AD LYRAM

(HOR., I. 32)

'HE Muses call! Now, Shell, inspire

THE

If aught, to last this year and more, Lightly, we two have wrought before ;— Come now, a song like his whose fire

First touched thee, from th' Aonian choir Catching, thro' camp and tempest's roar, The Muses' call,—

Singing the Queen of all desire,

Bacchus, and Cupid flutt'ring o'er, And Lycus: thou, that Phoebus bore, Dear to Jove's feast-O aid me, Lyre! The Muses call!

1887.

THE BALLAD OF BITTER FRUIT

IN

(AFTER THÉODORE DE BANVILLE)

N the wood with its wide arms overspread, Where the wan morn strives with the waning night,

The dim shapes strung like a chaplet dread
Shudder, and sway to the left, the right;
The soft rays touch them with fingers white
As they swing in the leaves of the oak-tree
browned,

Fruits that the Turk and the Moor would fright

This is King Lewis his orchard-ground.

All of these poor folk, stark and sped,
Dreaming (who knows!) of what dead despight,
In the freshening breeze by the morning fed
Twirl and spin to the mad wind's might;
Over them wavers the warm sun bright;

Look on them, look on them, skies profound,
Look how they dance in the morning light!—
This is King Lewis his orchard-ground.

Dead, these dead, in a language dead,
Cry to their fellows in evil plight,
Day meanwhile thro' the lift o'erhead

Dazzles and flames at the blue vault's height;

Into the air the dews take flight;

Ravens and crows with a jubilant sound Over them, over them, hover and light;This is King Lewis his orchard-ground.

ENVOY.

PRINCE, we wot of no sorrier sight
Under the whispering leafage found,
Bodies that hang like a hideous blight;-
This is King Lewis his orchard-ground.

1889.

TO MAECENAS

WITH AN INVITATION

(HOR., I. 20)

OUT common Sabine on the board

BUT

In homely ware you'll find. Yet stored And sealed in Grecian jar 'twas first,

Dear KNIGHT, what time your praises burst
From the full circus' serried ranks,

And your own Tiber from his banks,
And the great Mount, rang back reply.

No Caecuban like yours have I ;
No press of Cales yet for me

Crushed the fat grape. These cups of mine

Neither the hills of Formiae

Have tempered, nor Falernian vine.