AN EASTERN APOLOGUE

(TO E. H. P.)

MELIK the Sultán, tired and wan,

Nodded at noon on his diván.

Beside the fountain lingered near
JAMIL the bard, and the vizier—

Old Yusuf, sour and hard to please;
Then JAMIL sang, in words like these.

Slim is Butheina-slim is she
As boughs of the Aráka tree!

'Nay," quoth the other, teeth between, "Lean, if you will, I call her lean."

Sweet is Butheina-sweet as wine,
With smiles that like red bubbles shine!

"True, by the Prophet!" Yúsur said. "She makes men wander in the head!"

Dear is Butheina-ah! more dear

Than all the maidens of Kashmeer!

"Dear," came the answer, quick as thought, "Dear and yet always to be bought."

So JAMÍL ceased.

But still Life's page

Shows diverse unto YOUTH and AGE:

And-be the song of ghouls or gods-
TIME, like the Sultán, sits. . and nods.

TO A MISSAL OF THE THIRTEENTH

CENTURY

MISSAL of the Gothic age,

Missal with the blazoned page,

Whence, O Missal, hither come,

From what dim scriptorium ?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus,
Ambrose or Theophilus,

Bending, through the waning light,

O'er thy vellum scraped and white;

Weaving 'twixt thy rubric lines

Sprays and leaves and quaint designs;
Setting round thy border scrolled
Buds of purple and of gold?

Ah! a wondering brotherhood,
Doubtless, by that artist stood,
Raising o'er his careful ways
Little choruses of praise;

Glad when his deft hand would paint

Strife of Sathanas and Saint,

Or in secret coign entwist

Jest of cloister humourist.

Well the worker earned his wage,
Bending o'er the blazoned page!
Tired the hand and tired the wit
Ere the final Explicit !

Not as ours the books of old-
Things that steam can stamp and fold,
Not as ours the books of yore—
Rows of type, and nothing more.

Then a book was still a Book,
Where a wistful man might look,
Finding something through the whole,
Beating, like a human soul,

In that growth of day by day,
When to labour was to pray,
Surely something vital passed
To the patient page at last;

Something that one still perceives
Vaguely present in the leaves;
Something from the worker lent;
Something mute-but eloquent!

A REVOLUTIONARY RELIC

LD it is, and worn and battered,

OLD

As I lift it from the stall;

And the leaves are frayed and tattered, And the pendent sides are shattered, Pierced and blackened by a ball.

'Tis the tale of grief and gladness
Told by sad St. Pierre of yore,
That in front of France's madness
Hangs a strange seductive sadness,
Grown pathetic evermore.

And a perfume round it hovers,
Which the pages half reveal,

For a folded corner covers,
Interlaced, two names of lovers,—
A "Savignac" and "Lucile.”

As I read I marvel whether,

In some pleasant old château, Once they read this book together, In the scented summer weather, With the shining Loire below?