Drink-dipped into by the bearded chin

Alike and the bloomy lip-no part
Denied the common heart!

And might we get such grace,

And did you moderns but stock our vault

With the true half-brandy half-attar-gul, How would seniors indulge at a hearty pull

While juniors tossed off their thimble ful!

Our Shakespeare and Milton escaped your fault,

So, they reign supreme o'er the weaker

peare's brand.

Some five or six are abroach: the rest Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test What yourselves call best of the very best!

How comes it that still untouched they stand?

Why don't you try tap, advance a stage With the rest in the cellarage?

For see your cellarage!

There are four big butts of Milton's brew.

How comes it you make old drips and drops

Do duty, and there devotion stops? Leave such an abyss of malt and hops Embellied in butts which bungs still glue? [rage! You hate your bard! A fig for your Free him from cellarage!

"T is said I brew stiff drink,

But the deuce a flavor of grape is there.

I like them alive: the printer's ink Would sensibly tell on the perfume too.

I may use up my nettles, ere I 've done; But of cowslips-friends get none !

Don't nettles make a broth

Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick?

Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste.

My Thirty-four Port-no need to waste On a tongue that 's fur and a palatepaste!

A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick

I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth,

Henceforward with nettle-broth!

LA SAISIAZ

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 stillSoul 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 'll see!'"

ECHETLOS

1879.

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: he pushed with a ploughman's share.