scare

And the brown bright nightingale amorous And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, Is half assuaged for Itylus,

Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot For the Thracian ships and the foreign kid, faces,

Follows with dancing and fills with deThe tongueless vigil, and all the pain. light

The Mænad and the Bassarid; Come with bows bent and with emptying And soft as lips that laugh and hide of quivers,

The laughing leaves of the trees divide, Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

And screen

from seeing and leave in With a noise of winds and many rivers,

sight With a clamour of waters, and with The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

might; Bind on thy sandals, 0 thou most fleet,

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair Over the splendour and speed of thy feet ;

Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes; For the faint east quickens, the wan west

The wild vine slipping down leaves shivers,

bare Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Her bright breast shortening into sighs; The wild vine slips with the weight of

its leaves, Where shall we find her, how shall we

But the berried ivy catches and cleaves sing to her,

To the limbs that glitter, the feet that Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?

The wolf that follows, the fawn that O that man's heart were as fire and could

flies.
spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams
that spring!

RONDEL
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;

KISSING her hair I sat against her For the risen stars and the fallen cling

feet, to her,

Wove and unwove it, wound and found And the southwest-wind and the west

it sweet. wind sing.

Made fast therewith her hands, drew

down her eyes. For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; Deep as deep flowers and dreamy like

dim skies ; The days dividing lover and lover,

With her own tresses bound and found The light that loses, the night that wins;

her fair, And time remembered is grief forgotten,

Kissing her hair. And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. Sleep were no sweeter than her face to

me, The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,

sea; The faint fresh flame of the young year What pain could get between my face flushes

and hers? From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; What new sweet thing would love not And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,

relish worse? And the oat is heard above the lyre, Unless, perhaps, white death had kissed And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes me there,

The chestnut-husk at the chestnut root. Kissing her hair?

No rosebuds yet by dawn impearl'd Life holds not an hour that is better to Match, even in loveliest lands,

live in: the past is a tale that is The sweetest flowers in all the world

told, A baby's hands.

The future is a sun-flecked shadow, alive

and asleep, with a blessing in III

store. A baby's eyes, ere speech begin,

As we give us again to the waters, the Ere lips learn words or sighs,

rapture of limbs that the waters

enfold Bless all things bright enough to win A baby's eyes.

Is less than the rapture of spirit whereby,

though the burden it quits were Love, while the sweet thing laughs and

sore, lies,

Our souls and the bodies they wield at And sleep flows out and in,

their will are absorbed in the life Lies perfect in them Paradise.

they adore

In the life that endures no burden, and Their glance might cast out pain and sin,

bows not the forehead, and bends Their speech make dumb the wise,

not the knee By mute glad godhead felt within

In the life everlasting of earth and of A baby's eyes.

heaven, in the laws that atone and

agree, IN THE WATER

In the measureless music of things, in the

fervour of forces that rest or that The sea is awake, and the sound of the

roam, song of the joy of her waking is That cross and return and reissue, as I rolled

after you and as you after me From afar to the star that recedes, from Strike out from the shore as the heart in anear to the wastes of the wild

us bids and beseeches, athirst for wide shore.

the foam. Her call is a trumpet compelling us home

ward: if dawn in her east be acold, From the sea shall we crave not her grace For, albeit he were less than the least of to rekindle the life that it kindled

them, haply the heart of a man before, Her breath to requicken, her bosom to To rejoice in the word of the sea, as a rock us, her kisses to bless as of

mother's that saith to the son she yore?

bore, For the wind, with his wings half open, “Child, was not the life in thee mine,

at pause in the sky, neither fettered and my spirit the breath in thy lips nor free,

from of old? Leans waveward and flutters the ripple Have I let not thy weakness exult in my to laughter: and fain would the

strength, and thy foolishness learn twain of us be

of my lore? Where lightly the wave yearns forward Have I helped not or healed not thine

from under the curve of the deep anguish, or made not the might of dawn's dome,

thy gladness more?" And, full of the morning and fired with And surely his heart should answer, “The

the pride of the glory thereof and light of the love of my life is in the glee,

thee." Strike out from the shore as the heart She is fairer than earth, and the sun is not in us bids and beseeches, athirst for

fairer, the wind is not blither than the foam.

she:

may be bold

the sea,

From my youth hath she shown me the

ALL IS WELL
joy of her bays that I crossed, of her
cliffs that I clomb,

WHATE'ER you dream, with doubt posTill now that the twain of us here, in

sessed, desire of the dawn and in trust of Keep, keep it snug within your breast,

And ay you down and take your rest; Strike out from the shore as the heart in Forget in sleep the doubt and pain,

us bids and beseeches, athirst for And when you wake, to work again.
the foam.

The wind it blows, the vessel goes,

And where and whither, no one knows. Friend, earth is a harbour of refuge for

winter, a covert whereunder to flee 'Twill all be well: no need of care; When day is the vassal of night, and the Though how it will, and when, and where,

strength of the hosts of her mightier We cannot see, and can't declare.
than he;

In spite of dreams, in spite of thought, But here is the presence adored of me, 'Tis not in vain, and not for nought,

here my desire is at rest and at The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
home.

Though where and whither, no one knows. There are cliffs to be climbed upon land,

there are ways to be trodden and
ridden : but we

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Strike out from the shore as the heart

AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

“BOSWELL: We grow weary when idle.

“JOHNSON: That is, sir, because others being

busy, we want company; but if we were idle. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

there would be no growing weary; we should all

entertain one another." SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH

Just now, when every one is bound,

under pain of a decree in absence convictSAY not the struggle nought availeth, ing them of lèse-respectability, to enter on

The labour and the wounds are vain, some lucrative profession, and labour The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

therein with something not far short of And as things have been they remain. enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party

who are content when they have enough, If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; and like to look on and enjoy in the mean

It may be, in yon smoke concealed, while, savours a little of bravado and Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, gasconade. And yet this should not be. And, but for you, possess the field. Idleness so called, which does not consist

in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal For while the tired waves, vainly break- not recognised in the dogmatic formularies ing,

of the ruling class, has as good a right to Seem here no painful inch to gain, state its position as industry itself. It is Farback, through creeks and inlets admitted that the presence of people who making,

refuse to enter in the great handicap race Comes silent, flooding in, the main. for sixpenny pieces, is at once an insult

and a disenchantment for those who do. And not by eastern windows only,

A fine fellow (as we see so many) takes When daylight comes, comes in the his determination, votes for the sixpences, light,

and in the emphatic Americanism, “goes In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, for” them. And while such an one is

But westward, look, the land is bright. ploughing distressfully up the road, it is