WHITE ROSES

No sleep like hers, no rest,

In all the earth to-night : L'pon her whiter breast

Our roses lie so light.

She had no sins to lose,

As some might say ;
But calmly keeps her pale repose

Till God's good day

The wind brings cold sea - fragrance

here,
And cries, and restless murmurings,
Now night is near,
Of wings and feet that take to flight,
Of furry feet and feathery wings
That take their joyous flight at will
Away and over the hiding hill,
And into the land where the sun has

fled.
O let us go, as they have sped, -
The soft swift shapes that left us

here,
The gentle things that came and went
And left us in imprisonment !
Let us be gone, as they have gone,
Away, and into the hidden lands;
From rock and turf our roots uptear,
Break from the clinging keeping bands,
Out of this long imprisoning break;
At last, our sunward journey take,
And far, to-night, and farther on,
Heart of Earth, let us be gone !

SONG OF THE WULFSHAW

LARCHES
HEART of Earth, let us be gone,
From this rock where we have stayed
While the sun has risen and sbone
Ten thousand times, and thrown our shade
Always in the self-same place.
Now the night draws on apace :
The day is dying on the height,

Arthur Christopher Benson
KNAPWEED

He stirs his plumy brow and wakes

To draw the sunlight in.
By copse and hedgerow, waste and wall,
He thrusts his cushions red ;

Mute sheep that pull the grasses soft O'er burdock rank, o'er thistles tall,

Crop close and pass him by,
He rears his hardy head :

Until he stands alone, aloft,
Within, without, the strong leaves press, In surly majesty.
He screens the mossy stone,

No fly so keen, no bee so bold,
Lord of a narrow wilderness,

To pierce that knotted zone, Self-centred and alone.

He frowns as though he guarded gold,

And yet he garners none.
He numbers no observant friends,
He soothes no childish woes,

And so when autumn winds blow late, Yet nature nurtures him, and tends

And whirl the chilly wave, As duly as the rose ;

He bows before the common fate, He drinks the blessed dew of heaven,

And drops beside his grave. The wind is in his ears,

None ever owed him thanks or said To guard his growth the planets seven “A gift of gracious heaven." Swing in their airy spheres.

Down in the mire he droops his head ;

Forgotten, not forgiven.
The spirits of the fields and woods
Throb in his sturdy veins :

Smile on, brave weed ! let none inqnire He drinks the secret, stealing floods,

What made or bade thee rise : And swills the volleying rains :

Toss thy tough fingers high and higher And when the birds note showers and To flout the drenching skies. breaks

Let others toil for others' good, The wood's green heart within,

And miss or mar their own ;

Amid the impenetrable wood,

But you are silent, secret, proud, Amid the camp's incessant hum,

No smile upon your haggard face, At eve, beside the tumbling flood

As when you eyed the murderous In high Avaricum,

crowd

Beside the statue's base.
You little recked, imperious head,
When shrilled your shattering trumpet's I marvel : that Titanic heart
noise,

Beats strongly through the arid page, Your frigid sections would be read

And we, self-conscious sons of art, By bright-eyed English boys.

In this bewildering age, Ah me! who penetrates to-day

Like dizzy revellers stumbling out The secret of your deep designs ?

Upon the pure and peaceful night, Your sovereign visions, as you lay

Are sobered into troubled doubt,
Amid the sleeping lines ?

As swims across our sight
The Mantuan singer pleading stands ; The ray of that sequestered sun,
From century to century

Far in the illimitable blue,
He leans and reaches wistful bands,

The dream of all you left undone, And cannot bear to die.

Of all you dared to do.