fection of water,

Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bathing.

There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers,

Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty;

There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended,

Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending;

There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted.

'Hobbes's gutter' the Piper entitles the spot, profanely,

Hope 'the Glory' would have, after Arthur, the Glory of headers:

But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex,

Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glimmer;

Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening.

Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them,

Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor;

Turned from the track of the carts, and

passing the stone and shingle, Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural causeway, Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and

Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers,

Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper,

And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once more. Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down-gazing,

Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it, Eyeing through eddying green waters the green-tinted floor underneath them, Eyeing the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud rising to it, Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness,

Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers; Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic, Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.

Or, what if e'en, as runs a tale, the Ten Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again?

What if at Emmaüs' inn, and by Capernaum's Lake,

Came One, the bread that brakeCame One that spake as never mortal spake, And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about?

Ah! 'some' did well to 'doubt'! Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass,

Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas!

He was not risen, no

He lay and mouldered low,
Christ was not risen!

As circulates in some great city crowd
A rumour changeful, vague, importunate,
and loud,

From no determined centre, or of fact
Or authorship exact,
Which no man can deny
Nor verify;

So spread the wondrous fame;
He all the same

Lay senseless, mouldering, low:
He was not risen, no-

Christ was not risen!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just-
Yea, of that Just One, too!
This is the one sad Gospel that is true
Christ is not risen!

Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?
Oh, we unwise!

What did we dream, what wake we to discover?

Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover!

In darkness and great gloom

Come ere
doom;
From the cursed world, which is one tomb,
Christ is not risen!

we thought it is our day of

Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss:

There is no heaven but this;

There is no hell,

Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well,

Seeing it visits still

With equalest apportionment of ill

Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust

The unjust and the just

With Christ, who is not risen.

Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved:

Of all the creatures under heaven's wide cope

We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,

And most beliefless, that had most believed.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just-
Yea, of that Just one too!

It is the one sad Gospel that is true-
Christ is not risen!

Weep not beside the tomb,
Ye women, unto whom

He was great solace while ye tended Him;
Ye who with napkin o'er the head
And folds of linen round each wounded
limb

Laid out the Sacred Dead; And thou that bar'st Him in thy wondering womb;

Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne'er may see,

Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again?

Ye ignorant and idle fishermen ! Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore,

And catch not men, but fish;
Whate'er things ye might wish,
Him neither here nor there ye e'er shall
meet with more.

Ye poor deluded youths, go home,
Mend the old nets ye left to roam,
Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail:
It was indeed an idle tale'

He was not risen!

Where they have laid Him there is none

to say;

No sound, nor in, nor out- no word

Of where to seek the dead or meet the liv

ing Lord.

There is no glistering of an angel's wings,
There is no voice of heavenly clear behest:
Let us go hence, and think upon these
things

In silence, which is best.
Is He not risen? No--
But lies and moulders low?
Christ is not risen?

EASTER DAY

II

[Published 1869.]

So IN the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,

I with my secret self held communing of mine own.

So in the southern city spake the tongue Of one that somewhat overwildly sung, But in a later hour I sat and heard

Another voice that spake another graver word.

Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said, Though He be dead, He is not dead.

In the true creed

He is yet risen indeed;

Christ is yet risen.

Weep not beside His tomb,

Ye women unto whom

He was great comfort and yet greater grief; Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,

Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;

Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;

Though He be dead, He is not dead,

Nor gone, though fled,

Not lost, though vanished;
Though He return not, though
He lies and moulders low;
In the true creed

He is yet risen indeed;

Christ is yet risen.

"There is no God,' the wicked saith, 'And truly it's a blessing,

For what He might have done with us It's better only guessing.'

'There is no God,' a youngster thinks, 'Or really, if there may be, He surely didn't mean a man Always to be a baby.'

'There is no God, or if there is,'

The tradesman thinks, "twere funny If He should take it ill in me To make a little money.'

'Whether there be,' the rich man says, 'It matters very little,

For I and mine, thank somebody,
Are not in want of victual.'

Some others, also, to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it,
Think there is none, when they are well,
And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath
The shadow of the steeple;
The parson and the parson's wife,
And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,
So thankful for illusion;
And men caught out in what the world
Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost every one when age,
Disease, or sorrows strike him,
Inclines to think there is a God,
Or something very like Him.

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH

[Composed 1849. Published 1862.]

SAY not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed. Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.

Do the houses look as upright
As of old they used to be,
And does nothing seem affected
By the pitching of the sea?
Through the Green Park iron railings
Do the quick pedestrians pass?
Are the little children playing

Round the plane-tree in the grass? This squally wild north-wester

With which our vessel fights, Does it merely serve with you to Carry up some paper kites?

Ye flags of Piccadilly,

Which I hated so, I vow
I could wish with all my heart
You were underneath me now!

SOME future day when what is now is not, When all old faults and follies are forgot, And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away,

We'll meet again, upon some future day.

When all that hindered, all that vexed our love,

As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above,

When all but it has yielded to decay,
We'll meet again upon some future day.

When we have proved, each on his course alone,

The wider world, and learnt what's now unknown,

Have made life clear, and worked out each a way,

We'll meet again,

to say.

we shall have much

HOPE EVERMORE AND BELIEVE! [Published 1862.]

HOPE evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought

So are the things that thou see'st; e'en as thy hope and belief. Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against them;

Hast thou courage? enough, see them exulting to yield.

Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea's furying waters

(Violent say'st thou and hard, mighty thou think'st to destroy),

All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader,

All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue;

Still for their Conqueror call, and, but for the joy of being conquered

(Rapture they will not forego), dare to resist and rebel;

Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him,

Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe.

Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee,

Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth.

Not for the gain of the gold; for the
getting, the hoarding, the having,
But for the joy of the deed; but for the
Duty to do.

Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action.

With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth.

Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished,

Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good!

Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished,

What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then.

Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit

Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it.

This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little;

Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it.

QUI LABORAT, ORAT
[Published 1862.]

O ONLY Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,

But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Alone aright reveal!

Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, Thy presence owns ineffable, divine; Chastised each rebel self-encentred thought, My will adoreth Thine.

With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind

Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart;

Nor seek to see for what of earthly kind Can see Thee as Thou art?

If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold
In thought's abstractest forms to seem to

see,

It dare not dare the dread communion hold In ways unworthy Thee,

O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive,

In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;

And if in work its life it seem to live,
Shalt make that work be prayer.

Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,

Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,

And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes

In recognition start.

But, as thou willest, give or e'en forbear The beatific supersensual sight,

So, with Thy blessing blessed, that humbler prayer

Approach Thee morn and night.

THE LATEST DECALOGUE

[Published 1862.]

THOU shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipped, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:

Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.