The Critic who, without pedantic pose,
Takes his firm foothold on the thing he knows ;
Who, free alike from passion and pretence,

Holds the good rule of calm and common sense;
And be the subject or perplexed or plain,
Clear or confusing, is throughout urbane,
Patient, persuasive, logical, precise,

And only hard to vanity and vice.

More I could add, but brevity is best ;-
These are our claims to honour you as Guest,

1903.

SURGE ET AMBULA

RISE, and walk "-the One Voice said;

ARISE,

And lo! the sinews shrunk and dry Loosed, and the cripple leaped on high, Wondering, and bare aloft his bed.

The Age of Miracle is fled.
Who to the halt to-day shall cry—
"Arise, and walk!"

Yet though the Power to raise the dead Treads earth no more, we still may try To smooth the couch where sick men lie, Whispering to hopeless heart and head"Arise, and walk!

"

1904.

A

SNAP-SHOT

SWAN and cygnets, nothing more. Background of silver, reedy shore, Dim shapes of rounded trees, the high Effulgence of a summer sky.

Only a snap-shot. Just a flash,
And it was fixed,-the mimic wash,
The parent bird on-oaring slow,
Her fussy little fleet in tow,
The all-pervading sultry haze,
The white lights on the waterways,-
A scene that never was before,
A scene that will be-Nevermore !

Alas! for us. We look and wait,
And labour but to imitate;
Vainly for new effects we seek
Earth's shortest second is unique!

1904.

HORATIAN ODE

ON THE TERCENTENARY OF

"DON QUIXOTE"

(Published at Madrid, by Francisco de Robles, January 1605.)

"Para mí sola nació don Quixote, y yo para él.”—CERVANTES,

ADVENTS we greet of great and small;

Much we extol that may not live;

Yet to the new-born Type we give
No care at all!

This year,

three centuries past,—by age

More maimed than by LEPANTO'S fight,—
This year CERVANTES gave to light
His matchless page,

Whence first outrode th' immortal Pair,—
The half-crazed Hero and his hind,—
To make sad laughter for mankind;
And whence they fare

Throughout all Fiction still, where chance
Allies Life's dulness with its dreams,—
Allies what is, with what but seems,—
Fact and Romance :-

1 I.e. January 1905.

O Knight of fire and Squire of earth!-
O changing give-and-take between
The aim too high, the aim too mean,
I hail your birth—

Three centuries past-in sunburned SPAIN, And hang, on Time's PANTHEON wall, My votive tablet to recall

1905.

That lasting gain!