And yet, O splendid ship, unhail'd and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,

From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.

WHEN my love was away,

Full three days were not sped,

I caught my fancy astray
Thinking if she were dead,

And I alone, alone:

It seem'd in my misery
In all the world was none
Ever so lone as I.

I wept; but it did not shame
Nor comfort my heart: away
I rode as I might, and came
To my love at close of day.

The sight of her still'd my fears,
My fairest-hearted love:

And yet in her eyes were tears:
Which when I question'd of,

'O now thou art come,' she cried,
"Tis fled: but I thought to-day

I never could here abide,
If thou wert longer away.'

837.

PER

On a Dead Child

DERFECT little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare,

The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

Thy mother's treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
Thy father's pride :—ah, he

Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.

To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,
Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;
Startling my fancy fond

With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.

Thy hand clasps, as 'twas wont, my finger, and holds it: But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff; Yet feels to my hand as if

'Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.

So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,-
Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!—
Propping thy wise, sad head,

Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.

So quiet! doth the change content thee?-Death, whither hath he taken thee?

To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this? The vision of which I miss,

Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and

awaken thee?

Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us

To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark, Unwilling, alone we embark,

And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.

838.

SENSE

Pater Filio

ENSE with keenest edge unusèd,
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruised

On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!

Why such beauty, to be blighted
By the swarm of foul destruction ?
Why such innocence delighted,

When sin stalks to thy seduction?
All the litanies e'er chaunted
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray'd the sainted Morning
To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
From resignful Eve's adorning

Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
With all charms of man's contriving

Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

Me too once unthinking Nature,

-Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,Fashion'd so divine a creature,

Yea, and like a beast forsook me.

I forgave, but tell the measure
Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

839.

Winter Nightfall

THE

HE day begins to droop,-
Its course is done:

But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens,

And up the lane

You may hear, but cannot see,

The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease

In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:

He knows he will never again
Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work;
He is giddy and sick

If he rise to go as far

As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life,

His hale, strong years;
And braves as he may the night
Of darkness and tears.

840. When Death to Either shall come

WHEN

WHEN Death to either shall come,-
it be first to me,-

I

pray

Be happy as ever at home,
If so, as I wish, it be.

Possess thy heart, my own;

And sing to the child on thy knee,
Or read to thyself alone

The songs that I made for thee.

841.

As

ANDREW LANG

The Odyssey

1844-1912

S one that for a weary space has lain
Lull'd by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,

And only shadows of wan lovers pine-
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again—
So gladly from the songs of modern speech

Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours
They hear like Ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.