All their long life lies behind
Like a dimly blending dream:
There is nothing left to bind

To the realms that only seem.

They are waiting for the boat;
There is nothing left to do:
What was near them grows remote,
Happy silence falls like dew;
Now the shadowy bark is come,
And the weary may go home.

By still water they would rest
In the shadow of the tree:
After battle sleep is best,
After noise, tranquillity.

THOMAS ASHE

805. Meet We no Angels, Pansie?

AME, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,
In white, to find her lover;

The grass grew proud beneath her feet,

The green

elm-leaves above her:

Meet we no angels, Pansie?

1836-1889

She said, 'We meet no angels now';
And soft lights stream'd upon her;
And with white hand she touch'd a bough;
She did it that great honour :-

What! meet no angels, Pansie?

806.

O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes,
Down-dropp'd brown eyes, so tender!
Then what said I? Gallant replies
Seem flattery, and offend her :—
But-meet no angels, Pansie?

YOU

To Two Bereaved

must be sad; for though it is to Heaven, 'Tis hard to yield a little girl of seven. Alas, for me 'tis hard my grief to rule, Who only met her as she went to school; Who never heard the little lips so sweet

Say even Good-morning,' though our eyes would meet
As whose would fain be friends! How must you sigh,
Sick for your loss, when even so sad am I,
Who never clasp'd the small hands any day!
Fair flowers thrive round the little grave, pray.

I

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

1836-1914

807. Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid Tavern

Raleigh.

CHRISTMAS knows a merry, merry place,

goes with fondest face,

Brightest eye, brightest hair:

Tell the Mermaid where is that one place,
Where?

"Tis by Devon's glorious halls,

Whence, dear Ben, I come again:

Bright of golden roofs and walls—
El Dorado's rare domain-

Seem those halls when sunlight launches
Shafts of gold thro' leafless branches,
Where the winter's feathery mantle blanches
Field and farm and lane.

CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Drayton.

'Tis where Avon's wood-sprites weave
Through the boughs a lace of rime,
While the bells of Christmas Eve
Fling for Will the Stratford-chime

O'er the river-flags emboss'd

Rich with flowery runes of frost

O'er the meads where snowy tufts are toss'd-
Strains of olden time.

CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Shakespeare's Friend.

'Tis, methinks, on any ground

Where our Shakespeare's feet are set.
There smiles Christmas, holly-crown'd
With his blithest coronet :
Friendship's face he loveth well:
"Tis a countenance whose spell
Sheds a balm o'er every mead and dell
Where we used to fret.

CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Heywood.

More than all the pictures, Ben,

Winter weaves by wood or stream,
Christmas loves our London, when
Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam-

Clouds like these, that, curling, take
Forms of faces gone, and wake

Many a lay from lips we loved, and make
London like a dream.

CHORUS.

Ben Jonson.

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Love's old songs shall never die,

Yet the new shall suffer proof:
Love's old drink of Yule brew I
Wassail for new love's behoof.
Drink the drink I brew, and sing
Till the berried branches swing,

Till our song make all the Mermaid ring—
Yea, from rush to roof.

FINALE.

Christmas loves this merry, merry place;
Christmas saith with fondest face,
Brightest eye, brightest hair:

'Ben, the drink tastes rare of sack and mace:

Rare!'

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

808. Chorus from 'Atalanta'

W

1837-1909

HEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,'
The mother of months in meadow or plain

Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces.
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamour of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!

For the stars and the winds are unto her

As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;

For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes

The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.