Rest, rest, for evermore

Upon a mossy shore;

Rest, rest at the heart's core

Till time shall cease:

Sleep that no pain shall wake,
Night that no morn shall break,
Till joy shall overtake

Her perfect peace.

BIRD RAPTURES.

THE sunrise wakes the lark to sing,
The moonrise wakes the nightingale.
Come darkness, moonrise, everything
That is so silent, sweet, and pale:
Come, so ye wake the nightingale.

Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,
Make haste to wake the nightingale :

Let silence set the world in tune

To hearken to that wordless tale
Which warbles from the nightingale.

O herald skylark, stay thy flight
One moment, for a nightingale
Floods us with sorrow and delight.

To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail;
Leave us to-night the nightingale.

AMOR MUNDI.

'O WHERE are you going with your love-locks flowing, On the west wind blowing along this valley track?' 'The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye, We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.'

So they two went together in glowing August weather,

The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right; And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float

on

The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

'Oh, what is that in heaven where gray cloud-flakes are

seven,

Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt? 'Oh, that's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous, An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.'

'Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,

Their scent comes rich and sickly?'-'A scaled and hooded worm.'

'Oh, what's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?' 'Oh, that's a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.'

'Turn again, O my sweetest,- turn again, false and fleetest : This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell's own track.' 'Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:

This downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back.'

AFTER DEATH.

THE curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say:
'Poor child, poor child:' and as he turned away

Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,

Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold.

SONG.

WHEN I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress-tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dew-drops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain :

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

CONSIDER.

CONSIDER

The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:

We are as they;

Like them we fade away,

As doth a leaf.

Consider

The sparrows of the air of small account:
Our God doth view

Whether they fall or mount, —

He guards us too.

Consider

The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;

God gives them food :—

Much more our Father seeks

To do us good.

UP-HILL.

DOES the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You can not miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at the door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labor you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

ERNEST MYERS.

RHODES.

BEYOND the ages far away,

When yet the fateful Earth was young,
And mid her seas unfurrowed lay

Her lands uncitied and unsung,
The Gods in council round their King
Were met for her apportioning.

Then shook the Sire the golden urn
Wherefrom the lots leapt forth to view,
And God by God took up in turn

The symbol of his kingdom due;

Till each had linked some heavenly name
To human hope and human fame.

When lo, a footstep on the floor,
A radiance in the radiant air;

A God august, forgot before,

Too late arrived, was lastly there The Sun-god from his fiery car Unyoked beneath the evening star.

Then said the Sire: For thee no lot,

O Sun, of all the lots is drawn,

For thy bright chariot, well I wot,

Hath held thee since the broadening dawn.

But come, for all the gods are fain

For thy fair sake to cast again.'