

HERE is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead and gone,

Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on,

Did the deed and saved the world, for the day was Marathon!

No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought away

In his tribe and file: up, back, out, down-was the spear-arm play: Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing that day!

But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no spear,

As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the rear, Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now here.

Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his wear,

Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and bare,

Went he ploughing on and on: ho pushed with a ploughman's share.

ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

ONE day, it thundered and lightened.
Two women, fairly frightened,

Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed,

66

At the feet of the man who sat betwixt ; And Mercy!" cried each--" if I tell the truth

Of a passage in my youth!"

Said This: "Do you mind the morning
I met your love with scorning?
As the worst of the venom left my lips,
I thought, If, despite this lie, he strips
The mask from my soul with a kiss-I
crawl

His slave, soul, body, and all!'”

Said that: "We stood to be married; The priest, or some one, tarried;

1 Having been criticised for speaking thus of his own work (as well he might, if he chose), Browning wrote the following lines in an album, for an American girl, at Venice :

Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters,
Poets dead and gone; and lo, the critics cried,
"Out on such a boast!" as if I dreamed that
fetters

Binding Dante bind up-me! as if true pride
Were not also humble !....