AKE this to heart, O Poets of To-Day,

TAKE

And let it give you comfort on your way: A single verse may live as long, God please, As all of Shakespeare or Euripides.

MASQUE OF POETS.

A SONG BEFORE SINGING.

ING! sing of what? The world is full of song; SING!

And all the singing seems but echoed notes Of the great masters who, when souls were strong, Rolled sturdy pæans from rejoicing throats.

Or worse than echoes, schemes of tinkling sound,
The pilfered phrases of the melodist,

A bastard music, a tenth Muse discrowned,
A light bewildered in a blinding mist.

I would not dabble on the brink of power,
Shape airy nothings, dreaming of a dream,
Chime word with word, and pipe to catch the hour,
But plunge, aim-certain, in the living stream.

Give me a theme to sing in man's behoof,
As full of purpose as my faith, O God!
Red with our life-blood, firm in warp and woof,
A homely product of the common sod.

Or else, let silence and primeval night
Reign, as God reigned within his holy dark,
Eons on eons, till he called the light,

And the first poet wakened with the lark.

"IF ONLY WE HAD TIME TO SPARE." 13

"IF ONLY WE HAD TIME TO SPARE."

IF only we had time to spare

To taste the glories of the Spring,
How good to leave this noise and glare,
And breathe the blessèd country air,

And hear the songs the wild birds sing,

If only we had time to spare!

Then you should stretch you at my feet
And read aloud, and I should sew,
And now and then our eyes might meet,
And we might murmur phrases sweet

And blissful hours would come and go
If only we had time to spare!

For happier and idler hours,

Noon follows dawn, night follows day,
I look, and lo, your locks are gray
And Winter withers up our flowers

Ere ever we have time to spare!