VI

And should they go before us on that way

That all must tread, and leave us faint with sorrow; Should the great light of Love forsake our day,

Memory's bright moon bespeaks a sunbright

morrow;

Behold, the skies unfold! broad beams descend;
Beneath the Gods upon the golden stair,

Amid the upward glories without end,

At Heavengate they stand, and bid us there.

THOMAS GORDON HAKE

Born 1809

THE SNAKE-CHARMER

The forest rears on lifted arms

A world of leaves, whence verdurous light
Shakes through the shady depths and warms
Proud tree and stealthy parasite,

There where those cruel coils enclasp
The trunks they strangle in their grasp.

An old man creeps from out the woods,
Breaking the vine's entangling spell;
He thrids the jungle's solitudes,

O'er bamboos rotting where they fell;
Slow down the tiger's path he wends
Where at the pool the jungle ends.

No moss-greened alley tells the trace

Of his lone step, no sound is stirred, Even when his tawny hands displace

The boughs, that backward sweep unheard

His way as noiseless as the trail

Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail.

The old snake-charmer, once he played
Soft music for the serpent's ear,
But now his cunning hand is stayed;

He knows the hour of death is near.
And all that live in brake and bough,
All know the brand is on his brow.

Yet where his soul is he must go :
He crawls along from tree to tree.
The old snake-charmer, doth he know
If snake or beast of prey he be?
Bewildered at the pool he lies
And sees as through a serpent's eyes.

Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops
Drink of the pool, and serpents hie
To the thin brink as noonday drops,

And in the froth-daubed rushes lie.

There rests he now with fastened breath 'Neath a kind sun to bask in death.

The pool is bright with glossy dyes
And cast-up bubbles of decay:

A green death-leaven overlies

Its mottled scum, where shadows play

As the snake's hollow coil, fresh shed,
Rolls in the wind across its bed.

No more the wily note is heard
From his full flute-the riving air
That tames the snake, decoys the bird,
Worries the she-wolf from her lair.
Fain would he bid its parting breath
Drown in his ears the voice of death.

Still doth his soul's vague longing skim
The pool beloved: he hears the hiss
That siffles at the sedgy rim,

Recalling days of former bliss,

And the death-drops, that fall in showers,
Seem honied dews from shady flowers.

There is a rustle of the breeze

And twitter of the singing bird;

He snatches at the melodies

And his faint lips again are stirred :
The olden sounds are in his ears;
But still the snake its crest uprears.

His eyes are swimming in the mist

That films the earth like serpent's breath:

And now, as if a serpent hissed,

The husky whisperings of Death

Fill ear and brain-he looks around—
Serpents seem matted o'er the ground.

Soon visions of past joys bewitch

His crafty soul; his hands would set Death's snare, while now his fingers twitch The tasselled reed as 'twere his net. But his thin lips no longer fill

The woods with song; his flute is still.

Those lips still quaver to the flute,
But fast the life-tide ebbs away;
Those lips now quaver and are mute,
But nature throbs in breathless play:
Birds are in open song, the snakes
Are watching in the silent brakes.

In sudden fear of snares unseen

The birds like crimson sunset swarm,
All gold and purple, red and green,
And seek each other for the charm.
Lizards dart up the feathery trees
Like shadows of a rainbow breeze.

The wildered birds again have rushed
Into the charm,-it is the hour
When the shrill forest-note is hushed,

And they obey the serpent's power,—