Pellucid thus in saintly trance,
Thus mute in expectation,

What waits the earth? Deliverance?
Ah no! Transfiguration !

She dreams of that 'New Earth' divine,
Conceived of seed immortal;

She sings 'Not mine the holier shrine,
Yet mine the steps and portal !'

A. de Vere

CXXIII

A FAREWELL

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver :

No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever..

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river :

No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

A. Lord Tennyson

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?

Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive, the feathery change

Once more, and once more seem to make resound

With love and hate, triumph and agony,

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?

Listen, Eugenia

How thick the bursts come crowding through the

leaves !

Again-thou hearest ?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!

CXXII

M. Arnold

EVENING MELODY

O that the pines which crown yon steep
Their fires might ne'er surrender !
O that yon fervid knoll might keep,
While lasts the world, its splendour !

Pale poplars on the breeze that lean,
And in the sunset shiver,

O that your golden stems might screen
For aye yon glassy river!

That yon white bird on homeward wing
Soft-sliding without motion,

And now in blue air vanishing

Like snow-flake lost in ocean,

Beyond our sight might never flee,
Yet forward still be flying;

And all the dying day might be
Immortal in its dying!

Pellucid thus in saintly trance,
Thus mute in expectation,

What waits the earth? Deliverance?
Ah no! Transfiguration !

She dreams of that 'New Earth' divine,
Conceived of seed immortal;

She sings 'Not mine the holier shrine,
Yet mine the steps and portal!'

A. de Vere

CXXIII

A FAREWELL

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver :

No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever..

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:

No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

A. Lord Tennyson

CXXIV

A DIRGE

Naiad, hid beneath the bank
By the willowy river-side,
Where Narcissus gently sank,
Where unmarried Echo died,
Unto thy serene repose
Waft the stricken Anterôs.

Where the tranquil swan is borne,
Imaged in a watery glass,

Where the sprays of fresh pink thorn
Stoop to catch the boats that pass,
Where the earliest orchis grows,
Bury thou fair Anterôs.

Glide we by, with prow and oar:
Ripple shadows off the wave,
And reflected on the shore

Haply play about his grave.
Folds of summer-light enclose
All that once was Anterôs.

On a flickering wave we gaze,
Not upon his answering eyes:
Flower and bird we scarce can praise,
Having lost his sweet replies:

Cold and mute the river flows

With our tears for Anterôs.

W. Johnson-Cory

CXXV

TO A FRIEND

Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind?-
He much, the old man, who, clearest-soul'd of men,
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,
That halting slave, who in Nicopolis

Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son

Clear'd Rome of what most shamed him. But be his

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole;
The mellow glory of the Attic stage,
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.

M. Arnold

CXXVI

AN INVOCATION

I never pray'd for Dryads, to haunt the woods again; More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirst

ing men,

Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we could

fulfil,

Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill; Were such beloved forerunners one summer day

restored,

Then, then we might discover the Muse's mystic hoard.

Oh, dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to thee,

Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be,

And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more fair,

Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant

hair.

Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing

looks

To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern

books,