Now pricked by the spur, trots black charger fast;
No stop, at full speed the two hurry past;-
But see! — the knight bends! Alas! Will he freeze?
For there, in the road, a specter he sees!
Before him, with outstretched arms, does it walk!
"Elf! demon! no time have I now for a talk!"
The still air is breathless, pregnant with life.
"Brave sir, by the light of moon shining clear,"
Spoke Faerie Queen, "why wanderest here?
Ill sprites haunt these woods, these fens, this weird spot-
Come, dance on the green - stay! stay!— wilt thou not?"
With marjoram decked, and thyme-blossoms sweet,
In meads dance the elves, on gay tripping feet.
"No, no; my love's eyes dear eyes! clear and sweet!
To-morrow, in marriage, glad, I shall meet.
Back! back from my horse! ye meadowland fays,
Who circle these mossy, flowery ways;
Withhold ye me not from maiden so dear;
For lo rosy dawn already is near."
With marjoram decked, and thyme-blossoms sweet,
In meads dance the elves, on gay tripping feet.
"Let pass, O thou grewsome goblin or ghost,
To wed that fair maiden whose eyes are my boast."
66
My love, the dark tomb," she, weeping sore, said,
"Is nuptial couch now, for that I am dead!"
She spoke; on his love's stiff form his gaze fell;
His heart broke; the knight lay dead in the dell.
With marjoram decked, and thyme-blossoms sweet,
In meads dance the elves, on gay tripping feet.
THE MANCHY.
(From "Poèmes Barbares.")
CLOTHED in your filmy muslin gown,
Every Sunday morning, you
Would come in your manchy of bamboo
Down the footpaths to the town.
The church-bell rang out noisily;
The salt breeze waved the lofty cane;
The sun shook out a golden rain
On the savanna's grassy sea.
With rings on wrist and ankle flat,
And yellow kerchief on the crown,
Your two telingas carried down
Your litter of Manila mat.
Slim, in tunics white, they sang
As 'neath the pole of bamboo bent,
With hands upon their hips, they went
Steadily by the long Etang.
Past banks where Creoles used to come
To smoke their ancient pipes; past bands
Of blacks disporting on the sands
To the sound of the Madagascar drum.
The tamarind's breath was on the air;
Out in the glittering surf the flocks.
Of birds swung through the billow's shocks,
And plunged beneath the foaming blare.
- the tips
While hung-your sandal loosed
Of one pink foot at the manchy's side,
In the shade of the letchi branching wide
With fruit less purple than your lips;
While like a flower, a butterfly
Of blue and scarlet fluttered on
Your skin an instant, and was gone,
Leaving his colors in good-by.
We saw between the cambric's mist
Your earrings on the pillows lain;
While your long lashes veiled in vain
Your eyes of somber amethyst.
'Twas thus you came, those mornings sweet,
With grace so gentle, to High Mass.
Borne slowly down the mountain pass
By your faithful Hindoos' steady feet.
But now where our dry sand-bar gleams
Beneath the dog-grass near the sea,
You rest with dead ones dear to me,
O charm of my first tender dreams!
PAN.
(From "Poèmes Antiques.") ROISTERING Pan, the Arcadian shepherd's god, Crested like ram and like the wild goat shod,
Makes soft complaint upon his oaten horn.
When hill and valley turn to gold with morn,
He wanders joying with the dancing band
Of nymphs across the moss and flowering land.
The lynx-skin clothes his back; his brows are crowned
With hyacinth and crocus interwound,
And with his glee the echoes long rejoice.
The barefoot nymphs assemble at the voice,
And lightly by the crystal fountain's side,
Surrounding Pan in rhythmic circles glide.
In vine-bound grottos, in remote retreats,
At noon the god sleeps out the parching heats
Beside some hidden brook, below the domes
Of swaying oaks, where sunlight never comes.
But when the night, with starry girdle bound,
Wafts her long veils across the blue profound,
Pan, passion-flushed, tracks through the shadowy glade
In swift pursuit the nimble-footed maid;
Clasps her in flight, and with exulting cries
Through the white moonlight carries off his prize.
THE BULLS.
(From "Poèmes Barbares.")
THE sea's broad desert makes a bar of gold
Against the blue of heaven's unruffled fold.
Alone, a roseate loiterer in the sky
Wreathes like a languid reptile stretched on high
Above the surging of the mountain-chain.
O'er the savannah breathes a dreamy strain
To where the bulls, with massive horns high dressed
And shining coat, deep eye and muscled breast,
Crop at their will the salt grass of the coast.
Two negroes of Antongil, still engrossed
In the long day's dull stupor, at their ease
With chin in hands and elbows on their knees,
Smoke their black pipes. But in the changing sky
The herd's fierce chieftain scents the nightfall nigh,
Lifts his square muzzle flecked with silver foam,
And bellows o'er the sea his summons home.
LEFROY, EDWARD CRACROFT, an English poet and clergyman; born at London, March 29, 1855; died at Blackheath, Kent, September 19, 1891. He was educated at Keble College, Oxford, and was ordained clergyman in 1878. After four years of curate work he was obliged through ill health to give up active clerical duties, and thereafter, as long as his health permitted, he devoted himself to literary work and to private teaching at his home in Blackheath. Since his death his sonnets on football and cricket have attracted much attention, and he may not unfitly be called the laureate of athleticism. On the paternal side he was a grandnephew of Jane Austen. His published books include "Echoes from Theocritus, and Other Sonnets" (1885); "The Christian Ideal, and Other Sermons" (1883); "Counsels for the Common Life" (1885). In 1897 his complete poems appeared, together with a "Life," by Wilfred Austin Gill.
IN THE CLOISTERS, WINCHESTER COLLEGE.
I.
I WALKED to-day where Past and Present meet,
In that gray cloister eloquent of years,
Which ever groweth old, yet ever hears
The same glad echo of unaging feet.
Only from brass and stone some quaint conceit,
The monument of long-forgotten tears,
Whispers of vanished lives, of spent careers,
And hearts that, beating once, have ceased to beat.
And as I walked, I heard the boys who played
Beyond the quiet precinct, and I said -
"How broad the gulf which delving Time has made
Between those happy living and these dead."
And, lo, I spied a grave new-garlanded,
And on the wall a boyish face that prayed!
Two things are ever with us, youth and death-
The Faun that pipes, and Pluto unbeguiled;
From age to age still plays the eternal child,
Nor heeds the eternal doom that followeth,
Ah, precious days of unreflecting breath!
There lay (so might we fancy) one who smiled
Though all life's paradox unreconciled,
Enjoying years the grown man squandereth.
And if his latest hour was touched with pain,
And some dim trouble crossed his childish brain,
He knew no fear, in death more blest than we.
And now from God's clear light he smiles again,
Not ill-content his mortal part to see
In such a spot, amid such company.
BEFORE THE RACE.
THE impatient starter waxeth saturnine.
"Is the bell cracked?" he cries.
They make it sound:
And six tall lads break through the standers-round.
I watch with Mary while they form in line;
White-jerseyed all, but each with some small sign,
A broidered badge or shield with painted ground,
And one with crimson kerchief sash-wise bound;
I think we know that token, neighbor mine,
Willie, they call you best of nimble wights;
Yet brutal Fate shall whelm in slippery ways
Two soles at least. Will it be you she spites?
Ah well! "T is not so much to win the bays.
Uncrowned or crowned, the struggle still delights;
It is the effort, not the palm, we praise.
A CRICKET BOWLER.
Two minutes' rest till the next man goes in!
The tired arms lie with every sinew slack
On the mown grass. Unbent the supple back,
And elbows apt to make the leather spin
Up the slow bat and round the unwary shin,
In knavish hands a most unkindly knack;
But no guile shelters under this boy's black,
Crisp hair, frank eyes, and honest English skin.
Two minutes only. Conscious of a name,
The new man plants his weapon with profound
Long-practised skill that no mere trick may scare.
Not loath, the rested lad resumes the game:
The flung ball takes one madding tortuous bound,
And the mid-stump three somersaults in air.
|