Enough to furnish Solomon

Such hangings for his cedar-house, That, when gold-robed he took the throne In that abyss of blue, the Spouse Might swear his presence shone

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,

What time, with ardours manifold,

The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold.

Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof! Till cunning comes to pound and squeeze And clarify, refine to proof

The liquor filtered by degrees, While the world stands aloof.

Aloys and Jurien and Just

Order things back to their place,

Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust. Rub the church-plate, darn the sacramentlace,

Clear the desk-velvet of dust.)

Here's your book, younger folks shelve! Played I not off-hand and runningly,

Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve?

Here's what should strike, - could one handle it cunningly : Help the axe, give it a helve!

Page after page as I played,

Every bar's rest, where one wipes Sweat from one's brow, I looked up and surveyed,

O'er my three claviers, yon forest of pipes Whence you still peeped in the shade.

Sure you were wishful to speak,

You, with brow ruled like a score Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek, Like two great breves as they wrote thein

of yore

Each side that bar, your straight beak!

Sure you said 'Good, the mere notes!
Still, couldst thou take my intent,
Know what procured me our Company's

votes

Masters being lauded and sciolists shent, Parted the sheep from the goats!'

Well then, speak up, never flinch!
Quick, ere my candle's a snuff
-Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost
inch

I believe in you, but that's not enough: Give my conviction a clinch!

First you deliver your phrase

Nothing propound, that I see

Fit in itself for much blame or much praise

Answered no less, where no answer needs be:

Off start the Two on their ways!

Straight must a Third interpose,
Volunteer needlessly help -

In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose,

So the cry's open, the kennel's a-yelp, Argument's hot to the close!

One dissertates, he is candid;

Two must discept, has distinguished; Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did; Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished:

Back to One, goes the case bandied.

One says his say with a difference -
More of expounding, explaining!
All now is wrangle, abuse and vociferance-
Now there's a truce, all 's subdued, self-
restraining.

Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

One is incisive, corrosive;

Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant; Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;

Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant:

Five O Danaides, O Sieve!

Now, they ply axes and crowbars;

Now, they prick pins at a tissue Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue?

Where is our gain at the Two-bars?

Est fuga, volvitur rota!

On we drift. Where looms the dim port? One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota

Something is gained, if one caught but the import

Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha!

What with affirming, denying,
Holding, riposting, subjoining,

it's like... for an instance I'm trying

There! See our roof, its gilt moulding

So your fugue broadens and thickens, Greatens and deepens and lengthens, Till one exclaims 'But where 's music, the dickens?

Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens

Blacked to the stoutest of tickens?'

I for man's effort am zealous :

Prove me such censure 's unfounded! Seems it surprising a lover grows jealousHopes 'twas for something his organpipes sounded,

Tiring three boys at the bellows?

Is it your moral of Life?

Such a web, simple and subtle,

Weave we on earth here in impotent strife, Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,

Death ending all with a knife?

Over our heads Truth and Nature

Still our life 's zigzags and dodges, Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature. God's gold just shining its last where that lodges,

Palled beneath Man's usurpature!

So we o'ershroud stars and roses,
Cherub and trophy and garland.
Nothings grow something which quietly
closes

Heaven's earnest eye, not a glimpse of the far land

Gets through our comments and glozes.

Ah, but traditions, inventions,

(Say we and make up a visage)

So many men with such various intentions Down the past ages must know more than this age!

Leave the web all its dimensions!

While in the roof, if I'm right there,

Lo, you, the wick in the socket! Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there! Down it dips, gone like a rocket! What, you want, do you, to come unawares, Sweeping the church up for first morningprayers,

And find a poor devil has ended his cares At the foot of your rotten-runged ratriddled stairs?

Do I carry the moon in my pocket?

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP [1842.]

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused 'My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,'-

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect –
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

'Well,' cried he, 'Emperor, by God's grace We've got you Ratisbon!

The Marshal 's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart's desire,

Perched him!' The Chief's eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

She rode with round the terrace-all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, good; but thanked

Somehow. . . I know not how . . . as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech (which I have not) to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say 'Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark' and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made
excuse,

- E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your Master's known munifi-

MORNING, evening, noon and night
'Praise God,' sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
By which the daily meal was earned.

Hard he laboured, long and well;
O'er his work the boy's curls fell:
But ever, at each period,

He stopped and sang, 'Praise God.'

Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.
Said Blaise, the listening monk, 'Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

'As well as if thy voice to-day
Were praising God, the Pope's great way.
'This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
Praises God from Peter's dome.'

Said Theocrite. 'Would God that I
Might praise Him, that great way, and die!'

Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.

With God a day endures alway, A thousand years are but a day.

God said in Heaven, 'Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight.'

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;
Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Liv'd there, and played the craftsman well;

And morning, evening, noon and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue:
The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.
(He did God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)
God said, 'A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:

'So sing old worlds, and so

New worlds that from my footstool go. 'Clearer loves sound other ways: I miss my little human praise.'

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell

The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,
With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;
And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:

And rising from the sickness drear
He grew a priest, and now stood here.
To the East with praise he turned.
And on his sight the angel burned.

I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.

'Vainly I left my angel-sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year.

(PETER RONSARD loquitur.)

'HEIGHO,' yawned one day King Francis, 'Distance all value enhances !

When a man's busy, why, leisure
Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
Straightway he wants to be busy.
Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
Caught thinking war the true pastime!
Is there a reason in metre?

Give us your speech, master Peter!'
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er am at loss with my Naso,
'Sire,' I replied, 'joys prove cloudlets:
Men are the merest Ixions'
Here the King whistled aloud, 'Let 's

Heigho... go look at our lions!'
Such are the sorrowful chances
If you talk fine to King Francis.
And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
Increased by new followers tenfold
Before he arrived at the pen fold;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the western horizon.

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the fore

Then earth in a sudden contortion

Gave out to our gaze her abortion!
Such a brute! Were I friend Clement
Marot

(Whose experience of nature 's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist)

I should study that brute to describe you
Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu!
One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy
To see the black mane, vast and heapy,
The tail in the air stiff and straining,
The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,
As over the barrier which bounded
His platform, and us who surrounded
The barrier, they reached and they rested
On the space that might stand him in best
stead:

For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,

The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,
And if, in this minute of wonder,
No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder,
Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,
The lion at last was delivered?
Aye, that was the open sky o'erhead!
And you saw by the flash on his forehead,
By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,
He was leagues in the desert already,
Driving the flocks up the mountain,
Or catlike couched hard by the fountain
To waylay the date-gathering negress:
So guarded he entrance or egress.

'How he stands!' quoth the King: 'we may

well swear,

(No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere, And so can afford the confession,) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping aloof from his threshold; Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,

Their first would too pleasantly purloin The visitor's brisket or sirloin:

But who's he would prove so foolhardy? Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!'

The sentence no sooner was uttered,
Than over the rails a glove fluttered,
Fell close to the lion, and rested:
The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For months past; he sat there pursuing
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance
Fine speeches like gold from a balance.