with thy wing

The airy zones, till thou art lost in highest! Upon the branch the laughing thrushes cling,

About her home the humble linnet wheels, Around the tower the gather'd starlings swing;

These mix their songs and weave their figur'd reels:

Thou risest in thy lonely joy away, From the first rapturous note that from thee steals,

Quick, quick, and quicker, till the exalted lay

Is steadied in the golden breadths of light, 'Mid mildest clouds that bid thy pinions stay.

The heavens that give would yet sustain thy flight,

And o'er the earth for ever cast thy voice, If but to gain were still to keep the height. But soon thou sinkest on the fluttering poise

Of the same wings that soar'd: soon ceasest thou

The song that grew invisible with joys.

Love bids thy fall begin; and thou art now Dropp'd back to earth, and of the earth again,

Because that love hath made thy heart to bow.

Thou hast thy mate, thy nest on lowly plain,

Thy timid heart by law ineffable Is drawn from the high heavens where thou shouldst reign;

Earth summons thee by her most tender spell;

For thee there is a silence and a song : Thy silence in the shadowy earth must dwell,

Thy song in the bright heavens cannot be long.

- And best to thee those fates may I com

OUT of this town there riseth a high hill, About whose sides live many anchorites In cells cut in the rock with curious skill,

And laid in terraces along the heights; This holy hill with that where stands the town

The ancient Roman aqueduct unites ;

And passing o'er the vale her chain of stone

Cuts it in two with line indelible;
A work right marvellous to gaze upon.

To one of those grave hermits there befell

A curious thing, whereof the fame was new In our sojourn; the which I here will tell.

He found himself when night had shed

her dew,

In a long valley, narrow, dleep, and straight, Like that which lay all day beneath his view.

On each hand mountains rose precipitate. Whose tops for darkness he could nowise

So dreary was that haunt of fire and cold,

That nought on earth to equal might avail.

Fire ended where began the frozen mould;

Both in extreme at their conjunction: So close were they, no severance might be told:

No thinnest line of separation, Like that which is by painter drawn to part

One color in his piece from other one,

So fine as that which held these realms apart.

And through the vale the souls of men in pain

From one to the other side did leap and dart,

From heat to cold, from cold to heat again :

And not an instant through their anguish

Now while his mind was fill'd with ruth and fear,

And with great horror stood his eyeballs steep,

Deeming that hell before him did ap

pear,

And souls in torment toss'd from brink to brink :

Upon him look'd the one who set him there,

And said: "This is not hell, as thou dost think,

Neither those torments of the cold and heat

Are those wherewith the damned wail and shrink."

And therewith from that place he turn'd his feet;

And sometime on they walk'd, the while this man

In anguish shuddering did the effect repeat:

Such spasms of horror through his body

ran,

Walking with stumbling, and with glazed

eyes

Whither he knew not led, ghastly and wan. Then said the other: "In those agonies No more than hell's beginning know: behold,

The doom of hell itself is otherwise."

Therewith he drew aside his vesture's fold,

And show'd his heart: than fire more hot it burn'd

One half the rest was ice than ice more cold.

A moment show'd he this: and then he turn'd,

And in his going all the vision went : And he, who in his mind these things discern'd,

Came to himself with long astonishment.

OF TEMPERANCE IN FORTUNE HAPPY the man who so hath Fortune tried That likewise he her poor relation

knows :

To whom both much is given and denied:
To riches and to poverty he owes
An equal debt: of both he makes acquist,
And moderate in all his mind he shows.

But ill befalls the man who hath not

miss'd

nurs'd:

For evil things he knows not to resist : And, aiding their assault, himself is worst

Against himself, with self-destructive

rage.

But states are with another evil curs'd, For, falling into luxury with age,

THE GILLYFLOWER OF GOLD

A GOLDEN gillyflower to-day
I wore upon my helm alway,
And won the prize of this tourney.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

However well Sir Giles might sit,
His sun was weak to wither it,
Lord Miles's blood was dew on it:
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Although my spear in splinters flew
From John's steel-coat, my eye was true;
I wheel'd about, and cried for you,

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Yea, do not doubt my heart was good, Though my sword flew like rotten wood, To shout, although I scarcely stood,

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

From a red heart with little blame
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée –

Our tough spears crackled up like straw;
He was the first to turn and draw
His sword, that had nor speck nor flaw,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

But I felt weaker than a maid,
And my brain, dizzied and afraid,
Within my helm a fierce tune play'd,
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Until I thought of your dear head,
Bow'd to the giliyflower bed,
The yellow flowers stain'd with red ;
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

-

SHAMEFUL DEATH

THERE were four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at the side,
I and his mother stood at the head,
Over his feet lay the bride;
We were quite sure that he was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.

He did not die in the night,

He did not die in the day, But in the morning twilight His spirit pass'd away,

When neither sun nor moon was bright, And the trees were merely gray.

He was not slain with the sword, Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,

Yet spoke he never a word

After he came in here;

I cut away the cord

From the neck of my brother dear.

He did not strike one blow,

For the recreants came behind, In a place where the hornbeams grow, A path right hard to find, For the hornbeam boughs swing so That the twilight makes it blind.

They lighted a great torch then ; When his arms were pinion'd fast, Sir John the knight of the Fen,

Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast, With knights threescore and ten, Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.

I am threescore and ten,

And my hair is all turn'd gray, But I met Sir John of the Fen

Long ago on a summer day,

And am glad to think of the moment when I took his life away.

I am threescore and ten,

And my strength is mostly past,

But long ago I and my men,
When the sky was overcast,

And the smoke roll'd over the reeds of the fen,

Slew Guy of the Dolorous Blast.

And now, knights all of you,
I pray you pray for Sir Hugh,
A good knight and a true,

And for Alice, his wife, pray too.

Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year :
And there is none to let us go;

To break the locks of the doors below,
Or shovel away the heap'd-up snow;
And when we die no man will know
That we are dead; but they give us leave,
Once every year on Christmas-eve,
To sing in the Closet Blue one song :
And we should be so long, so long,

If we dar'd, in singing; for, dream on dream,
They float on in a happy stream;

Float from the gold strings, float from the keys,

Float from the open'd lips of Louise :

But, alas! the sea-salt oozes through

The chinks of the tiles of the Closet Blue;

And ever the great bell overhead

Booms in the wind a knell for the dead, The wind plays on it a knell for the dead.

(They sing all together :)

How long ago was it, how long ago,

He came to this tower with hands full of

snow?