With those who watch but work no more

Who gaze on life, but live no more:

Yet we chose thee a birth-place

Where the richness ran to flowers...

Could'st not sing one song for us?

Not make one blossom ours—

Not one of the sweet race?

Anguish! ever and for ever;
Still beginning, ending never!
Yet, lost and last one, come!
How could'st understand, alas,

What our pale ghosts strove to say,
As their shades did glance and pass

Before thee, night and day . . .
O come, come!

How shall we clothe, how arm the spirit

Who next shall thy post inherit—

How guard him from thy speedy ruin?

Tell us of thy sad undoing

Here, where we sit, ever pursuing

Our weary task, ever renewing

Sharp sorrow, far from ...

s

(APRILE enters.)

Apr. Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last? Thy hand to mine. Stay, fix thine eyes on mine. Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine. Par. Ha, ha! why crouchest not? am I not king? So torture is not wholly unavailing!

Have my fierce spasms compell'd thee from thy lair?
Ay, look on me! shall I be king or no

I scarcely trusted God with the surmise

?

That thou wouldst come, and thou didst hear the while!
Apr. Thine eyes are lustreless to mine; my hair

Is soft, nay silken soft: to talk with thee
Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale.

Truly thou hast labour'd, hast withstood their lips,
Their kisses. Yes, 't is like thou hast attain'd.

Tell me,

dear master, wherefore now thou comest? I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed

In after-time; that I should hear the earth

Exult in thee, and echo with thy praise,

While I was laid forgotten in my grave.

Par. Ah, fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe!

Thou art ordain'd to follow in my track,

To reap my sowing—as I disdain'd to reap
The harvest left by sages long since gone.
I am to be degraded, after all,

To an aspirant after fame, not truth—

To all but envy of thy fate, be sure !

Apr. Nay, sing them to me; I shall envy not:
Thou shalt be king. Sing thou, and I will sit
Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs,
And worship thee, as I had ne'er been meant
To fill thy throne. But none shall ever know!
Sing to me for already thy wild eyes

Unlock my heart-springs, as some crystal-shaft
Reveals by some chance blaze its parent
fount

After long time—so thou reveal'st my soul!

All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear!

Par. (His secret! I shall get his secret—fool!) I am

The mortal who aspired to know—and thou?

Apr. I would Love infinitely, and be loved!

Thou deem'st

Par. Poor slave! I am thy king indeed.
Apr.
That-born a spirit, dower'd even as thou,

Born for thy fate—because I could not curb

9

My yearnings to possess at once the full
Enjoyment; but neglected all the means
Of realizing even the frailest joy;

Gathering no fragments to appease my want,
Yet nursing up that want till thus I die—
That I cannot conceive thy safe, sure march,
Triumphing o'er the perils that o'erwhelm me,
Neglecting nought below for aught above,
Despising nothing and ensuring all—

That I could not, my time to come again,
Lead this my spirit securely as thine own;
Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well:
I would love infinitely . . . Ah, lost! lost!
How shall I look on all of ye

With your gifts even yet on me. . .

Par. (Ah, 't is some moonstruck creature after all! Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den):

I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm;

Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am.
Apr. I would love infinitely, and be loved.
First I would carve in stone, or cast in brass,
The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted

Up to the gods by his renown; no nymph
Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree,
Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star,

Should be too hard for me; no shepherd-king,
Regal for his white locks; no youth who stands
Silent and very calm amid the throng,

His right hand ever hid beneath his robe
Until the tyrant pass; no law-giver;

No swan-soft woman, rubb'd with lucid oils,
Given by a god for love of her—too hard.

Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man,
Would I express and clothe in its fit form,
Or show repress'd by an ungainly form,
Or blend with others struggling in one form.
Oh, if you marvell'd at some mighty spirit

With a fit frame to execute his will—

Even unconsciously to work his will—

You should be moved no less beside some strong, Rare spirit, fetter'd to a stubborn body,

Endeavouring to subdue it, and inform it

With its own splendour! All this I would do,

And I would say, this done, "His sprites created,