And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower, Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,

How it should waver, on the pale gold ground,

Up to the fruit-shap'd, perfect chin it lifts!

I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb ;

But these are only mass'd there, I should think,

Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky

(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),

All heaven, meanwhile, condens'd into one

eye

Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

By the many hundred years red-rusted,
Rough iron-spik'd, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands

To the water's edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons
And says there 's news to-day- the king
Was shot at, touch'd in the liver-wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:

She hopes they have not caught the felons
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me
(When fortune's malice
Lost her Calais)

Open my heart and you will see
Grav'd inside of it, "Italy."
Such lovers old are I and she:
So it always was, so shall ever be.

Yet still my niche is not so cramp'd but thence

One sees the pulpit on the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,

And up into the aëry dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk :
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and
two,

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands :

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe

As fresh-pour'd red wire of a mighty pulse, Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone. Put me where I may look at him! True peach,

Rosy and flawless : how I earn'd the prize! Draw close that conflagration of my church

What then? So much was sav'd if aught were miss'd!

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white-grape vineyard where the oilpress stood,

Drop water gently till the surface sink, .
And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not,
I!...

Bedded in store of rotten figleaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my
knees,

Like God the Father's globe on both his hands

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and

burst!

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black

And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,

Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Brick'd o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me - all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I

grieve

My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world

And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs ?

That 's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, pick'd phrase, Tully's every

word,

No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second lineTully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

And then how shall I lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense
smoke!

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasp'd a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone
can point,

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop

Into great laps and folds of sculptor's work: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I liv'd this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and
priests,

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language, Latin pure, dis-
creet,

Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul,

Or ye would heighten my impoverish'd frieze,

Piece out its starv'd design, and fill my

As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun look'd over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

EVELYN HOPE

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She pluck'd that piece of geraniumflower,

Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think: The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckon'd unawares, And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?

-

What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dewAnd, just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide,

Each was nought to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, nought beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake'

Delay'd it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:

Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)

In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay ? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red

And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have liv'd (I shall say) so much since then,

Given up myself so many times, Gain'd me the gains of various men,

Ransack'd the ages, spoil'd the climes ; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I miss'd or itself miss'd me : And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue ? let us see!

I lov'd you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seem'd full as it could hold; There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young_gold.

So hush, I will give you this leaf to keep:

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"1

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that purs'd and scor'd

Its edge, at one more victim gain'd thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, en

snare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

And ask the road? I guess'd what skulllike laugh

Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring,

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its

scope.

As when a sick man very near to death Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and

end

The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith,

"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend ;")

While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day

Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves and staves,

And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and

stay.

Thus, I had so long suffer'd, in this quest,

Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band "— to wit,